It was splendid. I wished myself back
in Copenhagen just long enough to tell the numskulls there, who
were distrustful of American tools, which were just beginning to
come into the market, that they didn't know what they were talking
about. Of course it was reasonable that the good tools should come
from the country where they had good use for them.
There was a settlement of honest Welshmen in the back hills, and
the rumor that a Dane had come into the valley reached it in due
course. It brought down a company of four sturdy miners, who trudged
five miles over bad land of a Sunday to see what I was like. The
Danes who live in Welsh song and story must have been grievous
giants, for they were greatly disgusted at sight of me, and spoke
their minds about it without reserve, even with some severity, as
if I were guilty of some sort of an imposition on the valley.
It could hardly have been this introduction that tempted me to try
coal-mining. I have forgotten how it came about--probably through
some temporary slackness in the building trade; but I did try, and
one day was enough for me.
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