Chapter 1

Mule Driver

Ned Carter slapped the reins against the rumps of the mules he was driving and hunched his shoulders against the chilly drizzle. "Yup! Yup!" he yelled. "You mules gonna stand in the mud all day? Move! Move!"

The coal wagon groaned as it lurched forward again. September had arrived in northern England, and it had been drizzling for a week. The dirt road leading from the coal mines on the outskirts of Newcastle down to the docks on the Tyne River had become a sea of mud.

People crowded the road leading into Newcastle, making it even more difficult to drive the mules. Ned swore under his breath. Papa would be coming along any minute with another wagon load of coal and if Ned wasn’t even past the town gate, he’d be angry.

A familiar figure darted across the road ahead of the coal wagon, carrying a large basket on one hip. Effie! Stupid girl. Why was his sister delivering Mama’s laundry in the rain? It would be damp and muddy by the time she arrived at the customer in town.

Just then Ned saw a tall boy catch up to his sister and take the basket of laundry. Effie looked up into the boy’s face coyly as the two of them made their way into the market. Immediately Ned felt hot anger. That stuck-up Morgan what’s-his-name . . . still chasing Effie. She encouraged him, too. Just because his father was a merchant in Newcastle didn’t impress Ned. Next thing they knew, she’d do something foolish like run off with that rich kid and get married. She was only sixteen—three years older than Ned—but some girls married even younger than that.

Without thinking, Ned yelled "Whoa!" to the mules, pulled the wagon brake, and jumped to the ground. Where did they go? The boy sprinted across the muddy ruts toward the town gate, shoving his way past farmers and tradesmen all heading for Newcastle’s large market square. The crowd was even thicker inside the gate and Ned was afraid he’d lost the pair . . . no, there they were, taking shelter in a doorway.

He was upon them before they saw him coming. He grabbed Effie’s arm and jerked her out of the doorway.

"You tramp!" he snarled at his sister. Ned was big and strong for thirteen and glared at her straight in the face. "Mama works all day slaving over that laundry and you stand here flirting with this stupid goat-face while the clothes get wet."

"Hey, now . . ." protested the boy named Morgan.

"Leave me alone, Ned Carter!" yelled Effie, jerking her arm away. But this time he grabbed her hair and jerked so hard she nearly fell down.

"I’m going to tell Papa what you’re doing!" Ned shouted in her ear. "What are we gonna do if we lose customers who don’t like wet laundry? You want little Pip to work in the mines? Is that what you want? You selfish pig!"

Effie’s fingernails scratching his face stopped his yelling. He let go of her hair, and she gave him a shove. Caught off guard, Ned tumbled to the ground. When he looked up, Effie, Morgan, and the basket of laundry were disappearing around a corner.

Ned scrambled to his feet, then realized he’d lost his cap. He looked this way and that, and finally saw it flattened in the street by a passing wagon wheel.

He had just snatched up the cap when he felt a painful cuff on his ear that sent him sprawling to the ground again; then he was hauled up by his shirt collar.

"What’s this?" his father roared. "What do you mean leavin’ the coal wagon sitting in the road with no driver? I’ll stick you back down in the mine shaft quicker’n you can say doomsday if you ever leave that wagon again, you scalawag!"

"But, Papa—!" Ned started to protest. Then he saw the humorous glances being cast in his direction. Humiliated, he shut his mouth and marched back through the town gate to the coal wagon; his father—grim-faced and thick-shouldered—followed right on his heels.

Ned scrambled onto the wagon, kicked the brake free, and gee-hawed the mules into action before Dob Carter could say more. Ned’s anger at Effie had been rattled right out of him . . . but in its place a gnawing fear began to take shape, not of the tongue-lashing he knew he would get when he got home that night, but fear for his little brother, Pip.

Pip had turned five that spring. So far nothing had been said about taking the youngest Carter boy away from his mother and putting him to work. But Ned had been just five years old when his father had taken him to the coal mines to work as a "mole." He would never forget the terror of crawling into a narrow mine shaft for the first time, a rope tied to his ankles so he could be pulled out, the darkness so thick and black he could hardly breathe.

For seven years Ned had worked the mines, getting up before sunrise with his father and trudging across the bridge that joined Gateshead, on the south side of the river, and Newcastle, on the north, into one large town. By the time they passed Newcastle’s town gate, they had joined the great flood of men and boys who pulled coal—the life-blood of England—from the earth.

Every day he worked alongside Dob Carter, filling buckets as his father hacked coal veins with a pick axe, hauling stones, smoothing roads that wound down into the yawning open pit, loading wagons. More than once Ned and his father had barely escaped injury—or death—when a shaft caved in or flooded, or a mule slipped and a heavy wagon crashed down the side of the pit, crushing everyone in its path. Ned and his father had an unspoken agreement never to mention these narrow escapes to Ned’s mother.

A year ago Dob Carter had been promoted to wagon master, and Ned had learned to drive mules. He liked driving the heavy wagon loads of coal down to the docks, where it was loaded onto keel-boats and ferried to the big ships anchored in mid-river.

Yes, Ned had survived—but Pip was different. His little brother had never been very strong, and looked a year younger than other children his age. He was also a dreamer, content to sing little songs and make up stories as he sat in a corner by himself. There was no way Pip would survive in the mines.

The wagon gave a lurch, interrupting Ned’s thoughts. The mules had begun the descent down the sloping river bank toward the long row of docks jutting out like fingers into the Tyne. Ned tightened his grip on the reins. "Steady, now, Bessie. Easy goes it, Ben," he crooned as the mules searched for firm footing in the mud.

Half-way down the slope, Bessie’s hooves slipped and she went down on her knees. Ben, the other mule, gave a frightened whinny and reared back, trying to pull up his teammate. The wagon pitched to one side and Ned grabbed for the brake, trying to keep the wagon from tipping over. After an anxious moment, Bessie scrambled up again, the wagon settled back into the muddy rut, and they continued the slippery descent to the docks.

Ned let out a relieved whistle. Sure wish the rain would stop making a mud slide out of this river bank, he thought. Next time we might not be so lucky.