heads. "Turn over." Two boys turned the bolster. "Lie down." And
we put our faces on the cool side and went to sleep.

Those were not hardships, and life was sweet, and we awoke from
our crowded bed, like birds in a nest awakened by their mother's
morning song. For, as I have said, my mother was always singing.
Her voice was our consolation and delight.

One of the most charming recollections of my boyhood is that of
my mother standing at our gate with a lamp in her hands, sending
one boy out in the early morning darkness, to his work, and at
the same time welcoming another boy home. My brother was on the
day shift and I on the night, which meant that he left home as I
was leaving the mills, about half past two in the morning. On
dark nights--and they were all dark at that hour--my mother,
thinking my little brother afraid, would go with him to the gate
and, holding an old-fashioned lamp high in her hands, would sing
some Welsh song while he trudged out toward the mills and until
he got within the radius of the glare from the stacks as they.
belched forth the furnace flames. And as he passed from the light
of the old oil burner into the greater light from the mills, I
walked wearily out from that reflection and was guided home by my
mother's lamp and song on her lips.

Happy is the race that sings, and the Welsh are singers. After
the tiring labor in the mills we still had joy that found its
voice in song. When I was six years old I joined a singing
society. The whole land of Wales echoes with the folk songs of a
people who sing because they must.