CHAPTER VII

A RIDE WITH THE POSTMAN

“My blessing go high, my blessing go low,

My blessing go with you wherever you go.”

It was Mary Ellen’s sweet Irish way of saying good-bye to the peddler when he went away the next day; and he replied heartily, “If I should travel over the whole of Ireland between sun-up and sun-down, I’d hear no better word.”

At the cross-roads he met the postman in his red jaunting-car, riding toward the thatched cottage at the foot of the hill, and he stopped to pass the time of day with him.

“Give the two little girls a ride,” said the peddler. “If ’tis to the National School you are going, with a letter for the teacher, this way is as short as the other, and ’tis a lonely life the two children lead,—a mile from any other house, and never another child to play with.”

“’Tis a letter for Jerry, himself, that I have, and ’twill take me by the cottage, anyway,” answered the postman; and looked the letter over, thinking that it was probably from Grandmother Barry’s daughter, Hannah Malone, as the postmark was “Kilkenny.”

He found the great-grandmother crooning an old Gaelic milking tune over her wheel, instead of the spinning song which she usually sang; and Grandmother Barry greeted him with, “Ah, Larry O’Day, this is just such a morning as the one when you and I went with the rest on the pilgrimage to ‘Tobar N’alt,’ the holy well in County Sligo, to cure us of our rheumatism.”

The postman laughed. “That was forty years ago, and I’d forgot all about it,” he said, throwing out a letter from the pack. “It’s a dozen pilgrimages to holy wells that I’ve made since then,” he went on, “and there’s not a heartier man for his age, than myself, in all Ireland.”

Then he called to the children and asked if they cared to ride with him as far as the National School, four miles back of the hill, to carry a letter to the teacher.

“Oh, Molly darlin’, a ride!” gasped Kathleen, hardly believing her ears; while Mary Ellen was so excited that she climbed over the seat and would have tumbled into the well of the jaunting-car if Kathleen had not held her back.

“Steady, there, steady!” said Larry O’Day. “There be all sorts of wells in holy Ireland, from the blessed ones filled with the water that cures all ailments, to the empty one between the seats of a jaunting-car; but not a one is there built to hold little girls in red dresses.”

Both children laughed merrily, and held tight to each other as the old horse jogged up hill and down dale toward the far-away schoolhouse.

The blue waters of a lake glistened afar off among the heather, and the postman said, “I mind me that somewhere in these parts there is a long flat stone that marks the place where the good Saint Columba was born. I’ve heard that if a body sleeps on it for one night before leaving dear old Ireland, he’ll never be homesick.”

“Perhaps ’tis the same flat stone by Father’s bench, where we play betimes,” said Kathleen. “I’ll tell Danny about it. He’s thinking of going to find his fortune in America.”

Then the children asked about the schoolhouse and the children who went to school in it. “How old are they?” asked Kathleen. “Are there any as little as Mary Ellen?”

“There are some smaller than Mary Ellen and some bigger than you,” answered the postman. “There are both boys and girls.”

“What do they learn?” she asked again, while Mary Ellen asked, “What do they play?”

“I’ve seen them playing some kind of a game where they hold hands in a circle,” he told Mary Ellen, and both little girls cried at once, “That’s ‘Green grow the rushes-o.’”

“Belike it is,” he said cheerfully, and went on, “they learn reading, and writing, and the church catechism.”

“Don’t they learn about the grand places there are in the other parts of the world?” asked Kathleen wistfully. One of her few great pleasures was to get out an old geography-book belonging to her father, and study the pictures in it.

“Perhaps there’s something of the sort for the older ones,” said the postman, “but if a body can’t travel the world over, to see such places, I’m doubtful if there’s any good in learning about them.”

“Oh, no, no!” cried Kathleen, aghast at such a thought; while Mary Ellen said softly, “If I could see just one little green shamrock, I’d walk to the end of the world.”

Then they turned into another road and saw the children playing in the school-yard, and a sudden shyness fell upon Kathleen at the sight of so many children.

After the teacher had taken her letter and the red cart was jogging back over the road, there was no end to the questions Larry O’Day had to answer.

“They are playing ‘Green grow the rushes-o’”

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“Would those little girls feed the chickens and pigs, and drive the cow to pasture, as Kathleen did? Would the boys plant potatoes and work in the bog just the same as Danny? Was that the very school where Danny himself walked eight miles a day, one winter, to learn to figure?”

Before they reached the thatched cottage again, the postman had talked more than he had for many a day before, and Kathleen helped her little sister down from the car in a great hurry to run to Grandmother Barry and ask still other questions.

But Grandmother Barry had questions of her own to ask. “Sure, Kathleen alanna,” she began, “and how would you like to go down to Kilkenny and live with your Aunt Hannah?”

“When?” asked Kathleen breathlessly.

“As soon as the plans can be made,” answered her grandmother. “Your Aunt Hannah has sent the word in the letter the postman left; and your father has gone to fetch Danny and talk it over with him.”

“There they are now,” said Mary Ellen, her quick ear catching the sound of their footsteps, and the next moment Danny and his father were turning into the yard.

Then Mary Ellen held the wonderful letter while Kathleen looked it over and Father Jerry told what it said.

“Himself has been doing well in his business, praise be!” Aunt Hannah wrote, “and I’d like to do something for a child of my youngest brother, though he did take up with the tinker’s trade against my wishes; and him with the schooling.”

“That’s true,” said the shoemaker, looking up at the circle of faces. “Hannah begged me to take up teaching for a living. I had the learning for it, and it is an honorable calling in Ireland, and always has been. But I longed to see the whole of the green island, so I took on a trade that gave me a chance to travel over it.”

“’Tis of the chair in the chimney-corner at Barney’s house in Sligo, I’ve been thinking all the morn,” said Great-grandmother Connell. “Do you believe Barney has kept it waiting for me these ten years as he said he would?”

“I doubt not there’s a chair each side of the chimney, one for you and one for Mother Barry,” said Father Jerry gently.

“’Tis Ireland that never forgets the old mother,” said the older woman, “and my heart is crying out for the dear old home where I lived for eighty years.”

“Why shouldn’t we all go?” asked Danny boldly. “I’ve money enough for my passage to America, and I’d like to try my fortune in the world.”

“But what will become of me?” asked little Mary Ellen.

“’Tis you and I will buy a great dog to keep us company, and we’ll go travelling together up north to listen to the waves beating around the Giant’s Causeway, Molly darling,” her father told her.

But Danny had to give a month’s warning to Farmer Flynn, and before the time was up, a letter had reached them from Tonroe. It said that Cousin Bee, Uncle Barney’s daughter who had married a Donovan, would be glad to have Mary Ellen bide with her for a while, at her home in Roscommon County.

“So you and the doggie must travel alone to the North,” whispered Mary Ellen to her father.

And that was the way of it.