My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People — John Shaqi
My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh PeopleEvans, Caradoc
General
My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People
Evans, Caradoc
Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
We are what we have been made by our preachers and politicians, and thus
we remain. Among ourselves our repute is ill. Our villages and
countryside are populated with the children of cousins who have married
cousins and of women who have played the harlot with their brothers; and
no one loves his neighbor. Abroad we are distrusted and disdained. This
is said of us: "A Welshman's bond is as worthless as his word." We
traffic in prayers and hymns, and in the name of Jesus Christ, and we
display a spurious heart upon our breast. Our politicians, crafty pupils
of the preachers and now their masters, weep and moan in the public
places as if they were women in childbirth; in their souls they are
lustful and cruel and greedy. They have made themselves the slaves of
the wicked, and like asses their eyes are lifted no higher than the
golden carrot which is their reward from the wicked. Not of one of us it
can be said: "He is a great man," or "He is a good man," or "He is an
honest man."
Maybe the living God will consider our want of knowledge and act
mercifully toward us.
I
LOVE AND HATE
By living frugally--setting aside a portion of his Civil Service pay and
holding all that he got from two butchers whose trade books he kept in
proper order--Adam Powell became possessed of Cartref in which he dwelt
and which is in Barnes, and two houses in Thornton East; and one of the
houses in Thornton East he let to his widowed daughter Olwen, who
carried on a dressmaking business. At the end of his term he retired
from his office, his needs being fulfilled by a pension, and his evening
eased by the ministrations of his elder daughter Lisbeth.
Soon an inward malady seized him, and in the belief that he would not be
rid of it, he called Lisbeth and Olwen, to whom both he pronounced his
will.
"The Thornton East property I give you," he said. "Number seven for
Lissi and eight for Olwen as she is. It will be pleasant to be next
door, and Lissi is not likely to marry at her age which is advanced.
Share and share alike of the furniture, and what's left sell with the
house and haff the proceeds. If you don't fall out in the sharing, you
never will again."
At once Lisbeth and Olwen embraced.
"My sister is my best friend," was the testimony of the elder; "we
shan't go astray if we follow the example of the dad and mother," was
that of the younger.
"Take two or three excursion trains to Aberporth for the holidays," said
Adam, "and get a little gravel for the mother's grave in Beulah. And a
cheap artificial wreath. They last better than real ones. It was in
Beulah that me and your mother learnt about Jesus."
Together Olwen and Lisbeth pledged that they would attend their father's
behests: shunning ill-will and continually petitioning to be translated
to the Kingdom of God; "but," Lisbeth laughed falsely, "you are not
going to die. The summer will do wonders for you."
"You are as right as a top really," cried Olwen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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