Joseph's House

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Title:     Joseph's House
Author: Caradoc Evans [More Titles by Evans]

A woman named Madlen, who lived in Penlan--the crumbling mud walls of which are in a nook of the narrow lane that rises from the valley of Bern--was concerned about the future state of her son Joseph. Men who judged themselves worthy to counsel her gave her such counsels as these: "Blower bellows for the smith," "Cobblar clox," "Booboo for crows."

Madlen flattered her counselors, though none spoke that which was pleasing unto her.

"Cobblar clox, ach y fy," she cried to herself. "Wan is the lad bach with decline. And unbecoming to his Nuncle Essec that he follows low tasks."

Moreover, people, look you at John Lewis. Study his marble gravestone in the burial ground of Capel Sion: "His name is John Newton-Lewis; Paris House, London, his address. From his big shop in Putney, Home they brought him by railway." Genteel are shops for boys who are consumptive. Always dry are their coats and feet, and they have white cuffs on their wrists and chains on their waistcoats. Not blight nor disease nor frost can ruin their sellings. And every minute their fingers grabble in the purses of nobles.

So Madlen thought, and having acted in accordance with her design, she took her son to the other side of Avon Bern, that is to Capel Mount Moriah, over which Essec her husband's brother lorded; and him she addressed decorously, as one does address a ruler of the capel.

"Your help I seek," she said.

"Poor is the reward of the Big Preacher's son in this part," Essec announced. "A lot of atheists they are."

"Not pleading I have not the rent am I," said Madlen. "How if I prentice Joseph to a shop draper. Has he any odds?"

"Proper that you seek," replied Essec. "Seekers we all are. Sit you. No room there is for Joseph now I am selling Penlan."

"Like that is the plan of your head?" Madlen murmured, concealing her dread.

"Seven of pounds of rent is small. Sell at eighty I must."

"Wait for Joseph to prosper. Buy then he will. Buy for your mam you will, Joseph?"

"Sorry I cannot change my think," Essec declared.

"Hard is my lot; no male have I to ease my burden."

"A weighty responsibility my brother put on me," said Essec. "'Dying with old decline I am,' the brother mouthed. 'Fruitful is the soil. Watch Madlen keeps her fruitful.' But I am generous. Eight shall be the rent. Are you not the wife of my flesh?"

After she had wiped away her tears, "Be kind," said Madlen, "and wisdom it to Joseph."

"The last evening in the seiet I commanded the congregation to give the Big Man's photograph a larger hire," said Essec. "A few of my proverbs I will now spout." He spat his spittle and bundling his beard blew the residue of his nose therein; and he chanted: "Remember Essec Pugh, whose right foot is tied into a club knot. Here's the club to kick sinners as my perished brother tried to kick the Bad Satan from the inside of his female Madlen with his club of his baston. Some preachers search over the Word. Some preachers search in the Word. But search under the Word does preacher Capel Moriah. What's the light I find? A stutterer was Moses. As the middle of a butter cask were the knees of Paul. A splotch like a red cabbage leaf was on the cheek of Solomon. By the signs shall the saints be known. 'Preacher Club Foot, come forward to tell about Moriah,' the Big Man will say. Mean scamps, remember Essec Pugh, for I shall remember you the Day of Rising."

It came to be that on a morning in the last month of his thirteenth year Joseph was bidden to stand at the side of the cow which Madlen was milking and to give an ear to these commandments: "The serpent is in the bottom of the glass. The hand on the tavern window is the hand of Satan. On the Sabbath eve get one penny for two ha'pennies for the plate collection. Put money in the handkerchief corner. Say to persons you are a nephew of Respected Essec Pugh and you will have credit. Pick the white sixpence from the floor and give her to the mishtir; she will have fallen from his pocket trowis."

Then Joseph turned, and carrying his yellow tin box, he climbed into the craggy moorland path which takes you to the tramping road. By the pump of Tavarn Ffos he rested until Shim Carrier came thereby; and while Shim's horse drank of barley water, Joseph stepped into the wagon; and at the end of the passage Shim showed him the business of getting a ticket and that of going into and coming down from a railway carriage.

In that manner did Joseph go to the drapery shop of Rees Jones in Carmarthen; and at the beginning he was instructed in the keeping and the selling of such wares as reels of cotton, needles, pins, bootlaces, mending wool, buttons, and such like--all those things which together are known as haberdashery. He marked how this and that were done, and in what sort to fashion his visage and frame his phrases to this or that woman. His oncoming was rapid. He could measure, cut, and wrap in a parcel twelve yards of brown or white calico quicker than any one in the shop, and he understood by rote the folds of linen tablecloths and bedsheets; and in the town this was said of him: "Shopmen quite ordinary can sell what a customer wants; Pugh Rees Jones can sell what nobody wants."

The first year passed happily, and the second year; and in the third Joseph was stirred to go forward.

"What use to stop here all the life?" he asked himself. "Better to go off."

He put his belongings in his box and went to Swansea.

"Very busy emporium I am in," were the words he sent to Madlen. "And the wage is twenty pounds."

Madlen rejoiced at her labor and sang: "Ten acres of land, and a cow-house with three stalls and a stall for the new calf, and a pigsty, and a house for my bones and a barn for my hay and straw, and a loft for my hens: why should men pray for more?" She ambled to Moriah, diverting passers-by with boastful tales of Joseph, and loosened her imaginings to the Respected.

"Pounds without number he is earning," she cried. "Rich he'll be. Swells are youths shop."

"Gifts from the tip of my tongue fell on him," said Essec. "Religious were my gifts."

"Iss, indeed, the brother of the male husband."

"Now you can afford nine of pounds for the place. Rich he is and richer he will be. Pounds without number he has."

Madlen made a record of Essec's scheme for Joseph; and she said also: "Proud I'll be to shout that my son bach bought Penlan."

"Setting aside money am I," Joseph speedily answered.

Again ambition aroused him. "Footling is he that is content with Zwanssee. Next half-holiday skurshon I'll crib in Cardiff."

Joseph gained his desire, and the chronicle of his doings he sent to his mother. "Twenty-five, living-in, and spiffs on remnants are the wages," he said. "In the flannelette department I am and I have not been fined once. Lot of English I hear, and we call ladies madam that the wedded nor the unwedded are insulted. Boys harmless are the eight that sleep by me. Examine Nuncle of the price of Penlan."

"I will wag my tongue craftily and slowly," Madlen vowed as she crossed her brother-in-law's threshold.

"I Shire Pembroke land is cheap," she said darkly.

"Look you for a farm there," said Essec. "Pelted with offers am I for Penlan. Ninety I shall have. Poverty makes me sell very soon."

"As he says."

"Pretty tight is Joseph not to buy her. No care has he for his mam."

"Stiffish are affairs with him, poor dab."

Madlen reported to Joseph that which Essec had said, and she added: "Awful to leave the land of your father. And auction the cows. Even the red cow that is a champion for milk. Where shall I go? The House of the Poor. Horrid that your mam must go to the House of the Poor."

Joseph sat on his bed, writing: "Taken ten pounds from the post I have which leaves three shillings. Give Nuncle the ten as earnest of my intention."

Nine years after that day on which he had gone to Carmarthen Joseph said in his heart: "London shops for experience"; and he caused a frock coat to be sewn together, and he bought a silk hat and an umbrella, and at the spring cribbing he walked into a shop in the West End of London, asking: "Can I see the engager, pleaze?" The engager came to him and Joseph spoke out: "I have all-round experience. Flannelettes three years in Niclass, Cardiff, and left on my own accord. Kept the colored dresses in Tomos, Zwanssee. And served through. Apprentized in Reez Jones Carmarthen for three years. Refs egzellent. Good ztok-keeper and appearance."

"Start at nine o'clock Monday morning," the engager replied. "Thirty pounds a year and spiffs; to live in. You'll be in the laces."

"Fashionable this shop is," Joseph wrote to Madlen, "and I have to be smart and wear a coat like the preachers, and mustn't take more than three zwap lines per day or you have the sack. Two white shirts per week; and the dresses of the showroom young ladies are a treat. Five pounds enclosed for Nuncle."

"Believe your mam," Madlen answered: "don't throw gravel at the windows of the old English unless they have the fortunes."

In his zeal for his mother's welfare Joseph was heedless of himself, eating little of the poor food that was served him, clothing his body niggardly, and seldom frequenting public bath-houses; his mind spanned his purpose, choosing the fields he would join to Penlan, counting the number of cattle that would graze on the land, planning the slate-tiled house which he would set up.

"Twenty pounds more must I have," he moaned, "for the blaguard Nuncle."

Every day thereafter he stole a little money from his employers and every night he made peace with God: "Only twenty-five is the wage, and spiffs don't count because of the fines. Don't you let me be found out, Big Man bach. Will you strike mam into her grave? And disgrace Respected Essec Pugh Capel Moriah?"

He did not abate his energies howsoever hard his disease was wasting and destroying him. The men who lodged in his bedroom grew angry with him. "How can we sleep with your dam coughing?" they cried. "Why don't you invest in a second-hand coffin?"

Feared that the women whom he served would complain that the poison of his sickness was tainting them and that he would be sent away, Joseph increased his pilferings; where he had stolen a shilling he now stole two shillings; and when he got five pounds above the sum he needed, he heaved a deep sigh and said: "Thank you for your favor, God bach. I will now go home to heal myself."

Madlen took the money to Essec, coming back heavy with grief.

"Hoo-hoo," she whined, "the ninety has bought only the land. Selling the houses is Essec."

"Wrong there is," said Joseph. "Probe deeply we must."

From their puzzlings Madlen said: "What will you do?"

"Go and charge swindler Moriah."

"Meddle not with him. Strong he is with the Lord."

"Teach him will I to pocket my honest wealth."

Because of his weakness, Joseph did not go to Moriah; to-day he said: "I will to-morrow," and to-morrow he said: "Certain enough I'll go to-morrow."

In the twilight of an afternoon he and Madlen sat down, gazing about, and speaking scantily; and the same thought was with each of them, and this was the thought: "A tearful prayer will remove the Big Man from His judgment, but nothing will remove Essec from his purpose."

"Mam fach," said Joseph, "how will things be with you?"

"Sorrow not, soul nice," Madlen entreated her son. "Couple of weeks very short have I to live."

"As an hour is my space. Who will stand up for you?"

"Hish, now. Hish-hish, my little heart."

Madlen sighed; and at the door she made a great clatter, and the sound of the clatter was less than the sound of her wailing.

"Mam! Mam!" Joseph shouted. "Don't you scream. Hap you will soften Nuncle's heart if you say to him that my funeral is close."

Madlen put a mourning gown over her petticoats and a mourning bodice over her shawls, and she tarried in a field as long as it would take her to have traveled to Moriah; and in the heat of the sun she returned, laughing.

"Mistake, mistake," she cried. "The houses are ours. No undertanding was in me. Cross was your Nuncle. 'Terrible if Joseph is bad with me,' he said. Man religious and tidy is Essec." Then she prayed that Joseph would die before her fault was found out.

Joseph did not know what to do for his joy. "Well-well, there's better I am already," he said. He walked over the land and coveted the land of his neighbors. "Dwell here for ever I shall," he cried to Madlen. "A grand house I'll build--almost as grand as the houses of preachers."

In the fifth night he died, and before she began to weep, Madlen lifted her voice: "There's silly, dear people, to covet houses! Only a smallish bit of house we want."

[The end]
Caradoc Evans's short story: Joseph's House

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