MAY-DAY ON LOUGH GARA
"It's the cute way nature has with her!" exclaimed Kathleen, holding
up her face for the white-thorn petals to blow down upon it. She and
Mary Ellen had been to the old rath after flowers for the May-baskets,
and were returning to the cottage, where Cousin Bee was waiting to take
them to Lough Gara for the May-day picnic. A breeze was scattering the
petals from the trees, which were "as white with bloom as the snow of
one night," and Mary Ellen turned her face to the sky so that she, too,
might feel the soft shower.
"Sure, nature has a cute way," Kathleen repeated. "When a cloud hides
the bright sun and you'd think an Irish rain was going to fall the
next minute, the wind gives a laugh and sends a snowstorm instead; and
here it is the first day of May, and the blackbirds are singing in the
meadow."
"Can you see the snow on the mountains far away?" asked Mary Ellen.
"No, but the white chalk cliffs shine like snow," replied Kathleen.
"It seems as if we must forget, here in Tonroe, about the mountains
and the cold, snowy winter. When I wake up in the morning and hear the
lark singing his way up into the sky, and smell the May-bloom through
the window, I almost forget the gray stones and low clouds of purple
Donegal."
"Do you mind the old black crows that used to call over the hills all
day long?" asked Mary Ellen.
"Of caws! Of caws!" croaked Kathleen, so much like an old crow that her
sister made her do it again and again, "to remind her of home," she
said.
The children had been at Cousin Bee's little farm in Tonroe for over
two weeks, and Danny had made himself so useful that Patrick offered
him good wages to stay and help him through the planting season.
"Sure, I care more for work than for anything else just now," Danny
made answer, and he rolled up his sleeves and went to work with a will.
"There's no need for Kathleen to go to Kilkenny either, now that the
school is near to closing for the summer," Bee suggested.
So Kathleen washed the dishes and watched the young turkeys. She fed
the hens and found their eggs when they stole nests in the little
village of grain-stacks in the hay-haggard. And, best of all, she found
an old cow-bell in the barn and set Mary Ellen to ringing it every
time the thieving magpie came back to his nest, until he was glad to
take his family away to live in a quieter neighborhood and leave the
young turkeys to wander through the old rath in safety.
In fact, she made herself so useful that Uncle Barney, over in
Killaraght, nodded his head when he heard of it, and Grandmother
Connell said in the old Gaelic, which looks in print as if it might be
fairy speech, "Kathleen always had good sense and handy ways."
And now it was May-day at last, and the little family had been busy all
the morning getting ready for the picnic.
"Come, children," called Bee from the house door, "here are Norah
Higgins and Hannah Kelley waiting for us, and Patrick and Danny have
gone on ahead for the boat."
Then off they all went down the lane, between the hedges of pink
hawthorn, purple lilac and gleaming golden gorse, across the fields,
and along the green bank of the river.
A neighbor who was driving his family down to the lake in a
jaunting-car stopped to ask them why they weren't riding themselves,
but Bee said she thought it was far more pleasant to walk, and they
trudged along, talking and laughing merrily.
[Illustration:
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York
"A NEIGHBOR WAS DRIVING HIS FAMILY DOWN TO THE LAKE IN A JAUNTING-CAR."
The jaunting-car has side seats, with a "well" between them for parcels.
_Page 58_]
Pink and white mayflowers, blue wall-flowers and yellow
daffies grew under their feet, and the fields were full of blue-bells.
Robins and thrushes sang over their heads, and in the distance they
heard the sound of a hunting horn and the baying of the hounds.
Danny was waiting for them at the boat landing, and Patrick made haste
to gather his party into a boat and row them out upon the blue water,
so that they could watch the happy crowds coming and going along the
shore. Kathleen looked back across the fields and saw hundreds of men,
women, and children, all dressed in their very best, trooping toward
the lake, carrying lunch-baskets for their May-day picnic on Lough Gara.
"Oh, Molly darling," she whispered, "it's better than anything we ever
thought of in Donegal. It's a wish come true."
Mary Ellen clung to her sister's hand, listening to the happy voices
calling from boat to boat, and from water to shore. "It must be the
place Grandma Barry used to tell us about," she said,—"the place where
happiness is so common you can buy it for a ha'penny."
Kathleen's eyes were fixed on the green island toward which Danny was
rowing them. "It looks more like the home of the fairies than does the
Rock of Doon," she told Bee.
"They do say that the fairies haunt Lough Gara," her cousin answered.
"At night, when there's no one to see them, they gallop round and round
the lake, winding their hunting horns and following the fairy hounds
just as the ladies and gentlemen do at the meets on the big estate at
French Park."
Just then the boat touched the shore of the little island and there was
no more time to talk of fairies. Pretty Mary Hever and her brother John
were waiting for them under the trees, and every one was ready to help
in the merry fun of setting out the lunch.
The girls plaited wreaths of flowers and oak leaves, and crowned Bee
and Mary Ellen; John Hever found a spring of clear water and filled
the cups; and Bee set out the sandwiches and cheese and some of her
delicious cookies which were the best in all Tonroe.
"There'll be just time enough for the lunch before we go to Kingsland
for the sports," Patrick said, as he sat down on the grass between
Kathleen and Mary Ellen and began to help them to cookies the very
first thing.
"Be off with your joking," said Bee. "We can't hurry the picnic like
that. Half the fun of the lunch is the blarney that goes with it."
"Faith, John Hever will do the eating while we take care of the
blarney," replied her husband, laughing at the boy's first mouthful.
"Tell us about Donegal," Hannah Kelley said to Kathleen.
"There's nothing to tell," replied Kathleen. "There are just purple
mountains and rocky hills and bogs, and Mary Ellen and I had no one to
play with at all."
"You should see the great cliffs over at Horn Head," said Danny
proudly. "That's something to tell about! When there has been a storm,
the waves pound against them and the spray dashes up so that it is a
grand sight."
"I'm thinking it was up there that the giant used to step from cliff to
cliff when he was walking round the island to be sure everything was
all right for the night," said Bee, who seemed to know stories of all
the giants and fairies.
John Hever looked down at his own short legs with a sigh. "Sure, he
must have been a big giant," he said, "to walk around all Ireland every
night of his life."
"That he was," replied Patrick with a laugh. "Were you thinking you'd
catch up with him on his next round?"
"I was not," answered John, "but I'll soon be beating you in a race to
Dublin town."
"It's ten years and more since I played that game with fifty other boys
and girls; and that, too, around the policeman's legs in the streets
of Cork!" exclaimed Patrick. "But come on then, and we'll see how it
seems to go doubling among these tree-trunks."
He seized Bee's hand and they began singing "How many miles to Dublin
Town?" just as Kathleen and Mary Ellen had sung it so often in far
Donegal. But now there were many to join in the game, and one after
another the children caught hold of hands and ran in and out among the
trees, singing and shouting.
When Patrick thought they had had enough of the game he led them all
down to the boat and pushed off for the sports at the Kingsland shore.
Never before, Kathleen thought, had so many things happened in one day.
There were bicycle-races, hurdle-races, foot-races, sack-races and a
tug-of-war. There was leaping, and jumping, and running, and it seemed
as if Danny was in everything.
Such shouting and cheering she had never even dreamed of! And when
Danny won the long-distance run, she found herself jumping up and down
and shouting as loudly as any one.
"I could have won that first dash, too, if Tim Keefe hadn't stolen the
start," said Danny wrathfully, as he brought up his prize to show to
his cousins.
"The prize for that race was a mirror, anyway," said Patrick
consolingly, "and you've little use for one now. But as for Tim Keefe,
with his old pipe in his mouth, he needs it to see himself for a
spalpeen."
After the fun was all over they went home together across the fields,
filling their arms with great branches of the pink and white hawthorn
blossoms; but at the boreen they had to start running, for a sudden
shower fell to drive them into the house the quicker.
Just as the children were going off to bed that night, Kathleen went
softly up to Bee and put her arm shyly around her cousin's plump
waist. "It's thankful I am to you and Patrick for the happy day," she
whispered.
Bee gave her a good hug and a hearty kiss as she answered, "'Tis you
and little Mary Ellen that make all the days happy for me."