Twenty-Nine

            I was in Minnesota now, near Minneapolis in a Hobo Jungle. I found out I had to head farther south or I'd run into Lake Michigan and there was no way for me to cross something like that so I went down through Madison, Wisconsin, past Chicago, into Indiana. I was headed back to Ohio but when I did get there my father and mother had moved so I kept going for my Uncle Paul's at Somerset, Pennsylvania where I could met up with my brother Frank. We headed back for Mineral City, Ohio where we met a fellow who had a small country coal mine and he gave us a job and taught us about working in the mines.

            It was only about four or five feet high. I had to walk bent down all day. When I shoveled coal onto the little car that run on a track I had to do it on my knees. Some days I drove the pony he used to pull the car out of the mine. I sat on the front bumper with my feet up on the single tree of the pony and rode out and back into the mines that way.

            My brother Frank and I had a room on the second floor over a store. There was one long stairway to go up, seventeen steps. I used to count them many times. I also fell at the top and rolled all the way down and out onto the sidewalk. I'll never forget that night.

            We had our boss come over and was drinking a little. I couldn't drink much anyways till I was dizzy or couldn't hardly walk. Sometimes I'd be sick. My brother Frank was going down to the store. I wanted to go along. He said no, then I wanted to go any ways. He was half way he steps by the time I got to the stairway.

            Anyways, I stepped right off the top step and fell. He heard me and looked around, seen me coming, he just stepped to one side and watched me go rolling on by and right out the door. I just heard him say, "It's good you're drunk or you'd be dead now, what the hell you trying to do?" He didn't help me up either. I think after a while I did get up on my hands and knees and crawled all the way back up the stairs.

            I did get like that once more after that. I had to get to the bathroom and couldn't so my brother helped me there, sat me on the toilet and left me. He came back a couple of hours later after I didn't come out and I was still sitting there. He just walked out and left me. I came out when I could. That was the last time for that. I just didn't enjoy that. It was just one drink after that.