A few thoughts on the last chapter then below the fold the turning point in the story.
The start of the Spanish American War is now generally thought to have been based on a false premise that the Spanish sunk the USS Maine. It was a very successful propaganda campaign. I learned the slogan "Remember the Maine" in school and Wiley Aker in 1951 writing does not even hint that it was launched on a questionable basis.
Cordell Hull mentioned as a major in the 4th Tennessee Volunteers became the longest serving Secretary of State under FDR and Truman.
The war was over in less than a single deployment to Afghanistan.
This book was written in 1950's by a seventy year old man. It's a first hand account of the times. It provides a view of history from the bottom up rather than the usual looking down from above.
A very little change in his luck would have meant he would have died in the chapter below. Part of that luck was the color of his skin.
Chapter IV
THE END OF MY OLD LIFE
below fold.
In this hilarious mood the old engineer who ran a new dinkey around the mountain to the coal tipple, challenged me for a face to see who could haul the greatest number of mining cars to the tipple in one day. My haul was all under ground and all my cars had to be dropped down a short incline onto the tipple by gravity. Both the old timer and I had about the same number of coal diggers to haul coal from. I talked it over with the miners on my haul and we accepted the challenge, wagering both money and bottled goods. The tipple crew that dumped our cars into the coal bins at the tipple agreed to dump each trip of coal as they arrived, or if two trips, or trains of coal, arrived at the same time, to alternate our cars, as only one mining car could be dumped at a time. The twenty seventh of July was agreed upon as the day for the race.
By the twenty seventh the whole town was interested in the race and we learned considerable betting was going on around the office, company store, and boarding house.
I held a small lead most of the day but in late afternoon the old timer evened up the score and it was nip and tuck. Around four o’clock I learned the old timer had a trip of cars cached on a siding near the tipple and the crew was dumping cars off of this extra trip and holding up my cars. I asked the incline operator to drop me down onto the tipple, which he did. Just as I stepped off a loaded car onto the tipple, another loaded car of the old timer’s was going into the carriage dump fast. Something struck me in the back with mighty force and I was hurled through space, never landing anywhere, so far as I knew or remembered.
About eleven o’clock the following day I partially regained consciousness for a time and my only sensation, as I recall, was flying through space.
It must have been several days before the effects of the cocaine and other anesthetics wore off and life began to return with new, strange sensations. It was as if I had been reborn into a different world, and, indeed, I had.
Mary sat by my bed, her round eyes red from weeping. Her round face looked drawn, but she smiled sweetly and bravely. I could not move any part of my body but I could talk with difficulty. On my right side were two pillows, and two large bundles of bandages of cotton rested on the two pillows. Mary held my left hand. Her large, blue eyes had always been to me her outstanding attraction, but never before had they seemed so kind, sympathetic, and comforting. I asked her what was the matter with me and she told me bravely. My right forearm had been amputated four inches below the elbow and my right leg nine inches below the knee. My left shoulder and leg were mauled severely and the right and the right side of my head and face was black and swollen. She told me the race ended in a tie for the miners, but for me it was the ending of my old life and the beginning of a new life. She explained to me that an empty car had broken loose on a hoist or incline and struck me in the back, knocking me in front of a loaded car going in to the carriage dump. (I later heard many conflicting stories as to how the accident occurred and I never knew exactly how it did happen. Human life and limbs were the cheapest things in the coal fields. There were no hospitals, nurses, first aid, or compensation laws.)
As Mary talked and smiled bravely and rubbed my one arm and caressed my swollen head and face so gently, life and feeling returned rapidly. My back began to burn and sizzle, and when I complained of it Mary said it was time for the old company doctor to come and dress my wounds.
The doctor was a kind little man about sixty and a great talker. When Mary heard the doctor’s step on the porch, she tenderly laid my hand on my chest.
“Howdy, love birds,” the doctor greeted, and went on in a jocular mood of encouragement, “You look bright as new money today. It will take more than a five ton mining car to kill you. I’ll say you will live ten, maybe twenty years longer because of the loss of the foot and hand. The vital organs of the body won’t have to do the work they formerly did and you can’t run and fight and do the hard work-“
“Bunk, Doc,” I interrupted, “I guess you want to cut the other two limbs off so I can live longer still, to suffer more; to hell with you.If you don’t do something for my back, I don’t want to live another minute.”
“Your back?” asked the doctor in astonishment, “I don’t remember seeing anything wrong with your back. Come to think of it, don’t believe I ever looked at your back!” He laughed. “Here Mary, let’s cock him up on one side and take a look.”
I did not yell, but I did curse the old medic, for my back was stuck to the sheet. During my operation he had never examined my back.
“Just little patches of skin scraped off here and there, nothing serious. A few lumps of coal and a few splinters embedded in the flesh. Looks like you were dragged a few yards over the cross –ties. The told me they had to scrape you up with a shovel! Now, I believe it.” He laughed again.
After the coal and splinters were removed and my back washed, salved, and powdered, I did not care if I did live a little longer. That was now fifty years ago and I sometimes wonder if I have lived longer, maybe, as happily and as usefully, due to that accident. I am now past seventy and all my brothers have passed on. Who can tell what “might have been?”
After the kind old medic finished dressing my back, arm and leg, he departed leaving me propped up in bed, and promising to return at the same hour the next day. New life and hopes started tingling though my broken nerves.
Mary remained by my side. She was not a trained nurse, just an innocent country girl reared ona small farm near the coal fields, but she knew how to handle a bed-pan and to minister to my needs and wants. She was kind, neat, industrious, with natural ability and resourcefulness, but, like myself, uneducated. Color returned to her round, sweet face which had been so pale and haggard. She beamed with joy over my rapid recovery and declared we would get married in September if not against my will. The third day she smilingly said, “I’d rather have what is left of you than any other whole man I know. Remember the old saying, ‘A half a loaf is better than no loaf.’ “ I could not understand her then and have never been able to understand her since.
I think it was about the third day after the doctor first dressed my back that there was a soft knock at the door and who should bow himself into my room but Uncle Jake, next to Mary, my most appreciated friend and servant, the old, bald, ex-slave. His arms and pockets were full of bundles, packages, and a bouquet of flowers.
“How is you and my boy, Miss Mary?” he greeted. “Mistuh boss Ed says, ‘Jake, git yo’self up to day boy’s room and stay there till he gits well.’ He says, Tell Miss Mary to git herself down to day dodin’ house.’” He began unwrapping packages and arranging thins on the table. There were eggs, nutmegs, lemons, sugar, fresh milk, a quart of home made corn whiskey, a box of chocolates, and a bouquet. Of course, he was talking all the time and ended up with, “Ol’ Doc Sawbones, he says ‘Make dat boy two, good, stout egg-nogs ebber day. One de middle o’de fo’noon, one de middle o’ de aftah noon. No mo’ an’ no less. Dem’s my orders, suh.”
“What has come over the town and the company?” asked Mary. “Since when does anybody care who lives or dies in Mayberry? I have an idea-“ She concluded, putting one finger to her temple and gathering up her belongings, she kissed me on the head. “So long, I’ll see you every day’.
“Bless my soul,” said Uncle Jake, beating eggs and preparing me an egg-nog.