Wasn't Mary's
mother's sisther's daughter, and Maggie Brian from Tullagh, and the
dear knows how many more cousins and neighbours, before her in it?
Didn't her brother that was marrit in it, send her her ticket, and
wasn't there good money to be airned in it?
These queries, that, as may be seen by anyone with half an eye,
answered themselves, having been propounded by little Mary Driscoll,
she, roaring crying, and keened by all her relatives to the
coach-door--no railway being within thirty miles of her home--departed
to America, and was swallowed up by "Boyshton" for the space of five
years, during the passage of which, since she could neither read nor
write, no communication passed between her and her parents, save only
the postal orders that, through an intermediary, she unfailingly sent
them. Then there was a month that the postal order came not, and while
the old father and mother were wondering was Mary dead, or what ailed
her, Mary walked in, uglier than ever in her Boyshton clothes, and it
was gloriously realised that not only was not Mary dead at all, but
that she had as much saved as would bury the old people, or maybe
marry herself.
Mary had not enjoyed America. She wouldn't get her health in it, she
said.
("Ye wouldn't see a fat face or a red cheek on one o' thim that comes
back," assented Mary's mother); and for as little as she was, Mary
continued, she'd rather bring her bones home with herself to
Cunnock-a-Ceoil.
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