y dashed
the water in her face and brought her back to consciousness. When she
looked around she said:

"Who 's this kind man come in to help, Jamie?"

"He's a farmer," Jamie said, "an' he's brot ye a pint ov nice fresh
milk!" The man had filled a cup with milk and put it to Anna's lips. She
refused. "He's dying," she said, pointing to the boy, who lay limp on
the lap of a neighbor. The child was drowsy and listless. They gave him
the cup of milk. He had scarcely enough strength to drink. Anna drank
what was left, which was very little.

"God bless you!" Anna said as she held out her hand to the farmer.

"God save you kindly," he answered as he took her hand and bowed his
head.

"I've a wife an' wains myself," he continued, "but we're not s' bad off
on a farm." Turning to Jamie he said: "Yer a Protestant!"

"Aye."

"An' I'm a Fenian, but we're in t' face ov bigger things!"

He extended his hand. Jamie clasped it, the men looked into each other's
faces and understood.

That night in the dusk, the Fenian farmer brought a sack of potatoes and
a quart of fresh milk and the spark of life was prolonged.

CHAPTER III

REHEARSING FOR THE SHOW

Famine not only carried off a million of the living, but it claimed also
the unborn. Anna's second child was born a few months after the siege
was broken, but the child had been starved in its mother's womb and
lived only three months. There was no wake. Wakes are for older people.
There were no candles to burn, no extra sheet to put over the old
dresser, and no clock to stop at the moment of death.

The little wasted thing lay in its undressed pine coffin on the table
and the neighbors came in and had a look. Custom said it should be kept
the allotted time and the tyrant was obeyed. A dozen of those to whom a
wake was a means of change and recreation came late and planted
themselves for the night.

"Ye didn't haave a hard time wi' th' second, did ye, Anna?" asked Mrs.
Mulholland.

"No," Anna said quietly.

"Th' hard times play'd th' divil wi' it before it was born, I'll be
bound," said a second.

A third averred that the child was "the very spit out of its father's
mouth." Ghost stories, stories of the famine, of hard luck, of hunger,
of pain and the thousand and one aspects of social and personal sorrow
had the changes rung on them.

Anna sat in the corner. She had to listen, she had to answer when
directly addressed and the prevailing idea of politeness