THE WISHING SPRING
“What was that you picked up, Kathleen?” Columba asked, as the two were walking home from school together one sunny afternoon in June.
“Oh, just an old nail,” replied Kathleen, dropping it quickly into her pocket.
“What will you do with an old nail?” questioned Columba. “Are you thinking of building a house?”
Kathleen hesitated so long before replying that her cousin repeated, “What’s an old nail good for?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Kathleen replied. “Granny Connor told me over a year ago that Mary Ellen should carry nine old nails in her pocket, and I found them and sewed them up in a little bag for her; but they’ve done no good that I can see. Now I’m finding nine more to send to her. Perhaps they will do better than the others. Oh, how I wish Mary Ellen could see! She has such pretty blue eyes, but no sight in them.”
“I’ll tell you what you ought to do,” said Columba. “There’s a spring in the woods down beyond the ruins of Jerpoint Abbey at Thomastown, and they say if you drink a cup of the water, and wish three times, your wish will come true. We might all go down there on a picnic and you could wish about Mary Ellen’s eyes. I wished for a pony once, and I got it,” he added, by way of encouragement.
“Oh, Columba, did you really?” Kathleen asked eagerly. “How I’d like to try it! Do you suppose your mother would let us have the picnic to-morrow?”
“We’ll ask her,” Columba said decidedly, and the two walked along in silence for a little while, Kathleen thinking of her sister, and Columba planning what he would like to have in the lunch baskets.
“There’s a wishing arch near the Giant’s Causeway,” Kathleen said finally. “I wrote to Father about it weeks ago and asked him to go there and wish for Mary Ellen’s sight, but I’ve not heard a word from him yet. Perhaps he is waiting till the last Sunday in June. Grandmother Barry says that is the day the pilgrims go to the well in County Sligo to be cured of their rheumatism.”