The boy told him about his trip and the strangeness he felt in this new land. So this Irishman, Pat O'Leary, took Shaun to his shop.
Pat O'Leary was a shoemaker. He had a tiny shop on a side street in the great city. Here he worked at his trade and lived in a dingy room in the back of the shop.
'Twas thus that Shaun O'Day found a home. And 'twas thus that he started to work for a shoemaker. Pat O'Leary was not a fairy shoemaker. But a good fairy was he to the Irish lad.
He was wrinkled and bent. He might have been an old leprechaun who had lost his way upon earth. He was jolly and smiling, with a joke ever upon his lips.
Shaun lived and worked with Pat and was happy. At night he went to school in the big city and learned many things.
The bright lights, flickering on and off, made him blink his eyes. The tall towers and buildings made his neck stiff with looking up.
The noise of the traffic and whistles and motors and people made his ears tingle.
But he loved it and wrote each week to his little friend in Ireland and told her of the magic of it all. He told it with a twinkle in his Irish eyes as he wrote.