Her conversation with Bill proved that she had been only too right. The boy was intoxicated with his own liberty. “I know I ought to have told you, mother,” he confessed. “I wanted to. Honest, I did, but I was afraid you'd worry, though you needn't. The man who taught me how to fire has been doing it over twenty years. A lot of it's up to a fellow, himself. You can pretty near tell if the air is all right by the way it blows--the less the better it is. And if you're right careful to see that the tool-boxes the boys leave are all locked--so's no powder can catch, you know--and always start lighting against the air, so that if there's gas and it catches the fire'll blow away from you instead of following you up--and if you examine the fuses to see they're long enough and the powder is tamped in just right--each miner does that before he leaves and lots of firers just give 'em a hasty once-over instead of a real look--and then shake your heels good and fast after you do fire--” “Billy!” Rose was white. “I can't bear it--to hear you go on so lightly, when it's your life, your LIFE, you're playing with. For my sake, son, give it up.” With an odd sinking of the heart, she observed the expression in his face which she had seen so often in his father's--the one that said as plainly as words that nothing could shake his determination. “A fellow's got a right to some good times in this world,” he said very low, “and I'm getting mine now. I'm not going to grind away and grind away all my life like father and you've done. If anything did happen I'd have had a chance to dream and think and read instead of getting to be old without ever having any fun out of it all. Maybe you won't believe it, but some days for hours I just lie in the sun like a darky boy, not even thinking. Gee! it feels great! And sometimes I read all day until I have to go to the mine. There's one thing I'm going to tell you square,” he went on, a firm ring in his voice, boyish for all its deep, bass note, “I'm never going back to the farm, never! Mother,” he cried, suddenly, coming over to take her hand in both his. “Will you leave father? We could rent a little house and you'd have hardly anything to do. I'm making more than lots of men with families. And I'd give you my envelope without opening it every pay-day.” “Oh, Billy, you don't know what you're saying! I couldn't leave your father. I couldn't think of it.” “What I don't see is how you can stand it to stay with him. He's always been a brute to you. He's never cared a red cent for either of us.” Rose was abashed before the harsh logic of youth. “Oh, son,” she murmured brokenly, “there are things one can't explain. I suppose it may seem strange to you--but his life has been so empty. He has missed so much! Everything, Billy.” “Then it's his own fault,” judged the boy. “If ever anybody's always had his own way and done just as he darn pleased it's father. I wish he'd die, that's what I wish.”