KATHLEEN'S COMPOSITION
"Oh, Deena Malone, ye've a wonderful way with ye,
All the young childer are wild for to play with ye!"
Captain Conn sang, as she led little Victoria, all freshly dressed for
supper, to the group near the piano.
Deena made a deep bow to her, as he kept up his part of the jig in the
three-hand reel, while Hannah and Anna, who were dancing with him,
called "Faster, faster!" to Moira, who was playing on the piano.
The street door banged, and Columba dashed into the house, shouting,
"Danny won the hundred-yard dash,—Danny won! Hooray!"
Immediately the reel became a breakdown, and when Danny entered the
room, followed by Tara and Uncle Tom, everyone fell upon him, eager to
give him a rousing whack of good-will.
The supper bell sounded above the din, and out into the dining-room
tumbled the twelve, singing at the top of their lungs, "For lightness
of foot there was not his peer;"—and clasping hands in a great
circle, they danced round and round the table before taking their
places.
The only one to keep her hair unruffled through the performance was
Princess Feena. No matter how often the young Malones ended a reel in
"all hands around," she looked as royally calm at the end as at the
beginning.
After living with the Malones for a whole winter, Kathleen found the
dainty little lady as adorable as ever. Now, on St. Patrick's Day,
just a year from the time Aunt Hannah's letter had reached her in far
Donegal, Kathleen had grown so fond of the whole jolly, noisy family,
that she wondered how she had ever lived anywhere else.
Danny, also, had made a place for himself and was earning good wages in
the linen shop. Not a holiday had he taken in the whole winter until
this seventeenth of March, when he entered the sports.
"Ireland was always famous for her athletes," said his uncle, as he
began serving supper to the hungry brood.
"Haven't you been doing anything to make your name famous, Kathleen
mavourneen?" he asked kindly.
Kathleen blushed to find everyone looking at her and waiting for her
answer.
"Speak up, for the honor of old Donegal," said Deena.
"I saw her standing before the whole class with a paper in her hand the
other day," said Anna. "It looked as if she were reading it."
"Confess, confess!" cried Deena. "Don't hide anything from us. Let us
know the worst at once."
Kathleen had seen so much good-natured fun among the children that
winter that she knew it would be impossible to avoid telling what it
was she had been reading to her classmates. Sooner or later it would
have to come out under the children's quizzing, so she spoke frankly,
saying, "It was only a paper we had to write about the learning in
Ireland."
Up went the hands in admiration. "Our little Kathleen a writer!" said
Hannah in mock astonishment, while Deena said reproachfully, "And she
would have concealed it from her loving family!"
"It _is_ a blow," murmured Anna; and Norah said, "Go fetch it, and read
it at once."
"Yes!" shouted everybody. "Go fetch it and read it."
Kathleen looked at Captain Conn, who usually decided everything for the
whole family.
"Yes," said Conn with a merry smile; "there's no harm in reading it to
us."
So Kathleen fetched the little composition and read it with flaming
cheeks and beating heart. It was called:
LEARNING IN IRELAND
There must be a great deal of learning still left in Ireland, but the
books do not say so much about it as about the learning of long ago.
When St. Patrick lived, he built a great many monasteries here in the
green country, and set the fashion to study and learn in them.
Other saints followed him and built more monasteries, and wherever
there was a monastery there was sure to be a school where the sons of
Irish chiefs might study. There were a great many chiefs and they must
have had a great many sons; but the sons of the common people could
also learn from the monks, and very often there were rich and poor
studying together in the same house.
The fame of these Irish schools spread outside of this country, and
in the different countries of Europe it became the fashion to go to
school in Ireland, until, five hundred years after St. Patrick's time,
this was the most learned country in the world.
The scholars built little huts in which they lived, but whenever the
weather was pleasant they recited out of doors.
I wish it was the fashion to recite out of doors nowadays.
KATHLEEN BARRY.
_B. A._ You can see by the ruins scattered all over Ireland how many
monasteries and schools there were. There are ruins in every county,
but those in Kilkenny are the most interesting of all.
K. B.
There was a great clapping of hands when Kathleen finished reading, and
cries of "Bravo! Bravo!"
In the midst of the uproar Deena pounded with his knife-handle on the
table and shouted "Tally-ho! Tally-ho! Tally-ho-o-o-o!"
As soon as the hunting call quieted them he said, "Pray tell us the
meaning of your Ogham characters 'B. A.' toward the close of your
essay."
The Ogham writing is older than the oldest writing in Ireland, and a
laugh went up again to hear Kathleen's letters likened to it.
Kathleen laughed, too, and looked at the "B. A." innocently enough, as
she replied, "It means 'begin again.' Isn't that what you write when
you forget something and say it afterwards?"
"It will do," said Tara, patting her on the head, while Connie asked,
"And what did the teacher say to your paper?"
"She said it would do, better than some papers that wouldn't do so
well," answered the little girl, and wondered why the laughing began
again.
Aunt Hannah smiled at her across the table. "Sure, 'tis 'B. A.' with
the fun and laughter at Malone's most of the time. Don't mind them,
mavourneen," she said to the little girl, and then she told the
children how she had learned the names of Ireland's thirty-two counties
when she was a child.
"The children marched round and round the school-room," she said,
"saying it like a poem, and all in concert. It began, 'Cork and Kerry,
Londonderry,' and went on through the whole thirty-two names. And when
any one forgot a name he had to drop out and take his seat."
After the supper was over and she went into the den for a cosy chat
with Uncle Tom, she said, "Sure, 'tis a great pity that Jerry couldn't
be here to see how well both Danny and Kathleen are doing."
"They're fine children," agreed Uncle Tom. "Kathleen will be great
at the learning some day, if she keeps on. Perhaps she'll turn out a
teacher, as her father Jerry was meant to be."
"They're all fine children," murmured Aunt Hannah, listening to the
happy voices around the piano as they began singing one of their
favorite songs; and she rose and followed Uncle Tom to the other room,
where they all sang together, "The Day When the Green Flag Flies."