stricted 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.

CHAPTER IV. SHE SINGS TO HER NEST

From my mother I learned to sing. She was always working and always
singing. There were six children in the house, and she knitted and sewed
and baked and brewed for us all. I used to toddle along at her side when
she carried each day the home-made bread and the bottle of small beer
for father's dinner at the mill. I worshiped my mother, and wanted to be
like her. And that's why I went in for singing. I have sung more songs
in my life than did Caruso. But my voice isn't quite up to his! So my
singing has brought me no returns other than great chunks of personal
satisfaction. The satisfaction was not shared by my hearers, and so I
have quit. But my heart still sings, and always will. And this I owe to
my mother.

I can see her yet in our tiny Welsh cottage, her foot on a wooden cradle
rocking a baby, my baby brother, her hands busy with her knitting, her
voice lifted in jubilant song for hours at a time. And all her songs
were songs of praise.

She thanked God for life and for strong hands to labor for her little
ones. In those days furniture was rare, and few were the pieces in a
worker's home. It took a dozen years for her to acquire two feather
beds. And when at last we owned two bedsteads, we rated ourselves pretty
rich. We boys slept five in a bed. Why were bedsteads in those days
harder to get than automobiles are to-day? Because the wooden age still
lingered, the age of hand work. And it took so long to make a bed by
hand that people came into the world faster than beds. But within my
lifetime the iron mills have made possible the dollar bedstead. The
working man can fill his house with beds bought with the wage he earns
in half a week. This, I suppose, is one of the "curses of capitalism."