The Iron Puddler: My Life in the Rolling Mills and What Came of It

. Usually he was a distant kinsman, but whether a blood relation or not, we regarded all Welshmen as belonging to our clan. Our house was small, but we crowded into the corners and made ro

e was the social law in al

everybody. So it was with food and shelter in the Welsh colony at Sharon. Each newcomer from the Old Country was entitled to free bed and board until he could get a job in the mills.

e said, "About a thimbleful," and we thought him very witty. Another had shipped as an "able seaman" to get his passage to America. When out at sea it was discovered he didn't know one rope from another. During a storm he and the mate had a terrible fight. "The sea was sweeping the deck and we were ordered to reef a shroud. I didn't know how, and the mate cal

d what a burly man is a ship's mate, we realized tha

when the Companion was due. We could hardly wait, we were so eager to see what happened next in the "continued" story. Surely so good a children's paper as the Youth's Companion could never be fo

cure while another class owned property and was safe. I learned that the banker, the hotel keeper and the station agent had all been poor boys like myself. They started with nothing but their hands to labor with. They had worked hard and saved a part of their wages, and this had given them "a start." The hotel keeper had been a hack driver. He slept in the haymow of a livery stable. He had to meet the train that came at two o'clock in the morn

nd himself in difficulties and unable to occupy the house. He offered it to me at a bargain. So I took my parents to this place and told them it was to be theirs. Mother declared that she certainly never dreamed of having a "magnificent home like this." She seemed to be greatly pleased. But now I know that the sparkle in h

t wish to lock your parent

has become a part of ourselves; it fits us like the wrinkles on our faces. If we moved here our old friends would never come to see us. This magnificence would scare them away. No, son. We thank you fo

comforts, his old friends, these he valued more than riches