“What! me brother Jerry?”
“That same,” answers she in a wake voice.
“Where is he?” shouts I, throwing down my hook. “Lade me to him. Niver a line did he send to tell us he was laving Ireland, but welkim he and his as the flowers in May to the best I have.”
The girl didn’t stir; she seemed numbed and dead like and answered in her hollow voice, “He’s dead thim three weeks.”
“God save us all,” I shouted, “you are mad my colleen, and ye’re mind’s awandering. My brother Jerry is in Ireland with his wife and the childer, and ye’re mistaen when you call me uncle.”
“No, no,” she says to me, “ye’re my own uncle for I axed at the house next to you. My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters are wid the saints in glory,” and wid that she lifted her eyes and crosses herself.
“When and where?” I shouted in desperation.
“They died ov the ship favor, part are buried in the say and part at the favor sheds.”
With those words the truth of all she said burst on me and I staggered, for my head swam, and I had to throw myself down on the meadow, but my wife rushed past and clasped the poor child in her arms, “I’ll be mother to you, and, God help us, it won’t be on our account if the tear o’ sorrow come again to your eye.”
The poor thing didn’t respond as you might expect, but sank on my wife’s bosom and looked about with that stony stare of hers. My wife’s hot tears were raining on her face, when she whispered, “Wad ye give me a bite to eat?”