Petersham High School - Hilltop Yearbook (Petersham, MA)

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LIFE gg Here I toil in Death as my closest 5,COAL MINER this dark, dismal place, with companion, while somewhere above me, skies are blue and the sun ls shining. The sun. . . . it luxe been so long since I have seen it that its warmth and br1lliance,:is bllt-L a dim memory. It is queer to know that in another world, as it were, there is pure air, bird songs- and freedom from fear. When I remember things that I have seen in this awful hole, I am grateful for the noise of ' my drill and the body-tiring exertion of my pick, for it makes me forget. Like a shell-shocked soldier, I cringe at loud noises and fling myself close to the earth. Twice I have heard that noise followed by crashing rumbling as if the world itself were coming apart and I have seen the trapped miners' families staying day and night by the mouth of the mine, waiting. . . waiting. , . and hoping. Csweat not caused by my work bathes my body as I .' remember that Death comes in threesl3 The frantic digging to release the men, the faint tappings and the voices as we come nearer to theme-tappings and voices that grow fainter and fainter as the oxygen is used up and the men breath with shallpw breaths, faces pressed close to the tunnel floor. Then, at last, to reach them. Too late for many, in time for a few. And Death strikes in threes. - Somewhere there are blue skies, and I remem- ber a lake, cool and clear, where I played as a boy. The water was like a caress against me, and my body then, strangely enough, was whitei Now it is black, and no soap is powerfull enough to wash away all of the grime. I come to the mine in the dark morning and return at night when it is dark' again. All things are dark and black. The mine, the coal, my pals, and I. Even my life and thoughts are dark and dismal. But I remember blue skies, a lake that is cool and clear, and dimly I remember a sun that has warmth and brilliance. Rosalie Clark '47 M

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