The folk of Furry Farm

by K. F. Purdon

This vexed Mickey; for wasn’t it as much as to say, up to his face, that he begrudged the widdah woman what Art did for her; whereas he had no objections in life to it, as long as his own business wasn’t interfered with. There’s plenty of that kind of good-nature in the world; the same as the way people have of giving away things they can’t use themselves, and then they expect great praise for doing what costs them nothing. But sure, you mightn’t expect too much from the likes of Heffernan.

He said no more then, only the very next evening a while after Art had quit off to Rafferty’s didn’t Mickey make up his mind to take a waddle off there himself, and see what was going on.

“An’ a fine evening it is, too,” he says to himself, quite cheerful-like; “and the ground in the finest of order for getting in the spuds.”[1]

For it was one of those long, clear spring’s days, when the birds are just beginning to tune up, and you can imagine to see a growth in the grass, and a change taking place upon the trees and hedges, as if some one was hanging veils of purple and green between you and them. But the sorra leaf is out on them yet! There’s nothing to be seen only bare branches, and the sting of winter is in the wind still. The days does be long and bright, so much so that a body is apt to imagine that the hard weather is all gone away, and that there’s to be nothing only what’s warm and pleasant from that out. And still in all, it’s the lonesomest time, and the time you’ll fret the most, of the whole year.

Heffernan had none of these things in his mind, and he making his way along to the Widdah Rafferty’s; only planning he was how to get up a-nigh it, without he to be seen himself.

It was along a bit of a boreen[2] the house was; and as Mickey came within sight of it, “I see no signs of work to be doing presently in this garden!” says he, and he craning his neck, and making himself as small as he could. And what he was after saying was true enough. You could just take notice of Art’s spade, stuck up straight in a half-dug furrow. But sight nor light of man nor mortal there wasn’t to be seen in the garden that Art was supposed to be planting.

On steps Heffernan; and now he begins to hear the pleasant little hum-hum of a spinning-wheel. The sound of it inside must have deadened the noise of his brogues and he going along the rough boreen, so as that he was enabled to get up close to the house annonst-like, and have a peep at what was going on there, without any one knowing he was in it at all.

Well, he looked in, and troth, there was no delay on him to do so. He mightn’t have been so cautious. For the people inside were too much taken up with themselves and their own goings-on to think of looking round for any one else.

There was the Widdah Rafferty, sitting in the chimney-corner at her wheel; but the sorra much spinning she was doing, with the way Art had her laughing, going on with his antics, himself and the daughter. In spite of all the hardship, Mrs. Rafferty was a very contented sort of a person, never going to meet trouble, as the saying is. Laughing at Art she was, and her daughter, Rosy. The two of them were sitting on a form, letting on to be very hard at work, cutting the seed potatoes, and they with a kish[3] upon the floor foreninst them, to throw the seed into, according as they’d have it ready.

“That’s never Rosy Rafferty!” thinks Heffernan to himself. Mickey, as you know, was never one to be having much discourse with the neighbours, beyond that he’d just pass the time of day with them. And that’s how he had never chanced to see the girl, no more than that he might meet her now and then, going along the road, with her shawl over her head, and her eyes on the ground, and she with the mother, on their way to Mass. Poor and all as the Widdah Rafferty was, she made a shift someways or other to rear this one child of hers very nice and tender. She’d never agree to let her go off to dances at the cross-roads, or the like of that, without she could be with her, herself. And in troth, Rosy Rafferty was as beautiful a young creature as ever the sun shone down upon; with cheeks like hedge roses, and a pair of big, soft eyes that you’d think ... well, in fact, it would be a thing impossible to put down upon paper what such a girl looks like. Every eye forms a beauty for itself. What delights me, you wouldn’t maybe give a thraneen[4] for. But it was given up to Rosy that there wasn’t the peel of her in all Ardenoo, in the regard of looks, and along with that, she was as shy as a filly, and as sweet as a little bird.