Word: shafted
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...vine-covered hills around their village. The black-streaked yellow ore has brought them steady jobs, tidy red brick houses and a measure of happiness, but in recent years it has brought a creeping fear: What if the supply of sulphur should run out? As the mine shaft plunged deeper and deeper into the earth, even Cabernardi's Communists went regularly to the little parish church to pray to St. Barbara that the seam might last forever...
...company had hired, the union refused to listen to him. Half an hour later, 200 miners just reaching the end of the second shift in the mine below refused to come to the surface. Communist Santorelli raced to join them. "We will not come up," he shouted, as the shaft elevator descended, "until the company revokes the firings...
...after day Gino and his companions stayed down in the damp, hot (104°) shaft, 1,600 feet below the green vineyards of Cabernardi. They bedded down in mule stalls, took walks along dark tunnels lit only by their battery-fed cap lamps, and relaxed with Communist papers sent down from the shaft head. On the surface, their families camped forlornly near -barbed-wire enclosures redolent with the rotten-egg smell of sulphur furnaces. A constant stream of baskets containing fish, cheese, soup and meat passed through the gate to be sent below. With the baskets went an occasional note...
...shaft was sunk, and into it was built an Otis elevator big enough to hold stretcher and wheelchair cases. This cost $50,000. Airlocks were installed in the mine to seal in "curative" gases. To keep the procession of health-seekers in order, there is a flossy reception room where each visitor gets a number assigning him to a seat in the 85-ft. lateral. Downtown, a cashier handles the payoff: $100 for each visitor, which entitles him to four one-hour sessions underground...
Fine was born (1893) in such a town, an anthracite "mine patch" near Nanticoke. His father worked for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Coal Co., first running the stationary engine in the shaft, then working on a company-owned farm. When little John was in grade school, he helped at farm chores and plowing. But he found that a man could still make his way out of the dark hills if he wanted to. After he graduated from high school, Fine studied law, paying his way by a job delivering and picking up laundry...