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Show 180 be safe on the street. " Every week the Madames came in for tests, and if they had contracted venereal disease during the week they were told to leave town. They would call in after the tests, and Dr. Richards would answer: "Your tests were negative, " or "Your tests were positive. You know what that means, don't you? You must leave town. " I wouldn't have been able to tell these women from the others in town, except that they all carried dogs with them, usually poodles, chihuahua's or other lap dogs. We all felt smirched on Wednesdays. Children with smoke-blackened faces raced through the smoky snow on sleds, and one had to step lively to avoid being sliced in two. When the shift broke, men with blackened faces, smoky clothes, and lunch boxes walked down the canyon in columns on their way home or to the boarding house, as the case may be. Nobody liked mining; everybody was going to get away from this place, but everybody was tied to it tighter than life by economic strings. It was not uncommon for a boulder from high up on the hill to be loosened and come plunging through somebody's roof. The dentist had lost one leg by such an accident. The mine accidents were of all kinds, "missed holes',' dynamite charges which had failed to explode in the blasting, falling rocks from untimbered stdpes, crushed fingers and hands, broken limbs and backs, electricity accidents, and fire. Our patients ranged from childbirth to syphilis, from appendectomies to trichinosis. An epidemic of this came after a Greek holiday, when |
