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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Irish Twins
+
+Author: Lucy Fitch Perkins
+
+Illustrator: Lucy Fitch Perkins
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2009 [EBook #28431]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH TWINS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+The Irish Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+In this short book the author conveys a very good image of the lives of
+Irish country children at the end of the nineteenth century.  The images
+drawn by the very talented author are also very good.  There is just
+enough of the Irish manner of speech to convey the flavour of the way
+the twins and their relatives would have spoken, had they done so in
+English.  Of course in reality it is likely that such children would
+have spoken in the Irish language, instead of just occasionally using
+an Irish word.  But the book not only has a good story-line, but also
+conveys to its target audience, American children, something of the
+background of their Irish compatriots.  It is supposed to be a Grade V
+reader, and, published in 1913, is the third of the Twins series.
+
+There is one blunder, as Kathleen, the daughter of the Earl of Elsmore,
+is referred to as Lady Kathleen.  Her father would have had to be a Duke
+or a Marquess for that address to be correct.  Her actual title does not
+sound so good, so perhaps Perkins can be forgiven for this solecism.
+________________________________________________________________________
+THE IRISH TWINS, BY LUCY FITCH PERKINS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+GRANNIE MALONE AND THE TWINS.
+
+One day of the world, when it was young summer in Ireland, old Grannie
+Malone sat by her fireplace knitting.  She was all alone, and in her lap
+lay a letter.
+
+Sometimes she took the letter in her hands, and turned it over and over,
+and looked at it.  Then she would put it down again with a little sigh.
+
+"If I but had the learning," said Grannie Malone to herself, "I could be
+reading Michael's letters without calling in the Priest, and 'tis long
+since he passed this door.  'Tis hard work waiting until some one can
+tell me what at all is in it."
+
+She stooped over and put a bit of peat on the fire, and because she had
+no one else to talk to, she talked to the tea-kettle.  "There now," she
+said to it, "'tis a lazy bit of steam that's coming out of the nose of
+you!  I'll be wanting my tea soon, and no water boiling."
+
+She lifted the lid and peeped into the kettle.  "'Tis empty entirely!"
+she cried, "and a thirsty kettle it is surely, and no one but myself to
+fetch and carry for it!"
+
+She got up slowly, laid her knitting and the letter on the chair, took
+the kettle off the hook, and went to the door.
+
+There was but one door and one window in the one little room of her
+cabin, so if the sun had not been shining brightly it would have been
+quite dark within.
+
+But the upper half of the door stood open, and the afternoon sun slanted
+across the earthen floor and brightened the dishes that stood on the old
+dresser.  It even showed Grannie Malone's bed in the far end of the
+room, and some of her clothes hanging from the rafters overhead.
+
+There was little else in the room to see, except her chair, a wooden
+table, and a little bench by the fire, a pile of peat on the hearth, and
+a bag of potatoes in the corner.  Grannie Malone opened the lower half
+of the door and stepped out into the sunshine.  Some speckled hens that
+had been sunning themselves on the doorstep fluttered out of the way,
+and then ran after her to the well.  "Shoo--get along with you!" cried
+Grannie Malone.  She flapped her apron at them.  "'Tis you that are
+always thinking of something to eat!  Sure, there are bugs enough in
+Ireland, without your always being at my heels to be fed!  Come now,--
+scratch for your living like honest hens, and I'll give you a sup of
+water if it's dry you are."  The well had a stone curb around it, and a
+bucket with a rope tied to it stood on the curb.  Grannie let the bucket
+down into the well until she heard it strike the fresh spring water with
+a splash.  Then she pulled and pulled on the rope.  The bucket came up
+slowly and water spilled over the sides as Grannie lifted it to the
+curb.
+
+She poured some of the water into the dish for the hens, filled her
+kettle, and then straightened her bent back, and stood looking at the
+little cabin and the brown bog beyond.
+
+"Sure, it's old we all are together," she said to herself, nodding her
+head.  "The old cabin with the rain leaking through the thatch of a wet
+day, and the old well with moss on the stones of it.  And the hens
+themselves, too old to cook, and too old to be laying,--except on the
+doorstep in the sunshine, the creatures!--But 'tis home, thanks be to
+God."
+
+She lifted her kettle and went slowly back into the house.  The hens
+followed her to the door, but she shut the lower half of it behind her
+and left them outside.
+
+She went to the fireplace and hung the kettle on the hook, blew the
+coals to a blaze with a pair of leaky bellows, and sat down before the
+fire once more to wait for the water to boil.
+
+She knit round and round her stocking, and there was no sound in the
+room but the click-click of her needles, and the tick-tick of the clock,
+and the little purring noise of the fire on the hearth.
+
+Just as the kettle began to sing, there was a squawking among the hens
+on the doorstep, and two dark heads appeared above the closed half of
+the door.
+
+A little girl's voice called out, "How are you at all, Grannie Malone?"
+
+And a little boy's voice said, "We've come to bring you a sup of milk
+that Mother sent you."
+
+Grannie Malone jumped out of her chair and ran to the door.  "Och, if
+it's not the McQueen Twins--the two of them!" she cried.  "Bless your
+sweet faces!  Come in, Larry and Eileen!  You are as welcome as the
+flowers of spring.  And how is your Mother, the day?  May God spare her
+to her comforts for long years to come!"  She swung the door open as she
+talked, took the jug from Eileen's hand, and poured the milk into a jug
+of her own that stood on the dresser.
+
+"Sure, Mother is well.  And how is yourself, Grannie Malone?"  Eileen
+answered, politely.
+
+"Barring the rheumatism and the asthma, and the old age in my bones, I'm
+doing well, thanks be to God," said Grannie Malone.  "Sit down by the
+fire, now, till I wet a cup of tea and make a cakeen for you!  And
+indeed it's yourselves can read me a letter from my son Michael, that's
+in America!  It has been in the house these three days waiting for some
+one with the learning to come along by."
+
+She ran to the chair and picked up the letter.  The Twins sat down on a
+little bench by the fireplace, and Grannie Malone put the letter in
+their hands.
+
+"We've not got _all_ the learning yet," Larry said.  "We might not be
+able to read it."
+
+"You can try," said Grannie Malone.
+
+Then she opened the letter, and a bit of folded green paper with
+printing on it fell out.  "God bless the boy," she cried, "there's one
+of those in every letter he sends me!  'Tis money that is!  Can you make
+out the figures on it, now?"
+
+Larry and Eileen looked it over carefully.  "There it is, hiding in the
+corner," said Larry.  He pointed to a "5" on the green paper.
+
+"Five pounds it is!" said Grannie Malone.  "Sure it's a fortune!  Oh,
+it's himself is the good son to me!  What does the letter say?"
+
+The Twins spread the sheet open and studied it, while Grannie hovered
+over them, trembling with excitement.
+
+"Sure, that's _Dear_, isn't it?" said Eileen, pointing to the first
+word.
+
+"Sure," said Larry; "letters always begin like that."
+
+"Dear G-r-a-n-n-i-e," spelt Eileen.  "What could that be but Grannie?"
+
+"'Tis from my grandson, young Patrick, then," cried Grannie.  "Indeed,
+he's but the age of yourselves!  How old are you at all?"
+
+"We're seven," said the Twins.
+
+"Patrick might be eight," said his Grandmother, "but surely the clever
+children like yourselves and the two of you together should be able to
+make it out.  There's but one of Patrick, and there should be more
+learning between the two of you than in one alone, even though he is a
+bit older!  Try now."
+
+Larry and Eileen tried.  This was the letter.  It was written in a large
+staggery hand.
+
+"Will you listen to that now!" cried Grannie Malone.  "Is it taking me
+back to America, he'd be!  'Tis a terrible journey altogether, and a
+strange country at the end of it, for me to be laying my old bones in!
+But I'd be a proud woman to see my own son, in any country of the world,
+and he an alderman!"
+
+There was a letter from Michael himself in the envelope also, but the
+Twins could not read that, however much they tried.
+
+So Grannie was obliged to put the two letters and the green paper under
+the clock over the fireplace, to wait until the Priest should pass that
+way.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+THE TEA-PARTY.
+
+"Sure, this is a fine day for me, altogether," said Grannie Malone as
+she got out her bit of flour to make the cake.  "I can wait for the
+letter from himself, the way I know they're in health, and have not
+forgotten their old Mother.  Troth, we'll have a bit of a feast over it
+now," she said to the Twins.  "While I'm throwing the cakeen together do
+you get some potatoes from the bag, Eileen, and put them down in the
+ashes, and you, Larry, stir up the fire a bit, and keep the kettle full.
+Sure, 'tis singing away like a bird this instant minute!  Put some
+water in it, avic, and then shut up the hens for me."
+
+Eileen ran to the potato bag in the corner and took out four good-sized
+potatoes.  "There's but three of us," she said to herself, "but Larry
+will surely be wanting two, himself."
+
+She got down on her knees and buried the potatoes in the burning peat.
+Then she took a little broom that stood near by, and tidied up the
+hearth.
+
+Larry took the kettle to the well for more water.  He slopped a good
+deal of it as he came back.  It made great spots of mud, for there was
+no wooden floor--only hard earth with flat stones set in it.
+
+"Arrah now, Larry, you do be slopping things up the equal of a
+thunderstorm," Eileen said to him.
+
+"Never you mind that, now, Larry," said Grannie Malone.  "It might have
+been that the kettle leaked itself, and no fault of your own at all!
+Sure, a bit of water here or there does nobody any harm."
+
+She hung the tea-kettle on the hook over the fire again.  Then she
+brought the cakeen and put it into a small iron baking-kettle, and put a
+cover over it.  She put turf on top of the cover.  "'Twill not be long
+until it's baked," said Grannie, "and you can be watching it, Eileen,
+while I set out the table."
+
+She pulled a little wooden table out before the fire, put three plates
+and three cups on it, some salt, and the jug of milk.  Meanwhile Larry
+was out trying to shut the hens into the little shelter beside the
+house.  But he couldn't get them all in.  One old speckled hen ran round
+the house to the door.  Larry ran after her.  The hen flew up on top of
+the half-door.  She was very much excited.  "Cut-cut-cut," she squawked.
+
+"Cut-cut yourself now!" cried Grannie Malone.
+
+She ran toward the door, waving her spoon.  "Shoo along out of this with
+your bad manners!" she cried.
+
+Just that minute Larry came up behind the hen and tried to catch her by
+the legs.
+
+"Cut-cut-cut-a-cut," squawked old Speckle; and up she flew, right over
+Grannie's head, into the rafters!  Then she tucked herself cozily down
+to go to sleep.
+
+"Did you ever see the likes of that old Speckle, now?" cried Grannie
+Malone.  She ran for the broom.  "Sure she must be after thinking I was
+lonesome for a bit of company!  Do you think I'd be wanting you at all,
+you silly, when I have the Twins by me?" she said to the hen.  She shook
+the broom at her, but old Speckle wasn't a bit afraid of Grannie; she
+didn't move.
+
+Then Grannie Malone put the broom under her and tried to lift her from
+her perch, but old Speckle had made up her mind to stay.  So she flew
+across to another rafter, and lit on Grannie Malone's black coat that
+she wore to Mass on Sundays.  She thought it a pleasant warm place and
+sat down again.
+
+"Bad luck to you for an ill-favoured old thief!" screamed Grannie.  "Get
+off my Sunday cloak with your muddy feet!  It's ruined you'll have me
+entirely!"
+
+She shook the cloak.  Then old Speckle, squawking all the way, flew over
+to Grannie's bed!  She ran the whole length of it.  She left a little
+path clear across the patchwork quilt.  Larry stood in one corner of the
+room waving his arms.  Eileen was flapping her apron in another, while
+Grannie Malone chased old Speckle with the broom.  At last, with a final
+squawk, she flew out of the door, and ran round to the shelter where the
+other hens were, and went in as if she thought home was the best place
+for a hen after all.  Larry shut her in.
+
+As soon as the hen was out of the house, Eileen screamed, "I smell
+something burning!"
+
+"'Tis the cakeen," cried Grannie.
+
+She and Eileen flew to the fireplace.  Eileen got there first.  She
+knocked the cover off the little kettle with the tongs, and out flew a
+cloud of smoke.
+
+"Och, murder!  'Tis destroyed entirely!" poor Grannie groaned.
+
+"I'll turn it quick," said Eileen.
+
+She was in such a hurry she didn't wait for a fork or stick or anything!
+She took right hold of the little cakeen, and lifted it out of the
+kettle with her hand!
+
+The little cake was hot!  "Ow!  Ow!" shrieked Eileen, and she dropped it
+right into the ashes!  Then she danced up and down and sucked her
+fingers.
+
+"The Saints help us!  The cakeen is bewitched," wailed poor Grannie.
+She picked it up, and tossed it from one hand to the other, while she
+blew off the ashes.
+
+Then she dropped it, burned side up, into the kettle once more, clapped
+on the cover, and set it where it would cook more slowly.
+
+When that was done, she looked at Eileen's fingers.  "It's not so bad at
+all, mavourneen, praise be to God," she said.  "Sure, I thought I had
+you killed entirely, the way you screamed!"
+
+"Eileen is always burning herself," said Larry.  "Mother says 'tis only
+when she's burned up altogether that she'll learn to keep out of the
+fire at all!"
+
+"'Twas all the fault of that disgraceful old hen," Grannie Malone said.
+"Sure, I'll have to be putting manners on her!  She's no notion of
+behaviour at all, at all.  Reach the sugar bowl, Larry, avic, and sit
+down by the table and rest your bones.  I'll have the tea ready for you
+in a minute.  Sit you down, too, Eileen, while I get the potatoes."  She
+took the tongs and drew out the potatoes, blew off the ashes, and put
+them on the table.  Then she poured the boiling water over the
+tea-leaves, and set the tea to draw, while she took the cakeen from the
+kettle.
+
+"'Tis not burned so much, after all," she said, as she looked it over.
+"Sure, we can shut our eyes when we eat it."
+
+She drew her own chair up to the table; the Twins sat on the bench on
+the other side.  Grannie Malone crossed herself, and then they each took
+a potato, and broke it open.  They put salt on it, poured a little milk
+into the skin which they held like a cup, and it was ready to eat.
+
+Grannie poured the tea, and they had milk and sugar in it.  The little
+cakeen was broken open and buttered, and, "Musha, 'tis fit for the Queen
+herself," said Larry, when he had taken his first bite.
+
+And Eileen said, "Indeed, ma'am, it's a grand cook you are entirely."
+
+"Sure, I'd need to be a grand cook with the grand company I have,"
+Grannie answered politely, "and with the fine son I have in America to
+be sending me a fortune in every letter!  'Tis a great thing to have a
+good son, and do you be that same to your Mother, the both of you, for
+'tis but one Mother that you'll get in all the world, and you've a right
+to be choice of her."
+
+"Sure, I'll never at all be a good son to my Mother," laughed Eileen.
+
+"Well, then," said Grannie, "you can be a good daughter to her, and
+that's not far behind.  Whist now, till I tell you the story of the
+Little Cakeen, and you'll see that 'tis a good thing entirely to behave
+yourselves and grow up fine and respectable, like the lad in the tale.
+It goes like this now:--"
+
+"It was once long ago in old Ireland, there was living a fine, clean,
+honest, poor widow woman, and she having two sons [Note 1], and she
+fetched the both of them up fine and careful, but one of them turned out
+bad entirely.  And one day she says to him, says she:--
+
+"`I've given you your living as long as ever I can, and it's you must go
+out into the wide world and seek your fortune.'
+
+"`Mother, I will,' says he.
+
+"`And will you take a big cake with my curse, or a little cake with my
+blessing?' says she.
+
+"`A big cake, sure,' says he.
+
+"So she baked a big cake and cursed him, and he went away laughing!  By
+and by, he came forninst a spring in the woods, and sat down to eat his
+dinner off the cake, and a small, little bird sat on the edge of the
+spring.
+
+"`Give me a bit of your cake for my little ones in the nest,' said she;
+and he caught up a stone and threw at her.
+
+"`I've scarce enough for myself,' says he, and she being a fairy, put
+her beak in the spring and turned it black as ink, and went away up in
+the trees.  And whiles he looked for a stone for to kill her, a fox went
+away with his cake!
+
+"So he went away from that place very mad, and next day he stopped, very
+hungry, at a farmer's house, and hired out for to tend the cows.
+
+"`Be wise,' says the farmer's wife, `for the next field is belonging to
+a giant, and if the cows get into the clover, he will kill you dead as a
+stone.'
+
+"But the bad son laughed and went out to watch the cows; and before
+noontime he went to sleep up in the tree, and the cows all went in the
+clover.  And out comes the giant and shook him down out of the tree and
+killed him dead, and that was the end of the bad son.
+
+"And the next year the poor widow woman says to the good son:--
+
+"`You must go out into the wide world and seek your fortune, for I can
+keep you no longer,' says the Mother.
+
+"`Mother, I will,' says he.
+
+"`And will you take a big cake with my curse or a little cake with my
+blessing?'
+
+"`A little cake,' says he.
+
+"So she baked it for him and gave him her blessing, and he went away,
+and she a-weeping after him fine and loud.  And by and by he came to the
+same spring in the woods where the bad son was before him, and the
+small, little bird sat again on the side of it.
+
+"`Give me a bit of your cakeen for my little ones in the nest,' says
+she.
+
+"`I will,' says the good son, and he broke her off a fine piece, and she
+dipped her beak in the spring and turned it into sweet wine; and when he
+bit into his cake, sure, it was turned into fine plum-cake entirely; and
+he ate and drank and went on light-hearted.  And next day he comes to
+the farmer's house.
+
+"`Will ye tend the cows for me?' says the farmer.
+
+"`I will,' says the good son.
+
+"`Be wise,' says the farmer's wife, `for the clover-field beyond is
+belonging to a giant, and if you leave in the cows, he will kill you
+dead.'
+
+"`Never fear,' says the good son, `I don't sleep at my work.'
+
+"And he goes out in the field and lugs a big stone up in the tree, and
+then sends every cow far out in the clover-fields and goes back again to
+the tree!  And out comes the giant a-roaring, so you could hear the
+roars of him a mile away, and when he finds the cow-boy, he goes under
+the tree to shake him down, but the good little son slips out the big
+stone, and it fell down and broke the giant's head entirely.  So the
+good son went running away to the giant's house, and it being full to
+the eaves of gold and diamonds and splendid things.
+
+"So you see what fine luck comes to folks that is good and honest!  And
+he went home and fetched his old Mother, and they lived rich and
+contented, and died very old and respected."
+
+"Do you suppose your son Michael killed any giants in America, the way
+he got to be an Alderman?" asked Eileen, when Grannie had finished her
+story.
+
+"I don't rightly know that," Grannie answered.  "Maybe it wasn't just
+exactly giants, but you can see for yourself that he is rich and
+respected, and he with a silk hat, and riding in a procession the same
+as the Lord-Mayor himself!"
+
+"Did you ever see a giant or a fairy or any of the good little people
+themselves, Grannie Malone?"  Larry asked.
+
+"I've never exactly seen any of them with my own two eyes," she
+answered, "but many is the time I've talked with people and they having
+seen them.  There was Mary O'Connor now,--dead long since, God rest her.
+She told me this tale herself, and she sitting by this very hearth.
+Wait now till I wet my mouth with a sup of tea in it, and I'll be
+telling you the tale the very same way she told it herself."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note 1.  Adapted from "Marygold House," in _Play-Days_, by Sarah Orne
+Jewett.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+THE TALE OF THE LEPRECHAUN.
+
+Grannie reached for the teapot and poured herself a cup of tea.  As she
+sipped it, she said to the twins, "Did you ever hear of the Leprechauns?
+Little men they are, not half the bigness of the smallest baby you ever
+laid your two eyes on.  Long beards they have, and little pointed caps
+on the heads of them.
+
+"And it's forever making the little brogues (shoes) they are, and you
+can hear the tap-tap of their hammers before you ever get sight of them
+at all.  And the gold and silver and precious things they have hidden
+away would fill the world with treasures.
+
+"But they have the sharpness of the new moon, that's sharp at both ends,
+and no one can get their riches away from them at all.  They do be
+saying that if you catch one in your two hands and never take your eyes
+off him, you can make him give up his money.
+
+"But they've the tricks of the world to make you look the other way, the
+Leprechauns have.  And then when you look back again, faith, they're
+nowhere at all!"
+
+"Did Mary O'Connor catch one?" asked Eileen.
+
+"Did she now!" cried Grannie.  "Listen to this.  One day Mary O'Connor
+was sitting in her bit of garden, with her knitting in her hand, and she
+was watching some bees that were going to swarm.
+
+"It was a fine day in June, and the bees were humming, and the birds
+were chirping and hopping, and the butterflies were flying about, and
+everything smelt as sweet and fresh as if it was the first day of the
+world.
+
+"Well, all of a sudden, what did she hear among the bean-rows in the
+garden but a noise that went tick-tack, tick-tack, just for all the
+world as if a brogue-maker was putting on the heel of a pump!
+
+"`The Lord preserve us,' says Mary O'Connor; `what in the world can that
+be?'
+
+"So she laid down her knitting, and she went over to the beans.  Now,
+never believe me, if she didn't see sitting right before her a bit of an
+old man, with a cocked hat on his head and a dudeen (pipe) in his mouth,
+smoking away!  He had on a drab-coloured coat with big brass buttons on
+it, and a pair of silver buckles on his shoes, and he working away as
+hard as ever he could, heeling a little pair of pumps!
+
+"You may believe me or not, Larry and Eileen McQueen, but the minute she
+clapped her eyes on him, she knew him for a Leprechaun.
+
+"And she says to him very bold, `God save you, honest man!  That's hard
+work you're at this hot day!'  And she made a run at him and caught him
+in her two hands!
+
+"`And where is your purse of money?' says she.
+
+"`Money!' says he; `money is it!  And where on top of earth would an old
+creature like myself get money?' says he.
+
+"`Maybe not on top of earth at all, but _in_ it,' says she; and with
+that she gave him a bit of a squeeze.  `Come, come,' says she.  `Don't
+be turning your tricks upon an honest woman!'
+
+"And then she, being at the time as good-looking a young woman as you'd
+find, put a wicked face on her, and pulled a knife from her pocket, and
+says she, `If you don't give me your purse this instant minute, or show
+me a pot of gold, I'll cut the nose off the face of you as soon as
+wink.'
+
+"The little man's eyes were popping out of his head with fright, and
+says he, `Come with me a couple of fields off, and I'll show you where I
+keep my money!'
+
+"So she went, still holding him fast in her hand, and keeping her two
+eyes fixed on him without so much as a wink, when, all of a sudden, what
+do you think?
+
+"She heard a whiz and a buzz behind her, as if all the bees in the world
+were humming, and the little old man cries out, `There go your bees
+a-swarming and a-going off with themselves like blazes!'
+
+"She turned her head for no more than a second of time, but when she
+looked back there was nothing at all in her hand.
+
+"He slipped out of her fingers as if he were made of fog or smoke, and
+sorrow a bit of him did she ever see after."  [Note 1.]
+
+"And she never got the gold at all," sighed Eileen.
+
+"Never so much as a ha'penny worth," said Grannie Malone.
+
+"I believe I'd rather get rich in America than try to catch Leprechauns
+for a living," said Larry.
+
+"And you never said a truer word," said Grannie.  "'Tis a poor living
+you'd get from the Leprechauns, I'm thinking, rich as they are."
+
+By this time the teapot was empty, and every crumb of the cakeen was
+gone, and as Larry had eaten two potatoes, just as Eileen thought he
+would, there was little left to clear away.
+
+It was late in the afternoon.  The room had grown darker, and Grannie
+Malone went to the little window and looked out.
+
+"Now run along with yourselves home," she said, "for the sun is nearly
+setting across the bog, and your Mother will be looking for you.  Here,
+put this in your pocket for luck."  She gave Larry a little piece of
+coal.  "The Good Little People will take care of good children if they
+have a bit o' this with them," she said; "and you, Eileen, be careful
+that you don't step in a fairy ring on your way home, for you've a light
+foot on you like a leaf in the wind, and `The People' will keep you
+dancing for dear knows how long, if once they get you."
+
+"We'll keep right in the boreen (road), won't we, Larry?  Good-bye,
+Grannie," said Eileen.
+
+The Twins started home.  Grannie Malone stood in her doorway, shading
+her eyes with her hand, and looking after them until a turn in the road
+hid them from sight.  Then she went into her little cabin and shut the
+door.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note 1.  Adapted from Thomas Keightley's _Fairy Mythology_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+THE TINKERS.
+
+After Larry and Eileen had gone around the turn in the road there were
+no houses in sight for quite a long distance.
+
+On one side of the road stretched the brown bog, with here and there a
+pool of water in it which shone bright in the colours of the setting
+sun.  It was gay, too, with patches of yellow buttercups, of primroses,
+and golden whins.  The whins had been in bloom since Easter, for Larry
+and Eileen had gathered the yellow flowers to dye their Easter eggs.  On
+the other side of the road the land rose a little, and was so covered
+with stones that it seemed as if there were no earth left for things to
+grow in.  Yet the mountain fern took root there and made the rocks gay
+with its green fronds.
+
+The sun was so low that their shadows stretched far across the bogland
+beside them as the Twins trudged along.
+
+Three black ravens were flying overhead, and a lark was singing its
+evening song.
+
+Eileen looked up in the sky.  "There's the ghost of a moon up there!
+Look, Larry," she said.
+
+Larry looked up.  There floating high above them, was a pale, pale moon,
+almost the colour of the sky itself.  "It looks queer and lonesome up
+there," he said, "and there's no luck at all in three ravens flying.
+They'll be putting a grudge on somebody's cow, maybe.  I wonder where
+the little lark does be hiding herself."
+
+Larry was still looking up in the sky for the little lark, when Eileen
+suddenly seized his arm.  "Whist, Larry," she whispered.  "Look before
+you on the road!"
+
+Larry stopped stock-still and looked.  A man was coming toward them.
+The man was still a long way off, but they could see that he carried
+something on his back.  And beside the road, not so far away from where
+the Twins stood, there was a camp, like a gypsy camp.
+
+"'Tis the Tinkers!" whispered Larry.  He took Eileen's hand and pulled
+her with him behind a heap of stones by the road.  Then they crept along
+very quietly and climbed over the wall into a field.
+
+From behind the wall they could peep between the stones at the Tinkers'
+Camp without being seen.
+
+The Twins were afraid of Tinkers.  Everybody is in Ireland, because the
+Tinkers wander around over the country without having any homes
+anywhere.
+
+They go from house to house in all the villages mending the pots and
+pans, and often they steal whatever they can lay their hands on.
+
+At night they sleep on the ground with only straw for a bed, and they
+cook in a kettle over a camp-fire.
+
+The Twins were so badly scared that their teeth chattered.
+
+Eileen was the first to say anything.
+
+"However will we g-g-g-get home at all?" she whispered.  "They've a dog
+with them, and he'll b-b-b-bark at us surely.  Maybe he'll bite us!"
+
+They could see a woman moving about through the Camp.  She had a fire
+with a kettle hanging over it.  There were two or three other people
+about, and some starved-looking horses.  The dog was lying beside the
+fire, and there was a baby rolling about on the ground.  A little pig
+was tied by one hind leg to a thorn-bush.
+
+"If the dog comes after us," said Larry, "I'd drop a stone on him, out
+of a tree, just the way the good son did in the story, and kill him
+dead."
+
+"But there's never a tree anywhere about," said Eileen.  "Sure, that is
+no plan at all."
+
+"That's a true word," said Larry, when he had looked all about for a
+tree, and found none.  "We'll have to think of something else."
+
+Then he thought and thought.  "We might go back to Grannie's," he said
+after a while.
+
+"That would be no better," Eileen whispered, "for, surely, our Mother
+would go crazy with worrying if we didn't come home, at all, and we
+already so late."
+
+"Well, then," Larry answered, "we must just bide here until it's dark,
+and creep by, the best way we can.  Anyway, I've the piece of coal in my
+pocket, and Grannie said no harm would come to us at all, and we having
+it."
+
+Just then the man, who had been coming up the road, reached the Camp.
+The dog ran out to meet him, barking joyfully.  The man came near the
+fire and threw the bundle off his shoulder.  It was two fat geese, with
+their legs tied together!
+
+"The Saints preserve us," whispered Eileen, "if those aren't our own two
+geese!  Do you see those black feathers in their wings?"
+
+"He's the thief of the world," said Larry.
+
+He forgot to be frightened because he was so angry, and he spoke right
+out loud!  He stood up and shook his fist at the Tinker.  His head
+showed over the top of the wall.  Eileen jerked him down.
+
+"Whist now, Larry darling," she begged.  "If the dog sees you once he'll
+tear you to pieces."
+
+Larry dropped behind the wall again, and they watched the Tinker's wife
+loosen the string about the legs of the geese, and tie them by a long
+cord to the bush, beside the little pig.  Then all the Tinker people
+gathered around the pot and began to eat their supper.
+
+The baby and the dog were on the ground playing together.  The Twins
+could hear the shouts of the baby, and the barks of the dog.
+
+It was quite dusk by this time, but the moon grew brighter and brighter
+in the sky, and the flames of the Tinkers' fire glowed more and more
+red, as the night came on.
+
+"Sure, it isn't going to get real dark at all," whispered Larry.
+
+"Then we'd better be going now," said Eileen, "for the Tinkers are
+eating their supper, and their backs are towards the road, and we'll
+make hardly a taste of noise with our bare feet."
+
+They crept along behind the rocks, and over the wall.  "Now," whispered
+Larry, "slip along until we're right beside them, and then run like the
+wind!"
+
+The Twins took hold of hands.  They could hear their hearts beat.  They
+walked softly up the road.
+
+The Tinkers were still laughing and talking; the baby and the dog kept
+on playing.
+
+The Twins were almost by, when all of a sudden, the geese stood up.
+"Squawk, squawk," they cried.  "Squawk, squawk."
+
+"Whatever is the matter with you, now?" said the Tinker's wife to the
+geese.  "Can't you be quiet?"  The dog stopped romping with the baby,
+sniffed the air, and growled.  "Lie down," said the woman; "there's a
+bone for your supper."  She threw the dog a bone.  He sprang at it and
+began to gnaw it.
+
+Larry and Eileen had crouched behind a rock the minute the geese began
+to squawk.  "I believe they know us," whispered Eileen.
+
+They waited until everything was quiet again.  Then Larry whispered,
+"Run now, and if you fall, never wait to rise but run till we get to Tom
+Daly's house!"
+
+Then they ran!  The soft pat-pat of their bare feet on the dirt road was
+not heard by the Tinkers, and soon another turn in the road hid them
+from view, but, for all that, they ran and ran, ever so far, until some
+houses were in sight.
+
+They could see the flicker of firelight in the windows of the nearest
+house.  It was Tom Daly's house.  They could see Tom's shadow as he sat
+at his loom, weaving flax into beautiful white linen cloth.  They could
+hear the clack! clack! of his loom.  It made the Twins feel much safer
+to hear this sound and see Tom's shadow, for Tom was a friend of theirs,
+and they often went into his house and watched him weave his beautiful
+linen, which was so fine that the Queen herself used it.  Up the road,
+in the window of the last house of all, a candle shone.
+
+"Sure, Mother is watching for us," said Larry.  "She's put a candle in
+the window."
+
+They went on more slowly now, past Tom Daly's, past the Maguires' and
+the O'Briens' and several other houses on the way, and when they were
+quite near their own home Larry said, "Sure, I'll never travel again
+without a bit of coal in my pocket.  Look at all the danger we've been
+in this night, and never the smallest thing happening to us."
+
+And Eileen said, "Indeed, musha, 'tis well we're the good children!
+Sure, the Good Little People would never at all let harm come to the
+likes of us, just as Grannie said."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+THE TWINS GET HOME.
+
+When they were nearly home, the Twins saw a dark figure hurrying down
+the road, and as it drew near, their Mother's voice called to them, "Is
+it yourselves, Larry and Eileen, and whatever kept you till this hour?
+Sure, you've had me distracted entirely with wondering what had become
+of you at all!  And your Dada sits in the room with a lip on him as long
+as to-day and to-morrow!"
+
+The Twins both began to talk at once.  Their mother clapped her hands
+over her ears.
+
+"Can't you hold your tongues and speak quietly now--one at a time like
+gentlemen and ladies?" she said.  "Come in to your father and tell him
+all about it."
+
+The Twins each took one of her hands, and they all three hurried into
+the house.  They went into the kitchen.  Their Father was sitting by the
+chimney, with his feet up, smoking his pipe when they came in.  He
+brought his feet to the floor with a thump, and sat up straight in his
+chair.
+
+"Where have you been, you Spalpeens?" he said.  "It's nine o'clock this
+instant minute."
+
+The Twins both began again to talk.  Their Mother flew about the kitchen
+to get them a bite of supper.
+
+"Come now," said the Father, "I can't hear myself at all with the noise
+of you.  Do you tell the tale, Larry."
+
+Then Larry told them about the cakeen, and the silk hat, and Michael
+Malone, and the Tinkers, while his Mother said, "The Saints preserve
+us!" every few words, and Eileen interrupted to tell how brave Larry had
+been--"just like the good son in Grannie Malone's tale, for all the
+world."
+
+But when they came to the geese part of the story, the Father said,
+"Blathers," and got up and hurried out to the place where the fowls were
+kept, in the yard behind the house.
+
+In a few minutes he came in again.  "The geese are gone," he said, "and
+that's the truth or I can't speak it!"
+
+"Bad luck to the thieves, then," cried the Mother.  "The back of my hand
+to them!  Sure, I saw a rough, scraggly man with a beard on him like a
+rick of hay, come along this very afternoon, and I up the road talking
+with Mrs Maguire!  I never thought he'd make that bold, to carry off
+geese in the broad light of day!  And me saving them against
+Christmastime, too!"
+
+"Wait till I get that fellow where beating is cheap, and I'll take the
+change out of him!" said the Father.
+
+Eileen began to cry and Larry's lip trembled.
+
+"Come here now, you poor dears," their Mother said.  "Sit down on the
+two creepeens by the fire, and have a bite to eat before you go to bed.
+Indeed, you must be starved entirely, with the running, and the fright,
+and all.  I'll give you a drink of cold milk, warmed up with a sup of
+hot water through it, and a bit of bread, to comfort your stomachs."
+
+While the Twins ate the bread and drank the milk, their Father and
+Mother talked about the Tinkers.  "Sure, they are as a frost in spring,
+and a blight in harvest," said Mrs McQueen.  "I wonder wherever they
+got the badness in them the way they have."
+
+"I've heard said it was a Tinker that led Saint Patrick astray when he
+was in Ireland," said Mr McQueen.  "I don't know if it's true or not,
+but the tale is that he was brought here a slave, and that it would take
+a hundred pounds to buy his freedom.  One day, when he was minding the
+sheep on the hills, he found a lump of silver, and he met a Tinker and
+asked him the value of it.
+
+"`Wirra,' says the Tinker, `'tis naught but a bit of solder.  Give it to
+me!'  But Saint Patrick took it to a smith instead, and the smith told
+him the truth about it, and Saint Patrick put a curse on the Tinkers,
+that every man's face should be against them, and that they should get
+no rest at all but to follow the road."
+
+"Some say they do be walking the world forever," said Mrs McQueen, "and
+I never in my life met any one that had seen a Tinker's funeral."
+
+"There'll maybe be one if I catch the Tinker that stole the geese!"  Mr
+McQueen said grimly.
+
+Mrs McQueen laughed.  "It's the fierce one you are to talk," she said,
+"and you that good-natured when you're angry that you'd scare not even a
+fly!  Come along now to bed with you," she added to the Twins.  "There
+you sit with your eyes dropping out of your heads with sleep."
+
+She helped them undress and popped them into their beds in the next
+room; then she barred the door, put out the candle, covered the coals in
+the fireplace, and went to bed in the room on the other side of the
+kitchen.  Last of all, Mr McQueen knocked the ashes from his pipe
+against the chimney-piece, and soon everything was quiet in their
+cottage, and in the whole village of Ballymora where they lived.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+HOW THEY WENT TO THE BOG.
+
+The next morning when the Twins woke up, the sun was shining in through
+the one little square window in the bedroom, and lay in a bright patch
+of yellow on the floor.  Eileen sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes.  Then
+she stuck her head out between the curtains of her bed.  "Is it to-day
+or to-morrow?  I don't know," she said.
+
+Larry sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes.  He peeped out from his
+curtains.  "It isn't yesterday, anyway," he said, "and glad I am for
+that.  Do you mind about the Tinkers, Eileen?"
+
+"I do so," said Eileen, "and the geese."
+
+Their Mother heard them and came to the door.  "Sure, I thought I'd let
+you sleep as late as ever you liked," she said, "for there's no school
+to-day, but you're awake and clacking, so how would you like to go with
+your Dada to the bog to cut turf?  Himself will put a bit of bread in
+his pocket for you, and you can take a sup of milk along."
+
+"Oh, wirra!" cried Eileen.  "What have we done but left the milk-jug at
+Grannie Malone's!"
+
+"You can take the milk in the old brown jug, then," said the Mother,
+"and come along home by way of Grannie's, and get the jug itself.  I'd
+like your Father to get a sight of the Tinkers' Camp, and maybe of that
+thief of the world that stole the geese on us."
+
+It didn't take the Twins long to dress.  They wore few clothes, and no
+shoes and stockings, and their breakfast of bread and potatoes was soon
+eaten.  The Mother had already milked the cow, and when they had had a
+drink of fresh milk they were ready to start.
+
+Mr McQueen was at the door with "Colleen," the donkey, and when Larry
+and Eileen came out, he put them both on Colleen's back, and they
+started down the road toward the bog.
+
+When they came to the place where the Tinkers' Camp should be, there was
+no camp there at all!  They looked east and west, but no sign of the
+Tinkers did they see.
+
+"If it were not for the two geese gone, I'd think you had been
+dreaming!" said Mr McQueen to the Twins.
+
+"Look there, then," said Larry.  "Sure, there's the black mark on the
+ground where their fire was!"
+
+The Twins slid off Colleen's back, and ran to the spot where the camp
+had been.  There, indeed, was the mark of a fire, and near by were some
+wisps of straw.  There were the marks of horses' feet, too, and Eileen
+found a white goose feather by the thorn-bush, and a piece of broken
+rope.
+
+"They were here surely," Mr McQueen said, "and far enough away they are
+by this time, no doubt.  It's likely the police were after them."
+
+They went back to the road, and the Twins got up again on Colleen's
+back, and soon they had reached the near end of the bog.
+
+Mr McQueen stopped.  "I'll be cutting the turf here," he said, "and the
+two of you can go on to Grannie Malone's with the donkey, and bring back
+the jug with yourselves.  Get along with you," and he gave the donkey a
+slap.
+
+The Twins and the donkey started along the road.  Everything went well
+until Colleen spied a tuft of green thistles, on a high bank beside the
+road.  Colleen loved thistles, and she made straight for them.  The
+first thing the Twins knew they were sliding swiftly down the donkey's
+back, while Colleen stood with her fore feet high on the bank and her
+hind feet in the road.
+
+Larry, being behind, landed first, with Eileen on top of him.  She
+wasn't hurt a bit, but she was a little scared.  "Sure, Larry, but
+you're the soft one to fall on," she said as she rolled over and picked
+herself up.
+
+"I may be soft to fall on," said Larry, "but I'm the easier squashed for
+that!  Look at me now!  It's out of shape I am entirely, with the print
+of yourself on me!"
+
+Then--"Whatever will we do with Colleen?"  Eileen said.  "She's got her
+nose in the thistles and we'll never be able to drag her away from
+them."
+
+They pulled on the halter, but Colleen refused to budge.  Larry got up
+on the bank and pushed her.  He even pulled her backward by the tail!
+Colleen didn't seem to mind it at all.  She kept right on eating the
+thistles.
+
+At last Larry said, "You go on with yourself to Grannie Malone's for the
+jug, Eileen, and I'll stay here until she finishes the thistles."
+
+So he sat down by the road on a stone and Eileen trotted off to
+Grannie's.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+THE BOG.
+
+When Eileen got back with the jug, she found Larry still sitting beside
+the road.  He was talking with a freckled-faced boy, and Colleen's head
+was still in the thistles.
+
+"The top of the morning to you, Dennis Maguire," Eileen called to the
+freckled boy when she saw him.  "And does it take the two of you to
+watch one donkey at his breakfast?  Come along and let's play in the
+bog!"
+
+"But however shall we leave Colleen?  She might run away on us," said
+Larry.
+
+"She's tethered by hunger fast enough," said Eileen.  "Ropes would not
+drag her away.  But you could throw her halter over a stone, to be
+sure."
+
+Larry slipped the halter over a stone, they set the milk-jug in a safe
+place, and the three children ran off into the bog.
+
+The bogland was brown and dark.  Tufts of coarse grass grew here and
+there, and patches of yellow gorse.  There were many puddles, and
+sometimes there were deep holes, where the turf had been cut out.
+
+Mr McQueen was a thrifty man, and got his supply of turf early in the
+season.  He would cut it out in long black blocks, like thick mud, and
+leave it in the sun to dry.  When it was quite dry he would carry it
+home on Colleen's back, pile it in a high turf-stack near the kitchen
+door, and it would burn in the fireplace all winter.
+
+The children were barefooted, so they played in the puddles as much as
+ever they liked.
+
+By and by Eileen said, "Let's play we are Deirdre and the sons of
+Usnach."
+
+"And who were they, indeed?" said Dennis.
+
+"It was Grannie told us about them," said Eileen, "and sure it's the
+sorrowfullest story in Ireland."
+
+"Then let's not be playing it," said Dennis.
+
+"But there's Kings in it, and lots of fighting!"
+
+"Well, then, it might not be so bad, at all.  Tell the rest of it,"
+Dennis answered.
+
+"Well, then," Eileen began, "there once was a high King of Emain, and
+his name was Conchubar [pronounced _Connor_].  And one time when he was
+hunting out in the fields, he heard a small little cry, crying.  And he
+followed the sound of it, and what should he find, but a little baby
+girl, lying alone in the field!"
+
+"Well, listen to that now," said Dennis.
+
+"He did so," Eileen went on; "and he loved the child and took her to his
+castle, and had her brought up fine and careful, intending for to marry
+her when she should be grown up.  And he hid her away, with only an old
+woman to take care of her, in a beautiful house far in the mountain, for
+he was afraid she'd be stolen away from him.
+
+"And she had silver dishes and golden cups, and everything fine and
+elegant, and she the most beautiful creature you ever laid your two eyes
+on."
+
+"Sure, I don't see much fighting in the tale, at all," said Dennis.
+
+"Whist now, and I'll come to it," Eileen answered.
+
+"One day when Deirdre had grown to be a fine big girl, she looks out of
+the window, and she sees Naisi [pronounced _Naysha_] going along by with
+his two brothers, the three of them together, they having been hunting
+in the mountain.  And the minute she slaps her eyes on Naisi, `There,'
+says she, `is the grandest man in the width of the world, and I'll be
+wife to no man but him,' says she.
+
+"So she calls in the sons of Usnach, though the old woman is scared to
+have her, and she tells Naisi she's going to marry him.
+
+"And Naisi says, says he, `I'll never be one to refuse a lady, but
+there'll be murder the day Conchubar finds it out!' says he.
+
+"So they went away that same night, and the old woman fair distraught
+with fear.  Soon along comes Conchubar to see Deirdre, for to marry her.
+And he had many men with him.  When he finds Deirdre gone, `It's that
+Naisi,' says he, `that stole her away.'  And he cursed him.  And all his
+men and himself went out for to chase Naisi and his two brothers.  But
+they never caught up with them at all for ten years, and Naisi and
+Deirdre living all the time as happy as two birds in the springtime."
+
+"No fighting at all yet," said Dennis, "and ten years gone by.  Musha,
+indeed, 'tis not much of a tale at all."
+
+"There was fighting enough when the years were up," Eileen said.  "The
+men of Conchubar pursued them up hill and down dale, and when they
+finally caught them, there was fighting that made the ground red with
+the blood spilled.
+
+"And when Naisi and his brothers were all caught together, and Conchubar
+was after killing them, sure, didn't Deirdre put an end to herself
+entirely, and the four of them were buried together in one grave."
+
+"But however will we play it at all?" said Larry.
+
+"Listen, now," said Eileen.  "I'll be Deirdre, of course.  You can just
+be Naisi, Larry, and Dennis can be Conchubar, and he after us, and we
+running as fast as ever we can, to get away from him.  You must give us
+a start, Dennis."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+"DIDDY."
+
+Larry and Eileen took hold of hands, and began running as fast as they
+could.  They jumped from one tuft of grass to another.  Dennis came
+splashing through the puddles after them.  He had almost caught them,
+when all of a sudden, Larry stopped and listened.
+
+"What's that now?" he said.  Eileen and Dennis listened too.  They heard
+a faint squealing sound.
+
+They looked all around.  There was nothing in sight but the brown bog,
+and the stones, and the blue hills far beyond.  They were a little bit
+scared.
+
+"Do you suppose it might be a Leprechaun?"  Eileen whispered.
+
+"'Tis a tapping noise they make; not a crying noise at all," Larry
+answered.
+
+"Maybe it's a Banshee," Dennis said.  "They do be crying about sometimes
+before somebody is going to die."
+
+"'Tis no Banshee whatever," Eileen declared.  "They only cry at night."
+
+They heard the squealing sound again.
+
+"'Tis right over there," cried Eileen, pointing to a black hole in the
+bog where turf had been cut out.  "Indeed, and it might be a beautiful
+baby like Deirdre herself!  Let's go and see."
+
+They crept up to the bog-hole, and peeped over the edge.  The hole was
+quite deep and down in the bottom of it was a little pig!  Dennis rolled
+over on the ground beside the bog-hole and screamed with laughter.
+
+"Sure, 'tis the beautiful child entirely!" he said.
+
+"'Tis the little pig the Tinkers had!" cried Eileen.
+
+"It broke the rope and ran away with itself," shouted Larry.
+
+"However will we get it out?" said Eileen.  "The hole is too deep
+entirely!"
+
+"The poor little thing is nearly destroyed with hunger," Larry said.
+"I'll go down in the hole and lift her out."
+
+"However will you get out yourself, then, Larry darling?" cried Eileen.
+
+"The two of you can give me your hands," said Larry, "and I'll be up in
+no time."
+
+Then Larry jumped down into the hole.  He caught the little pig in his
+arms.  The little pig squealed harder than ever and tried to get away,
+but Larry held it up as high as he could.
+
+Eileen and Dennis reached down and each got hold of one of the pig's
+front feet.  "Now then for you!" cried Larry.
+
+He gave the pig a great shove.  He shoved so hard that Eileen and Dennis
+both fell over backwards into a puddle!  But they held tight to the pig,
+and there the three of them were together, rolling in the bog with the
+pig on top of them!
+
+"Hold her, hold her!" shrieked Larry.  By standing on tiptoe his nose
+was just above the edge of the bog-hole, so he could see them.
+
+"I've got her," Eileen cried.  "Run back for the bit of rope the Tinkers
+left, Dennis, and tie her, hard and fast!"
+
+Dennis ran for the rope while Eileen sat on the ground and held the
+little pig in her arms.  The little pig squealed and kicked and tried
+every minute to get away.  She kicked even after her hind legs were tied
+together.  But Eileen held on!
+
+"You'll have to get Larry out alone, Dennis, while I never let go of
+this pig," cried Eileen, breathlessly.  "She's that wild, she'll be
+running away with herself on her two front legs, alone."
+
+Dennis reached down, and took both of Larry's hands and pulled and
+pulled until he got him out.
+
+Larry was covered with mud from the bog-hole, and Eileen and Dennis were
+wet and muddy from falling into the puddle.
+
+But they had the pig!
+
+"Sure, she is a beautiful little pig, and we'll call her Deirdre,
+because we found her in the bog just in the same way as Conchubar
+himself," said Larry.
+
+"Indeed, Deirdre was too beautiful altogether to be naming a pig after
+her," Eileen said.
+
+"Isn't she a beautiful little pig, then?"  Larry answered.
+
+"Well, maybe we might be calling her `Diddy,' for short, and no offence
+to herself at all," Eileen agreed.
+
+The poor little pig was so tired out with struggling, and so hungry,
+that she was fairly quiet while Dennis carried her on his shoulder to
+the road.  Eileen walked behind Dennis and fed her with green leaves.
+
+She was so quiet that Larry said: "We'll tie the rope to one of Diddy's
+hind legs, and she'll run home herself in front of us."
+
+So when they reached the road he and Dennis tied the rope securely to
+Diddy's left hind leg and set her down.
+
+They found Colleen asleep, standing up.
+
+Larry woke her.  Then he said, "Eileen, come now, you take the jug, and
+get on Colleen's back.  Dennis can lead her, and I'll drive the pig
+myself."
+
+But Diddy was feeling better after her rest.  She made up her mind she
+didn't like the plan.  She squealed and tried to get away.  Once she
+turned quickly and ran between Larry's legs and tripped him up.  But she
+was a tired little pig, and so it was not long before, somehow, they got
+her back to where Mr McQueen was working.
+
+He hadn't heard them coming, though what with the pig squealing, and the
+children all speaking at once, they made noise enough.  But Mr McQueen
+had his head down digging, and he was in a bog-hole besides, so when
+they came up right beside him, with the pig, he almost fell over with
+astonishment.
+
+He stopped his work and leaned on his clete, while they told him all
+about the pig, and how they found it, and got it out of the hole, and
+how the Tinkers must have lost it.  And when they were all done, he only
+said, "The Saints preserve us!  We'll take it home to Herself and let
+her cosset it up a bit!"
+
+So the children hurried off to take the pig to their Mother without even
+stopping to eat their bit of lunch.  Mr McQueen came, too.
+
+When they got home, they found Mrs McQueen leaning on the farmyard
+fence.  When she saw them coming with the pig, she ran out to meet them.
+
+"Wherever did you find the fine little pig?" she cried.  Then she threw
+up her hands.  "Look at the mud on you!" she said.
+
+Then the Twins and Dennis told the story all over again, and Mrs
+McQueen took the little pig in her apron.  "The poor little thing!" she
+said.  "Its heart is beating that hard, you'd think its ribs would burst
+themselves.  I'll get it some milk right away this minute when once
+you've looked in the yard."
+
+Mr McQueen and Dennis and the Twins went to the fence.  There in the
+yard were the two geese with the black feathers in their wings!  "Faith,
+and the luck is all with us this day," said Mr McQueen.  "However did
+you get them back at all?"
+
+"'Twas this way, if you'll believe me," said Mrs McQueen.  She
+scratched the little pig's back with one hand as she talked.  "I was
+just after churning my butter when what should I see looking in the door
+but that thief of a Tinker with the beard like a rick of hay!  Thinks I
+to myself, sure, my butter will be bewitched and never come at all with
+the bad luck of a stranger, and he a Tinker, coming in the house!
+
+"But he comes in and gives one plunge to the dasher for luck and to
+break the spell, and says he, very civil, `Would you be wanting to buy
+any fine geese to-day?'
+
+"My heart was going thumpity-thump, but I says to him, `I might look at
+them, maybe,' and with that I go to the door, for the sake of getting
+him out of it, and if there weren't our own two geese, with the legs of
+them tied together!"
+
+"The impudence of that!" cried Mr McQueen.  "Get along with your tale,
+woman!  Surely you never paid the old thief for your own two geese!"
+
+"Trust me!" replied Mrs McQueen.  "I'm coming around to the point of my
+tale gradual, like an old goat grazing around its tethering stump!  I
+says to him, `They look well enough, but I'm wishful to see them
+standing up on their own two legs.  That one looks as if it might be a
+bit lame, and the cord so tight on it!  And meanwhile, will you be
+having a bit of a drink on this hot day?'
+
+"Then I gave him a sup of milk, in a mug, and with that he thanks me
+kindly, loosens the cord, and sets the geese up on their legs for me to
+see.  In a minute of time I stood between him and the geese, and `Shoo!'
+says I to them, and to him I says, `Get along with you before I call the
+man working behind the house to put an end to your thieving entirely!'
+
+"And upon that he went in great haste, taking the mug along with him,
+but it was cracked anyway!"
+
+"Woman, woman, but you've the clever tongue in your head," said Mr
+McQueen with admiration.
+
+"'Tis mighty lucky we have," said Mrs McQueen, "for it's little else
+women have in this world to help themselves with!"
+
+Then she put the little pig down in the empty pig-pen in the farmyard
+and went to fetch it some milk.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE SECRET.
+
+Mr McQueen was a good farmer, but at the time he lived in Ireland,
+farmers could not own their farms.
+
+The land was all owned by rich landlords, who did not do any work
+themselves.  These landlords very often lived away in England or France,
+and did not know much about how the poor people lived at home, or how
+hard they had to work to get the money for the rent of their farms.
+
+Sometimes, when they did know, they didn't care.  What they wanted was
+all the money they could get, so they could live in fine houses and wear
+beautiful clothes, and go where they pleased, without doing any work.
+
+When the landlords were away, they had agents to collect the rents for
+them.
+
+The business of these agents was to get all the rent money they could,
+and they made life very hard for the farmers.
+
+Sometimes when the farmers couldn't pay all the rent, the agent would
+turn them out of their houses.  This was called "evicting" them.  The
+farm that Mr McQueen lived on, as well as the village and all the
+country roundabout, was owned by the Earl of Elsmore, who lived most of
+the year in great style in England.  The agent who collected rents was
+Mr Conroy.  Nobody liked Mr Conroy very much, but everybody was afraid
+of him, because he could do so much to injure them.
+
+So one morning when Mr McQueen came back very early from his
+potato-field, he was not glad to see Mr Conroy's horse standing near
+his door, and Mr Conroy himself, leaning on the farmyard fence, looking
+at the fowls.
+
+"How are you, McQueen?" said Mr Conroy, when Mr McQueen came up.
+
+"Well enough, Mr Conroy," said Mr McQueen.
+
+"And you're doing well with the farm, too, it seems," said Mr Conroy.
+"Those are good-looking fowls you have, and the pig is fine and fat.
+How many cows have you, now?"
+
+"Two, and a heifer," said Mr McQueen.
+
+"You drained that field over by the bog this year, didn't you, and have
+it planted to turnips?" went on Mr Conroy.  "I'm glad to see you so
+prosperous, McQueen.  Of course, now, the farm is worth more than it was
+when you first took it, and so you'll not be surprised that I'm raising
+the rent on you."
+
+"If the farm is worth more, 'tis my work that has made it so," said Mr
+McQueen, "and I shouldn't be punished for that.  The house is none too
+good at all, and the place is not worth more.  Last year was the drought
+and all manner of bad luck, and next year may be no better.  Truly, Mr
+Conroy, if you press me, I don't know how I can scrape more together
+than I'm paying now."
+
+"Well, then," said Mr Conroy.  "You must just find a way, for this is
+one of the best farms about here, and you should pay as much as any
+one."
+
+"You can't get money by shaking a man with empty pockets," said Mr
+McQueen.
+
+But Mr Conroy only laughed and said:
+
+"You'll have five pounds in yours when next rent-day comes around, or
+'twill be the worse for you.  You wouldn't like to be evicted, I'm
+sure."
+
+Then he mounted his horse and rode away.
+
+Mr McQueen went into the house with a heavy heart, and told his wife
+the bad news.
+
+"Faith," said Mrs McQueen, "I'd not be in that man's shoes for all you
+could offer.  It's grinding down the faces of the poor he is, and that
+at the telling of some one else!  Not even his badness is his own!  He
+does as he's bid."
+
+"He gets fat on it," said Mr McQueen.
+
+"Faith, we'll get along somehow," said Mrs McQueen.  "We always have,
+though 'tis true it's been scant fare we've had now and again."
+
+Mr McQueen didn't answer.  He went back to his work in the fields.
+Mrs McQueen got the Twins started off to school, with their lunch in a
+little tin bucket, and began her washing, but she did not sing at her
+work that day as she sometimes did.
+
+Larry and Eileen knew that something was wrong, though their Father and
+Mother had not said anything to them about it.
+
+They had seen Mr Conroy talking with their Father in the yard.  "And
+it's never a sign of anything good to see Mr Conroy," Eileen said.
+
+Larry was thinking the same thing, for he said:--
+
+"When I'm a man, I'm going to be rich, and then I'll give you and Mother
+and Dada a fine house, and fine clothes, and things in plenty."
+
+"However will you get the money?" asked Eileen.
+
+"Oh!  Giants or something," Larry answered, "or maybe being an
+Alderman."
+
+"Blathers!" said Eileen.  "I've a better plan in my head.  You know Dada
+and Mother said we could have Diddy for our very own, because we found
+her ourselves."
+
+"I do," said Larry.
+
+"Well, then," said Eileen, "I know it's about the rent they are
+bothered, for it always is the rent that bothers them.  Now, when the
+Fair-time comes we'll coax Dada to let us take Diddy to the Fair.
+She'll be nice and fat by that time, and we'll sell her, and give the
+money to Dada for the rent!"
+
+"Sure, it will be hard parting with Diddy, that's been like one of our
+own family since the day we found her crying in the bog," said Larry.
+
+"Indeed, and it will," said Eileen, "but we think more of our parents
+than of a pig, surely."
+
+"But however will we get her to the Fair to sell her?" said Larry.
+
+"We'll get Dada to take her for us, but we'll never tell him we mean the
+money to go for the rent until we put it in his hands," Eileen answered,
+"and we won't tell any one else at all.  It's a Secret."
+
+"I'd like to be telling Dennis, maybe," said Larry.
+
+"We can tell Dennis and Grannie Malone, but no one else at all," Eileen
+agreed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+SCHOOL.
+
+By this time they had reached the schoolhouse.  The Schoolmaster was
+standing in the door calling the children to come in.
+
+He was a tall man dressed in a worn suit of black.  He wore glasses on
+his nose, and carried a stick in his hand.
+
+The schoolhouse had only one room, with four small windows, and Larry
+hung his cap and Eileen her shawl, on nails driven into the wall.
+
+The schoolroom had benches for the children to sit on, with long desks
+in front of them.  On the wall hung a printed copy of the Ten
+Commandments.  At one side there was a fireplace, but, as it was summer,
+there was no fire in it.
+
+The Master rapped on his desk, which was in the front of the room, and
+the children all hurried to their seats.  Larry sat on one side of the
+room, with the boys.  Eileen sat on the other, with the girls.
+
+The Master called the roll.  There were fifteen boys and thirteen girls.
+When the roll was called and the number marked down on a slate in front
+of the school, the Master said, "First class in reading."
+
+All the little boys and girls of the size of Larry and Eileen came
+forward and stood in a row.  There were just three of them: Larry and
+Eileen and Dennis.
+
+"Larry, you may begin," said the Master.
+
+Larry read the first lines of the lesson.  They were, "To do ill is a
+sin.
+
+"Can you run far?"
+
+Larry wondered who it was that had done ill, and if he were running away
+because of it, and who stopped him to ask, "Can you run far?"  He was
+thinking about it when Eileen read the next two sentences.
+
+They were, "Is he friend or foe?
+
+"Did you hurt your toe?"
+
+This did not seem to Larry to clear the mystery.
+
+"Next!" called the Master.
+
+Dennis stood next.  He read, "He was born in a house on the hill.
+
+"Is rice a kind of corn?
+
+"Get me a cork for the ink jar."
+
+Just at this point the Master went to the open door to drive away some
+chickens that wanted to come in, and as Dennis had not been told to stop
+he went right on.  Dennis was eight, and he could read quite fast if he
+kept his finger on the place.  This is what he read:--
+
+"The morn is the first part of the day.
+
+"This is my son, I hope you will like him.
+
+"Sin not, for God hates sin.
+
+"Can a worm walk?
+
+"No, it has no feet, but it can creep.
+
+"Did you meet Fred in the street?
+
+"Weep no more."
+
+By this time the chickens were frightened away and Dennis was nearly out
+of breath.
+
+The Master came back.  Then Eileen had a turn.  They could almost say
+the lessons by heart, they knew them so well.
+
+After the reading-lesson they went back to their benches, and studied in
+loud whispers, but Larry was thinking of something else.  He drew a pig
+with a curly tail on his slate--like this--
+
+He held it up for Dennis to see.  He wanted to tell him about Diddy and
+the Fair, but the Master saw what he had done.  "Come here, Larry
+McQueen, and bring your slate," he said.  "Sure, I'll teach you better
+manners.  Get up on this stool now, and show yourself."  He put a large
+paper dunce-cap on Larry's head, and made him sit up on a stool before
+the whole school!
+
+The other children laughed, all but Eileen.  She hid her face on her
+desk, and two little tears squeezed out between her fingers.  But Larry
+didn't cry.  He pretended he didn't care at all.  He sat there for what
+seemed a very long time, while other children recited other lessons in
+reading, and grammar, and arithmetic.  The Master gave him this poem to
+learn by heart:--
+
+  "I thank the Goodness and the Grace
+  That on my birth have smiled,
+  And made me in these Christian days,
+  A happy English child."
+
+Larry wondered why he was called an English child, when he knew he was
+Irish.  And he wasn't so sure either about the "Christian days"; but he
+learned it and said it to the teacher before he got down off the stool.
+It seemed to him that it was about three days before noontime came.  At
+last they were dismissed, and the Twins went out with the other children
+into the schoolyard to eat their luncheon.  Dennis ate his with them,
+and Larry told him the Secret.
+
+After lunch they went back into the dark, smoky little schoolroom for
+more lessons, and when three o'clock came, how glad they were to go
+dancing out into the sunshine again, and walk home along the familiar
+road, with the air sweet about them, and the little birds singing in the
+fields.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+THE FAIR.
+
+For many weeks Eileen and Larry kept the Secret.  They told no one but
+Dennis and Grannie Malone, and they both promised they would never,
+never tell.
+
+Mr McQueen worked hard--early and late--over his turnips and cabbages
+and potatoes, and Larry and Eileen helped by feeding the pig and
+chickens, and driving the cows along the roadsides, where they could get
+fresh sweet grass to eat.
+
+One evening Mr McQueen said to his wife.  "Rent-day comes soon, and
+next week will be the Fair."
+
+Larry and Eileen heard him say it.  They looked at each other and then
+Eileen went to her Father and said, "Dada, will you take Larry and me to
+the Fair with you?  We want to sell our pig."
+
+"_You_ sell your pig!" cried Mr McQueen.  "You mean you want to sell it
+_yourselves_?"
+
+"You can help us," Eileen answered; "but it's our pig and we want to
+sell it, don't we, Larry?"
+
+Larry nodded his head up and down very hard with his mouth tight shut.
+He was so afraid the Secret would jump out of it!
+
+"Well, I never heard the likes of that!" said McQueen.  He slapped his
+knee and laughed.
+
+"We've got it all planned," said Eileen.  She was almost ready to cry
+because her Father laughed at her.  "We've fed the pig and fed her,
+until she's so fat she can hardly walk, and we are going to wash her
+clean, and I have a ribbon to tie on her ear.  Diddy will look so fine
+and stylish, I'm sure some one will want to buy her!"
+
+Mrs McQueen was just setting away a pan of milk.  She stopped with the
+pan in her hand.
+
+"Leave them go," she said.
+
+Mr McQueen smoked awhile in silence.  At last he said:--
+
+"It's your own pig, and I suppose you can go, but you'll have a long day
+of it."
+
+"The longer the better," said the Twins.
+
+All that week they carried acorns, and turnip-tops, and everything they
+could find that was good for pigs to eat, and fed them to Diddy, and she
+got fatter than ever.
+
+The day before the Fair, they took the scrubbing-pail and the broom, and
+some water, and scrubbed her until she was all pink and clean.  Then
+they put her in a clean place for the night, and went to bed early so
+they would be ready to get up in the morning.
+
+When the first cock crowed, before daylight the next morning, Eileen's
+eyes popped wide open in the dark.  The cock crowed again.
+_Cock-a-doodle-doo_!
+
+"Wake up, Larry darling," cried Eileen from her bed.  "The morn is upon
+us, and we are not ready for the Fair."
+
+Larry bounded out of bed, and such a scurrying around as there was to
+get ready!  Mrs McQueen was already blowing the fire on the hearth in
+the kitchen into a blaze, and the kettle was on to boil.  The Twins wet
+their hair and their Mother parted it and then they combed it down tight
+on the sides of their heads.  But no matter how much they wet their
+hair, the wind always blew it about their ears again in a very little
+while.  They put on their best clothes, and then they were ready for
+breakfast.
+
+Mr McQueen was up long before the Twins.  He had harnessed Colleen and
+had loaded the pig into the cart somehow, and tied her securely.  This
+must have been hard work, for Diddy had made up her mind she wasn't
+going to the Fair.
+
+Mr McQueen had found room, too, for some crocks of butter, and several
+dozen eggs carefully packed in straw.
+
+When breakfast was over, Mrs McQueen brought a stick with notches cut
+in it and gave it to Mr McQueen.
+
+She explained what each notch meant.  "There's one notch, and a big one,
+for selling the pig," she said, "and mind you see that the Twins get a
+good price for the creature.  And here's another for selling the butter
+and eggs.  And this is a pound of tea for Grannie Malone.  She's been
+out of tea this week past, and she with no one to send.  And this notch
+is for Mrs Maguire's side of bacon that you're to be after bringing her
+with her egg money, which is wrapped in a piece of paper in your inside
+pocket, and by the same token don't you be losing it.
+
+"And for myself, there's so many things I'm needing, that I've put all
+these small notches close together.  There's yarn for stockings for the
+Twins, and some thread for myself, to make crochet, that might turn me a
+penny in my odd moments, and a bit of flour, and some yellow meal.  Now
+remember that you forget nothing of it all!"  Mr McQueen shook his head
+sadly.  "Faith, there's little pleasure in going to the Fair with so
+many things on my mind," he said.
+
+The sun was just peeping over the distant hills, when Colleen started up
+the road, pulling the cart with Diddy in it, squealing "like a dozen of
+herself" Mrs McQueen said.  Mr McQueen led the donkey, and Larry and
+Eileen followed on foot.  They had on shoes and stockings, and Eileen
+had on a clean apron and a bright little shawl, so they looked quite
+gay.
+
+They walked miles and miles, beside bogs, and over hills, along country
+roads bordered by hedgerows or by stone walls.  At last they saw the
+towers of the Castle which belonged to the Earl of Elsmore.  It was on
+top of a high hill.
+
+The towers stood up strong and proud against the sky.  Smoke was coming
+out of the chimneys.
+
+"Do you suppose the Earl himself is at home?"  Eileen asked her Father.
+
+"'Tis not unlikely," Mr McQueen answered.  "He comes home sometimes
+with parties of gentlemen and ladies for a bit of shooting or fishing."
+
+"Maybe he'll come to the Fair," Eileen said to Larry.
+
+"Sure, he'd never miss anything so grand as the Fair and he being in
+this part of the world," said Larry.
+
+Some distance from the Castle they could see a church spire, and the
+roofs of the town, and nearer they saw a little village of stalls
+standing in the green field, like mushrooms that had sprung up
+overnight.
+
+"The Fair!  The Fair!" cried the Twins.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+HOW THEY SOLD THE PIG.
+
+Although they had come so far, they were among the earliest at the Fair.
+People were hurrying to and fro, carrying all sorts of goods and
+arranging them for sale on counters in little stalls, around an open
+square in the centre of the grounds.
+
+Cattle were being driven to their pens, horses were being brushed and
+curried, sheep were bleating, cows were lowing, and even the hens and
+ducks added their noise to the concert.  Diddy herself squealed with all
+her might.
+
+Larry and Eileen had never seen so many people together before in all
+their lives.
+
+They had to think very hard about the Secret in order not to forget
+everything but the beautiful things they saw in the different stalls.
+
+There were vegetables and meats, and butter and eggs.  There were hats
+and caps.  There were crochet-work, and bed-quilts, and shawls with
+bright borders, spread out for people to see.
+
+There were hawkers going about with trays of things to eat, pies and
+sweets, toffee and sugar-sticks.  This made the Twins remember that they
+were dreadfully hungry after their long walk, but they didn't have
+anything to eat until quite a while after that, because they had so much
+else to do.  They followed their Father to the corner where the pigs
+were.  A man came to tell them where to put Diddy.
+
+"You can talk with these two farmers," said Mr McQueen.  He brought the
+Twins forward.  "It's their pig."
+
+Then Larry and Eileen told the man about finding Diddy in the bog, and
+that their Father had said they could have her for their own, and so
+they had come to the Fair to sell her.
+
+"And whatever will you do with all the money?" asked the man.
+
+The Twins _almost_ told!  The Secret was right on the tip end of their
+tongues, but they clapped their hands over their mouths, quickly, so it
+didn't get out.
+
+The man laughed.  "Anyway, it's a fine pig, and you've a right to get a
+good price for her," he said.  And he gave them the very best pen of all
+for Diddy.
+
+When she was safely in the pen, Eileen and Larry tied the red ribbon,
+which Eileen had brought in her pocket, to Diddy's ear, and another to
+her tail.  Diddy looked very gay.
+
+When the Twins had had a bite to eat, they stood up before Diddy's pen,
+where the man told them to, and Diddy stood up on her hind legs with her
+front feet on the rail, and squealed.  Larry and Eileen fed her with
+turnip-tops.
+
+There were a great many people in the Fairgrounds by that time.  They
+were laughing and talking, and looking at the things in the different
+booths.  Every single one of them stopped to look at Diddy and the
+Twins, because the Twins were the very youngest farmers in the whole
+Fair.
+
+Everybody was interested, but nobody offered to buy, and the Twins were
+getting discouraged when along came some farmers with ribbons in their
+hands.  They were the Judges!
+
+The Twins almost held their breath while the Judges looked Diddy over.
+Then the head man said, "That's a very fine pig, and young.  She is a
+thoroughbred.  Wherever did you get her, Mr McQueen?"
+
+Mr McQueen just said, "Ask them!" pointing to the Twins.
+
+The Twins were very much scared to be talking to the Judges, but they
+told about the Tinkers and how they found Diddy in the bog, and the
+Judges nodded their heads and looked very wise, and finally the chief
+one said, "Faith, there's not her equal in the whole Fair!  She gets the
+blue ribbon, or I'm no Judge."
+
+All the other men said the same.  Then they gave the blue ribbon to the
+Twins, and Eileen tied it on Diddy's other ear!  Diddy did not seem to
+like being dressed up.  She wiggled her ears and squealed.
+
+Just then there was the gay sound of a horn.  _Tara, tara, tara_! it
+sang, and right into the middle of the Fairground drove a great tally-ho
+coach, with pretty young ladies and fine young gentlemen riding on top
+of it.
+
+Everybody turned away from Diddy and the Twins to see this grand sight!
+
+The footman jumped down and helped down the ladies, while the driver, in
+livery, stood beside the horses' heads with his hand on their bridles.
+
+Then all the young gentlemen and ladies went about the Fair to see the
+sights.
+
+"'Tis a grand party from the Castle," said Mr McQueen to the Twins.
+"And sure, that's the Earl's daughter, the Lady Kathleen herself, with
+the pink roses on her hat!  I haven't seen a sight of her since she was
+a slip of a girl, the size of yourselves."
+
+Lady Kathleen and her party came by just at that moment, and when she
+saw Diddy with her ribbons and the Twins beside her, the Lady Kathleen
+stopped.
+
+The Twins could hardly take their eyes off her sweet face and her pretty
+dress, and the flowered hat, but she asked them all sorts of questions,
+and finally they found themselves telling her the story of how they
+found the pig.
+
+"And what is your pig's name?" said Lady Kathleen.
+
+"Sure, ma'am, it's Deirdre, but we call her Diddy for short," Eileen
+answered.
+
+All the young gentlemen and ladies laughed.  The Twins didn't like to be
+laughed at--they were almost ready to cry.
+
+"And why did you call her Deirdre?" asked Lady Kathleen.
+
+"It was because of finding her in the bog all alone with herself, the
+same as Deirdre when she was a baby and found by the high King of
+Emain," Eileen explained.
+
+"A very good reason, and it's the finest story in Ireland," said Lady
+Kathleen.  "I'm glad you know it so well, and she is such a fine pig
+that I'm going to buy her from you myself."
+
+All the young ladies seemed to think this very funny, indeed.  But Lady
+Kathleen didn't laugh.  She called one of the footmen.  He came running.
+"Do you see that this pig is sent to the Castle when the Fair is over,"
+she said.
+
+"I will, your Ladyship," said the footman.  Then Lady Kathleen took out
+her purse.  "What is the price of your pig?" she said to the Twins.
+
+They didn't know what to say, but the Judge, who was standing near,
+said, "She is a high-bred pig, your Ladyship, and worth all of three
+pounds."
+
+"Three pounds it is, then," said the Lady Kathleen.  She opened her
+purse and took out three golden sovereigns.
+
+She gave them to the Twins and then almost before they found breath to
+say, "Thank you, ma'am," she and her gay company had gone on to another
+part of the Fair.  The Judge made a mark on Diddy's back to show that
+she had been sold.
+
+The Twins gave the three golden sovereigns to their Father to carry for
+them, and he put them in the most inside pocket he had, for safe
+keeping!  Then while he stayed to sell his butter and eggs, and to do
+his buying, the Twins started out to see the Fair by themselves.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+WHAT THEY SAW.
+
+The first person they stopped to watch was a Juggler doing tricks.  It
+was quite wonderful to see him keep three balls in the air all at the
+same time, or balance a pole on the end of his nose.  But when he took
+out a frying-pan from behind his stall, and said to the Twins, who were
+standing right in front of him, "Now, I'll be after making you a bit of
+an omelet without any cooking," their eyes were fairly popping out of
+their heads with surprise.
+
+The Juggler broke an egg into the frying-pan.  Then he clapped on the
+cover, waved the pan in the air, and lifted the cover again.  Instead of
+an omelet there in the frying-pan was a little black chicken crying
+"Peep, peep," as if it wanted its mother!
+
+The Juggler looked very much surprised himself, and the Twins were
+simply astonished.
+
+"Will you see that now!"  Larry whispered to Eileen.  "Sure, if only Old
+Speckle could be learning that trick, 'twould save her a deal of
+sitting."
+
+"Indeed, then, 'tis magic," Eileen answered back, "and there's no luck
+in that same!  Do you come away now, Larry McQueen, or he might be
+casting his spells on yourself and turning you into something else
+entirely, a goat maybe, or a Leprechaun!"
+
+This seemed quite likely to Larry, too, so they slipped hurriedly out
+under the elbows of the crowd just as the Juggler was in the very act of
+finding a white rabbit in the crown of his hat.  They never stopped
+running until they found themselves in the middle of a group of people
+in a distant part of the Fairgrounds.
+
+This crowd had gathered around a rough-looking man with a bundle of
+papers under his arm.  He was waving a leaflet in the air and shouting,
+"Ladies and Gentlemen--Whist now till I sing you a song of Old Ireland.
+'Tis the Ballad of the Census Taker!"  Then he began to sing in a voice
+as loud as a clap of thunder.  This was the first verse of the song:--
+
+  "_Oh_, they're taking of the Census
+  In the country and the town.
+  _Have_ your children got the measles?
+  _Are_ your chimneys tumbling down?"
+
+Every one seemed to think this a very funny song and at the end of the
+second verse they all joined in the chorus.  The Ballad Singer sang
+louder than all the rest of the people put together.
+
+"Musha, the roars of him are like the roars of a giant," Eileen said to
+Larry.  "Indeed, I'm fearing he'll burst himself with the noise that's
+in him."
+
+The moment the song ended, the Ballad Singer passed the hat, and the
+crowd began to melt away.  "There you go, now," cried the Singer,
+"lepping away on your two hind legs like scared rabbits!  Come along
+back now, and buy the Ballad of `The Peeler and the Goat.'  Sure, 'tis a
+fine song entirely and one you'll all be wanting to sing yourselves when
+once you've heard it."  He seized a young man by the arm.  "Walk up and
+buy a ballad now," he said to him.  "Troth, you've the look of a fine
+singer yourself, and dear knows what minute you may be needing one, and
+none handy.  Come now, buy before 'tis too late."
+
+The young man turned very red.  "I don't think I'll be wanting any
+ballads," he said, and tried to pull away.
+
+"You don't think!" shouted the Ballad Singer.  "Of course, you don't
+think, you've nothing whatever to do it with!"
+
+The crowd laughed.  The poor young man bought a ballad.
+
+"There now," cried the Singer, "you're the broth of a boy after all!
+Who'll be after buying the next one off of me?"
+
+His eyes lighted on the Twins.  They shook in their shoes.  "He'll be
+clapping one of them on us next," Larry said to Eileen.  "We'd best be
+going along;" and they crept out of the crowd just as he began to roar
+out a new song.
+
+An old woman, with a white cap and a shawl over her head and a basket on
+her arm, smiled at them as they slipped by.  She jerked her thumb over
+her shoulder at the Ballad Singer.  "Melodious is the closed mouth," she
+said.
+
+"Indeed, ma'am, I've often heard my Mother say so," Eileen answered
+politely.  She curtsied to the old woman.
+
+The old woman looked pleased.  "Will you come along with me out of the
+sound of this--the both of you?" she said.  "And I'll take you to hear
+things that will keep the memory of Ireland green while there's an
+Irishman left in the world."
+
+She led them to a raised platform some distance away.  Over the platform
+there floated a white flag with a green harp on it.  The old woman
+pointed to it.  "Do you remember the old harp of Tara?" she said to the
+Twins.  "'Tis nowhere else at all now but on the flag, but time was,
+long, long years ago, when the harp itself was played on Tara's hill.
+And in those days there were poets to praise Ireland, and singers to
+sing her songs.  And here they will be telling of those days, and
+singing those songs.  Come and listen.  'Tis a Feis [pronounced _faysh_]
+they're having, and prizes given for the best tale told, or the best
+song sung."
+
+The old woman and the Twins made their way to the platform and sat down
+on a bench near the edge of it.  Many other people were sitting or
+standing about.  An old man stood up on the platform.  He told the story
+of Cuchulain [pronounced _Koohoolin_]--the "Hound of Culain"--and how he
+fought all the greatest warriors of the world on the day he first took
+arms.
+
+When he had finished, another man took his place and told the story of
+Deirdre and Naisi, and another told the fate of the four children of Lir
+that were turned into four beautiful swans by their cruel stepmother.
+
+And when the stories were finished a prize was given for the best one,
+and the Twins were glad that it was for the story of Deirdre, for that
+tale was like an old friend to them.
+
+After that there was music, and the dances of old Ireland--the reel and
+the lilt.  And when last of all came the Irish jig, the old woman put
+her basket down on the ground.
+
+"Sure, the music is like the springtime in my bones," she said to the
+Twins.  "Be-dad, I'd the foot of the world on me when I was a girl and I
+can still shake one with the best of them, if I do say it myself."
+
+She put her hands on her hips and began to dance!  The music got into
+everybody else's bones, too, and soon everybody around the platform, and
+on it, too,--old and young, large and small,--was dancing gayly to the
+sound of it.
+
+The Twins danced with the rest, and they were having such a good time
+that they might have forgotten to go home at all if all of a sudden,
+Larry hadn't shaken Eileen's arm and said, "Look there!"
+
+"Where?"  Eileen said.  "There!" said Larry.  "The rough man with the
+brown horse."
+
+The moment Eileen saw the man with the brown horse she took Larry's hand
+and they both ran as fast as they could back to their Father.
+
+"We saw the Tinker!" they cried the moment they saw Mr McQueen.
+
+"Then we'd as well be starting home," said Mr McQueen.  "I'd rather not
+be meeting the gentleman on the road after dark."  He got Colleen and
+put her into the cart once more.  Then he and the Twins had something to
+eat.  They bought a ginger cake shaped like a rabbit, and another like a
+man from one of the hawkers, and they bought some sugar-sticks, too, and
+these, with what they had brought from home, made their supper.
+
+Then Mr McQueen brought out his notched stick.  "We've sold the pig,"
+he said, with his finger on the first notch, "and the butter and eggs
+was the second notch."  Then he went over all the other notches.  "And
+besides all else I've bought Herself a shawl," he said to the Twins.
+
+The Twins wanted to get home because the Secret was getting so big
+inside of them, they knew they couldn't possibly hold it in much longer,
+and they didn't want to let it out until they were at home and could
+tell their Father and Mother both at the same time.  So they said
+good-bye to Diddy, and Eileen took off the ribbons and kept them to
+remember her by.  Then they hurried away.
+
+It was after dark when at last they drove into the yard.  Mrs McQueen
+came running to the door to greet them and hear all about the Fair.
+
+Eileen and Larry told her about the prize, and about Lady Kathleen
+buying the pig, and about seeing the Tinker, while their Father was
+putting up Colleen.
+
+Then when he came in with all his bundles, and took the three golden
+sovereigns out of his pocket, to show to the Mother, the Twins couldn't
+keep still another minute.  "It's for you!  To pay the rent!" they
+cried.
+
+The Father and Mother looked at each other.  "Now, what are they at
+all," said Mrs McQueen, "but the best children in the width of the
+world?  Wasn't I after telling you that we'd make it out somehow?  And
+to think of her being a thoroughbred like that, and we never knowing it
+at all."  She meant the pig!
+
+But Mr McQueen never said a word.  He just gave Larry and Eileen a
+great hug.  Then Mr McQueen went over all the errands with his wife,
+and last of all he brought out the shawl.  "There, old woman," he said,
+"is a fairing for you!"
+
+"The Saints be praised for this day!" cried Mrs McQueen.  "The rent
+paid, and me with a fine new shawl the equal of any in the parish."
+
+It was a happy family that went to bed in the little farmhouse that
+night.  Only Mrs McQueen didn't sleep well.  She got up a number of
+times in the night to be sure there were no Tinkers prowling about.
+"For one can't be too careful with so much money in the house," she said
+to herself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+The next Sunday all the McQueen family went to Mass and Mrs McQueen
+wore her new shawl.  The chapel was quite a distance away, and as they
+walked and all the neighbours walked, too, they had a pleasant time
+talking together along the way.
+
+Dennis and the Twins walked together, and Larry and Eileen told Dennis
+all about the Fair, and about selling the pig to the Lady Kathleen, and
+"Begorra," said Dennis, "but that little pig was after bringing you all
+the luck in the world, wasn't she?"  All the other boys and girls wanted
+to hear about it.  Most of them had never been to a Fair.  So Eileen and
+Larry talked all the way to church, and that was two miles and a half of
+talk, the shortest way you could go.
+
+Just as they neared the church, what should they see but Grannie Malone,
+coming in grandeur, riding on a jaunting-car!  Beside her was a big man
+with a tall hat on his head.
+
+"'Tis her son Michael, back from the States!" cried the Twins.  "He said
+in a letter he was coming."
+
+They ran as fast as they could to reach the church door in time to see
+them go in.  Everybody else stopped, too, they were so surprised, and
+everybody said to everybody else, "Well, for dear's sake, if that's not
+Michael Malone come back to see his old Mother!"
+
+And then they whispered among themselves, "Look at the grand clothes on
+him, and the scarf pin the bigness of a ha'penny piece, and the hat!
+Sure, America must be the rich place entirely."
+
+And when Michael got out of the cart and helped out his old Mother,
+there were many hands held out for him to shake, and many old neighbours
+for him to greet.
+
+"This is a proud day for you, Grannie Malone," said Mrs McQueen.
+
+"It is," said Grannie, "and a sad day, too, for he's after taking me
+back to America, and 'tis likely I'll never set my two eyes on old
+Ireland again, when once the width of the sea comes between us."
+
+She wiped her eyes as she spoke.  Then the bell rang to call the people
+into the chapel.  It was little the congregation heard of the service
+that day, for however much they tried they couldn't help looking at the
+back of Michael's head and at Grannie's bonnet.
+
+And afterward, when all the people were outside the church door, Grannie
+Malone said to different old friends of Michael, "Come along to my house
+this afternoon, and listen to Himself telling about the States!"
+
+That afternoon when the McQueens had finished their noon meal, the whole
+family walked up the road to Grannie's house.  There were a good many
+people there before them.  Grannie's little house was full to the door.
+Michael stood by the fireplace, and as the McQueens came in he was
+saying, "It's the truth I'm telling you!  There are over forty States in
+the Union, and many of them bigger than the whole of Ireland itself!
+There are places in it where you could travel as far as from Dublin to
+Belfast without ever seeing a town at all; just fields without stones or
+trees lying there begging for the plough, and sorrow a person to give it
+them!"
+
+"Will you listen to that now?" said Grannie.
+
+"And more than that, if you'll believe me," Michael went on, "there do
+be places in America where they _give away_ land, let alone buying it!
+Just by going and living on it for a time and doing a little work on it,
+you can get one hundred and sixty acres of land, for your own, mind
+you!"
+
+"The Saints preserve us, but that might be like Heaven itself, if I may
+make bold to say so," said Mrs Maguire.
+
+"You may well say that, Mrs Maguire," Michael answered, "for there,
+when a man has bent his back, and put in sweat and labour to enrich the
+land, it is not for some one else he does it, but for himself and his
+children.  Of course, the land that is given away is far from big
+cities, and it's queer and lonely sometimes on the distant farms, for
+they do not live in villages, as we do, but each farmhouse is by itself
+on its own land, and no neighbours handy.  So for myself, I stayed in
+the big city."
+
+"You seem to have prospered, Michael," said Mr McQueen.
+
+"I have so," Michael answered.  "There are jobs in plenty for the
+willing hands.  Sure, no Irishman would give up at all when there's
+always something new to try.  And there's always somebody from the old
+sod there to help you if the luck turns on you.  Do you remember Patrick
+Doran, now?  He lived forninst the blacksmith shop years ago.  Well,
+Patrick is a great man.  He's a man of fortune, and a good friend to
+myself.  One year when times were hard, and work not so plenty, I lost
+my job, and didn't Patrick help me to another the very next week?  Not
+long after that Patrick ran for Alderman, and myself and many another
+like me, worked hard for to get him elected, and since then I've been in
+politics myself.  First Patrick got me a job on the police force, and
+then I was Captain, and since then, by one change and another, if I do
+say it, I'm an Alderman myself!"
+
+"It's wonderful, sure," Mr Maguire said, when Michael had finished,
+"but I'm not wishful for to change.  Sure, old Ireland is good enough
+for me, and I'd not be missing the larks singing in the spring in the
+green fields of Erin, and the smell of the peat on the hearth in winter.
+It's queer and lonesome I'd be without these things, and that's the
+truth."
+
+He threw his head back and began to sing.  Everybody joined in and sang,
+too.  This is the song they sang:--
+
+  "Old Ireland you're my jewel sure,
+  My heart's delight and glory,
+  Till Time shall pass his empty glass
+  Your name shall live in story.
+
+  "And this shall be the song for me,
+  The first my heart was learning,
+  When first my tongue its accents flung,
+  Old Ireland, you're my darling!
+
+  "From Dublin Bay to Cork's Sweet Cove,
+  Old Ireland, you're my darling
+  My darling, my darling,
+  From Dublin Bay to Cork's Sweet Cove;
+  Old Ireland, you're my darling."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+MR MCQUEEN MAKES UP HIS MIND.
+
+Michael sang with the others.  And when the song was ended, he said,
+"'Tis a true word, Mr Maguire, that there's no place like old Ireland;
+and you'll not find an Irishman anywhere in America that wouldn't put
+the man down that said a word against her.  But what with the landlords
+taking every shilling you can scrape together and charging you higher
+rent whenever you make a bit of an improvement on your farm, there's no
+chance at all to get on in the world.  And with the children, God bless
+them, coming along by sixes and dozens, and little for them to do at
+home, and no place to put them when they grow up, sure, it's well to go
+where they've a better chance.
+
+"Look at the schools now!  If you could see the school that my Patrick
+goes to, you'd never rest at all until your children had the same!
+Sure, the schoolhouses are like palaces over there, and as for learning,
+the children pick it up as a hen does corn!"
+
+"And are there no faults with America, whatever?"  Mr McQueen said to
+Michael.
+
+"There do be faults with her," Michael answered, "and I'll never be the
+man to say otherwise.  There's plenty of things to be said about America
+that would leave you thinking 'tis a long way this side of Heaven.  But
+whatever it is that's wrong, 'tis the people themselves that make it so,
+and by the same token it is themselves that can cure the trouble when
+they're so minded.  It's not like having your troubles put down on you
+by the people that's above you, and that you can't reach at all for to
+be correcting them!  All I say is there's a better chance over there for
+yourself and the children."
+
+The Twins and Dennis and the other young people were getting tired of
+sitting still by this time, and when Michael stopped talking about
+America they jumped up.  The children ran outdoors and played tag around
+Grannie's house, and the older people stayed inside.
+
+By and by Grannie came to the door and called them.  "Come in, every one
+of you," she cried, "and have a fine bit of cake with currants in it!
+Sure, Michael brought the currants and all the things for to make it
+yesterday, thinking maybe there'd be neighbours in.  And maybe 'tis the
+last bit of cake I'll be making for you at all, for 'tis but two weeks
+now until we start across the water."  She wiped her eyes on her apron.
+
+Mr McQueen was very quiet as he walked home with Mrs McQueen and the
+Twins.  And that evening, after the children were in bed, he sat for a
+long time silent, with his pipe in his mouth.  His pipe went out and he
+did not notice it.  By and by he said to Mrs McQueen, "I've made up my
+mind--"
+
+"The Lord save us!  To what?" said Mrs McQueen.
+
+"To go to America," said Mr McQueen.
+
+Mrs McQueen hid her face in her hands and rocked back and forth and
+cried.  "To be leaving the place I was born, and where my father and
+mother were born before me, and all the neighbours, and this old house
+that's been home since ever I married you--'twill break the heart in my
+body," she said.
+
+"I like that part of it no better than yourself," said Mr McQueen, "but
+when I think of the years to come, and Larry and Eileen growing up to
+work as hard as we have worked without getting much at all, and think of
+the better chance altogether they'll have over there, sure, I can't be
+thinking of the pain, but only of the hope there is in it for them."
+
+"I've seen this coming ever since the children told us about Grannie
+Malone's letter," said Mrs McQueen.  "'Tis Michael has put this in your
+head."
+
+"'Tis not Michael alone," said Mr McQueen; "'tis also other things.
+To-morrow I pay Conroy the rent money.  And it will take all that the
+pig brought and all I've been able to rake and scrape myself, and
+nothing left over at all.  And there's but ourselves and the Twins, and
+the year has not been a bad one.  We have had the pig, which we wouldn't
+be having another year.  And what would it be like if there were more of
+us to feed, and no more pigs to be found in the bog like manna from
+Heaven, to be helping us out?"
+
+"Sure, if it's for the children," sobbed Mrs McQueen, "I'd go anywhere
+in the world, and that you know well."
+
+"I do know it," said Mr McQueen.  "And since we're going at all, let it
+be soon.  We'll go with Grannie and Michael."
+
+"In two weeks' time?" cried Mrs McQueen.
+
+"We will so," said Mr McQueen.  "I've no debts behind me, and we can
+sell the cows and hens, and take with us whatever we need from the
+house.  Michael Malone will lend me the money and find me a job when we
+get there.  The likes of this chance will never befall us again, and
+faith, we'll take it."
+
+"Did he tell you so?" asked Mrs McQueen.
+
+"He did, indeed."
+
+"Well, then, I've no other word to say, and if it must be done, the
+sooner the better," said Mrs McQueen.
+
+That night she lay awake a long time.  She was planning just what they
+should take with them to their new home, and trying to think what the
+new home would be like.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+MR MCQUEEN PAYS THE RENT.
+
+The next morning Mr McQueen went to Mr Conroy and paid the rent.  Then
+he said, "This is the last rent I'll be paying you, Mr Conroy!"
+
+Mr Conroy was surprised.  "What do you mean by that?" he said.
+
+"I mean that I'm going to leave old Ireland," said Mr McQueen.
+
+"Well, now!" cried Mr Conroy.  "To think of a sensible man like
+yourself leaving a good farm to go off, dear knows where!  And you not
+knowing what you'll do when you get there as like as any way!  I thought
+you had better sense, McQueen."
+
+"It's because of my better sense that I'm going," said Mr McQueen.
+"Faith, do you think I'd be showing the judgment of an old goat to stay
+where every penny I can get out of the land I have to pay back in rent?
+I'm going to America where there'll be a chance for myself."
+
+"I thought Michael Malone would be sowing the seeds of discontent in
+this parish, with his silk hats and his grand talk," said Mr Conroy
+angrily, "but I didn't think you were the fish to be caught with fine
+words!"
+
+"If the seeds of discontent have been sown in this parish, Terence
+Conroy," said Mr McQueen, "'tis you and the likes of you that have
+ploughed and harrowed the ground ready for them!  Do you think we're
+wishful to be leaving our old homes and all our friends?  But 'tis you
+that makes it too hard entirely for people to stay.  And I can tell you
+that if you keep on with others as you have with me, raising the rent
+when any work is done to improve the farm, you'll be left in time with
+no tenants at all.  And then where will you be yourself, Terence
+Conroy?"
+
+Mr Conroy's face was red with anger, but he said, "While I'm not
+needing you to teach me my duty, I will say this, McQueen.  You're a
+good farmer, and I hate to see you do a foolish thing for yourself.  If
+you'll stay on the farm, I'll not raise the rent on you."
+
+"You're too late, altogether," said Mr McQueen; "and as you said
+yourself I'm not the fish to be caught with fine words.  I know better
+than to believe you.  I'll be sailing from Queenstown in two weeks'
+time."
+
+And with that he stalked out of the room and slammed the door, leaving
+Mr Conroy in a very bad state of mind.
+
+All that Larry and Eileen could remember of the next two weeks was a
+queer jumble of tears and good-byes, of good wishes and blessings, and
+strange, strange feelings they had never had before.  Their Mother went
+about with a white face and red eyes, and their Father was very silent
+as he packed the few household belongings they were to take with them to
+their new home.
+
+At last the great day came.  The McQueens got up very early that
+morning, ate their potatoes and drank their tea from a few cracked and
+broken dishes which were to be left behind.  Then, when they had tidied
+up the hearth and put on their wraps ready to go, Mrs McQueen brought
+some water to quench the fire on the hearth.  She might almost have
+quenched it with her tears.  And as she poured the water upon the ashes
+she crooned this little song [see Note 1] sadly to herself:--
+
+  "Vein of my heart, from the lone mountain
+  The smoke of the turf will die.
+  And the stream that sang to the young children
+  Run down alone from the sky--
+  On the doorstone, grass--and the
+  Cloud lying
+  Where they lie
+  In the old country."
+
+Mr McQueen and the Twins stood still with their bundles in their hands
+until she had finished and risen from her knees, then they went quietly
+out the door, all four together, and closed it after them.
+
+Mrs McQueen stooped to gather a little bunch of shamrock leaves which
+grew by the doorstone, and then the McQueen family was quite, quite
+ready for the long journey.
+
+Mr Maguire had bought Colleen and the cows, and he was to have the few
+hens that were left for taking the McQueen family to the train.
+
+Larry and Eileen saw him coming up the road, "Here comes Mr Maguire
+with the cart!" they cried, "and Dennis is driving the jaunting-car with
+Michael and Grannie on it."
+
+They soon reached the little group by the roadside, and then the luggage
+was loaded into the cart.  Mrs McQueen got up with Grannie on one side
+of the jaunting-car and Eileen sat between them.  Michael and Mr
+McQueen were on the other side with Larry.  The small bags and bundles
+were put in the well of the jaunting-car.
+
+"Get up!" cried Dennis, and off they started.  Mrs McQueen looked back
+at the old house, and cried into her new shawl.  Grannie was crying,
+too.  But Michael said, "Wait until you see your new home, and sure,
+you'll be crying to think you weren't in it before!"  And that cheered
+them up again, and soon a turn in the road hid the old house from their
+sight forever.
+
+The luggage was heavy, and Colleen was slow.  So it took several hours
+to reach the railroad.  It took longer, too, because all the people in
+the village ran out of their houses to say good-bye.  When they passed
+the schoolhouse, the Master gave the children leave to say good-bye to
+the Twins.  He even came out to the road himself and shook hands with
+everybody.
+
+But for all that, when the train came rattling into the station, there
+they all were on the platform in a row ready to get on board.  When it
+stopped, the guard jumped down and opened the door of a compartment.  He
+put Grannie in first, then Mrs McQueen and the Twins.  They were
+dreadfully afraid the train would start before Mr McQueen and Michael
+and all the luggage were on board.
+
+It was the first time Grannie had ever seen a train, or the Twins
+either.  But at last they were all in, and the guard locked the door.
+Larry and Eileen looked out of the window and waved their hands to Mr
+Maguire and Dennis.  The engine whistled, the wheels began to turn, and
+above the noise the Twins heard Dennis call out to them, "Sure, I'll be
+coming along to America myself some day."
+
+"We'll be watching for you," Eileen called back.
+
+Then they passed the station, and were soon racing along over the open
+fields at what seemed to poor Grannie a fearful rate of speed.
+
+"Murder! murder!" she screamed.  "Is it for this I left my cabin?  To be
+broken in bits on the track like a piece of old crockery!  Wirra, wirra,
+why did I ever let myself be persuaded at all?  Ochanee, but it is
+Himself has the soothering tongue in his mouth to coax his old Mother
+away for to destroy her entirely!"
+
+Michael laughed and patted her arm, and "Whist now," he said, "sure, I'd
+never bring you where harm would come to you, and that you know well.
+Look out of the window, for 'tis the last you'll be seeing of old
+Ireland."
+
+Grannie dried her eyes, but still she clung to Michael's arm, and when
+the train went around a curve she crossed herself and told her beads as
+fast as she could.
+
+The Twins were not frightened.  They were busy seeing things.  And
+besides, Larry had Grannie's piece of coal in his pocket.  From the
+window they caught glimpses of distant blue hills, and of lakes still
+more blue.  They passed by many a brown bog, and many a green field with
+farmers and farmers' wives working in them.  The hillsides were blue
+with blossoming flax, and once they passed a field all spread with white
+linen bleaching in the sun.
+
+They flew by little towns with queer names, like Ballygrady and
+Ballylough, and once when they were quite near Cork they saw the towers
+of Blarney Castle.
+
+At last the train rattled into a great station.  There was so much noise
+from puffing engines and rumbling trucks and shouting men, that the
+Twins could only take hold of their Mother's hands and keep close behind
+their Father as he followed Michael, with Grannie clinging to him, to
+another train.  Then there were more flying fields, and a city and more
+fields still, until they reached Queenstown.
+
+The next thing they knew they were walking across a gangplank and on to
+a boat.  The Twins had never seen anything larger than a rowboat before,
+and this one looked very big to them, though it was only a lighter.
+This lighter was to carry luggage and passengers from the dock to the
+great steamer lying outside the harbour in the deep water of the main
+channel.
+
+When they were all safely on board the lighter, and Michael had counted
+their bundles to be sure they had not lost anything, the Twins and their
+Father and Mother, with Michael and Grannie, stood by the deck rail and
+looked back at the dock.  It was crowded with people running to and fro.
+There were groups of other emigrants like themselves, surrounded by
+great piles of luggage--waiting for the next lighter, for one boat would
+not carry all who wanted to go.
+
+There were many good-byes being said and many tears falling, and in the
+midst of all the noise and confusion the sailors were loading tons of
+barrels and bags and boxes and trunks on board the ship.
+
+There was no friend to see them off, but when they saw people crying all
+about them, the Twins cried a little, too, for sympathy, and even Mr
+McQueen's eyes were red along the rims.
+
+At last the gangplanks were drawn in, and the cables thrown off.  The
+screws began to churn the green water into white foam, and the boat
+moved slowly out of the harbour.
+
+The Twins and their Father and Mother, with Grannie and Michael, stood
+by the rail for a long time, and watched the crowd on the pier until it
+grew smaller and smaller, and at last disappeared entirely from sight
+around a bend in the Channel.
+
+They stood there until the lighter reached the great ship that was
+waiting to take them across the water to a new world.
+
+And when at last they were safely on board, and the lighters had gone
+back empty into the harbour, they stood on the wide deck of the ship,
+with their faces turned toward Ireland, until all they could see of it
+in the gathering dusk was a strip of dark blue against the eastern sky,
+with little lights in cottage windows twinkling from it like tiny stars.
+
+Then they turned their faces toward the bright western sky.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note 1.  Copyright of this poem by Herbert Trench, held by John Lane.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+TWENTY YEARS AFTER.
+
+In the middle of one of the busiest crossings in Chicago, there stands a
+big man in a blue uniform.  His eyes are blue, and there are wrinkles in
+the corners of them, the marks of many smiles.
+
+On his head is a blue cap, and under the edge of the cap you catch a
+glimpse of dark hair.  There are bands of gold braid on his sleeve, and
+on his breast is a large silver star.
+
+He is King of the Crossing.  When he blows his whistle, all the
+street-cars and automobiles and carriages--even if it were the carriage
+of the Mayor himself--stop stock-still.  Then he waves his white-gloved
+hands and the stream of people pours across the street.
+
+If there is a very small boy among them, the King of the Crossing
+sometimes lays a big hand on his shoulder and goes with him to the curb.
+And he has been known to carry a small girl across on his shoulder and
+set her safely down on the other side.
+
+When the people are all across, he goes back to the middle of the street
+once more, and blows twice on his little whistle.
+
+Then all the wheels that have been standing as still as if they had gone
+to sleep suddenly wake up, and go rolling down the street, while those
+that have just been turning stop and wait while the big man helps more
+people over the crossing the other way.
+
+All day long the King of the Crossing stands there, blowing his whistle,
+waving his white-gloved hands, and turning the stream of people up first
+one street, then the other.
+
+Everybody minds him.  If everybody didn't, they might get run over and
+wake up in a hospital.  Oh, he must be minded, the King of the Crossing,
+or nobody would be safe!
+
+When the long day is over, he looks up the street and sees another big
+man coming.  This man wears a blue uniform, too, and a silver star, and
+when the hands on the big clock at the corner point to five, he steps
+into the place of the King of the Crossing and reigns in his stead.
+
+Then the King jumps on to the platform of a passing street-car, and by
+and by, when it has gone several miles, he jumps off again, and walks up
+the street to a little house that's as neat as neat can be.
+
+It stands back from the street in a little green yard.  The house is
+painted white, and the front door is green.  But he doesn't go to the
+front door.  He goes round by the sidewalk to the kitchen door, and
+there he doesn't even knock.
+
+He opens the door and walks right in.  Through the open door comes the
+smell of something good cooking, and he sees a plump woman with blue
+eyes that have smile wrinkles in the corners, just like his own, and
+crinkly dark hair, just like his own, too, bending over the stove.  She
+is just tasting the something that smells so good, with a spoon.
+
+When she sees the big man in the door she tastes so quickly that she
+burns her tongue!  But she can use it just the same even if it is
+burned.
+
+She runs to the big man and says, "And is that yourself, now, Larry
+darling?  Sure, I'm that glad to see you, I've scalded myself with the
+soup!"
+
+The big man has just time to say, "Sure, Eileen, you were always a great
+one for burning yourself.  Do you remember that day at Grannie
+Malone's"--when out into the kitchen tumble a little Larry and a little
+Eileen, and a Baby.  They have heard his voice, and they fall upon the
+King of the Crossing as if he weren't a King at all--but just a plain
+ordinary Uncle.
+
+They take off his cap and rumple his hair.  They get into his pockets
+and find some peppermints there.  And the Baby even tries to get the
+silver star off his breast to put into her mouth.
+
+"Look at that now," cries Uncle Larry.  "Get along with you!  Is it
+trying to take me off the Force, you are?  Sure, that star was never
+intended by the City for you to cut your teeth on."
+
+"She'll poison herself with the things she's always after putting in her
+mouth," cries the Mother.  She seizes the Baby and sets her in a safe
+corner by herself, gives her a spoon and says, "There now--you can be
+cutting your teeth on that."
+
+And when the children have quite worn Uncle Larry out, he sits upon the
+floor, where they have him by this time, and runs his fingers through
+his hair, which is standing straight up, and says to the Mother, "Sure,
+Eileen, when you and I were children on the old sod, we were never such
+spalpeens as the likes of these!  They have me destroyed entirely, and
+me the biggest policeman on the Force!  Is it American they are, or
+Irish, I want to know?"
+
+"It's Irish-American we are," shouts little Larry.
+
+"And with the heft of both countries in your fists," groans big Larry.
+
+And then the Mother, who has been laying the table, meanwhile,
+interferes.  "Come off of your poor Uncle," she says, "and be eating
+your soup, like gentlemen and ladies.  It's getting cold on you waiting
+for you to finish your antics.  Your poor Uncle Larry won't come near
+you at all, and you all the time punishing him like that."
+
+And then the Baby, still sucking her spoon, is lifted into her high
+chair.  A chair is placed for Uncle Larry, and they all eat their soup
+around the kitchen table, just as the very last rays of the summer sun
+make long streaks of light across the kitchen floor.
+
+"Where's Dennis?" says Uncle Larry, while the children are quiet for a
+moment.
+
+"Oh, it's Himself is so late that I feed the children and put them to
+bed before he gets home at all," says the Mother.  "It's little he sees
+of them except of a Sunday."
+
+"It's likely he'll live the longer for that," says Uncle Larry.  He
+looks reproachfully at the children and rubs his head.
+
+And then--"Mother, tell us, what kind of a boy was Uncle Larry when you
+and he were Twins and lived in Ireland," says little Eileen.
+
+"The best in the width of the world," says her Mother promptly.
+"Weren't you, Larry?  Speak up and tell them now."
+
+And Uncle Larry laughs and says, "Sure, I was too good entirely!  It
+wouldn't be modest to tell you the truth about myself."
+
+"Tell us about Mother, then," says little Eileen.  "Was she the best in
+the width of the world, too?"
+
+"Sure, I'll never be telling tales on my only twin sister," says Uncle
+Larry, "beyond telling you that there was many another in green old
+Ireland just like her, whatever kind she was.  But I can't stay here
+wearing out my tongue!  Look out the window!  The chickens have gone to
+roost, and the sun is down.  So get along with you to your beds."
+
+When he had gone, and the children were in bed, and the house quiet, the
+Mother sat down by the light in the kitchen with a basket of mending
+beside her.
+
+And while she darned and mended and waited for Himself to come home, she
+remembered and remembered about when she was little Eileen, herself, and
+the King of the Crossing was just her twin brother Larry.
+
+And this book is what she remembered.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.
+
+Like the author's earlier books--"The Dutch Twins" and "The Japanese
+Twins"--this reader aims to foster a kindly feeling and a deserved
+respect for a country whose children have come to form a numerous
+portion of our own population.
+
+To arouse the children's interest and thus to make the reading of this
+story most valuable as a school exercise, it is suggested that at the
+outset the children be allowed to look at the pictures in the book in
+order to get acquainted with "Larry" and "Eileen" and with the scenes
+illustrating their home life and surroundings.
+
+During the reading, point out Ireland on a map of the world or on a
+globe, and tell the children something about the unique character of the
+country, thus connecting this supplementary reading material with the
+work in geography.
+
+The text is so simply written that any fourth or fifth grade child can
+read it without much preparation.  In the fourth grade it may be well to
+have the children read it first in a study period in order to work out
+the pronunciation of the more difficult words.  In the fifth grade the
+children can usually read it at sight, without the preparatory study.
+Give little attention to the expressions in dialect.  Let the children
+read them naturally and they will enhance the dramatic effect of the
+story.  The possibilities in the story for dramatisation and for
+language and constructive work will be immediately apparent.
+
+In connection with the reading of the book, teachers should read or tell
+to the children stories of Irish life and from Irish folk-lore; for
+example, "The Story of the Little Rid Hin," "The Dagda's Harp," and "The
+Tailor and the Three Beasts," in Sara Cone Bryant's _Stories to Tell to
+Children_; and "Billy Beg and his Bull," in the same author's _How to
+Tell Stories to Children_.  Material which may readily be adapted to
+this use will be found in Johnston and Spencer's _Ireland's Story_.  Let
+the children bring to class postcards and other pictures of scenes in
+Ireland.
+
+The unique illustrations in "The Irish Twins" should be much used, both
+in the reading of the story and in other ways.  Children will enjoy
+sketching some of them; their simple treatment makes them especially
+useful for this purpose.
+
+The book is printed on paper which will take water colour well, and
+where books are individually owned some of the sketches could be used
+for colouring in flat washes.  They also afford suggestions for action
+sketching by the children.
+
+An excellent oral language exercise would be for the children, after
+they have read the story, to take turns telling the story from the
+illustrations; and a good composition exercise would be for each child
+to select the illustration that he would like to write upon, make a
+sketch of it, and write the story in his own words.
+
+These are only a few of the many ways that will occur to resourceful
+teachers for making the book a valuable as well as an enjoyable exercise
+in reading.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins
+
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