5. 'If I were to dig for it, should I find any, Jim?'

'Not you! Why, you have to go down ever such a long way before you can
even begin to dig.'

6. 'How do you get down?'

'You go down in a thing they call a cage. You can't walk down, you know.
It is like going down a deep pit. They call it a mine.'

7. 'Oh, I have heard of coal-mines!'

Dora was taking up one little lump of coal after another, and wondering
why it was so shiny if it had really come out of the earth.

8. Harry went on. 'How do they let the cage down? Have you ever been
down?'

[Illustration: Coal-miners going down to work.]

'I have been down once,' said Jim, stopping in his work and stretching
himself. 'This is the way. There is an engine at the top of the
shaft'----

'What is the shaft?'

9. 'The pit I told you about. The engine is fixed there and it lets
down the cage and pulls it up again. Half-a-dozen men or so can go in it
at a time.'