Welsh Journals

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is sitting. He thanks each one and pays him according to the task he had been given. Gradually, men and farmers steal away on their ponies. Some have a long way to go, and it is already nine o'clock. At long last the lorry load is ready too. We climb up and try to adjust ourselves to the little space available. Some wag says that we should have come away before supper, as there would have been more room then Everyone is happy, despite the long day of hard work. Someone starts to sing. The lorry climbs painfully out of the valley and for home. To-morrow will be market day, but after that there will be another shearing, and another and the same people will meet again, for this is a common task, and they are all neighbours. Daily Bread By MARGERY BARDWELL OHE turned the lamp up a little higher so that its small circle of light shone on the scrubbed whiteness of the long narrow table. Then sitting down by the wide hearth, her feet on the fender, her grey head resting wearily against the high back of the old nursing chair, she sighed deeply. If they were not back in five minutes, she thought, they would have caught the 'bus into town for the Saturday night pictures. Looking into the flames of the fire she saw the four of them bending to the wind as they hurried along the winding high-hedged lane leading to the 'bus stop on the main road. Rhys and Gwen would be together in front, the two boys, Gwyl and Dafydd, one a little behind the other, caps tilted over their eyes, hands deep in pockets, following close on their heels. Why don't you come along too, Mam ? Dafydd had asked her, standing before the glass as he shaved himself in the back kitchen, his face screwed up, and sticking out his chin the way men have, making the skin smooth for the blade. There'll be plenty for me to be doing here at home, lad," she had answered, thinking of all the odd jobs a woman could do with a good long evening before her. She glanced at the hanging clock beside the old Welsh dresser with its rows of gleaming plates and hanging jugs. No, they couldn't get home till well after ten and it was now just on six. It