Jacob swept into town dodging what evolved into a drizzly rain on a ship of air and dreams, gathered the groceries adding a loaf of new baked bread, deeply inhaled the lovely yeasty smell, paid the man, who looked at him in wonder as the boy fairly glowed under the coal dust and dirt, then ran for home to tell his parents his wonderful news. At least, he thought it was wonderful.
He hunted his mother down, finding her in the kitchen preparing dinner. When he set the groceries down on the table, breathing in the mingled scents of roasting onions and garlic, she half turned to lecture him, frowning. "Where have you been boy? Dinner will be late! You can’t go wandering daydreaming when you are on an errand!" She stopped her ranting and turned to face him full when she noticed how very dirty he was, and that the dirt looked like coal dust. She brushed her finger on the dirt and tasted it. Her voice raised another octave, "have you been in the mines?"
Jacob quickly realized this wouldn’t be as easy as he’d hoped. A dull silence descended around him as if even the birds stopped singing and the cows stopped lowing in wait of his answer. Jacob became acutely aware of his mother’s lavender perfume as he took a moment to consider his answer. He looked up at his mother, schooling his face into one of complete modesty, wide eyed and innocent, and replied, "I saved four men at the mine today mother."
"You what? You did what?" His mother wiped her hands on her apron, leaving damp oily streaks on the cloth and sat down, pushing him into a creaking wooden chair opposite her. She hadn’t stopped frowning, which concerned Jacob. This was not going as planned. Jacob pondered the dull shine of the oft polished wooden floor, looked up, pulled his brows together and faced his mother in the most manly expression he could conjure up, trying to look stern. Despite his careful preparation, his voice betrayed him by its clear childly tenor as he replied, "I said, Mother, I rescued four men at the mine today. Lofft bawb - I was the only one able to crawl into the breach and get tools to them so they could get out. And they all got out - just in time too because the lower passages fell right after we all escaped."
His mother’s voice nicked up another octave. "The first level of tunnels collapsed? Then they let you, a little boy, crawl into a hole into a mine that was still caving in?" She flattened her hands on the table, so tense they started to whiten around the edges.
Realizing his mother was more upset about the actions of the adults than his actions by this point, Jacob slowly let out the breath he was holding and moved on to part two of his message. "To be honest, Mother, they were very proud of me. In fact, they offered me work."
His mother spun out of her chair and stared out the kitchen window at the drizzly day, gripping the edge of the counter. He counted to 30 in his head waiting for her reply. With the impatience of youth he plunged into his reasons.
"Mother, I’m strong. I’m smart. I’ll be done with school in three years and I’ve always done well in my studies. You taught me the land and the earth; I know how the rain and drought changes it. I sense when it shifts and when the air gets heavy - you know that for I’ve called in the cattle before a cloud could even be seen and right away a storm brews up. You’ve even mentioned I seem to have a sense for trouble. I can stay safe in the mine. I’ll know if something’s going wrong before it happens.
"I know the stones and what will break them from helping Father clear the fields. I can help the town by helping the miners find new veins - it’s like I can smell the coal under the surface. I don’t know how. I just know this.
"I want a future in the world and staying here talking to the cows won’t give that to me; I need to start making some money now to save until I am a man. You always said I make my own path in life. How can I make a path without earning it? I don’t mean to work in the mine forever - just long enough to earn enough to do something better. I can still help here on Sundays and before my classes. Besides, we could use the extra income, you know as well as I do the heat this year has made the cows lean and calving low. I can split what I earn, using half for the family and half to save. You and Father always say I must earn my way. It’s time I started earning my keep."
By now Jacob was calm and really didn’t care what she thought; he was going to work and that was the end of the matter. He also erroneously suspected his father would back him up on this. Off in the distance he heard the train rumble by and smiled, recalling his dream of travel. His mother turned to face him, still standing. "What about school?"
"They want me to continue it. I work after school until dark and on Saturdays." Color returned to his world like a gong as he realized she was going to approve if the conditions were right. His shoulders relaxed and he settled in to negotiate.
"Wages?" Ahh now, he thought, she gets to the heart of the matter.
He brightly smiled, alright a slightly smug smile, and replied, "the same as the men are paid. Standard."
She nodded her head, obviously impressed in spite of her concern for his safety. Jacob noticed the white on her fingers was beginning to return to a healthy tan. The scent of roasting meat began to weave its way around the kitchen and Jacob suddenly became very hungry, trying to stifle a loud stomach growl. His mother laughed wryly and shook her head, ruffling his hair. "What am I to do with you boy! Go take your bath. You’ve worked hard today and need to eat. Take a day and think about it, and if you are still bent to this end, discuss it with your Father tomorrow eve for his approval."
She never said that she approved. But he knew she had accepted. He ran to draw his bath, singing an old sailor’s ditty he’d heard on the docks when small. His mother yelled behind him, "and don’t sing that filthy doggerel in my house! Just because you’re a working man now doesn’t give you leave to do that!" Blushing, he checked himself, recalling that was a song he never sings at home and changed to an appropriate church hymn. He slipped into the water, soothing in its warmth, and wondered if he should tell his mother about the growing angry purple welt on his hip. He examined it carefully, decided it would go away, keeping his pain to himself. After all, he was a man now and these things men endure without running to their Mamas.
Sunday evening, cleaned and dressed in his best, recalling very clearly how his Father felt a man of business should project an image of success, he sat down with his Father to tell him of his new employment. Mr. Saer watched his son excitedly explain how he had worked like a man and was offered a man’s position in exchange.
The father’s heart fell into a pit as black as the mine, as visions of his son being trapped by the earth for the rest of his life came to mind, seeing a wizened version of himself deeply creased by coal in a distant future. All his hopes for Jacob’s future collapsed, an unstable structure as it was, based only on wishes and dreams and nothing of tangible solidity. The father was trapped by his own teachings and his own economic need, listening to Jacob as his son used the words of his father to justify the benefit of his being employed and earning his way, and knew he could not refuse Jacob, despite his disdain for those who descend to make their way. In silence he listened, and in silence he gave in, telling Jacob to be sure to pray for protection each day before entering the mine, and an obliviously happy Jacob retired to his room to prepare for his first day of real work.
Jacob quickly passed both his parents in height, topping out at six foot two and as broad in the shoulders as he was tall. The work in the mines was hard, but enriched his soul, as he swung to his own rhythm accompanied by the symphony of iron hitting rock that echoed up and down the tunnels. It nourished him to stretch his muscles to their limits, to work until he was tired in bone but alive in mind, to sleep soundly in the night. His first few weeks were spent running as a gopher, to become familiar with the tunnel system and trained in what to look for if the structure were to become at risk of collapse. Initially watched with bemused speculation by the men who worked in the darkness, Jacob’s energy and intelligence quickly changed that observation to one of respect and the men over time took to viewing the youth the same as any full grown man.
Continuing in school, Jacob had a leg up on his fellows, having responsibility in the world and a real income, suffering some rejection from his peers from his inability to spend the time to play with them and develop the bonds of boyhood that help a boy become a man. Jacob preferred the company of adults, being brighter than most of his peers and bored by their simple topics of conversation and immature interests. As a result he was viewed as a snob, which he endured in self-assuming tolerance, seeing the other boys as simply ignorant, uneducated in the ways of the world.
Cym took to working beside the youth, tutoring him in his lessons as they labored. The foreman determined Jacob’s age within the first few days, as he learned where Jacob was placed in his studies, but kept his silence, not revealing it to the other men, understanding that this child had a need to feel of value that he could not fulfill at home. The boy was large for his age and strong, and pulled the same workload as a grown man, and listened well to Cym’s instruction on safety and proper behavior in a mine; Cym knew this boy was born to find the gifts of the earth, that his tender age had no bearing on his ability to work.
Jacob came to associate the spelling of words with the sound of the pick striking on every letter, exercising his math by determining the volume and mass of a vein, and demonstrating science by observing the flux of air and gas in a cavern. Taught by the wizened old miner, he learned how to survive in a mine, from warming up before beginning work to avoid cramps, to the unique architecture of building tunnel supports, to engineering as he learned how to lay track, make elevators, and develop delivery systems to send the carts of coal back out the entrance. Cym also instructed Jacob on how to survive life, passing along wisdom to the youth on how to be in a relationship and make it work, how to raise children and how to never lose sight of the face of God.
Cym’s faith was very simple and direct. He literally believed in God being the Father, and his relationship with his deity being that of the obedient, loving son. Cym frequently asked God for advice during his work, addressing the Supreme as casually as a boy would his father when working together, apparently getting an answer, for the miner always reached a decision after such inquiries. Jacob took up the same habit, developing a complete open trust in God that gave him a confidence and security that spoke in his every movement underground, the tonnage looming over his head safely held in Jacob’s mind by the hands of his God.
As Jacob grew older, he and Cym discussed women and Jacob’s early forays into the world of romance, the elder holding the devastated boy when the youth was first spurned, buying him an ale to celebrate when Jacob blushingly told him of his first kiss. His parents not discussing relationships with him, Jacob was blankly na Over the years Jacob grew to love the old man, who took the time to be a father to him when his own father was escaping to the fields, and Cym loved the youth, who replaced in his heart the son he once had whom the mines took over a decade ago. Fate threw them together and Cym felt younger with Jacob, absorbing the strength and youth the boy radiated with every move while Jacob grew older and wiser, soaking up everything the man had learned in his longer life like a cat resting in a pool of sunlight.
He soon completed his voluntary school with high marks, and read everything he laid his hands on when he rested in the evenings. A telephone found its way into his home, opening up a whole modern world for his mother, who was constantly exchanging gossip and recipes with the neighbors. His father found the cows more interesting than his home life, and took to spending extended hours in the fields, only coming in when the weather was so foul even he couldn’t stand it. Jacob began to wonder what was it he had done to chase off his father so badly, but over time concluded it wasn’t something he had done, but instead was the fact his parents had grown apart, not seeing that his father was escaping his personal shame that his son had become a miner, unable to look Jacob in the eye when coal streaked his son’s expression. Soon Jacob was hanging a mailbox beside their door and greeting the postman as he left at dawn to work a day in the mine. There was never any mail, but Jacob diligently cleared out the cobwebs as the spiders found the box, just in case, cringing a shade as he stuck his hand into the dark unknown.
On a sluggish, gray day the family received their first letter. Jacob checked the box as he always did when he came home from work and much to his amazement and delight a slim ivory envelope rested in the dark box. He snatched it out and looked at the address. It was from his brother! Jacob’s brother was fifteen years older than he and had gone away to school by the time Jacob was born. They had not even met, and Jacob was intensely curious about this man who had preceded him in life. The letter was addressed to his mother, and Jacob stood on the porch, torn between his curiosity and his knowledge it wasn’t his right to open it. He held it up to the sky to see if he could see through it, but the day was dark and that attempt hopeless. He tried to peek in the edges of the seal, but only saw unintelligible random letters. Giving up, prompted largely by the thunderhead he spotted when he looked up, he took the letter into the house and gave it to his mother.
She stared at it, not believing it was actually mail, and addressed to her! When she realized it was from her son her knees gave way and Jacob quickly ushered her to a chair. She sat for a moment, her hands in her lap with the letter, as if she were holding something very dear to her. Time seemed to stop as the heavy damp ozone smell of the impending storm rolled in through the windows and the room darkened under the cloud. Normally this would have given Jacob a bad feeling about the letter; he often had good or bad feelings about things that over time he’d learned to take note of. But this time, it was as if the letter was a ray of light in a dark day, and nothing in it could possibly be bad. It practically glowed in his mother’s lap.
"So? Open it!" He couldn’t contain his impatience any longer. He flopped in the chair opposite her, leaning forward anxiously, reaching across to nudge his mother on the knee.
His mother laughed, shook herself out of her daze and carefully slit open the letter. She began to read aloud, her warm voice like honey being poured over the sound of the storm outside. She didn’t even stop when Jacob’s father came stomping in, cursing the weather. He stopped, noticed what she was doing, shut up with a look of wonder on his face, and sat down, dripping all over the floor. Water gradually pooled around his feet and chair as she read. Normally this would have driven her to one of her well-known fits of housewifely ire, but wrapped up in the letter, she didn’t even see the water.
Dear Mother and Da, dear little Jacob,
I just learned you have an address and am quite happy to be writing you. I am doing well. I graduated with honors and am now teaching music in the same school. My address is the same, you’ll see it on the envelope. Please write me, they deliver here now too. I expect to have a sabbatical this winter - plan to see me knocking on your door for Christmas! I’ll be bringing Mich along, my roommate. He teaches here too; we’ve roomed since we were boys in school and alas, neither of us have found wives yet. He has no family left - I’ve taken pity on him and wish for him to join our holidays if he may? Let me know so he will know how to plan.
I have all kinds of news. I hardly know where to begin. The position here is good and I enjoy it very much. We are trying to teach the old songs before they are lost forever, and the students are attentive and talented. One in particular has an amazing voice and when he’s survived puberty will be great. Right now he sings like a soaring bird in flight, and adds a tenor to our chorus that stuns the audience.
I participated in Eisteddfod this year. I never dreamed I would even place, but on Gorsedd they called my name! I was stunned! You now have a First Level Bard for a son! Apparently they liked my performance. All I did was sing a collection of the old songs we are trying to preserve. When I come home I will sing it for you. Who knows? Maybe one day I will have one of those phonograph disks cut to keep and listen to in my old age when my voice is raspy and dry.
I hear from time to time how you are doing from town folk who travel through. I hope they are telling you about me upon their returns. I understand the farm is prospering. God bless, father. I also hear you are working in the mines now Jacob. Please take care. I worry and hope to meet you soon - you are not allowed to have any accidents in the mine! And mother I hear you are as beautiful as you ever have been.
I’d best wrap this up for now before I have to go to another sheet and the mail cost is higher. Send me a letter and let me know how you are. I look forward to seeing you all this Christmas!
My love to all,
Dafydd The last year of the century rolled in after a joyous holiday, with Dafydd and Mich visiting, song, laughter, candlelight and the scent of freshly cut pine permeating the week. Jacob found he liked his brother, and together they sang every song they knew, with Dafydd teaching Jacob new ones to keep close to his heart. Stuffed nightly with the taste of their mother’s outstanding cooking still savory on their tongues, the men grew close, and Jacob found himself wishing Dafydd didn’t have to return to the north. Even his father seemed amicable, joining in the celebrations with blustery good cheer. Mich was a quiet, dryly funny man, whose natural counterpoint to Dafydd’s leading lines kept the family rolling in tears of laughter most of the holiday. Jacob quietly wondered about the relationship between his brother and Mich, but kept his suspicions to himself, thinking if Dafydd was happy, he wasn’t going to question why. Besides, he was an artist, and they are allowed poetic license. The new year rang in to slightly inebriated toasts of health! fortune! love! and two days later Dafydd and Mich packed to return to the school.
Life returned to its familiar pattern, and Jacob’s father returned to his beloved cows.
The year slipped into summer then fall, with torrential rains undermining most of the roads and embankments. The men in the mine grew uneasy, all too aware that weather presaged cave-ins and flooding. Their disease was justified, for in September of that year, all three of the lower passages of the mine simultaneously fell flat with a thunderous crack, followed by stifling damp black dust and the rusty ammonia smell of urine and blood. Jacob preternaturally felt the faint tremor of the ground seconds before the disaster and yelled "cave-in" behind him to his friend Cym and sprinted for the opening. Cym was too far behind to go back to get; Jacob prayed as he ran that his pal heard and was running too, his lips flying over the old Welsh prayers, completely rote and comfortingly blind.
Jacob rolled out of the mine, taking off his hard-hat, leaving a black ring around his forehead gradually running down his brow with the sweat of his run, his heart pounding. A loud series of crashes followed him, as the higher tunnels collapsed from the vibrations of the lower cave-in. Soon even the opening was blocked. He bent over with his hands on his knees to gasp for breath, coughing and retching, feeling like he would never clear the thick dust from his lungs. Once he’d recovered enough to have his wits about him, he looked around for Cym. Jacob’s heart dropped to his bowels when he realized Cym was still trapped.
Men were grimly working at the opening, but it was plain the entire mine had given way, and no one was going to get out this time. Over 30 men were lost that day, but Jacob grieved for just one, the man who taught him how to swing a pick, how to find the vein, how to stay warm and dry, and how to breathe without inhaling the dust. Cym was a couple of years away from retiring from the mines, a gentle, strong old man whose face was literally lined, the coal dust having worked into his wrinkles like a child’s pencil scrawl across his face, who worked with an iron will to get through each day, and sang when his muscles balled into the crippling cramps of advancing age. In the habit of Cym he asked God why, but for the first time, heard no answer.
Jacob sat on the ground and stared, bitter for the loss of the one man who was more truly a father to him than his own ever was. As the light of day deepened into the early purples of the coming night, he rose and with an absence in his heart, began to trudge home.
Rain sluiced over Jacob, washing him clean of dirt, sweat and dust as he walked. On the way, absentmindedly greeting the cows, he thought of his life and the fact he had only the mine to look forward to, and decided it was time for a change. He had saved enough. It was time to start achieving his dreams. He looked north, to the mountains, lurking somewhere behind the storm, and shook his head. He dared not go near them now. It was as if they had a powerful magnetic charge that once it snared him, would pull him directly into the massive rock walls, and Jacob felt that pull and fought it, having come far too close that day to a rocky grave, knowing Cym forever had answered that pull, never to return. He shivered, and mentally saved the mountains for "later" sometime in the future.
That left the sea. Jacob lifted his head and closed his eyes and smelled the fresh salt air in his mind and heard the circling gulls cry out across the expanse. The sea was an open book, broad and clean. And across the sea was America, a place where men like he had an equal chance to succeed, a better job, a better life. Jacob believed all he read in the newspapers about this marvelous country America, and his soul ached to get away from cows and coal. He made up his mind, and went home to inform his parents. A man now at nineteen, it was time for him to make his own path in the world.
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