pering this counsel: "Put to
shame the last prayer, indeed now, Josi."

By and by Josi lifted his head and stood on his feet. This is what he
said: "Asking was I if I was religious enough to spout in the company of
the Respected."

"Out of the necks of young youths we hear pieces that are very
sensible," said Bern-Davydd. "Come you, Josi Mali, to the saintly Big
Seat."

As Josi moved out of his pew, his thick lips fallen apart and his high
cheek bones scarlet, his mother said: "Keep your eyes clapped very
close, or hap the prayers will shout that you spoke from a hidden book
like an old parson."

So Josi, who in the fields and on his bed had exercised prayer in the
manner that one exercises singing, uttered his first petition in Capel
Sion. He told the Big Man to pardon the weakness of his words, because
the trousers of manhood had not been long upon him; he named those who
entered the Tavern and those who ate bread which had been swollen by
barm; he congratulated God that Bern-Davydd ruled over Sion.

At what time he was done, Bern-Davydd cried out: "Amen. Solemn, dear me,
amen. Piece quite tidy of prayer"; and the men of the Big Seat cried:
"Piece quite tidy of prayer."

The quality of Josi's prayers gave much pleasure in Sion, and it was
noised abroad even in Morfa, from whence a man journeyed, saying: "Break
your hire with your master and be a servant in my farm. Wanting a prayer
very bad do we in Capel Salem." Josi immediately asked leave of God to
tell Bern-Davydd that which the man from Morfa had said. God gave him
leave, wherefore Bern-Davydd, whose spirit waxed hot, answered: "Boy,
boy, why for did you not kick the she cat on the backhead?"

Then Josi said to his mother Mali: "A preacher will I be. Go will I at
the finish of my servant term to the school for Grammar in
Castellybryn."

"Glad am I to hear you talk," said Mali. "Serious pity that my
belongings are so few."

"Small is your knowledge of the Speeches," Josi rebuked his mother. "How
go they: 'Sell all that you have?' Iss-iss, all, mam fach."

Now Mali lived in Pencoch, which is in the valley about midway between
Shop Rhys and the Schoolhouse, and she rented nearly nine acres of the
land which is on the hill above Sion. Beyond the furnishings of her
two-roomed house, she owned three cows, a heifer, two pigs, and fowls.
She fattened her pigs and sold them, and she sold also her heifer; and
Josi went to the School of Grammar. Mali labored ha