great laughers.
“I suppose Punxsutawney Phil is long after my time, but Punx is where I grew up, in coal country. I was always playing alongside my friend Edison Larch. We weren’t just friends, we were third cousins. Our fathers were partners in the Poseidon Coal Company, and I figured we’d be digging coal together until they planted us in Punxsutawney soil.”
“That’s amazing,” I say truthfully. I have no friends that go back my whole life, not even Jocelyn. Living in one hotel after another doesn’t breed lasting friendships. And then I feel a pang of sadness when I realize that Nathaniel was not laid to rest in his hometown.
A cloud passes over Nathaniel’s face.
“What happened?” I ask.
“It was in eighteen and sixty. I was a young man by then. My father got wind that somebody’d struck oil up in Titusville, northeast of Punx. He sold our house and we were on our waybefore I could do a jig. Coal was good money, but people were saying it was just chicken feed compared to oil.”
The words tumble out as though they’ve been banked for more than a century. I’m absorbing the details as fast as possible and somehow we’ve inched closer to each other and he reaches unconsciously for my hand.
“That last day before we moved, Edison asked me, ‘You listening about the war and such?’ Well, you couldn’t miss listening. It was on everybody’s lips. Edison thought those southern states had no right to pull out of the Union, and I told him what they had no right to do is keep slaves. One man owning another man? No, sir. Edison asked me if I was fixing to fight, since I was so worked up over the slavery question. Talk’s one thing; shooting’s another. I told him, not unless the fight comes right to my front door, and it didn’t seem a whit likely it’d come up to Pennsylvania. But it came, didn’t it? I joined up with the 93rd Pennsylvania regiment a couple weeks later.”
His regiment — that gives me more to Google him with later. I have so many questions, including why he’s buried in Evergreen instead of the National Soldier’s Cemetery. But for now I wait and let Nathaniel continue.
“Last thing Edison said to me before my family left for Titusville was, ‘So long, then, Nate. Come back to old Punxwhen you go broke. I’ll still be here, if I don’t get shot down in Mississippi or Georgia, one.’”
Nathaniel pauses just long enough for me to slip in a question: “Did you go back to see him again?”
“Did. But the Larches were gone. Things there soured like old milk.”
“What happened to Edison?” I ask, trying to picture this old friend. Was he handsome like Nathaniel? For some reason I imagine him as smaller and slight.
Nathaniel peers over my shoulder, as if down through the tunnel of years. “Just after we moved to Titusville, Edison’s family suffered a horrible tragedy. His father’s custom was to inspect each of the mines every week.”
I know nothing about coal mining, but Nathaniel explains that methane gas and coal dust can ignite, and the poor ventilation hundreds of feet into the Earth’s core combine with the gases to create unspeakable disaster.
“That’s why miners started sending a canary down there, to test the atmosphere, see if it was fit for humans to breathe. Mr. Larch, he was proud that not one trial canary had died in our mines in the past two years. So, that day he took up a lantern and went down into the pitch-black Earth’s belly. He no sooner stepped off the elevator when he heard the roof rumbling. The wooden stakes supporting the roof starting buckling.The rats scurried for an exit, but there wasn’t one. The roof collapsed, most likely knocking the lantern out of Mr. Larch’s hand, which set off an explosion with the trapped gasses. In my nightmares I see a raging river of fire. Only one man survived to tell the story. Not Edison Larch, Senior.”
“How awful,” I murmur.
Nathaniel rubs his face and stammers out his next
“I suppose Punxsutawney Phil is long after my time, but Punx is where I grew up, in coal country. I was always playing alongside my friend Edison Larch. We weren’t just friends, we were third cousins. Our fathers were partners in the Poseidon Coal Company, and I figured we’d be digging coal together until they planted us in Punxsutawney soil.”
“That’s amazing,” I say truthfully. I have no friends that go back my whole life, not even Jocelyn. Living in one hotel after another doesn’t breed lasting friendships. And then I feel a pang of sadness when I realize that Nathaniel was not laid to rest in his hometown.
A cloud passes over Nathaniel’s face.
“What happened?” I ask.
“It was in eighteen and sixty. I was a young man by then. My father got wind that somebody’d struck oil up in Titusville, northeast of Punx. He sold our house and we were on our waybefore I could do a jig. Coal was good money, but people were saying it was just chicken feed compared to oil.”
The words tumble out as though they’ve been banked for more than a century. I’m absorbing the details as fast as possible and somehow we’ve inched closer to each other and he reaches unconsciously for my hand.
“That last day before we moved, Edison asked me, ‘You listening about the war and such?’ Well, you couldn’t miss listening. It was on everybody’s lips. Edison thought those southern states had no right to pull out of the Union, and I told him what they had no right to do is keep slaves. One man owning another man? No, sir. Edison asked me if I was fixing to fight, since I was so worked up over the slavery question. Talk’s one thing; shooting’s another. I told him, not unless the fight comes right to my front door, and it didn’t seem a whit likely it’d come up to Pennsylvania. But it came, didn’t it? I joined up with the 93rd Pennsylvania regiment a couple weeks later.”
His regiment — that gives me more to Google him with later. I have so many questions, including why he’s buried in Evergreen instead of the National Soldier’s Cemetery. But for now I wait and let Nathaniel continue.
“Last thing Edison said to me before my family left for Titusville was, ‘So long, then, Nate. Come back to old Punxwhen you go broke. I’ll still be here, if I don’t get shot down in Mississippi or Georgia, one.’”
Nathaniel pauses just long enough for me to slip in a question: “Did you go back to see him again?”
“Did. But the Larches were gone. Things there soured like old milk.”
“What happened to Edison?” I ask, trying to picture this old friend. Was he handsome like Nathaniel? For some reason I imagine him as smaller and slight.
Nathaniel peers over my shoulder, as if down through the tunnel of years. “Just after we moved to Titusville, Edison’s family suffered a horrible tragedy. His father’s custom was to inspect each of the mines every week.”
I know nothing about coal mining, but Nathaniel explains that methane gas and coal dust can ignite, and the poor ventilation hundreds of feet into the Earth’s core combine with the gases to create unspeakable disaster.
“That’s why miners started sending a canary down there, to test the atmosphere, see if it was fit for humans to breathe. Mr. Larch, he was proud that not one trial canary had died in our mines in the past two years. So, that day he took up a lantern and went down into the pitch-black Earth’s belly. He no sooner stepped off the elevator when he heard the roof rumbling. The wooden stakes supporting the roof starting buckling.The rats scurried for an exit, but there wasn’t one. The roof collapsed, most likely knocking the lantern out of Mr. Larch’s hand, which set off an explosion with the trapped gasses. In my nightmares I see a raging river of fire. Only one man survived to tell the story. Not Edison Larch, Senior.”
“How awful,” I murmur.
Nathaniel rubs his face and stammers out his next
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