My Neighbors | Page 2

the preacher, and he is in the semblance of the preacher; and we believe in him truly. It is no miracle that we are prayerful. Our God is by us in our hagglings and cheatings. Becca Penffos prays that the dealer's eyes are closed to the disease of her hen; Shon Porth asks the Big Man to destroy his pregnant sister into whose bed Satan enticed him; Ianto Tybach says: "Give me a nice bit of haymaking weather, God bach. Strike my brother Enoch dead and blind and see I have his fields without any old bother. A champion am I in the religion and there's gifts I give the preacher. Ask him. That's all. Amen."
Although we know God, we are afraid of to-morrow: one will steal our seeds, a horse will perish, our wife will die and a servant woman will have to be hired to the time that we find another wife, the Englishman whom we defrauded in the market place will come and seek his rights.
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.
Beholding that his state was the main concern of his children, Adam counted himself blessed; knowing of a surety that the designs of God stand fast against prayer and physic, he said: "I am shivery all over."
A fire was kindled and coals piled upon it that it was scarce to be borne, and three blankets were spread over those which were on his bed, and three earthen bottles which held heated water were put in his bed; and yet the old man got no warmth.
"I'll manage now alone," said Lisbeth on the Saturday morning. "You'll have Jennie and her young gentleman home for