MRS. O'HERN looked
about her with beaming eyes. "Well, it may seem queer to think of living
in a barn," she observed to her old friend, "but it suits me fine!
Ever since I left Ireland I've lived too much indoors, and it does seem good to
be cooking half in the air again."
The older woman jangled
her keys meditatively. "I thought you were crazy when you first talked
about it," she admitted, "but it does seem sort o' cozy like, and
it'll be fine for the childer to be in the country this summer."
"Aye! It'll be the
makin' of Pollie that's growin' so fast, an' Patsy'll be away from them bad
boys on the street. Though we moved in but yesterday, I can see now what a
grand time the childer'll have in the lovely grounds, an' it was the only way of
being wid Pat while he's on that brick-layin' job on the new country house.
Sure it's a good friend you are, to lave us do it."
The old crone answered
with a proprietary air. "Oh, why not? There ain't been a soul in this barn
for fifteen years, not since I begun takin' care of the big house, an' sure it
can't hurt the old loft to have the beds of all the blessed childer in it
instead of cobwebs, nor the open shed to have a stove set up, wid decent Irish
praties cookin' over it. I niver thought you cud make it look so like a real
home--pictures of the saints and flowers and cushions and all."
Mrs. O'Hern laughed
comfortably as she looked about the clean room where they sat, and out the open
door into the wide-spreading orchard trees all a pink glory of blossom.
"Cud any place wid your eight childer and your own man be aught but
home--barn or no barn?" she inquired.
The old woman nodded
appreciatively, and for a few moments there was silence, broken only by the
cooing of doves on the roof of the shed. Then she spoke again. "It's a
good thing th' old man--him as owns the big house--niver comes a-near no
more."
"Why?" asked
Mrs. O'Hern.
"He'd have
something to say about your camping out here!"
"We won't hurt his
old barn!" cried the other. "Look how clean I've made it, white
curtains to the windys and all!"
"It's the swarmin'
childer of ye he'd be mindin'. He'd not care about his barn bein' used, because
he's not that kind, but he niver could abide childer--it's my belief he niver
cared a crumb for his own son, till he was half grown up--fifteen or sixteen.
An' that just the age whin sinsible folks is beginning to think less of thim
and more of the babies! It was fair enough to break a body's heart--the life
that poor child led."
Mrs. O'Hern's black eyes
flashed and the mother in her rose in indignation. "Was he treated
bad?" she asked hotly.
"Well, not to say
bad. He had always two or three hired creatures to look after him, and enough
to play wid to drive any well child mad, and governesses and perfessors and
muzic lessons--oh, it was fair sickenin'! An' him, the pale, little,
skinny-legs, niver knowin' for wan minute what it was to be a child. I don't
suppose he iver played--what ye might call played--wan blessed minute in all
his life. Th' old man was always away makin' more money--not that he would ha'
been much to play wid--Heaven knows!"
The other's soft Irish
eyes melted almost to tears at the picture she saw, and she drew her little
Denny to her and kissed him before she asked: "Did he die, the poor little
boy?"
"Arrah! That I
don't know. Whin it was time for him to begin to think of goin' to college, th'
old man moved away an' I've niver heard of him since. But I've a notion he's
dead--he had that kind of eyes of them that do!"
The quick darkness of
early spring evenings in New England shut down and the old gossip rose to go.
"Well, Mary, my dear," she said affectionately, "it seems like
living again to have some folks around. I've been stark alone so long in that
gloomy old house and grounds I'll be in the way of neighboring you to death
with always dropping in."
As a matter of fact she
did spend much time in the midst of the rosy, chattering, romping family of
Irish-Americans who ran wild, like little Indians, in the grounds, and their
own very considerable numbers augmented by battalions of cousins and regiments of
friends filled to overflowing the big lofts of the deserted barn.
Mrs. O'Hern, for all
her thirty-five years, matronly figure and eight children, ran and played with
them like a girl. Denny announced one day: "It didn't seem as though we
could love mother more than we did in town, but out here I love her so it
hurts."
Patrick O'Hern, busy
with his brick-laying on a country house down the road, was only too glad to
have his family with him, and loved and scolded and petted and stormed at his
children with all the gusto of the true Irish parent. They were a noisy family.
The mother said sometimes: "Now, for the love of Heaven, childer, can't ye
quiet down a bit! Remember ye're in a place where gentry has lived--can't ye
try, just for a change, to have gentry manners?" But almost always, when
she had said that, she remembered the pale little boy, passing a joyless
childhood in the big house, and had rejoiced in the wild peals of laughter from
her own unruly brood.
It was quite soon after
their arrival that she became aware of something strange about the place. One
evening, late, she had gone into the big room where the four youngest children
slept, to make sure that Denny was covered. The child had been a little
feverish at supper, and she was anxious about him. She laughed at herself as
she felt her way up the steep stairs.
"'Tis only that
it's Denny! I'm that foolish about the child. He's different from the rest of
us black Irish! There do be times when I think he has the second-sight--like
brother Tim that died." She pushed open the door and started, for,
although the room was quite dark, she felt instantly that one of the children
was out of bed. "Denny!" she called softly, fumbling for a match.
Denny answered from his cot at the other end of the room, and as she struck the
match she saw that the four little beds were all occupied and the room was
quite still.
Denny was wide awake,
his big, blue eyes shining in the light of the match. "Have you been in
bed all the time?" asked his mother. The child nodded his head without
speaking. "Queer," said Mary, dropping the half burned match. "I
thought one of yez was out on the floor as I came in." Denny said nothing,
and after settling the covers about his throat, his mother stooped to kiss him.
As she did so, she felt suddenly that a child was standing close to her.
"Who's that?" she said sharply. "One of the other ones playin' a
trick on me!" But the light of another match showed only the three black
heads half buried in their pillows and Denny's soft eyes looking at her over
the coverlet. His lips moved and she bent over to hear what he said.
"Don't drive him away, mother; let him stay."
"Let who
stay?" she asked, bewildered, but Denny's eyes were drooping sleepily, and
he said no more.
"Some queer child's
fancy!" she thought as she groped her way from the darkened room.
The next day Denny was
not quite himself and she made him stay in bed. After the morning's work was
done she went up to sit in the room with him, taking a big bag of the
never-ending darning. The sun shone brightly on his fair head as he bent over a
game of dominoes spread on the coverlet.
"Playin' dominoes
all by yourself, dear?" asked his mother, tenderly, sitting down by the
bed.
Denny looked up soberly
and said, "No, I'm playing with a pretend little boy."
Mary sometimes said,
"After bringin' up a family of eight childer,--and Mary Mother only knows
how many more to come,"--that no queer freak that could enter a child's
head would surprise her. "After Pollie's make-believe monkeys and little
Pat's having conniptions over a table with five legs, and Anastasia's being
that afraid of butterflies that she 'most fainted, you can't tell me any tale
about childer I won't believe. They all have those queer spells, but they all
get over them." So at Denny's "pretend" domino-player she only
smiled indulgently and said nothing. Denny had counted on his mother's
understanding, and went on with his game, murmuring disjointed bits of talk to
himself. Mary darned in the furious haste that is always upon the mother of
eight children, and paid no attention to Denny, beyond glancing at him from
time to time in great satisfaction with his improved looks.
She glanced up once in
this manner and paused, her mouth open, and her darning needle suspended in the
air. "Denny!" she exclaimed, "Whatever are you doing?" The
child looked at her quietly, and did not answer. Mrs. O'Hern's astonishment
passed suddenly into incredulity, and she resumed her work. "Your poor
mother's getting that old!" she laughed. "She's losing her senses!
Sure! I thought I saw one of them dominoes lift all by itself, and set down in
a different place."
Denny's eyes gleamed
with pleasure, and he turned to explain. "Isn't it fine, mother? Sometimes
he can do that when we're all alone and I want him to so very much. Mostly he
can only stand by and look,--though he likes that fine,--but once in a while he
gets so interested, and I want him so to have a good time, he can do something
himself. But not very often, and never when we're all playing together."
Mrs. O'Hern looked at
him in amazement and some alarm. The next moment he said sadly, "Oh,
there! We've frightened him away, and its always so hard to make him not afraid
again."
Mary had begun to say
something in her hasty, Irish way, about Denny's stopping such nonsense or
she'd box his ears, when, as she afterwards told Father McGinn, "I can't
tell you how it was, but I just felt another child there besides Denny, another
child, and a scared little child, and so lonesome, and the first thing I knew
Denny was crying as though his heart would break, and so was I! And Denny was
saying, 'Oh mother, I'm so sorry for him!' And then,--oh, I don't know,--Pat
called me from the foot of the stairs, and the childer came busting in to know if
they could go out in the boat, and--it was all over, everything just the way it
always is, only Denny and me, with red noses. 'What's the matter, mother?' they
all asked, and I said, 'I wish you could tell, for I can't.'"
That was the first
time, and a week passed before Mary again felt a breath of mystery blow through
her hearty, active life. It was on an afternoon full of golden early June
sunlight, and the children were playing with a host of cousins and little
friends in the big orchard not far from the barn. The delicious country air had
gone to their heads, and they were half-mad with animal spirits, shouting and
racing about, and laughing till they sank down exhausted on the soft grass in a
happy ecstacy. Denny was romping with the others, his shrill little treble
ringing out in a high-pitched joy that made his mother smile in sympathy. She
was ironing in the cool, open room they had taken for kitchen, and looked out
at the boisterous crowd of youthful bacchantes, intoxicated with freedom and
fresh air, with a whimsical remembrance of her own happy childhood in County
Kerry. At the same time, there ran through her mind almost unconsciously, the
steady and puzzled query as to the meaning of the odd experience in Denny's
room.
Denny caught sight of his
mother, passing to and fro, and came running to the barn, his loving little
heart eager to share his joy with her. "Oh, mother!" he cried,
"We are having such a good time! It's like a fairy story, so pretty out
there, and we're laughing-- laughing--" He stopped, his child's vocabulary
unable to cope with the exultation that glowed in his eyes and shone from his
rosy cheeks. As he stood, silent, Mary turned to the stove for a fresh iron,
and it was suddenly as though someone else was going on with the story Danny
could not tell. The room was filled with the joyous elation of a child, so
exquisite, so complete, that Mary's eyes moistened. Her heart swelled with a
strange softness.
Denny spoke again.
"He's so glad,--he never had a good time here before!" Mary did not
dare to turn around. Of a sudden she knew, and knowing, her mother soul yearned
over the joy that now seemed so pathetic to her. She could almost hear the
rapid beats of a little heart fairly tired out in one of those bursts of
delight in joyous companionship that sometimes overwhelm little children. When
she finally turned back to her ironing board, Denny had slipped away, but the
joyous presence lingered a moment longer, as though basking in her sympathy.
Then that too, vanished, and Mary, sitting down, wept tears of mingled sorrow,
sympathy and comprehension.
That evening she and
Denny sat by the fire, kindled because of the spring coolness that still
lingered in the air. The others were all gone for a moonlight walk. The mother
and her little son sat in silence, their Irish hearts very soft as they thought
the same thoughts. It was quite still. The faint flicker of the fire showed the
strong motherly hand resting on Denny's head, and occasionally stroking the
yellow curls softly, but no word was spoken. They were both waiting, with the
Celtic sixth sense quiveringly alert. All at once Denny gave a soft little
cry--of welcome, it seemed, and Mary felt a timid presence standing in the dark
not far from her. She did not look toward it, nor turn away from the fire, but
her hand dropped to Denny's shoulder and gave him a little hug. Denny rose to
his knees and put his arm around her waist. "Oh mother, I love you
so!" he said, his child's voice quivering with emotion, "I love you
so! You always understand!"
"I love you, too,
Denny," she answered, and then, choosing her words very carefully, "I
love all little childer,--all!" She thought she heard a happy little sigh
and went on, her arm around Denny, "The more I have the more I love them,
and if one was unhappy or sorrowin' I'd love him the best of all."
There was a moment's
silence, in which the fire dropped sleepily together and then Denny moved a
little, as though to make room for someone else at his mother's knee. After
that no word was spoken, but in a brooding peace that filled Mary's heart, they
sat quite still, until the returning children broke in, laughing at them for
letting the fire go out.
After this Mary often
felt the shy, gentle presence, and never without a glow at her mother's heart.
Once she asked herself why she was not afraid, and then all her Celtic
mysticism overwhelmed the materialistic query. That night, as she stepped into
the children's room, she felt unusually tender and rejoiced to feel in the
warm, quiet room a contented little fifth child, peacefully happy in the
new-found companionship.
The summer slipped
on,--a happy, busy, idle summer, and the early apples in the orchard were
almost ripe when Mary had a great shock. Their old neighbor of the big house
dropped in with a bag-full of gossip to turn over. After discussing several
mutual acquaintances she said, "Do you remember my tellin' ye about the
little lad that used to live here, and had such a miserable, mopy time of it?
Well, I had a letter from my cousin in New York, and he said he seen him."
Mary's amazed start and
frightened gaze at her companion passed unnoticed in the twilight. The old
woman went on. "My cousin has a foine place as ilivator-boy,--not but what
he's grown up and has been these many years,--in the office buildin' where th'
old man and his son has their offices, and he says he knew 'em the first time
he took 'em up. The son, for all he's got some gray hairs and looks as
drawn-out as if he was fifty, looks just as he used to here, and th' old man,
well, ye'd know he'd niver change in a thousand years."
There was a little
pause, in which Mary tried to compose the confused and terrifying ideas that
whirled through her head. The other spoke again, "It gives me a queer
turn, somehow, to think of his bein' alive,--the son, I mean,--because I'd
always sort o'--"
Mary broke in
breathlessly, "Why, he must be dead!"
"There! that's
just the way I feel about it. My cousin says they tell awful queer stories
about him,--that he's got kind o' fits or something,--times when he'll set an'
stare in front of him and niver know a word you say to him. The office byes
don't think he's quite right. I'm as sure as though the saints had told me that
it's his queer bringin' up that did it."
Mary interrupted with an
eager question. "How do you mean, --fits and spells?"
"Oh, I
dunno," said the other comfortably, preparing to leave. "My cousin he
niver seen him in one, and so I dunno. The office byes says it's like as though
he wasn't there at all, although his eyes is wide starin' open."
As she shuffled down
the gravel path the woman she had left sank on the steps, an indefinite horror
in her mind. Denny came softly over the grass, dangling two tiny trout from a
twig. He looked tired, but very proud as he displayed them to his mother.
"They're only
little fellers," he said, dropping into the speech of the country-side,
"but they're the first I ever catched." Then, lowering his voice, and
making sure no one was near, he added confidentially, "It was the first
time he'd ever been a-fishing, and he thought it was such bully fun!"
Denny rarely spoke of his "pretend" playmate, and then, only to his
mother, whose understanding he knew to be limitless.
This time, however,
Mary seized him by the shoulder and asked in a queer, strained voice:
"Denny, who is he? How do we know who he is?" She was shivering in a
terror of the unknown, her ignorant mind inflamed with half-remembered, ghastly
tales of superstitious old women sitting over peat fires in County Kerry. She
caught Denny up and held him close, as though she would protect him from the
powers of evil.
The child struggled a
little in her grasp and then said, in a low tone: "I thought you were
sorry for all little, lonesome boys. Do you have to know who they are?"
Mary started. "No; but, Denny, you don't--" She paused, aware in
every finely attuned motherly fiber of a grieved little presence at her knee.
"Denny, aren't ye ever afraid, darlint?" she asked as if begging
courage from her little son. Denny answered soberly: "No, mother, it makes
him so glad." And Mary, too, was no longer afraid. But during the few
weeks that they stayed in the country she had occasional, quick, shivering
doubts that sent her out in a mad rush to see that Denny was safe, and when
they moved to town she felt an acknowledged relief.
During the long hours,
so curiously still, when the children were all away at school, she often sat
lost in a maze of surmises and half explanations. She had very little reasoning
power--the warm-blooded, Irish-woman, all mother--and most of her thinking was
done with her heart, which may have been the reason why she finally came out of
her doubt and confusion, little by little, and arrived at a clear certainty.
With this glowing on her face, she took the long walk out to the big house. Her
old friend looked up surprised at a visitor in that lonely spot, and nodded
drowsily as Mary said she wished to go up to the room in the barn the youngest
children had used to get something they had left behind.
She opened the door
gently, stepped into the now so desolate room and stood waiting. Not for long.
In a moment she fell on her knees, her arms outstretched, the tears running
down her face, and incoherent words forcing themselves between her sobs.
"Now I know--poor darlint! now I know. 'Tis the child in ye that could never
pass away because it had never lived its life! And to have me suspicionin' ye!
And now to leave you alone again! Can't you come with--" She stopped,
sobbing violently, as she heard a forlorn little sigh, and felt the grieved and
desolate presence of an utterly lonely child. A moment later it vanished, and
Mary, her face still distorted with grief, was shutting the door with reluctant
hands. "Arrah!" she cried to herself, "it's like shutting in
little Denny to long days alone."
The shadow rested on
her broad, smooth face until the coming of the next summer. In the midst of the
wildest romps of her black-haired brood, the tears would come to her soft eyes
and she would catch up little Denny for a passionate embrace. Her old crony,
sitting by the open window one day, observed one of these passing clouds with
some impatience. "What's the matter with ye, Mary, woman?" she
demanded. "Ye act like somebody that's lost a child and can't help
thinkin' of him in sorrow all the time." A moment later she added:
"Speakin' of childer, did I tell ye I heard from my cousin in New York the
other day that th' old man's a grandfather? The son's married, and they have
got a baby--a boy. My cousin says the new father looks like another man--all
the queerness gone out of his eyes like. Sure I'm glad it's not th' old man
that's to have the bringin' up of the kid. Wherever are ye goin' at this time
of the day?" For Mary had snatched her shawl from a chair and was already
darting down the street.
As she followed the
long country road she talked half inarticulately to herself. "Oh, surely
now--with a child of his own--and a son--oh, Mother of Jesus! surely
now--!" She did not venture to formulate her hope more clearly even to
herself. She half ran through the lower rooms and slipped rapidly up the steep
stairs, but at the door she hesitated, and finally fell to her knees and
murmured an Ave Maria, with her rosary at her lips, before she ventured to
enter.
As she pushed open the
door and went in she shivered a little, but soon stood very still, tears of joy
welling in her eyes. It was as she had hoped. The bare, echoing room was quite,
quite empty.