Rated - PG-13
        Author's Notes - Because this is an original story, I'm using my real name instead of my pen name. This story is based on the incredible true life story of my great-grandfather, George Allen Ward.
 

     “You tell your Pa we’re all real sorry ‘bout John. Those darn machines kill more people in this county than consumption! He was a real good boy, though. I sure will miss him.”
    Georgie shuffled his feet in the coal-sprinkled dirt, “Yes, Sir, I thank you kindly for that,” he said. The old miner nodded back at Georgie with a sad smile. It was dangerous work they did, picking the slate out of chunks of coal as they disappeared into the machine. Breaker boys like Georgie and John were just like every other kid in Mingo, West Virginia: invisible.
    But Georgie was a smart boy. He, at least, knew that no one would take notice of him, unless he fell behind doing his work.   Most boys thought if they worked hard enough, they’d be noticed and get more money. Not Georgie, he knew better. No one even noticed if you died, except maybe some of the Breaker boys and a few of the really old-timers. But the owners and higher-ups, they didn’t care. Breakers were a dime a dozen. Georgie tried not to think about it much. What was the use? There was nothing to do in Mingo but work in the mines so that you could make enough money to support your family.
    The sun was setting, as Georgie shuffled along the worn-out dirt road towards home. Things were bad, but at least it was Saturday. He’d always liked Saturdays, for as long as he could remember. After all, Saturday was payday and he didn’t have to work on Sunday, because Sunday belonged to God. This Saturday was different however, because, unlike all the rest, it brought him no joy.
    Ever since he’d dropped out of the fourth grade, three years ago, so that he could work full time in the coal mines, Georgie had asked for his ten cents pay to be given to him in pennies. Pennies were great because, as he walked home he could hear those ten precious coins jingle around in his tattered coat pocket and pretend that it was really more than just ten cents. In his mind those pennies were really nickels or maybe even, on a good day, dimes. For the thirty minutes it took for him to hike across the foothills of the Appalachians towards his house, he was a rich man. He didn’t really have to hand that money over to his Father and Stepmother to help support the family. No, for that half an hour he was rich. But this Saturday he really wished they hadn’t given him pennies.
    John had been four years older than Georgie, but the two boys had always been close. They’d clung together, as only brothers could, and had known each other’s darkest secrets. They’d teased their two youngest sisters, Pina and Thelma, as every good brother ought to do. They’d put a frog in Eukah’s chamberpot, together, and giggled at the ensuing shrieks of terror. Georgie even knew that John had been sweet on Mary-Sue, who he’d seen in church, but had never had the guts to tell her so. Now, he never would.
    John, like Georgie, had worked in the mines for as long as either of them could remember. He’d been a small boy, sixteen years old, but still too small to be a miner. So, he was one of the oldest breakers in the mines. It didn’t make much sense that someone as experienced as John had messed up and died because he fell into the machine, but that’s what happened. Georgie had been right there beside him when it happened. Even though he knew he had to be a man about it, he still cried every night as his dreams played his brother’s death over and over again.
    For as long as he could remember and then some, Georgie had dreamed of being a miner. Miners made more money, after all, and could buy things like candy or chewing tobacco. But now, for the first time, as Georgie carried his brother’s pay along with his own, he wished he didn’t have so many pennies in his pockets and he really didn’t like the thought of candy much. It just wasn’t worth it. Ten pennies was all John’s life had been worth to the mines. Ten cents. Georgie knew his life was worth the same, to them at least, and always would be. But what was he supposed to do about it? That was the only work around and they needed the money. Sophia needed medicine for her sickness, which the doctor called “consumption.” Stepmother was having another baby and Father was trying to find someone to marry Mintie off to. It wasn’t fair, he realized, but it was life.
    He got home, just as the last bit of sunlight deserted the skyline, to find Rusty on the back stoop, thumping his tail and guarding the plate of biscuits and molasses next to him. Georgie silently pet the mangy dog and offered him a small piece of biscuit, while remembering the many times John had berated him for wasting his supper on a dumb dog. Georgie had never defended his feeding of the dog, because he knew John was right, but he kept right on doing it anyhow.
    “You got your pay, boy?” Georgie heard from behind him.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he answered and dug the twenty pennies out of his pocket.
    He watched his Stepmother silently count the pennies.
    "John was a good boy,” she blurted out suddenly, not quite looking at Georgie, “and a hard worker. You gonna work as hard as him?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I most certainly am,” Georgie told her whole-heartedly. “I know it’s up to me to help Pa support the family.”
    Georgie lowered his eyes as his stepmother scrutinized him. “Well, boy, your Pa and I talked it over, and we want you to keep John’s last pay. You earned it and we know it ain’t easy for you without him.”
    Georgie looked blindly at his hand as she put ten pennies into it. He was rich and he didn’t want to be. “Thank you, very much, ma’am,” he said quietly.
    “Don’t thank me,” she said, “thank your Pa. He thought you should have it.”
    “Yes ma’am, I will,” Georgie said as he placed the pennies back into his pocket.
    Georgie never spent his brother’s pennies, though there were times he wanted very much to buy some candy or to go to the circus when it came to town. Those pennies sat in a jar until the day Georgie died in the company of his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He kept them because, while they may have been just another ten pennies to the mines, to Georgie they were John’s life. And even though to Georgie, John’s life may have been worth all the coal in West Virginia, to the mines he was just worth ten cents in spare change.