THE QUIRKS.
A splendid house, extravagantly furnished, green lawns, gardens bright
in colours, and rich pasture lands around. Inside the house a crotchety
old man and a lonely woman. Such was Kathleen O'Connor's new home at
"Layton."
The name, "Samuel Quirk, Grocer," had reposed over the front of a small
shop in a small street of Collingwood for many years. The grocer was
known to the district as a shrewd tradesman on a small scale, and a keen
politician. He had a limited connection with certain well-tried
customers, and a number of irregular clients who came and went. In the
neighbourhood where he lived, the grocer must assuredly have gone under
had he not conducted a cash business. As it was, he kept his head above
water and lived a quiet life, respected by his neighbours.
One day the postman brought a letter that completely altered the Quirks'
scheme of life. It came from Boston, bringing news of a brother's death,
and the gift of a great fortune to the Quirks. Such an unexpected event
brought confusion into the orderly life of the old people.
"What shall we do with all the money?" the grocer asked his wife.
She was sitting over her knitting at the time, for her nimble fingers
were seldom idle.
"Why not ask Father Healy?" she answered at once; for Father Healy was
her one idea of wisdom. Years ago the priest had been a curate in
Collingwood, and had there entwined himself about many hearts, Mrs.
Quirk's among the number. Even now she wrote to him when her heart was
troubled.
"Father Healy! And why ask him?" replied the old man.
He always began by disputing his wife's suggestions, but generally ended
by putting them into practice.
"He is the good, wise man," replied Mrs. Quirk. "Did he ever tell me
anything I should do that was not the only thing to do?"
Samuel Quirk grunted disbelievingly. "Oh, he's right enough for the
soul, but what would Father Healy know about the body?" he asked.
Mrs. Quirk having placed the yeast in his mind, left it to ferment. She
well knew that in a few days' time a letter would be despatched to the
Presbytery at Grey Town. And this happened as she anticipated. In due
course, too, the answer came back to them.
"Why not buy 'Layton' and settle down on the land? It will give you
something to do, and lengthen your own and Mrs. Quirk's life," the
priest wrote.
Samuel Quirk read the letter to his wife, commenting unfavourably on it
the while.
"Buy a farm? What would I be doing on a farm?" he asked.
"Why not go down to Grey Town and see the place for yourself?" suggested
Mrs. Quirk.
After a prolonged argument, the old man again accepted her advice. It
was something of an adventure to him to journey so far by train, and to
spend a night away from home. But it was far worse for the old woman,
as he always termed her, to be alone in the shop for thirty-six hours.
She missed her husband's rough voice, the heavy shuffling tread, above
all the rare endearments that she valued for their infrequency. When
Samuel Quirk returned he was received as if his absence had lasted
twelve months.
"Well? Are we to go?" she asked.
"It's done. The place is bought and sold, and it's mine--and yours," he
answered.
"Is it a grand place?" she questioned.
"It's as grand as the Governor's house," replied the old man. "I
couldn't count the rooms, and the gardens are amazing."
A sigh came from her lips as she cast her eyes around the small
sitting-room where every object was familiar.
"Can we take our things with us?" she asked.
"Take these!" he replied scornfully. "I've bought furniture, cows and
horses, everything. What would we do with these?"
He was a man, and she a woman, whose heart was devoted to these old
familiar, useful friends. A few of them she took with her, and placed in
her own room at the new home, among them the old cane chair where her
husband had sat, night after night, to smoke his pipe.
In the new home, Samuel Quirk soon found work and pleasure in
supervising the employees. Of agriculture and horticulture he knew
nothing, but he gathered knowledge speedily as he stood over his
workers. He bore the transplanting well, and throve in the new soil,
while Mrs. Quirk was lonely and sad. There were none of her old cronies
with whom to discuss small gossip over the counter or in the back room
behind the shop. She missed the noise of the great city; the house was
so large that it frightened her. When Kathleen O'Connor came, the old
woman put her arm lovingly around her and said:
"Sure you will be coming to stay, Honey?"
"I hope so," replied the girl.
"Now, don't be calling me Mrs. Quirk; just call me Granny, as all the
girls did in Melbourne. It was: 'How are ye, Granny?' and 'How are the
rheumatics, Granny?' I miss the bright girls now."
Kathleen realised that here was a lonely soul, and found all the
expected strangeness in the new life vanish from her.
She set herself to the purpose of making Mrs. Quirk happy, devising a
hundred means to accomplish this. In the house she interested the old
lady in reading, with fancy work, and, above all, with the artistic
arrangement of the rooms.
"There is no reason why things should not be pretty," she said. "Let us
begin with your own room, and gradually transform the house. It is so
ugly now."
"Ugly!" cried Mrs. Quirk; "to my mind it's grand--far too grand for a
plain woman like me. But you're an O'Connor, Honey, and 'tis natural you
would know more about these things than me. Didn't I know your
grandmother? Didn't I work for her myself? But don't be telling the old
man I told you. It is strange having you in my house."
Kathleen turned the conversation into another channel. But she could not
help reflecting upon the vicissitudes of life. A few years ago and Mrs.
Quirk was a servant in her grand-parents' house; now she, by a quick
reversal of the wheel of fortune, found herself practically a servant to
Mrs. Quirk.
But her employer never permitted such a thought to enter her own mind;
it seemed almost as unthinkable as a heresy against her Faith.
"You are my friend," she told the girl; "though it is hard even to call
you that. Look at my hands and yours; mine that have scrubbed the floor
and been in the wash-tub, and yours that were just made to look at."
Kathleen took one of the old lady's hands and kissed it.
"And which are the better in the sight of God?" she asked; "the ones
that have done the work they were made to do, or those that are merely
objects of vanity? But I have worked with mine, too; scrubbed and
washed, like you."
"Tis a wicked fate that made you have to do it; more shame to me for
calling what is done by Providence wicked. But it's a strange world,
Kathleen, this one; no one seems to be in their proper place. There's
Father Healy, him that should be a Bishop, still a priest."
"Why not a Cardinal, or the Holy Father himself?" laughed Kathleen.
"And why not? It's a wise Pope the Father would make," answered Mrs.
Quirk. "Not that I am finding any fault with the Holy Father," she added
quickly; "he is a great man, the greatest in the whole world, and the
wisest."
Kathleen O'Connor exercised a remarkable influence on the old lady. Mrs.
Quirk had needed a companion, and an interest in her new life; these she
found in Kathleen. Together they slowly transformed the house, Samuel
Quirk grumbling and protesting at each innovation, while he aided them
the while with his purse. In a phaeton drawn by a quiet old pony, they
travelled about the district, never missing a daily visit to the
Catholic Church.
"I go out to visit my friends. Shall I miss calling on the best Friend
ever I had?" Mrs. Quirk asked Kathleen. "In Collingwood I never missed
the morning Mass, nor the afternoon visit. Here it is too far to go to
Mass every day, but the Good Lord would miss me if I did not come once
in the day to see Him."
"If I am not good, it will not be your fault," laughed Kathleen.
"It will be nobody's fault but your own; but you couldn't help being
good. Didn't Father Healy tell me----."
"Hush!" cried Kathleen; "you must not give Father Healy's secrets away."
At the church gates they held a daily conference with Molly Healy. She
had interested Mrs. Quirk in her gamins, and was accustomed to draw upon
the old lady's purse when the Presbytery funds were low, or Father
Healy obdurate to her appeals.
Molly Healy acted as sacristan in the church, and Father Healy was
accustomed to say:
"If you attended to everything as you do to the Altar, you would be a
treasure to the husband that came seeking you."
"It's not many are doing that," replied the girl. "I could not count
them on my fingers--because, even I can't count what does not exist."
"How many would you be expecting at eighteen? You are but a child," he
answered. "Well, the Altar is a credit to you. You make the brass shine
as if it were gold."
"Gold it would be, if I had my way, and the glass precious stones. But I
do the best with what there is," replied Molly.
She dearly loved to hear a word of praise in return for her labours.
This Kathleen knew well, and she encouraged Mrs. Quirk to admire the
flowers and other decorations. The old lady readily did this, for she
was typically Irish in finding it far easier to give a generous measure
of encouragement than to blame the actions of another.
"It is you, Molly," she would say--at first, until corrected by the
girl, it had been Miss Molly--"that can put the flowers in their proper
places! It is a pleasure to come into the church and find the altar so
beautiful. Those carnations, now, they remind me of Heaven."
"It is dahlias they are, Mrs. Quirk," Molly would reply; "and out of
your own garden."
"Is it dahlias? Well, I am getting a little blind, Molly; but the
beauty is there, whatever the flowers may be."
Thus encouraged, Molly would speak of her proteges.
"Joe McCarthy told me the same, and he thinks more praise is due to you
than me. You send me the flowers every day."
"And why not? What better use for them? But which is Joe McCarthy?" Mrs.
Quirk might answer.
"Don't you know Joe? Such a good boy, but unfortunate. He was with
Regan, driving the cart, when the horse ran away and broke himself and
the cart into small pieces. It was a mercy Joe was not in the cart,"
Molly would continue.
"Poor lad! And that was a misfortune. Is he badly hurt?" Mrs. Quirk
would ask.
"Not hurt in his body, but dispirited. Regan discharged him without a
character. I went to him myself; it's a surly man he is. 'Why not give
the boy a testimonial?' I asked. 'It's the whip I will give him,' he
answered. That was all I got from Regan."
"And why was the man so heartless?" asked Mrs. Quirk.
"After all, Regan lost his horse and cart. You can scarcely blame him,"
Kathleen would explain.
"And hasn't he plenty of money to buy another? I have no patience with
Regan. And there is Joe, with a mother depending on him, out of work,
and with no testimonial to help him to another," Molly would reply.
The result would be a few shillings from the old lady's purse, which
Joe would probably spend on "a good thing," that would just fail to
secure a race, as "good things" so often do. But Molly Healy was never
discouraged by such trifles as these.
"What did you do with the money, Joe?" she would ask.
"It was Harry Price told me to invest it on Blue Peter."
"I told you to take it home to your mother. Shame on you, Joe, to be
wasting her food on horses."
"It was like this. 'Would you be making a fortune?' Harry asked me. And
who wouldn't, Miss Molly, not you nor I. 'Blue Peter is a cert,' said
he; 'my brother Bill will be riding.' Could you resist that?"
"Hem!" Molly would reply; "and did he win?"
"If his neck had been as long as Smoker's he would have won," Joe would
explain.
After a few days he would return to favour, and continue a pensioner
until he found work for a short time. But ill-luck ever dogged Joe's
footsteps, and his periods of work were ever briefer and briefer, until
he threatened to relapse into chronic idleness. Then, to her own
surprise, and that of all who knew her, Molly suddenly compelled Joe to
reform.
"I have a place for you, Joe, and the last you will ever be getting,"
she said. "It's a disgrace to me you are, and everyone saying I have
spoiled you. Mr. Quirk will take you on, and he is a slave-driver. He
stands over his men with a whip. It was hard work I had to get you the
place--milking the cows, and helping in the garden. But I told the man
you were a hard worker. If you don't work hard, Joe, it is the whip I
will give you with my own hands."
Whether it was this threat, a fear of Mr. Quirk, or the effects of the
mission cannot be clearly said, but Joe McCarthy clung to his work until
he eventually became overseer at "Layton." With his change in habits,
Joe also acquired a self-respect that led him to dress neatly, and to
sign the pledge. Thenceforward Molly Healy quoted him as the proof of
her powers as a reformer when taunted because of the rabble over whom
she reigned.
"There was Joe McCarthy, that would not work until I persuaded him," she
would say. "Leave the boys to me; I am correcting them."
Yet only Mrs. Quirk had absolute confidence in the girl's vocation as a
reformer. The old lady was never told of a good-for-nothing son or
husband but she would cry:
"Send him to Molly Healy. If there is any good in him, Molly will bring
it out."
Her hearers, knowing of Molly's long succession of failures, naturally
smiled at these commendations.