le-hearted
emigrant than all the world beside.

"Lave me down for a bit of sod," he commanded the wondering young
driver, who would have liked above all things to sail for the new
world. The square of turf from the hedge foot, sparkling with dew and
green with shamrock and gay with tiny flowers, was carefully wrapped
in Mike's best Sunday handkerchief as they went their way. Biddy had
covered her head with her shawl--it was she who had made the plan of
going to America, it was she who was eager to join some successful
members of her family who had always complained at home of their
unjust rent and the difficulties of the crops. Everybody said that the
times were going to be harder than ever that summer, and she was quick
to catch at the inflammable speeches of some lawless townsfolk who
were never satisfied with anything. As for Mike, the times always
seemed alike, he did not grudge hard work and he never found fault
with the good Irish weather. His nature was not resentful, he only
laughed when Biddy assured him that the gorse would soon grow in the
thatch of his head as it did on their cabin chimney. It was only when
she said that, in America they could make a gentleman of baby Dan,
that the father's blue eyes glistened and a look of determination came
into his face.

"God grant we'll come back to it some day," said Mike softly. "I
didn't know, faix indeed, how sorry I'd be for lavin' the owld place.
Awh Biddy girl 't is many the weary day we'll think of the home we've
left," and Biddy removed the shawl one instant from her face only to
cover it again and burst into a new shower of tears. The next day but
one they were sailing away out of Queenstown harbor to the high seas.
Old Ireland was blurring its green and purple coasts moment by moment;
Kinsale lay low, and they had lost sight of the white cabins on the
hillsides and the pastures golden with furze. Hours before the old
women on the wharves had turned away from them shaking their great cap
borders. Hours before their own feet had trodden the soil of Ireland
for the last time. Mike Bogan and Biddy had left home, they were well
on their way to America. Luckily nobody had been with them at last to
say good-by--they had taken a more or less active part in the piteous
general leave-taking at Queenstown, but those were not the faces of
their own mothers or brothers to which they looked back as the ship
slid away through the green water.

"Well, sure, we're gone no