The Dying Doctor

Doctor Leo Hayes was our company doctor

From the big coal companies he got his pay

For thirty-nine years he tried to cure us

And now today on his deathbed lay.

He called his five boys and his three daughters

And at his bed we stood around

We heard him tell the history of the coal miners

And he said, "Don't let these people down."

You are all connected with the practice of medicine

You promise you'll keep true I know

You will do your best to help these people

I close my eyes for I must go.

His youngest girl was Doctor Betty

With her face so pretty and her smile so sweet

She walked the coal towns of Force and Byrndale

She saw the sewage waters flowing down the street.

She saw the children drink the cankered water

She saw the chickens fly up on the roof

She saw the waters overflow the sewers

And flood their gardens of victory.

She went to the big shots of the Shawmut Company

She did not beg and she did not plead

She stood flatfooted and pounded the table

Sewer pipes and bathrooms are what we need.

My dady told me to fight to cure sickness

But I can't cure sickness with sewage all around

These germs kill people quicker than I can cure them

We need a foundation under every house.

We need a bathroom for every family

Yes, you can set there and blink your eyes

Three hundred miners are out behind me

We will clean this town or know the reason why.

I quit my job as the family doctor

I nailed up my shingle and went on my own

I carried my pillbag and waded those waters

I set by a deathbed in many a home.

I saw you catch rainwater in rusty washtubs

I saw you come home dirty up out of your pits

Watched you ride with your coffin up to your graveyard

With not a nickel to pay your burying debt.

On July the fifteenth from the hills around

Three hundred miners walked down through town

The state inspector was testing the water

While he was working you stood around.

One miner asked him to have a drink free

The inspector looked out toward our pits

He set his hat back on his head and says,

"I wouldn't drink a drop of that on a bet."

I think of my daddy and brothers and sisters

When we stood around his dying bed

When I walk the streets of the company towns

I can hear every word my daddy said.

The Shawmut Company is caught in its own paws

The people not worth the money they cost

A hundred have died, three hundred not working

Thirty thousand tons of coal is lost.