Chapter Nine Summary

After nursing school, Carrie goes to work for the mine company that employs Miles as a superintendent in Pond Creek, Kentucky. Carrie first lives with Miles in his huge and lavishly furnished house, but she feels uncomfortable there and moves into a boarding house. Miles wants to marry, but he is not interested in meeting a local and uneducated woman. He joins an Episcopal church in the hope of meeting social contacts and perhaps a wife.

During an outbreak of typhoid, Carrie notices that the cause is the haphazard way the coal company built the shacks and the outhouse facilities in close proximity to the drinking water supply. Carrie tells Miles the company must make some changes or there will continually be typhoid outbreaks. Miles reluctantly writes to the company, and his request is denied.

One day a miner who calls...