Mrs. Murphy came in to borrow a “bit o’ tay,” and to learn what the rumpus was about. Dan told the story, putting Owny in the best light, and declaring valiantly that “Owny wasn’t no chump.”
“Misses Murphy,” said Dil, as soon as she could get a chance, “what is it ’bout Christmas? an’ what makes Christ be born ivery year?”
“Shure, dear, I do be havin’ so many worries that I disremember. What wid th’ babby bein’ sick, an’ pore ol’ Mis’ Bolan not sittin’ up a minnit, an’ bein’ queer like in her mind, an’ me hardly airnin’ enough to keep body an’ sowl togither, I hardly mind ’bout the blissed day. But I do be thinkin’ he isn’t born reely, for ye see the blissid Virgin’s his mother, an’ she’s in hivin wid th’ saints. I do be a bad hand at tellin’ things straight; but I niver had any larnin’, fer I wint in a mill whin I was turned o’ six years. An’ whin ye can’t rade, it’s hard gettin’ to know much. But I’ll ast the praist. Ah, dear,” with a furtive glance at Dil, “If ye’d only let me ast him to come—”
“Oh, no, no!” protested Dil. “Mother’d kill us; an’ she don’t b’leve in priests an’ such. You know how she went on ’bout the man who came an’ sang.”
“Ah, yis, dear; it wouldn’t do.” And she shook her head, her eyes still fixed sorrowfully on Bess. “But I have me beads, an’ I go to confission wanst a month, an’ that’ll be Friday now, an’ I’ll ast Father Maginn an’ tell ye all. Oh, you poor childer! An’ it’ll be a sad Christmas fer many a wan, I’m thinkin’. There’s poor Mis’ Bolan—”
Mrs. Murphy paused. Was Dil so blind? She could not suggest Mrs. Bolan’s death when the great shadow seemed so near them.
“Dear,” she added, with sympathetic softness, “if ye should be wantin’ any one suddint like, run up fer me.”
“Yer very kind, Misses Murphy. I sometimes wisht there would be nights a whole week long, I’m so tired.”
Owen did not come home that night nor the next. Dil devoutly hoped he would not come at all. She had a secret feeling that he would go to Patsey, and she comforted Bess with it. The house was so much quieter, and Dan was better alone.
Even in Barker’s Court there were people who believed in Christmas, though some of them had ideas quite as vague as Dilsey Quinn’s. But there was a stir in the very air, and penny trumpets began to abound. Still, there were many who had no time for Christmas anticipations, who were driven to do their six days’ work in five, who stitched from morning to midnight, who did not even have time to gossip with a neighbor.