My Boyhood and Youth 



forenoon's accumulation of chips hoisted out 

 of the way, and I was left until night. 



One morning, after the dreary bore was 

 about eighty feet deep, my life was all but lost 

 in deadly choke-damp, — carbonic acid gas 

 that had settled at the bottom during the night. 

 Instead of clearing away the chips as usual when 

 I was lowered to the bottom, I swayed back 

 and forth and began to sink under the poison. 

 Father, alarmed that I did not make any noise, 

 shouted, "What's keeping you so still?" to 

 which he got no reply. Just as I was settling 

 down against the side of the wall, I happened 

 to catch a glimpse of a branch of a bur-oak tree 

 which leaned out over the mouth of the shaft. 

 This suddenly awakened me, and to father's 

 excited shouting I feebly murmured, "Take me 

 out." But when he began to hoist he found I 

 was not in the bucket and in wild alarm shouted, 

 "Get in! Get in the bucket and hold on! Hold 

 on!" Somehow I managed to get into the 

 bucket, and that is all I remembered until I 

 was dragged out, violently gasping for breath. 

 [ 232 ] 



