telling you.

CHRISTY -- [coming forward shyly, and holding out his left hand.] --
They're a great and weighty size.

SUSAN. And I run up with a pat of butter, for it'd be a poor thing to
have you eating your spuds dry, and you after running a great way since
you did destroy your da.

CHRISTY. Thank you kindly.

HONOR. And I brought you a little cut of cake, for you should have a
thin stomach on you, and you that length walking the world.

NELLY. And I brought you a little laying pullet -- boiled and all she is
-- was crushed at the fall of night by the curate's car. Feel the fat of
that breast, Mister.

CHRISTY. It's bursting, surely. [He feels it with the back of his
hand, in which he holds the presents.]

SARA. Will you pinch it? Is your right hand too sacred for to use at
all? (She slips round behind him.) It's a glass he has. Well, I never
seen to this day a man with a looking-glass held to his back. Them that
kills their fathers is a vain lot surely. [Girls giggle.]

CHRISTY -- [smiling innocently and piling presents on glass.] -- I'm
very thankful to you all to-day...

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in quickly, at door.] -- Sara Tansey, Susan Brady,
Honor Blake! What in glory has you here at this hour of day?

GIRLS -- [giggling.] That's the man killed his father.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming to them.] -- I know well it's the man; and
I'm after putting him down in the sports below for racing, leaping,
pitching, and the Lord knows what.

SARA -- [exuberantly.] That's right, Widow Quin. I'll bet my dowry that
he'll lick the world.

WIDOW QUIN. If you will, you'd have a right to have him fresh and
nourished in place of nursing a feast. (Taking presents.) Are you
fasting or fed, young fellow?

CHRISTY. Fasting, if you please.

WIDOW QUIN -- [loudly.] Well, you're the lot. Stir up now and give him
his breakfast. (To Christy.) Come here to me (she puts him on bench
beside her while the girls make tea and get his breakfast) and let you
tell us your story before Pegeen will come, in place of grinning your
ears off like the moon of May.

CHRISTY -- [beginning to be pleased.] -- It's a long story; you'd be
destroyed listening.

WIDOW QUIN. Don't be letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous
lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond you cracked his skull?

CHRISTY -- [shy but flattered.] -- It was not. We were digging spuds in
his cold, sloping, stony, divil's patch of a field.

WIDOW QUIN. And you w