at the floor. Grace lifted the pie and stepped toward the oven. She looked back briefly to see if the girls were behaving and caught sight of Violet shoving her hip into her sister’s side. Daisy teetered, and for a split-second, Grace thought Daisy might grab hold of the table and save herself. They both locked eyes as Daisy missed her chance, knocking into Grace and tumbling to the floor with her mother and the pie.
“Owen!” Grace yelled loud enough to be heard out on their front porch, and the front porches of the neighbors on both sides. “Take hold of your girls before I get my hands on them.”
* * *
Grace lined the ffagod on a plate wondering how she could have been so angry over a pie. If only I’d been more patient that day. If only I hadn’t taken Myrtle’s comments to heart. If only I’d worn my cloth hat to church. Sobbing, she wiped her hands on her apron and went back to her bedroom.
* * *
After fishing all afternoon with Stanley, Violet arrived home late to find uncooked ffagod on the table and her mother in bed. She wanted to feel relieved about the lies she wouldn’t have to tell, the day she wouldn’t have to explain, but fear kept tugging on her sleeve. She wondered about her father and the late hour, then set her attention to finishing supper.
CHAPTER FOUR
OWEN PUSHED TWO EMPTY GLASSES TOWARD THE BARKEEP. “Shot and a beer.”
“Ain’t nothing sold on credit.”
Owen reached into his pocket for a few more coins, found a greenback instead, and handed it over. He knew better than to stop at Burke’s Gin Mill on his way home from work, but he couldn’t help himself. A few men standing around a bar, each with one foot resting on the rail and the other planted on the sawdust-covered floor, made for a peaceful moment.
The door squeaked open behind him, and he turned to see Joey Lewis and his brother Bobby, both timbermen down at the Sherman Mine, regulars at the beer garden. He waved, turned toward the bar, and threw back his whiskey.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Thought you was a teetotaler,” Joey said, slapping Owen on the back. “What are you drinking?”
Owen held up his hand. “This here’s my last.” He drained the beer, pocketed his change, and turned to leave. “Need to look in on Grace. And see about Violet’s first day.”
Joey and Bobby nodded solemnly. They were neglecting wives and children of their own. “One more,” Joey said, pulling out a handful of nickels.
Owen hesitated. The men were decent enough company, but he didn’t go to Burke’s for company.
“For the motherland,” Bobby added, and he started in on the first verse of “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau,” “Land of Our Fathers.”
Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri . . .
Joey and Owen couldn’t help but join in.
Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mâd,
Tros ryddid gollasant eu gwaed.
Four whiskeys later, they started their national anthem again, this time in English.
The land of my fathers, the land of my choice,
The land in which poets and minstrels rejoice;
The land whose stern warriors were true to the core,
While bleeding for freedom of yore.
The three men raised their glasses, “Iechyd da, for our beloved Wales,” putting Owen in mind of the last time he’d seen home.
Sixteen years earlier, his mam had packed the family Bible in his suitcase. “Always remember,” she had said, “sin will keep you from the Bible, but the Bible will keep you from sin.” Owen kissed her and headed for the train station with a leaflet in his pocket promising, High wages for skilled miners. He took one last look at his hometown of Aberdare, with its winding dirt roads and rolling green hills, and set off for New York by way of Liverpool. During the crossing, he met Graham Davies from the town of Flint in the northeast corner of Wales, and the two became fast friends. Once in New York, Owen and Graham continued by rail to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where according to the advertisements, Anthracite Is King. They were confident they’d find jobs in the coal mines.
The first year, they worked out of the Marvine Mine in the Hunky Patch, a Scranton neighborhood of mostly Poles, Lithuanians, and Hungarians. In late 1899, that operation shut down for a few months while the drillers went about finding new veins. Owen and Graham moved on to the Sherman Mine in the Providence section of the city, on the recommendation of Hattie Goodfellow, the widow who owned the boarding house. “Not one to take guff,” she said of the mine owner, “but he’s fair. No need to keep your eye on the scale,” she added, referring to the rumor that the Marvine superintendent underreported the weight of the miners’ coal cars, cheating them out of pay.
While prosperity seemed slow in finding them, Owen and Graham earned enough money to pay for their room and meals with a little left over to buy the beer that washed away the last of the coal dust at the end of the twelve-hour workday. Hattie overlooked the trips to the gin mill as long as her boarders didn’t try to carry drink onto the premises. Not known to take guff herself, the men obliged.
Of course, Owen’s drinking days had ended when he married Grace. “There’s no place for the demon alcohol in a Christian home,” she’d told him. As long as she promised to stay by his side, he would have agreed to any sacrifice.
* * *
“Another round,” Joey said as he flagged the barkeep.
“I’ve had my last pint, boys. I’m headed for home.” Owen staggered out the door well after one in the morning, wishing he had a full moon to light his way. Grace would be angry, and he couldn’t blame her. Nothing worse than a drunkard in her eyes. Thinking time might sober him up, he crossed Market Street and stared up at the redbrick church, anchoring the northwest corner of Providence Square. It featured twelve stained-glass windows and a white steeple that aspired toward heaven. Providence Christian Church, he thought, sitting down on the steps for a breather. The very place that had led him to Grace.
About two years after they’d arrived in Scranton, Owen and Graham took a stroll up to the square on the last Saturday in August. According to Hattie, it was Old Home Week, a time when residents past and present gathered to celebrate the founders of their neighborhood with parades; music; red, white, and blue buntings; and fireworks. American flags adorned porches and storefronts, and shop owners advertised their wares at special prices. Women sat at tables in front of their churches, selling a variety of foods; halupkies from the Poles, corned beef from the Irish, pickled herring and onions from the Jews—a taste of the old country, whichever one that might be.
As they approached the fair, Owen spied pice ar y maen, Welsh cakes, arranged three to a plate, and he smelled home for the first time since leaving Aberdare.
