The merchant established a great knitting industry in West Donegal. My mother used to knit socks for him, and he paid her at the rate of one and threepence a dozen pairs, and it was said that he made a shilling of profit on a pair of these in England. My mother usually made a pair of socks daily; but to do this she had to work sixteen hours at the task. Along with this she had her household duties to look after. "A penny farthing a day is not much to make," I once said to her. "No, indeed, if you look at it in that way," she answered. "But it is nearly two pounds a year and that is half the rent of our farm of land."
Every Christmas Farley McKeown paid two hundred and fifty pounds to the church. When the priest announced this from the altar he would say, "That's the man for you!" and all the members of the congregation would bow their heads, feeling very much ashamed of themselves because none of them could give more than a sixpence or a shilling to the silver collection which always took place at the chapel of Greenanore on Christmas Day.
When the night grew later my mother put her bright knitting-needles by in a bowl over the fireplace, and we all went down on our knees, praying together. Then mother said: "See and leave the door on the latch; maybe a poor man will need shelter on a night like this." With these words she turned the ashes over on the live peat while we got into our beds, one by one.
There were six children in our family, three brothers and three sisters. Of these, five slept in one room, two girls in the little bed, while Fergus and Dan slept along with me in the other, which was much larger. Father and mother and Kate, the smallest of us all, slept in the kitchen.
When the light was out, we prayed to Mary, Brigid, and Patrick to shield us from danger until the morning. Then we listened to the winds outside. We could hear them gather in the dip of the valley and come sweeping over the bend of the hill, singing great lonely songs in the darkness. One wind whistled through the keyhole, another tapped on the window with an ivy leaf, while a third swept under the half-door and rustled across the hearthstone. Then the breezes died away and there was silence.
"They're only putting their heads together now," said Dan, "making up a plan to do some other tricks."
"I see the moon through the window," said Norah.
"Who made the moon?" asked Fergus.
"It was never made," answered Dan. "It was there always."
"There is a man in the moon," I said. "He was very bad and a priest put him up there for his sins."