CHAPTER III. NO GIFT FROM THE FAIRIES

From my father I learned many things. He taught me to be skilful and

proud of it. He taught me to expect no gift from life, but that what

I got I must win with my hands. He taught me that good men would bring

forth good fruits. This was all the education he could give me, and it

was enough.

My father was an iron worker, and his father before him. My people had

been workers in metal from the time when the age of farming in Wales

gave way to the birth of modern industries. They were proud of their

skill, and the secrets of the trade were passed from father to son as

a legacy of great value, and were never told to persons outside the

family. Such skill meant good wages when there was work. But there was

not work all the time. Had there been jobs enough for all we would have

taught our trade to all. But in self-protection we thought of our own

mouths first. All down the generations my family has been face to face

with the problem of bread.

My Grandfather Davies, held a skilled job at the blast furnace where

iron was made for the rolling mill in which my father was a puddler.

Grandfather Davies had been to Russia and had helped the Russians build

blast furnaces, in the days when they believed that work would make them

wealthy. Had they stuck to that truth they would not be a ruined people

to-day. Grandfather also went to America, where his skill helped build

the first blast furnace in Maryland. The furnace fires have not ceased

burning here, and Russia is crying for our steel to patch her broken

railways. Her own hills are full of iron and her hands are as strong as

ours. Let them expect no gift from life.

Grandfather told my father that America offered a rich future for him

and his boys. “The metal is there,” he said, “as it is in Russia. Russia

may never develop, but America will. A nation's future lies not in its

resources. The American mind is right. Go to America.”

And because my father believed that a good people will bring forth good

fruit, he left his ancient home in Wales and crossed the sea to cast his

lot among strangers.

I started to school in Wales when I was four years old. By the time I

was six I thought I knew more than my teachers. This shows about how

bright I was. The teachers had forbidden me to throw paper wads,

or spitballs. I thought I could go through the motion of throwing a

spitball without letting it go. But it slipped and I threw the wad right

in the teacher's eye. I told him it was an accident, that I had merely

tried to play smart and had overreached myself.

“Being smart is a worse fault,” he said, “than throwing spitballs.

I forgive you for throwing the spitball, but I shall whip the smart

Aleckness out of you.”

He gave me a good strapping, and I went home in rebellion. I told my

father. I wanted him to whip the teacher. Father said:

“I know the teacher is a good man. I have known him for years, and he is

honest, he is just, he is kind. If he whipped you, you deserved it. You

can not see it that way, so I am going to whip you myself.”

He gave me a good licking, and, strange to say, it convinced me that he

and the teacher were right. They say that the “hand educates the mind,”

and I can here testify that father's hand set my mental processes

straight. From that day I never have been lawless in school or out. The

shame of my father's disapproval jolted me so that I decided ever after

to try to merit his approval.

To-day there is a theory that the child ought never to be restrained.

Solomon said: “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” We have no corporal

punishment at Mooseheart, but we have discipline. A child must be

restrained. Whenever a crop of unrestrained youngsters takes the reins I

fear they will make this country one of their much talked of Utopias. It

was an unrestricted bunch that made a “Utopia” out of Russia.

Anyhow, my father lived his life according to his simple rules. He is

living to-day, a happy man in the cozy home he won, by his own work. The

things he taught me I have seen tested in his long life, proved true.

He never expected any gift from life. I thought once to surprise him. I

wanted to buy a fine house and give it to him. He wouldn't have it. He

stayed in his own little cottage. It was not in his theory of life that

a house should come to him as a gift. It was a sound theory, and like a

true Welshman, he hangs on to it to the end. He is a good man, and the

fruits that his life of labor has brought forth are good fruits.