Sphynx cat head with geometric sun on forearm

Her man was Idris Pryce, a deputy on the Ffynnon level, and every morning she walked him as far as the pithead gate and not one step further. Nobody had taught her that. She sat, washed one paw, and watched the men go down with their brass tokens clinking in their pockets. Then she trotted home and waited for the whistle.

The winter the seam went bad, she stopped sitting at the gate. She went up the wagon road instead and yowled at the ground till her throat was raw. The overman laughed at her. Idris didn't. He said a cat that won't touch her breakfast is telling you something, so he went down early with a lamp in one hand and a bad feeling in the other. Back past the old drift the air had turned thick and sweet. He got the men out on the cage bell, two trips, and the last crew never saw the roof come in.

Mab lived to nineteen, sleeping on the step in the sun. When the lads painted a sun over the lamp-room door, purple and teal for the glass they'd lost, they put her right in the middle of it, leaf and all, and nobody ever argued. Now, that kettle. You've let it boil dry, you daft article.