as much as a bag of buns in our hands.

Before leaving New York, I want to tell what kind of city it
was in those days.

In a recent magazine article a writer picturing our arrival at
Castle Garden said that we "climbed the hill into Broadway and
gazed around at the highest buildings we had ever seen." But
there were no tall buildings in New York at that time. The spires
of Trinity Church and St. Paul's towered above everything. And we
had seen such churches in the Old Country. Brooklyn Bridge had
just been built and it overtopped the town like a syrup pitcher
over a plate of pancakes. The tallest business blocks were five
or six stories high, and back in Wales old Lord Tredegar, the
chief man of our shire, lived in a great castle that was as fine
as any of them.

The steel that made New York a city in the sky was wrought in
my own time. My father and his sons helped puddle the iron that
has braced this city's rising towers. A town that crawled now
stands erect. And we whose backs were bent above the puddling
hearths know how it got its spine. A mossy town of wood and stone
changed in my generation to a towering city of glittering glass
and steel. "All of which"--I can say in the words of the poet--
"all of which I saw and part of which I was."

The train that was taking us to Ohio was an Erie local, and the
stops were so numerous that we thought we should never get there.
A man on the train bought ginger bread and pop and gave us kids
a treat. It has been my practice ever since to do likewise for