Kathleen stole a look into his face, which always had a kindly smile for everyone. “I did not mean any wrong,” she said timidly. “I was only wanting to find some way to help Mary Ellen.”
“What would you be doing for Mary Ellen?” he asked.
“I’d like to find some way to get money so that she might go to Dublin and have a doctor cure her eyes,” said the child simply.
“And so you put a dish of stirabout where the little old shoemaker might see it?” asked her father.
Both the children nodded their heads.
“How did you find out about the fairy dwarf?”
“Great-grandmother Connell and Grandmother Barry talk about him in Gaelic. Sometimes Grandmother Barry tells us what they are saying,” answered Kathleen. “And last night I asked old Granny Connor to tell me more.”
“What did she say?” asked her father.
“She said that people call you the leprecaun of Donegal, because of the two rows of buttons in sevens on your green frieze coat.”
The shoemaker laughed. “And where do they think I keep my money?” he asked.