“I helped Grandma Barry with the churning, too,” said Mary Ellen. “We churned and churned, but not a bit of butter did we get till Kathleen came home and put a sod of burning peat under the churn. Then the butter came soon enough, and Kathleen said the good people had put a spell upon the cream.”
“Faith, you’re always thinking of the fairies,” exclaimed her father. “Do you like old Granny Connor’s witch tales better than the stories I tell you of brave Irish men, like Brian Boru and Conn of the Hundred Battles?”
Kathleen looked at him quickly. “You tell us that Conn lived many hundred years ago, and Brian Boru has been dead these eight hundred years; but Granny Connor says that the fairies are living now. They have a council hall in a cave between here and Letterkenny. The cave is under the great Rock of Doon, and—”
“I like not to hear you speak so much of old Granny Connor and her tales,” her father interrupted her. “It’s her and her red cloak have put sorrow and shame on me these many years.
“Do you mind how green the grass is already, down there in front of the door, Kathleen, child?” he added.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m fond of the feeling of it to my bare feet.”
“You might travel over the whole of Donegal without seeing another yard so green,” he said sadly, “and it’s a shame to me to have it so.”
“Why?” asked Mary Ellen, who thought the soft grass the best playground in the whole world.
“Because no stranger ever stops before our door to beg a bite or a night’s shelter from us,” he replied.
“True it is,” said the child, “but Grandma Barry says it is lonely here and no one cares to come.”