How Green Was My Valley (27 page)

Solomon never felt for his storehouse as I felt for that little box, and three men
before me. To have pens, and pencils, and the tools of writing all your own, to see
them and feel them in your fingers ready to do anything you tell them, to have them
in a little house fit for them as good friends of yours, such is sweet pleasure, indeed,
and never ending. For you open gently and take what you want, and careful in closing
again, and you look at it before you start your work, and all the time a happy fullness
inside you that sometimes will make you put out your hand to touch it as though to
bless, so good you feel with it. God bless the craftsmen who give their fellow men
such feelings even out of pieces of wood.

I dried the ink on the books and inside the box, knowing well what my mother would
say to my handkerchief, but careless, and put them back in my bag and went to the
door. Still they were laughing, but not in comfort, for they feared I was going to
tell. Hard it is to suffer through stupid people. They make you feel sorry for them,
and if your sorrow is as great as your hurt, you will allow them to go free of punishment,
for their eyes are the eyes of dogs that have done wrong and know it, and are afraid.

“I will fight you all one by one,” I said, “but nobody will be told about this.”

“Go now,” Mervyn Phillips said, “before I will empty red ink on you.”

“No matter,” I said, “I will fight you all, and you first.”

Outside I went, and Mr. Tyser was standing in the door of Standard Six, talking to
Mr. Elijah Jonas-Sessions, but Mr. Jonas for short in school, and him I saw with my
heart falling inside me.

Sandy coming to ginger was Mr. Jonas, and small and pale in the eyes, with that look
in them to warn you he had the tongue of a mountain adder, to be careful in what you
said, or he would twist every word of it for you.

“What a long time you took, Morgan,” Mr. Tyser said.

“Perhaps he is used to taking his time,” said Mr. Jonas, and smiling with his lips
going back over his teeth to look as though he had nothing in his mouth but tongue.
He spoke English with pain, making his words to sound more English than the English.
Pity it is that a beautiful language should be at the mercy of such. Dr. Samuel Johnson
would have had a word to say to him, and I told him so, but that was later.

“Have you been crying, Morgan?” Mr. Tyser asked me.

“Yes,” I said, “but no matter.”

“What a dirty little sweep it is,” Mr. Jonas said, still smiling, and pulling from
my pocket my handkerchief all ink and dust.

“It was clean when I came from the house this morning,” I said, and pulled it from
him. “The dirt is from that room in by there.”

“You will address me as sir,” said Mr. Jonas with no smile, “or I will put a stick
about you. Inside and sit down, on the instant.”

And as I passed he made a slap at my head but I ducked and went to my place in the
fourth row where a boy had moved up for me.

Mr. Jonas closed the door and came to stand in front of me.

“We have with us an intellectual giant,” he said, still looking at me and smiling
as the boys and girls smiled with him, “so we must all bend the knee. We shall now
presume to test his knowledge in algebra, and on the result we shall know whether
we may live in the same room with him, or petition the Commons for a special building.”

Plenty of the boys and some of the girls made no sign they had heard, but most of
them tried to laugh more than the joke was worth to try and keep on the credit side
of that tongue.

Four quadratic equations he gave me, but Mr. Gruffydd and Davy had drilled me too
well. They were simple to me. But Mr. Jonas never lost his smile.

“A model scholar,” he said, and looking closely at the book. “But your books are in
a dreadful state, and your hands are filthy. If you are thinking of becoming a scholar
at this school you will have to adopt a more civilized way of living. You must tell
your mother that if you arrive in such a state to-morrow morning you will be sent
home. Your dirty coal mining ways are not wanted here.”

From that moment I was the enemy of Mr. Elijah Jonas-Sessions. There was nothing he
could teach me, for my mind was against him, and all he taught. I answered him nothing,
but I looked.

“Insolence will gain you nothing,” he said, and threw the book down to bend the corners.
“Pay attention to what I say, and write ‘civilization is the highest aim of human
kind’ one hundred times before you leave to-day.”

And while he taught the others algebra, I sat.

For nearly a year, I sat.

His voice passed over me like the voice of the wind at a school-treat, there, but
never noticed.

I sat.

There was a break at eleven o’clock, and we all went out to the playground to eat
what we had brought with us. As soon as I came from the door, Mervyn Phillips pulled
me by the arm.

“Fight me, will you?” he said, and the others all round us. “Come you, then.”

He was a head above me, and big, the son of a coal merchant in the town, used to lifting
sacks, and strong because of it.

But it was not a fight we had, for there were too many boys about us and no room.
It was like a bad scrum, with the hookers missing. I had two good punches at him,
and he had one at me on the side of the head, but then the weight of them pulled me
down and there was nothing I could do in the press but guard my head from their boots.
What would have happened I cannot tell, but I felt it all stop and the boys easing
and standing away, and when I stood up against the wall, Mr. Motshill was looking
at me from a side window.

“Which boy started on you, Morgan?” he said. “I will make an example of him. There
shall be no ruffians in this school.”

“I said I would fight them,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, “Mr. Jonas told me you were inclined to the rougher style of living.
Understand me, then. If I catch you fighting anywhere near the boundaries of this
school, I shall thrash you and expel you. As for you others,” he said to the boys,
“kindly remember that you attend here to qualify for responsible positions in life.
You are the self-respecting citizens of the future. Remember it, and revise your conduct
accordingly.”

It was a good job for me that Ellis the Post was in the Square when I came from school,
outside the hotel where my mother had told me to wait for him, or I would have been
rolled in the mud. He cracked his whip above them, and snapped the lash in rings on
the ground while I climbed up on the driver’s seat, not another breath in me.

“These town boys are like little rats,” said Ellis, coming up and taking the reins,
“never one to one, but always a hundred and more to one. Why did they chase you?”

“New boy,” I said.

“We will see about it,” Ellis said. “They would have killed you, man.”

“Say nothing,” I said, “or my mother will be worried and more trouble, then.”

“Right,” he said, “but I will wait for you every night by there, is it?”

So every night, except for a few times, I went with Ellis the Post round the long
way home, on the road that ran round the mountain and followed the river. Lovely it
was to sit behind Mari the mare, and breathe the smells of the mountain, and greet
people in the road, and wave to people in the houses, sometimes stopping to give them
a letter or a parcel, or a bit of news, for of course Ellis knew all that went on
in and out of the Valley.

When I got home that night I went in Bron’s first, to wash my face and hands, but
nothing would take the bruises from cheeks and eyes, and a cut lip is a cut lip. Bron
was out and so was Ivor so I was spared to tell a second tale.

When I came in my mother put her hands to her face and looked at me with a scream
in her eyes, but nothing came from her mouth.

“What have you done, boy?” Angharad said, looking closer and trying to feel. “Are
you hurting?”

“I fell on the mountain,” I said. “No hurt, only stiff.”

“Go to the doctor with him,” my mother said. “Fighting, not mountain, him. Wait till
his father sees him.”

“Shall I have tea first?” I asked her. “Not hurt I am, only touched.”

“National School,” said my mother. “Wait till I see your father, only just you wait.”

“I only want a poultice, Mama,” I said, “but I would like a cup of tea first.”

“A cup of tea you shall have, my little one,” my mother said, and took my hot face
in her hands, with her thumbs over my eyes, cool, and making plain the heat of blood
under my skin. “How many fists made these marks? Your brothers were always in fights,
but not one of them had a face like this. Go down to Bowen and ask him for a piece
of steak with the blood in it, Angharad.”

Then Bron came in and screamed, and ran to put her arms about me.

“Huw, my little one,” she said, and crying, “who was it? Tell me and I will strangle
him. I will go down now and strangle him.”

“Wait till his father comes in,” my mother said, and nearly crying, too, “I will tell
him. National Schools.”

And down went the poker with a noise to send the cat from the house, belly to floor
and the white tip of his tail like a shooting star.

There is good a cup of tea is when you are feeling low. Thin, and plenty of milk,
and brown sugar in the crystal, in a big cup so that when your mouth is used to the
heat you can drink instead of sipping. Every part of you inside you that seems to
have gone to sleep comes lively again. A good friend of mine is a cup of tea, indeed.

When Angharad came back with the steak, Bron put it on and tied it in place with a
cloth, and I went out in the back to give Owen’s engine a clean. So I was from the
house when my father came back, but not so far that I missed my mother’s voice. Then
the back door opened.

“Huw,” my father said, “come you here, my son.”

He was black from the colliery, so Angharad took off the cloth and he held the lamp
to see my face.

“One good black eye and half another,” he said, and wanting to touch but keeping his
hands away. “A couple of fair ones on his cheeks, but no cuts except his lip. Good.
But when I have bathed I will look at your nose. Go now, and finish what you are doing.”

Then Davy and Ivor came out to see, and then Ianto, but none of them said anything,
only asking if I hurt. But I had sixpence from all of them, and a couple of sweets
from Angharad, so I was well off.

In I went after my father had finished his supper, and he looked at my nose and tried
to feel if it was broken, but there was nothing wrong except swelling.

“Hot water every half-hour,” said my father, “and hot and cold one after another.
In a couple of days there will be nothing there.”

“That National School will be far from there if I will have a bit of gunpowder,” my
mother said.

“Hisht, girl,” my father said, “the boy will have worse than that before he will lie
in his piece of ground. Are you willing to go back there to-morrow, my son?”

“Yes, Dada,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Now, look you here, Huw, my son. You are growing to be a man. It
is a man’s place to take punishment and give back more than he takes if there is a
head on him. But sometimes he will have to take a hiding in the first ten rounds to
give a bigger hiding in the next ten. But if you must have a hiding, make up your
mind to a hiding. Have your hiding and learn from it. It is one thing to have a hiding,
but quite another to be beaten. Never be beaten, boy. A hiding, yes, but never beaten.
Come for more. Come always for more. And come for more until you are giving the hiding.
Is it?”

“Yes, Dada,” I said.

“Come you, then,” my father said, and got up, and went to the box, and brought it
to the table. “From to-night you shall have a penny for every mark on your face, a
shilling for a black eye, sixpence for a nose bleed, two shillings for a broken nose,
and a penny for every mark on your knuckles or on your fore-arms and body. Your money-box
is richer this night by three shillings and sixpence. Now come you out in the back.”

“Gwilym,” my mother said, with tears on the move, “leave him, now. He has had enough
for one day. Another fight and he will be dead.”

“So long as he shall die with his blood in front of him,” my father said, “I will
lift my head. A boy shall learn to fight, or let him put skirts about his knees. This
boy has never been taught to fight, but he shall have his first lesson to-night. We
will see if the National Schools can beat a Morgan.”

Out in the back, my father took off his coat and rolled his sleeves while Ianto and
Davy pulled the engine away and Ivor cleared the floor.

“Now,” said my father, “a good straight left is the bully’s downfall. That is lesson
one from the book. Like this.”

My father stood straight, head and eyes turned to the left, with his left foot pointing
the way he was looking in line with his half-bent left arm, and the thumb closed over
the fingers of the fist, back of his hand down, and held nearly on a level with his
chin, but always just below and between his eyes, with his right foot pointing right,
and his right arm bent across his chest with the fist not touching, but almost over
the heart.

“Now,” he said, and up and down on tip-toe, and moving his arms in a spar, “stand
like this, easy, ready and loose all over. Let me see it with you.”

So I was taught to fight.

That night I learnt how to stand, to give, and to slip, a punch.

“The best fighter is that one who will slip under a punch and give two in return,”
said my father. “When you can do that, you shall say you have started boxing. Too
many call themselves boxers who are not even entitled to call themselves fighters.
Look you, now.”

He showed me by hitting at Ivor, and having one on the chin and one in the chest,
and both so quick it puzzled the eye to see. Then Ivor and Davy showed a left, a left
slipped, and a right cross.

“That is to teach a lesson,” my father said. “When a man makes you take off your coat,
make up your mind to teach him a lesson. A right cross, properly given, is a good
lesson and very often the end of a fight. Every time he comes in, the left to teach
him. When he goes back from the left, give him a couple more by following up. Then
bring the right to the space between the breast bones to bring his head down, and
as it comes down, your left to steady him, and your good right to his chin. And on
with your coat, then, and off home.”