om of
a boiling teakettle and find the bottom cool. Another told us about
milking goats in the Old Country. We asked him how much milk a goat
would give. He 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 called me a name that no Welshman will stand for.
I thought we were all going to be drowned anyhow, and I might as well
die with my teeth in his neck. So I flew into him and we fought like
wildcats. I couldn't kill him and he couldn't kill me. And the sea
didn't sweep us overboard. But after that fight the mate let me do as I
pleased for the rest of the voyage."

Knowing how strong are the arms of an iron worker and what a burly man
is a ship's mate, we realized that the fight must have been a struggle
between giants.

We were fluent readers, much better readers than our parents, but we had
no books. We took the Youth's Companion, and it was the biggest thing in
our lives. Every week we were at the post-office 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 found in any country but America. America was
the land of children, and that's why parents broke their old-home ties
and made the hard pilgrimage to America; it was for the benefit of their
children.

Our home was a happy one, for we children were fond of one another and
all loved the father and mother who worked so hard for us. We were the
first to realize that our home was insecure, upheld by a single prop,
our father's labor. The breaking of his right arm might have broken up
our home. We wanted to acquire property so that mother would be safe.
For we knew that God was a just God. He did not ordain that one class
should labor and be insecure 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.