in my own way, from the beginning: only, as
you write it down for me, just be so good
as make it all clear grammar-like and spelling;
for I'm no great hand at that.

"I went down in the pit when I was six
year old. My father and mother passed me
off as seven and a half; so they got my wages.
I was employed in carrying picks [little short-
handled pickaxes that hew down the coals]
to be mended, and often carried three at a
tune. I got two and sixpence a week. When
I was a few months older, I was put to keep a
trap-door. At first they let me have a candle,
but after a week they said I could sit just as
well in the dark to attend to the trap. I sat
in a little hole like a chimney-place, cut in the
coal. Sat in this way twelve hours a day, all
in the dark. Not so werry dull and lonesome
as you'd suppose, A good deal of company
coming and going all day. When the horse
came with an empty basket and skip, he could
open the door with a poke of his head; but
when he came along with a load, I pulled it
open by a string. He knowed all about it.
I sat there with a string in my hand. For
this work I had eightpence a day. Some time
after I was moved to a trap, where I always
had to pull the door open, for the horse and
tram, empty or loaded, and then I got
tenpence a day. Besides the coming and going
of the horses, and men and boys, trappers
have other amusement, or perhaps they might
get very sad, or go to sleep, as we often did,
and get woke with a whip. This other amusement
was often a cruel one. I was taught it by
other boys. There were rats and mice in the
pit, as came down in, the oats and hay, and
they lived by stealing the candles, horses'
food, and the bait-bags of the men. I
sometimes killed a rat with a large coal; but when
I caught mice, I used to put the tails of three
or four of them into a split stick, and then
shake them together till they fought like mad.
I always kept a bit of candle to see the sport
by, sorry I am to own it, now I'm a man.
There were also a great many jack-gnats, and
wood-lice, and old forty-legs, and black clocks
—long-legged black beetles with horns. I
was often cruel to the jack-gnats when they
blistered me, and I used to try and make the
clocks fight, but they soon shammed dead,
and the old forty-legs always ran away.

"After about a year and a half in this way,
I was put to sweep the tram-road and clear
the rail with a whisp of hay, and pick up
coals off the road; and next they set me to
walk with a candle before horses. The candles
were short sixteens. I was eight year old
now, and got three and sixpence a week, which
I took home to my mother.

"Before I was nine years old I had a bad
accident from an explosion. The wild-fire
came rushing along a road, and knocked
itself out against the opposite end just at
the cross way, where I was coming, which
saved my life; but some of it reached me, and
I was scorched all over the breast and arms.
I lay ill nine weeks. It was caused by a man
opening the Davy lamp to prove to another
that the gas about them was not so bad as he
said. They had betted a pot of beer on it.
These sorts of doings are common enough,
even when you hear the gas pit-pit-pitting
in little explosions as it gets through into
the lamp. I once heard a man, one of the
under-goers, who was on his way to
remove a pillar, complain that his Davy did not
show light enough; so, another man
accompanied him with a lighted candle in his hand
to help him see his work better. A dreadful
explosion followed, a few minutes after, and
nine men and two boys were killed. The two
underneath, where the pillar was to be hewn
away, were got out all black, like coke and
cinder. If they hadn't been Christians, there
was no call to bury them, as far as their
bodies were consarned, poor fellows. Wrong
too; for they caused the death of other poor
fellows by their carelessness and folly.

"After my accident I did not go down
again in the pit for six months. I warn't
strong enough. I drove a 'gin' on the bank,
[the 'gin' consists of a horse going in a circle,
and working a wheel that winds up or lets
down loads into the pit]. The work was not
hard, except in cold or wet weather; but
then I often stood in a hovel by a fire, and
kept th' old horse going by pelting him with
small bits of coal, to let him know I was
there. I learnt to read at an evening-school
at this time; and to write a little too. But
I've forgotten both since.

"When I next went down into the pit I
drew little waggons of coals, with a girdle
and chain; this is called hurrying. Hard work
it was. The blisters were often as big as
shillings and half-crown pieces. All full of
water they were. And the blisters of one
day were broken the next, and the girdle
stuck to the wound. Sore work, I promise
you; but I got one-and-sixpence a day for
it, and, the last three months, two shillings.

"After this, I was hired as foal to my
uncle, a young fellow of nineteen who was a
putter. Those who push the little waggons
of coals along the tram-roads are called
'putters;' and when a young boy helps an
elder he is called his 'foal.' When two boys
of fourteen or fifteen years of age push
together, equally, they are called half-marrows.
I was a foal for near a twelvemonth; and
then a half-marrow, and got twelve-and-six-
pence a-week. One day the butty (overseer)
sent us to a part of the mine where we had
never been before. There was fire-damp there,
and it put out our candles, one after another,
as fast as we lighted them. So we saw as it
was not safe to try it on any longer, and
we began to scramble our way back in the
dark. Laughing we were a good deal.
But we missed our way, and got into an old
working as had been abandoned for years,
and got quite lost. We wandered about
here two whole days and nights afore we