Fair.

THE LITTLE FIDDLER.

Away toward the hills of Wicklow, some five or six miles from Dublin,
there lived, not many years ago, a humble peasant family, by the name
of O'Shaughnessy. Michael O'Shaughnessy worked in the bog--that is, he
cut up the turf of the bogs, and piled it in stacks for drying--so
making the peat which is the common fuel of Ireland. He was very poor,
and with his wife and five children lived in a little low cabin, built
of mud and stones, and thatched with straw. There was but one small
window to this cabin, but then a good deal of light came down through a
hole in the roof, left for the smoke to go out of--for there was no
chimney.

Mrs. O'Shaughnessy kept a few geese, and just before the door there was
a little muddy pond, where they enjoyed themselves, and on the edges of
which the pig wallowed, and dozed; except on stormy days, when he
preferred to go into the house. Now, among the poor Irish peasants,
the pig is a very important personage, and is treated with a great deal
of respect, for he usually pays the rent. With Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, it
was first herself and husband, then her son Teddy, then _the Pig_; then
the girls, Biddy and Peggy and Katy; and then, our hero, Larry
O'Sullivan. If she had known he was to be our hero, she might have put
him before the _colleens_, (girls,) but not, I think, before the pig.

Larry O'Sullivan was a poor orphan boy, the child of a sister of
Michael O'Shaughnessy, by whom he had been adopted, when his father and
mother died of the fever. Larry was very handsome, and what was
better, very good, but he led rather a hard life of it at his new home.
His uncle was kind, but he was a gentle, meek sort of a man--his wife
ruled every thing at the cabin, and she did not like Larry overmuch.
She thought it hard that he should not only eat the food and wear the
clothes that her own children needed, but should be more liked and
admired in the neighborhood than they. She doted on her own boy,
Teddy, and thought him not only good-looking, but wonderfully
clever--when, in fact, a plainer or more stupid young bog-trotter could
hardly be found in all Ireland. She was a strong-minded woman, and did
not make much account of her girls--and there she was not far
wrong--except in regard to the youngest, Katy, who was a pretty,
blue-eyed darling, as sweet and as bright as a May morning. Katy and
Larry were famous good friends--Larry was the pulse of Katy's heart,