He would have liked them to take him away. They could not be so cruel as his stepmother.
Sometimes Shaun's stepmother made him mind her baby. He had to carry it upon his back. Many of the village boys did this sort of thing, and so it was not the disgrace that it would be in a present-day city.
He often went down to the shore.
To-day as he approached the shore, he met a friend. This friend was a girl, the daughter of a neighbor. Her name was Eileen. But Shauneen did not call her that.
She was his little schoolgirl sweetheart, and he called her Dawn. He called her Dawn because he told her that she was the dawn of day to him.
"Some day," he said, "'tis myself, Shaun O'Day, will marry you. Then you will be in truth my Dawn O'Day."
To-day they looked out across the great ocean and dreamed of a new world out there. They dreamed of America.
THEY FANCIED AMERICA