After endless efforts my brother carried his point and drained the whole village—beaver bonnets notwithstanding. Whitewash became popular. “Middens” (as the Scotch call them, the Irish have a simpler phrase) were placed more frequently behind houses than in front of them. Costume underwent some vicissitudes, among which the introduction of shoes and stockings, among even the juvenile population, was the most remarkable feature; a great change truly, since I can remember an old woman, to whom my youngest brother had given a pair, complaining that she had caught cold in consequence of wearing, for the first time in her life, those superfluous garments.
Many were drawn into the stream of the Exodus, and have left the country. How helpless they are in their migrations, poor souls! was proved by one sad story. A steady, good young woman, whose sister had settled comfortably in New York, resolved to go out to join her, and for the purpose took her passage at an Emigration Agency office in Dublin. Coming to make her farewell respects at Newbridge, the following conversation ensued between her and myself:
“So, Bessie, you are going to America?”
“Yes, ma’am, to join Biddy at New York. She wrote for me to come, and sent the passage-money.”
“That is very good of her. Of course you have taken your passage direct to New York?”
“Well, no, ma’am. The agent said there was no ship going to New York, but one to some place close by, New-something-else.”
“New-something-else, near New York; I can’t think where that could be.”
“Yes, ma’am, New—New—I disremember what it was, but he told me I could get from it to New York immadiently.”
“Oh, Bessie, it wasn’t New Orleans?”
“Yes, ma’am, that was it! New Orleans—New Orleans, close to New York, he said.”