MORNING SERIAL
“YOU wait till your father hears of this, my fine boy. He’ll be letting you know one or two things.
“Just you wait till he comes home tonight.” Ieuan rushed up the passage and flung on his coat. He slammed the door loudly behind him.
Choked with tears and frustrated rage, he ran blindly down the dreary street. He hated his mother. Hated her, even as he hated the foundry. Let her tell his father. He didn’t care. He would let his father know the truth, and then perhaps he need never go back to the foundry.
He hastened on down the road, the keen wind stinging the tears on his frozen cheeks. Let mam wait — he’d show her. He’d make her understand that he was never going to stick the foundry after this day. She knew nothing of what had happened there. She didn’t understand. She never would understand. And she had called him selfish! It was she who was selfish and cruel. Why couldn’t she have left him at school where he was happy with his studies? Some day he would get a degree, and then she would benefit much more — she and dad, and Gweneira and Phyllis. There was so much he could do for them all, but she couldn’t see it. All she was concerned with was the twelve shillings he would bring in from the foundry. Twelve shillings! And she had sacrificed his schooling for that much! Distressed and overwrought, his mind assailed with the dread of the foundry and the afternoon that was yet to come, he walked on like a person to whom sense of direction was lost. The stream of workers passed him by at the entrance of the works. He was oblivious to them, his mind tormented with doubts and fears.
“Well, well, well, Ieuan. We meet again, and on the same old spot. What a coincidence, ay indeed!” a cheerful voice sounded.
Startled out of his despondency, he looked up to see Frank Jones at his elbow.
“How you feeling now?” Frank asked solicitously. “Better?” Ieuan walked by his side, not knowing what to say in answer. He felt sick at heart, and each step that brought him nearer to the coreshop made him shudder inwardly.