"Well, I'm not going to beat about the bush," continued her
sister-in-law abruptly. "He's working in the mines all right, but
he isn't digging coal at all, though that would be bad enough. I
wouldn't say a word about it, but I think you ought to know the
truth and put a stop to such a risky business--he's firing
shots."

Rose's heart jumped, but she continued to wind up her large ball
with the same uninterrupted motion.

"Are you sure?"

"I made Frank find out for certain. It's an extra dangerous mine
because gas forms in it unusually often, and he gets fifteen
dollars a day for the one hour he works. There's a contract, but
he's told them he's twenty-one, and when you prove he's under age
they'll make him stop."

Rose still wound and wound, her clear eyes, looking over her
glasses, fixed on Nellie.

"It's bad enough, I'll say," rapped out the spare, angular woman,
"to have everybody talking about the way Martin has ditched his
son, without having the boy scattered to bits, or burned to a
cinder. Already he's been blown twenty feet by one windy shot,
and more than once he's had to lie flat while those horrible
gases burned themselves out right over his head. His 'buddie,'
the Italian who fires in the other part of the mine at the same
time, told Harry Brown, the nightman, and he told Frank, himself.