Angel Train Read Free

mother again! You don’t remember her, Meredith, but I bet she’s thinking about you right now.”
    Meredith had a mouthful of fried chicken, but she stopped chewing. “Can they see everything we’re doing?”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
    “Well, I don’t want them to see everything I’m doing,” Bronwen said loudly.
    “Then you shouldn’t be doing them.” Gwilym nodded sternly.
    The argument went on for some time, but as Charity brought in the slices of apple pie, Evan said, “There’s been more talk about hard times coming. The newspaper says we’re going to have a panic. The mine might even close.”
    “That would be terrible,” Charity said. “Do you remember when the mine closed three years ago? Many in this village went hungry.”
    “That’s not going to happen again. The mine’s in good shape,” Gwilym said. “Mr. Campbell told me himself that the prices are good and likely to get better.”
    “That’s not what the newspaper said,” Evan responded. He was a fine-looking young man with red hair and blue eyes. He was lean and strong, but his expression was unhappy. He turned to his father and said almost in desperation, “I wish I could do anything rather than dig coal under the ground. It scares me sometimes, Pa.”
    The statement troubled Gwilym, for he himself never felt fear. He had dug coal out of the ground in Wales and then in Pennsylvania until it had become second nature to him. “Why should you be afraid? The good Lord takes care of us.”
    “He didn’t take care of those six men who got killed in that cave-in last year,” Evan said bitterly. Before his father could answer, he continued. “We stay down there, sweating hour after hour, bent double. The only time we’re straight is when we’re flat on our backs, and the dust of coal—it comesdown on you with a touch you can feel. You know, it’s like the coal was feeling you now gently, but one day he’d have you. That black coal is like the morning band of earth, and we’re taking it out to burn it. I think the earth is angry at us.”
    “That’s foolish talk, boy!” Gwilym said, and he was troubled. He did not like things to change, and it disturbed him that Evan could not accept his lot as a miner as had all of his people for many, many years.
    Charity spoke a thought that had been with her for some time. “I know it’s hard for you both, but there’s something wrong with having only one source of income for a whole community.”
    “And what could that mean, Daughter?”
    “Why, we’re all dependent on the mine. If it closed, think of what would happen. It would be terrible.”
    “The mine’s not going to close,” Gwilym said stubbornly. He was a man of great kindness and high intelligence, but his vision was limited. The coal mine was all he had known in Wales and all he knew here in this new country. He could not foresee a time when the mines would close, and he shook his head with a hint of stubbornness. “We’re going to be all right.”
    “I wish I could be a minister,” Evan said. “But I’ll never have the education for that. If I can’t be a minister, I’d like to be a farmer.”
    “You’d still be grubbing in the dirt,” Gwilym warmed.
    “It’s different walking over the top of the earth, feeling it beneath your feet, and watching things grow.” There was a longing in Evan Morgan’s voice, and he had spoken of this often before. He shook his head. “I guess I’ll live and die down there, grubbing around like a mole.”
    Charity was refilling the coffee cups of the men, but she paused and laid her hand on Evan’s shoulder. She could think of nothing to say, and he covered her hand with his, whispering, “There’s a good girl. Don’t mind me.”
    “God will do something for you, Evan. I know He will!”
    * * *
    SUNDAY CAME, AND THE bright sun was thawing out the frozen earth. The Pilgrim Way had its services in a small building the members had built themselves. Gwilym was the