Why I Ran Away

chapter 1: Me and the breaker boys

Dear, Dad

Me and some of the other breaker boys ran away because we were tired of our dangerous jobs we had and we've also seen so many people get hurt.we would separate slat and rocks,from coals by hand. The boys were usually between the ages of 8 to 15 and I was only 16, but sometimes the boys were as young as 5 or 6 I was the only girl can you believe it me, a girls doing a mans job well I can and I don't have a problem with it. In Pennsylvania state law required a coal breaker to be at least 12 years old. Unfortunately most people they could care less that these boys and me were under age well some of us.Well they needed their children to work to help supplement the family income.Many of the children come from immigrant families or so I've been told by some of the other boys. We would work for 40 to50 cents a day, which was a fraction of what you and some of the other adults earned. Me, you and the breaker boys would go to work in the morning when it was still dark out and would come home just in time to see the sun go down. We were forced to work without gloves so we could better handle slick materials and for better agility.The slate we were trying to remove was very sharp, so the boys and me would often leave with our fingers cut and bleeding. If we were caught wearing gloves, the boss would beat us. Sometimes the breaker boys would have their fingers amputated by the fast moving belts. New breaker boys would develop blood finger tips, which could be described as red tips. Besides cutting or losing our fingers, some boys lost their feet, hands, arms, or legs as they moved among the machinery if they become caught under conveyor belts or in gears. Production never stopped, even when boys were crushed to death. This isn't a way I want to live my life and I'm sorry Dad this just isn't the way me and some of the other breaker boys want to live I also hope your okay and I hope you can forgive me.

Sincerely, your daughter Torlie Jones