“It was also against the law for the sun to rise while the king was lying in bed at Tara,” said the peddler.
The children laughed merrily, and Danny asked, “How could they keep the sun from rising till the king was out of his bed?”
“Faith, they made the king get up before the sun did,” the peddler answered.
While the children were laughing over his joke, Grandmother Barry put down her knitting and went to the cupboard for a plate of oat-cakes and her precious pound of honey.
Everyone was quiet for a few minutes over the feast, and little Mary Ellen was the first to break the silence. “Father told us a story about St. Columbkille one day,” she said. “He was born here in our own Donegal and he had little cakes baked for him with the letters of the alphabet on them. I’m thinkin’ if I had cakes like that I could learn the letters with my fingers.”
“Faith, he must have had a fine time picnicking on his letters,” said the peddler.
“There was St. Bridget, too,” said Grandmother Barry; “she was a fine woman and took great pride in learning and teaching. And I doubt not her fingers had magic in them to turn wool into yarn and yarn into stockings, like any colleen of Donegal,” she added, with a look at Kathleen.
But Kathleen was sound asleep in her chair and had forgotten all about the stocking she was going to finish knitting that very day.
“The child is tired out with our stories,” said her father.
“I mind we should all be in our beds,” said Grandmother Barry, and soon they were tucked away comfortably for the night.