To Mickey Heffernan in especial, that had never passed much remarks about any girl, it appeared something altogether strange and new, to see the bright little face of her, shining there in the dim, smoky cabin, like a lovely poppy among the weeds of a potato-patch.
“Mind yer eye!” she was saying to Art, “or you’ll cut the hand off of yourself!”
“Which eye?” says Art, and he with his own two eyes turned full upon Rosy; and, in troth, what a fool he’d be to have them anywhere else; “which eye do ye mane? Is it the eye in me head, or the eye in me hand I’m to mind?” Meaning, of course, the bud of the potato he was after cutting. “Och, begorra! there’s the knife after slipping on me....”
“There now!” says Rosy, “didn’t I tell you!” and with that she turns gashly pale, at the sight of the blood. So it was the mother that had to see to Art’s wound. She stopped the wheel, and came over to look at it.
“Phoo! what at all!” she says; “sure, that’s a thing of nothing! It will be well afore you’re twice marrit!”
“I dunno about that!” says Art, not wanting to be done out of Rosy’s commiseration; “there’s an imminse pain in it at this present.”
“Think as little of that as I do, and there won’t be a bother on ye!” says the Widdah; “and what’s this you’re after giving me to bandage it with, Rosy? Sure it’s not your good silk hankercher that I bought for you, off of Tommy the Crab, only last Easter was a twelvemonth! Pshat! girl dear, won’t any old polthogue do well enough for that cut thumb of Art’s!”
At this word, Rosy whips the purty little scarf into her pocket, and she with cheeks upon her as red as scarlet. Well! to see the look Art gave her! If Rosy was a Queen, and she after offering to bestow her crown upon him, he couldn’t have appeared more thankful and delighted. And sure, may be after all, a Queen would have one crown for using every day, and a good one laid by for Sundays as well; whereas, all the neckerchers that Rosy had in this wide world was just that pink one the mother had bought her out of Tommy the Crab’s basket.
Well, that all passed off, and when the mother was back at her wheel, and Rosy beginning on the praties again, says she to Art, Rosy I mean, “You’ll cut no more seed here to-night,” she says, “and you may’s well be making the road back to Heffernan’s short now as you’re no more use here,” says she.
“Is that all you want wid me?” says Art; “if so, it’s as good for me to be off at wanst, as to be staying here, and wearing out me welcome!”