"Aye, but ye've had double throuble, dear."
"We never let trouble rob us of laughter when I was here."
"Because whin ye wor here she was here too. In thim days whin throuble came she'd tear it t' pieces an' make fun ov aych piece, begorra. Ye might glour an' glunch, but ye'd haave t' laugh before th' finish—shure ye wud!"
The neighbors began to knock again. Some of the knocks were vocal and as plain as language. Some of the more familiar gaped in the window.
"Hes he hed 'is bath yit?" asked McGrath, the ragman.
We opened the door and in marched the inhabitants of our vicinity for the second "crack."
This right of mine own people to come and go as they pleased suggested to me the thought that if I wanted to have a private conversation with my father I would have to take him to another town.
The following day we went to the churchyard together—Jamie and I. Over her grave he had dragged a rough boulder and on it in a straggling, unsteady, amateur hand were painted her initials and below them his own. He was unable to speak there, and maybe it was just as well. I knew everything he wanted to say. It was written on his deeply furrowed face. I took his arm and led him away.
Our next call was at Willie Withero's stone-pile. There, when I remembered the nights that I passed in my new world of starched linen, too good to shoulder a bundle of his old hammers, I was filled with remorse. I uncovered my head and in an undertone muttered, "God forgive me."
"Great oul bhoy was Willie," he said.