""Those are all I have," the woman answered.

""As those are all you have," said the gentleman, "keep them."

"Then he said to the other woman: "Get up and get dinner ready for us."

"The woman got up and brought some meal and husks. "Are those all you have?" the gentleman asked.

""Those are all I have," the woman answered.

""As those are all you have," said the gentleman, "keep them."

"He led the man up the stairs and knocked at a door. A beautiful woman opened it. She was dressed in a gown of silk, and it was all trimmed with gold and jewels. He asked her if she could give him and the stranger a dinner. Then she placed before them the finest dinner that was ever seen. And when they had eaten and drunk as much as they liked, the gentleman said: "Do you know why this woman was able to give us such a dinner?"

""I do not know," said the man, "but I should like to know, if you care to tell me."

""When I was alive," said the gentleman, "I had three wives. And the first wife I had would never give anything to any poor man but little potatoes. And now she has nothing but little potatoes herself, and she can give nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. And my second wife would never give anything to the poor but meal and husks, and now she has nothing but meal and husks herself, and she can give nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. But my third wife always gave to the poor the best that she had, and so she will always have the best that there is in the world, and she can always give the best in the world to anyone, till the Day of Judgment."

"Then the gentleman took the man about and showed him his house, and it was a palace, more beautiful than anything that he had ever seen.

And while he was walking about it he heard music. And he thought that he had never heard music so beautiful. And while he was listening to the music he felt like sleeping, so he lay down and slept. And when he woke he was in his own home. He never saw the gentleman again and he could never find the place where he had been."

"It"s all the time fairies and ghosts with you, Mrs. O"Brien," Terence said. "Who cares what they do? It"s what men do that counts. I"ll tell you a story now."

So Mrs. O"Brien and Kathleen listened to Terence"s story.

"There was three men," Terence began, "that lived near together, and their names was Hudden and Dudden and Donald. Each one of them had an ox that he"ld be ploughing with. Donald was a cleverer man than the others and he got on better. So the other two put their heads together to think what would they do to hurt Donald and to ruin him entirely, so that he"ld have to give up his farm and they could get it cheap.

Well, after a while they thought that if they could kill his ox he couldn"t plough his land, and then he"ld lose the use of it and he"ld have to give it up. So one night they went and killed Donald"s ox.

"And to be sure, when Donald found his ox killed, he thought it was all over with him. But he wasn"t the man to be thinking that way long.

So he thought he"d better make the best he could of it, and he took the skin off the ox and started with it to the town to sell it. And as he was going along a magpie perched on the skin and began pecking at it, and all the time chattering, for it had been taught to talk. With that Donald put round his hand and caught the magpie and held it under his coat.

"He went on to the town and sold the skin, and then he went to an inn for a drink. He followed the landlady down into the cellar, and while she was drawing the liquor he pinched the magpie and it began chattering again. "By the powers," says the landlady, "who"s that talking and what"s he saying at all?"

""It"s a bird," says Donald, "that I carry around with me, and it knows a great deal and tells me many a thing that it"s good for me to know. And it"s after telling me just now that the liquor you"re giving me is not the best you have."

""It"s the wonderful bird all out," says the landlady, and with that she went to another cask for the liquor. Then said she: "Will you sell that bird?"

""I wouldn"t like to do that," says Donald. "It"s a valuable bird, and then it"s been my friend a long time, and I dunno what it would be thinking of me if I"d sell it."

""Maybe I"ld make it worth your while." said the landlady.

""I"m a poor man," says Donald.

""I"ll fill your hat with silver," says the landlady, "if you"ll leave me the bird."

""I couldn"t refuse that," says Donald; "you may have the bird."

"So she filled his hat with silver, and he left her the bird and went on his way home.

"It wasn"t long after he got home till he met Hudden and Dudden.

"Aha!" says he to them, "you thought it was the bad turn you was doing me, but you couldn"t have done me a better. Look what I got for the hide of my ox, that you killed on me." And he showed them the hatful of silver. "You never saw such a demand for hides in your life," says he, "as there is in the town this present time."

"No sooner had he said that than Hudden and Dudden went home and killed their own oxen and set off for the town to sell the hides. But when they got there they could get no more for them than the common price of hides, and they came home again vowing vengeance on Donald.

"This time they were bound there would be no mistake about it, so they went to his house and they seized him and put him into a sack and tied up the top of it. "Now," says one of them, "you"ll not be doing us any dirty turn this time, I"m thinking. We"re going to take you to the river and throw you in and drown you; that"s what we"re going to do and I"m telling you of it now, so that you"ll have the pleasure of thinking that all your sorrows are nearly over, as you go along."

"Well, Donald said never a word, but he kept thinking, and those words "all your sorrows are nearly over" gave him something particular to think about, and it wasn"t long till he began to see his way, if he could only get a chance to do what he was thinking of.

"They took up the sack and they carried it by turns for a time, but both of them soon began to get mighty tired and thirsty. Then they came to a tavern, and they left the sack outside, and Donald in it, and went in to get a drink. Donald knew that if they once began drinking they would stay inside for some time. Then presently he heard a great trampling sound, and he knew it must be a herd of cattle coming, and he knew there must be somebody driving them. With that he began singing, like he was the happiest man in the world.

"The man that was driving the cattle came up to him and he says: "Who"s inside the sack there, and what are you singing like that for?"

""I"m singing because I"m the happiest man alive," says Donald. "I had plenty of troubles in my life, but I"m going to heaven now, and they"re all over. There"s a blessing on this same sack, you must know, and whoever"s in it goes straight to heaven, and isn"t it myself that"s a right to be singing?"

""Surely you have," says the man, "and it"s glad I"ld be to take your place. What would you take from me now to let me get in that sack in your place?"

""There"s not money enough in the world to make me do it," says Donald, and he began singing again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THERE"S A BLESSING ON THIS SAME SACK."]

""Ah, be reasonable!" says the man. "I"ll pay you well."

""I tell you the whole world couldn"t do it," says Donald. "It"s not every day a man gets a chance to go to heaven. Think of being over with all the sorrows and the troubles of this world, and nothing but happiness any more forever. Sure I"ld be a fool if I"ld give it up."

""Oh, but think of me," says the man. "It"s me that has the sorrows on me so that I can"t bear them. There"s my wife died three months ago, and all the children was dead before her, and it was she always helped me with the farm and knew how to manage better nor myself, so that now she"s gone I can do nothing with it. And I"ve lost money on it till I can"t pay the rent, and now I"ll lose the farm itself, and here I am driving these cattle to town to sell them to get money to take another piece of land and keep the life in me, and yet I don"t want to live at all. Oh, give me your place in that sack and you"ll go to heaven in your own time, if it was only for that one good deed. Give me your place and I"ll give you these twenty fine cattle, and you"ll have better luck nor me and you"ll surely do well with them."

""I can"t resist you," says Donald; "sure it"s you needs to go to heaven more nor me. It"s the truth I hate to do it, but I"ll give you my place."

"So with that the man untied the sack and Donald got out of it and he got into it, and Donald tied it up again. Then Donald went away home, driving the cattle before him.

"It was not long then till Hudden and Dudden came out of the inn, and they took up the sack, thinking that Donald was still inside it, and they took it to the river and threw it into a deep place. Then they went home, and there they found Donald before them, and a herd of the finest cattle they ever saw. "How is this, Donald?" they said. "We drowned you in the river, and here you are back home before us. And where are you after getting all these cattle?"

""Oh, sure," says Donald, "it"s myself has the bad luck all out. Here I"ve only twenty of these cattle, and if I"d only had help I could have had a hundred--aye, or five hundred. Sure in the place where you threw me in, down at the bottom of the river, there was hundreds of the finest cattle you ever saw, and plenty of gold besides. Oh, it"s the misfortunate creature that I am, not to have any help while I was down there. Just these poor twenty was all I could manage to drive away with me, and these not the best that was there."

"Then they both swore that they would be his friends if he would only show them the place in the river where they could get cattle like his. So he said he"ld show them the place and they could drive home as many of them as they liked. Well, Hudden and Dudden was in such a hurry they couldn"t get to the river soon enough, and when they were there Donald picked up a stone, and said he: "Watch where I throw this stone, and that"s where you"ll find the most of the cattle."

"Then he threw the stone into a deep part of the river, and he said: "One of you jump in there now, and if you find more of the cattle than you can manage, just come to the top and call for help, and the other two of us will come in and help you."

"So Hudden jumped in first and he went straight to the bottom. In a minute he came up to the top and shouted: "Help! help!"

""He"s calling for help," says Donald; "wait now till I go in and help him."

""Stay where you are," says Dudden; "haven"t you cattle enough already? It"s my turn to have some of them now." And in he jumped, and Hudden and Dudden was both drowned. And then Donald went home and looked after his cattle and his farm, and soon he made money enough to take the two farms that Hudden and Dudden had left, besides his own.

"And that"s the way," said Terence, "to get on in this world or any world. Get the better of them that"s trying to get the better of you, and don"t hope for any help from fairies or ghosts."

"Terence," said Mrs. O"Brien, "there"s a little that"s right in what you say, and there"s more that"s wrong. Depend on yourself and don"t look for help from Good People or ghosts. So much of what you say is right. But Donald was not honest and he got on by tricks, and I don"t want you or Kathleen to be that way. You"ll not get on that way; you"ll only come to grief. But I want you to be kind and helpful to mortals and Good People because it"s right to be so, not to get any reward. The reward you may get or you may not in this world, but it"s not that I want you to work for. And I"ll tell you a story now to show you what I mean.

"There was a poor little bit of a boy once, and he had a hump on his back. He made his living by plaiting rushes and straw into hats and baskets and beehives, and he could do it better than anybody else for miles around. I don"t know what his right name was, but the people called him Lusmore, after the flower of that name. The flower, you know, is the one that some call fairy-cap--the Lord between us and harm!--and others call it foxglove. And they called him after it, because he would always be wearing a sprig of it in his cap. And in spite of having a crooked back, which often makes a body sulky, he was a good-natured little fellow, and never had a bad word or a bad thought for anybody.