'As big as the baby?'
She considered a moment. 'Yes, just as big as that. But a man, da.'
'Well, why aren't you after catching him and holding him for ransom? ’Tis pots and pots o' gold they've hidden away, the little people, and will be paying a body what he asks to let them go.'
She pouted, on the verge of tears. 'I want him to come back.'
'I mistrust he won't be doing that, the leprechaun. Once you take your eye away, it's off with him for good and all.'
Margaret O'Brien hugged herself with delight. That was a new one; she had never got back that far before. Yet how well she remembered it all! She seemed to smell the woody pungency of the lumber, the limey odor of white-wash from the field-stone cellar.
The old woman's dream went on. Out of the inexhaustible storehouse of the past, she summoned, one by one, her much-loved memories. There was a pig-tailed Margaret in bonnet and shawl, trudging to school one wintry day. She had seen many wintry school-days, but this one stood out by reason of the tears she had shed by the way. She saw the long benches, the slates, the charts, the tall teacher at his desk. With a swelling of the throat, she saw the little girl sob out her declaration: 'I'm not for coming no more, Mr. Wilde.'
'What's that, Margaret? And why not? Haven't I been good to you?'
Tears choked the child. 'Oh, Mr. Wilde, it's just because you're so terrible good to me. They say you are trying to make a Protestant out of me. So I'll not be coming no more.'
The tall man drew the little girl to his knee and reassured her. Margaret O'Brien could review that scene with tender delight now. She had not been forced to give up her beloved school. Mr. Wilde had explained to her that her brothers were merely teasing her because she was so quick and such a favorite.