helped him find a job, and then he thanked us for our hospitality
and went out of our house with our blessings upon him. This form
of community life was the social law in all the cottages of the
Welsh.

It was like the law of tobacco among Americans. Tobacco has
always been "nationalized" in America, and so have matches. Your
pipe is your own, but your tobacco and matches belong to
everybody. So it was with food and shelter in the Welsh colony at
Sharon. Each newcomer from the Old Country was entitled to free
bed and board until he could get a job in the mills. When he
found a job his money was his; we never expected him to pay for
the food he had eaten any more than you would expect pay for the
tobacco and matches you furnish your friends.

These sojourners in our family were heroes to us kids. They
brought us news from the Old World, and each one had tricks or
tales that were new to us. One man showed us that we could put
our hand on the bottom 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