A jolly old uncle who was there and who was looked on as the sage and wit of the Welsh settlement, began kidding me.
“From city clerk to county recorder is only a step, Jimmy,” he said. “Next you'll be governor, and then president.”
Father took it seriously.
“You'll never be president, lad,” he said, “because you wasn't born in this country.” He seemed to think that was the only reason. He turned to my uncle and explained regretfully: “Of all my boys, only one has got the full American birthright. My youngest boy, Will, is the only one that can be president.”
“Well,” said the jolly old uncle, “the rest of 'em can be government officers.”
Even this joke father took as a sober possibility. I saw then the full reason why he came to America. He wanted to give his boys boundless opportunities. A humble man himself, he had made all his sacrifices to broaden the chances for his children. This was a lesson to me. I could not repay him. I could only resolve to follow his example, to stand for a square deal for children everywhere.
Mother was as pleased with my humble success as was father. When I sat down to the table she apologized for her cooking and said:
“After the fine food you have been eating in the big hotels, you will find our table pretty common.”
“You're wrong, mother,” I said. “The best food I ever had I got right here at your table. You've never lived in boarding-houses, but father has. He knows that it's a rough life, and they don't feed you on delicacies. Hotel cookery is not like the cookery in the Old World. Over there they make each dish as tasty as they can, and good eating is one of the main objects in life. But Americans don't like to eat. They begrudge the time they have to spend at the table. They get it over as soon as they can. They seem to take it like medicine; the worse the medicine tastes, the better it is for them. An egg is something that is pretty hard to spoil in the cooking. Yet some of these boarding-house cooks are such masters of the art that they can fix up a plate of steak, eggs and potatoes and make them all as tasteless as a chip of wood. I've had this kind of fare for the last few years, and getting back to your table is the best part of home-coming.”
Father was still a puddler, and to show my appreciation of all he had done for me, I went into the mill every afternoon that summer and worked a heat or two for him while he went home and rested in the shade.