The Unspoken Goodbye

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Tom Jennings is a quarryman, sober, industrious and prosperous. He is happily married and little Lilla, their daughter, a child of six, makes complete their happiness, a happiness marred only at times by Ruth Jennings' impatience. The scene opens in Jennings' comfortable home, where he lingers over the breakfast table until the clock warns him that he must be starting for the quarry unless he would be late. Ruth asks him to get some coal before he goes, but her request has been too long delayed and Tom explains that he is late as it is. Piqued, she refuses him a good-bye kiss, but even as the door closes she repents her temper and sends little Lilla after him with her good-bye. Arrived at the quarry, just in time to escape a fine, the foreman details him to a new task and Tom gives his coat to Harry Sommers, who slips it on as the easiest way of carrying it to where Tom will spend the noon hour with him. But before Harry can rid himself of the garment there is a premature explosion of a huge blast and some of the workmen, fleeing from the danger, are caught under the mighty mass of rock. Willing hands quickly begin the task of freeing their companions, some of them with bodies so badly mangled that only the clothing permits identification. Among these is Tom Jennings, and word is sent to his home. Poor Ruth rushes to the scene, but is gently drawn away by sympathetic friends and is led back to the cottage, where she is tormented by the thoughts of that last farewell of the morning. But little Lilla has followed her mother to the quarry, and her sharp eyes discover the fact that while the coat is that of her father the other garments are not. She tells the foreman, who recalls having sent Tom to another part of the quarry, and Lilla runs to him, taking him home to assure the weeping Ruth that the unspoken good-bye was not the last farewell, the picture ending with a pretty tableau in which the happy Tom sits with his wife and daughter beside him, giving thanks that it was not be who was caught in the cruel grasp of the explosion.