I have a bit of a problem with the 69th Street Block Association’s yearly bar-b-q and book sale. Every October for the last couple of years, I’ve loaded up a ton of books to donate to the sale, clearing out the library and creating some much needed shelf space. But inevitably I come home from the sale with at least half as many books or more than I donated. The idea is to cull the library a bit and open up some space but I wind up with almost as many books as I began with. One thing I like about the book sale is you can always come across something that might not be on the top of your Amazon wish list, but something you’ve been meaning to read, and now can for the price of a buck or two -- free shipping and handling…
That was the case last year when I came home with this battered old copy of How Green Was My Valley” by Richard Llewellyn. For those of you who don’t know the novel, it was published in 1939 and was at one time staple of high school reading lists and a favorite of those who don’t mind a somewhat sentimental coming of age story. It was made into an Academy Award winning film by John Ford. “How Green Was My Valley” deals with the struggles of the Morgan family and their neighbors, all of them Welsh-speaking coal miners in South Wales near the end of the 19th century. The author goes to great lengths to reproduce the cadence and syntax of the Welsh language as he tells the story of the coming of age of Huw, the youngest son of the Morgan family. In chapter 12 of the novel, the Morgans’ neighbors the Beynons have fallen on hard times and the Morgans are quick to respond when the Benyons’ crisis goes from bad to worse.Huw’s sister Angharad reports to her mother, “Mrs. Beynon is having her baby in the old shed down by the ironworks. The landlord’s men put her from the house with nothing. Not a stick or stitch. And the new baby is coming… Only straw she has to lie on. And the seven other children.”
The Morgans set about collecting baby cloths and a few pots and pans for the Beynons. And 10 year-old Huw is sent around the village with a basket to collect food for the ‘seven other’ Beynon children. He fetches the brimming basket down to the old ironworks and describes what he sees.
“Mrs. Beynon was lying on one of our old red blankets and another one hanging over her to keep out the water coming in from the roof. Evan Beynon had broken a plank to make a fire, and an old bucket was heating water. Rusty iron wheels and broken rods of iron were red among the growing grass and dandelions. Puddles were plenty and a rill ran right through to the river. Cold -- and damp, too…
Hew spots 12 year-old Tegwen (Beynon) and her smaller brother were putting straw in sacks to make beds for the night.”
“Hulloa, Teg,” I said, and stopped by the door, though there was no door.
“Hulloa, Huw,” she said and looked shame. “Putting straw in sacks, we are. The straw do go from under you if you turn in your sleep,” She said, trying to make fun…
“How is Mrs. Beynon?” I asked her, for as far as I could see, she was in pain with her, and mumbling with froth on her mouth and red in the face, with sweat binding her hair. “Mrs. Price will be down now just, “Tegwen said, and blowing the fire. “Then she will be better.”
“What has Mrs. Price got to do with it? Does Mrs. Price bring the baby, then?” I asked her, and surprised I was, see. Tegwen sat down laughing out loud… “Are you going to sit fat by there and say you know nothing about new babies? … When Mrs. Price comes, she will send us from here,” Tegwen said, “So we will go round the back and look through the hole up there.” I looked up where she was pointing and saw a piece of wood hanging down from rot. “Right, you,” I said.
When the midwife Mrs. Price arrives, along with Mrs. Penry, her assistant, Huw and Tegwen take up there perch on the roof of the shed. And Huw describes the scene below in the shed.
“We went close to the hole and looked in… Mrs. Beynon was crying, not quietly, but out loud, like a boy who has fallen and hurt his knee. She was kicking at the clothes and her face was swollen, with veins. “Poor Mama, Tegwen said, below a breath, “She always has this for a new baby. It was in my mind to ask why, but it was no business of mine. There was something ugly and cruel in it that I could feel but not describe. Mrs. Beynon was a big, fat woman, always cheerful, but to see her like that was like being in a dream. I found myself getting hot and having trouble to breathe. There was a strange smell coming up to us, too. I have often smelt it about the house where a baby has just come. It is deep smell, and early smell, with the secrets of blood and milk in it, with tenderness and terror.
Mrs. Price went to the fire and brought back the bucket to the bedside… (She) pulled off the blankets as Mrs. Beynon started to scream, and Mrs. Penry was guiding her hands to the wooden rail above the head of the bed. Mrs. Beynon’s legs were like white stalks, and they made little kicks, and her toes curled in, and her heels dug in the bed. Her mouth was open with shouting and her eyes wide, and wild, and terrible to see -- upside down as she was to me (on the roof of the shed). Mrs. Price and Mrs. Penry were doing something to her, but what I was not sure, for I could see only their backs beneath (me)…
“There,” Tegwen said in my ear, pulling my arm to be closer to the hole. “There you are, see. The new baby.” But I looked only enough to see a redness in the deepening light, and stained cloths in Mrs. Price’s wringing hands above the bucket and Mrs. Beynon’s toes set at peace. And I turned away in shame and sickness for I felt I had been where only fools do tread.
As is often the way with wayward boys, word of Huw’s overwhelming adventure makes it back home long before he does. When Huw arrives home, his mother confronts him.
“I hear you have been somewhere,” my mother said. “Yes, Mama,” I said. “Why?” my mother asked, with ice. There are some questions that cannot be answered, so I looked at her slippers, and hours went by me. “Dada will have to speak to you,” my mother said. “Go to bed, now.”
I cannot tell how long I had been asleep when I woke up and found my father looking down at me with the lamp. “I am sorry I woke you, my son,” he said. “I hear you had a bit of trouble tonight?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said. “Will I take off my shirt?”
“Stay where you are, boy,” my father said, with a smile well on the way. “Not strapping you, I am. Only talking…. Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. But use if for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women.”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“And another thing let it do,” my father said. “There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is no room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw today, so come the Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealing with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama”
“Yes, Dada, I said. “God bless you, my son,” he said. “Sleep in peace.” I did, indeed.
++++++++++++++
Though the novel takes place a little more than a hundred years ago, I expect that the birth of the Beynon baby has quite a bit in common with the birth of the Savior. I would guess that a stable in first century Bethlehem was not all that different from a leaky ironworks shed in 19th century South Wales. Mrs. Beynon and the Virgin Mary both gave birth in poverty -- in strange and uncomfortable surroundings long before the advent of the epidural. There new born babes lay in what can be described as very mean estate. Yes, I imagine conditions and discomforts were much the same for the two birthing mothers -- I can imagine that if they were ever to meet, they would have quite a bit to commiserate about.
Huw learns a valuable lesson from being a witness to the birth of a new babe in those rough circumstances -- and that is in part what we seek to do each year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas. There’s something important about the Savior’s birth, there’s a lesson in it for us, something we should know about our Lord and Savior and about ourselves, something we should remember and honor.
This year, I’d like to take my Christmas message to you this morning from Mr. Morgan. I don’t think there’s much I can add to the wisdom Huw’s father imparts to him in the lamp light at the boy’s bedside. I think what Mr. Morgan has to say to his son is exactly what we should remember about Christmas:
There is no room for pride in any of us. There is no room for unkindness. All of us are born the same and equal. The Captains and the Kings, and the Tinkers and the Tailors, and even Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the World -- all of us come into this world in the same humble and vulnerable way. Let that fact direct your dealing with one another. And be good to your Mama, and to all women -- and men.
Be at peace; God bless you… And Merry Christmas.
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