His work was at the head of the shaft, at the very topmost part of the towering breaker. When a mine car came up, loaded with coal, it was his duty to push it to the dump, some forty feet away, to tip it till the load ran out, and then to push it back to the waiting carriage. Michael Maloney had been Billy's assistant here, in other years; but, one day, Michael stepped back, inadvertently, into the open mouth of the shaft, and, three minutes later, his mangled remains were gathered up at the foot. Billy knew that Michael's widow was poor, with a family of small children to care for, so he came and hired from her a part of her cottage to live in, and took his meals with her, and paid her generously. To this house he had taken Ralph. It was not an elegant home, to be sure, but it was a home where no harsh word was spoken from year's end to year's end; and to Ralph, fresh from his dreadful life with Simon Craft, this was much, oh! very much, indeed. The boy was very fond of "Uncle Billy," as he called him, and the days and nights he spent with him were not unhappy ones. But since the day when Mrs. Burnham turned his face to hers, and kissed him on his lips, there had been a longing in his heart for something more; a longing which, at first, he could not quite define, but which grew and crystallized, at last, into a strong desire to merit and possess the fond affection, and to live in the sweet presence, of a kind and loving mother. He had always wanted a mother, ever since he could remember. The thought of one had always brought a picture of perfect happiness to his mind. But never, until now, had that want reached so great proportions. It had come to be the leading motive and ambition of his life. He yearned for mother-love and home affection, with an intensity as passionate, a desire as deep, as ever stirred within the heart of man. He had not revealed his longing to Bachelor Billy. He feared that he might think he was discontented and unhappy, and he would not have hurt his Uncle Billy's feelings for the world. So the summer days went by, and he kept his thought in this matter, as much as possible, to himself. It had come to be the middle of September. There had been a three days rain, which had so freshened the parched grass and checked the fading of the leaves, that one might readily have thought the summer had returned to bring new foliage and flowers, and to deck the earth for still another season with its covering of green. But it had cleared off cold. "It'd be nice to have a fire to-night, Uncle Billy," said Ralph, as the two were walking home together in the twilight, from their day's work at the breaker. "Wull, lad," was the reply, "ye ha' the wood choppit for it, ye can mak' un oop." So, after supper, Ralph built a wood fire in the little rude grate, and Billy lighted his clay pipe, and they both drew their chairs up before the comfortable blaze, and watched it while they talked.