“If a man rears up a calf till it becomes a cow, there’s no doubt that cow must be Nationalist or Orange. She couldn’t help it, livin’ in this country. Now, what are you going to do when a Nationalist buys an Orange cow? Tammas McGorrian bought a cow from wee Billy there last month that Billy bred an’ reared himself. Do ye mane to tell me that’s a Nationalist cow? I tell ye what it is, boys,” sez the Father, wi’ his eyes twinklin’, “wan can av that cow’s milk in a Nationalist cramery would turn the butther as yellow as the shutters av the Orange Hall.”
By this time there was a smudge av a laugh on iverybody’s face, an’ even Tammas an’ wee Billy couldn’t help crackin’ a smile.
“Now,” sez Father Connolly, “afther all, it’s aisy enough in the case of Tammas’s cow. There’s no denyin’ she’s an Orange cow, an’ either Tammas may go to the Orange cramery or give the cow back to Billy.”
Tammas sits up a bit at that.
“But, thin, there’s a lot of mighty curious cases. There’s my own wee Kerry. Iverybody knows I bred her myself; but, thin, there’s no denyin’ that her father—if that’s the right way to spake av a bull—belonged to Major Donaldson here, an’ was called ‘Prince of Orange.’ Now, be the law, a child follows its father in these matters, an’ I’m bound be it to send the wee Kerry’s milk to the Orange cramery, although I’ll maintain she’s as good a Nationalist as ever stepped; didn’t she thramp down ivery Orange lily in Billy Black’s garden only last Monday?
“So, boys, whin you think the matter out, ye’ll see it’s no aisy matther this separatin’ av Orange an’ Green in the cramery. For, if ye do it right—and I’m for no half-measures—ye’ll have to get the pedigree av ivery bull, cow, and calf in the counthry, an’ then ye’ll be little further on, for there’s a lot av bastes come in every year from Americay that’s little better than haythin’.
“But, if ye take my advice, those av ye that isn’t sure av your cows’ll just go on quietly together in the manetime, an’ let thim that has got a rale thrue-blue baste av either persuasion just keep her milk to themselves, and skim it in the ould-fashioned way wi’ a spoon.”
There was a good dale av sniggerin’ whin the Father was spakin’; but ye should have heard the roar of a laugh there was whin he sat down. An’ just as it was dyin’ away, the Major rises, wipin’ his eyes—
“Boys,” sez he, “if it’s the will av the prisint company that the Ballygullion Cramery Society go on, will ye rise an’ give three cheers for Father Pether Connolly?”