Where’s Nora?
by
I.
“Where’s Nora?”
The speaker was a small, serious-looking old Irishman, one of those Patricks who are almost never called Pat. He was well-dressed and formal, and wore an air of dignified authority.
“I don’t know meself where’s Nora then, so I don’t,” answered his companion. “The shild would n’t stop for a sup o’ breakfast before she ‘d go out to see the town, an’ nobody ‘s seen the l’aste smitch of her since. I might sweep the streets wit’ a broom and I could n’t find her.”
“Maybe she’s strayed beyand and gone losing in the strange place,” suggested Mr. Quin, with an anxious glance. “Did n’t none o’ the folks go wit’ her?”
“How would annybody be goin’ an’ she up an’ away before there was a foot out o’ bed in the house?” answered Mike Duffy impatiently. “‘T was herself that caught sight of Nora stealin’ out o’ the door like a thief, an’ meself getting me best sleep at the time. Herself had to sit up an’ laugh in the bed and be plaguin’ me wit’ her tarkin’. ‘Look at Nora!’ says she. ‘Where’s Nora?’ says I, wit’ a great start. I thought something had happened the poor shild. ‘Oh, go to slape, you fool!’ says Mary Ann. ”T is only four o’clock,’ says she, ‘an’ that grasshopper greenhorn can’t wait for broad day till she go out an’ see the whole of Ameriky.’ So I wint off to sleep again; the first bell was biginnin’ on the mill, and I had an hour an’ a piece, good, to meself after that before Mary Ann come scoldin’. I don’t be sleepin’ so well as some folks the first part of the night.”
Mr. Patrick Quin ignored the interest of this autobiographical statement, and with a contemptuous shake of the head began to feel in his pocket for a pipe. Every one knew that Mike Duffy was a person much too fond of his ease, and that all the credit of their prosperity belonged to his hard-worked wife. She had reared a family of respectable sons and daughters, who were all settled and doing well for themselves, and now she was helping to bring out some nephews and nieces from the old country. She was proud to have been born a Quin; Patrick Quin was her brother and a man of consequence.
“‘Deed, I ‘d like well to see the poor shild,” said Patrick. “I’d no thought they ‘d land before the day or to-morrow mornin’, or I ‘d have been over last night. I suppose she brought all the news from home?”
“The folks is all well, thanks be to God,” proclaimed Mr. Duffy solemnly. “‘T was late when she come; ‘t was on the quarter to nine she got here. There ‘s been great deaths after the winther among the old folks. Old Peter Murphy’s gone, she says, an’ his brother that lived over by Ballycannon died the same week with him, and Dan Donahoe an’ Corny Donahoe’s lost their old aunt on the twelfth of March, that gave them her farm to take care of her before I came out. She was old then, too.”
“Faix, it was time for the old lady, so it was,” said Patrick Quin, with affectionate interest. “She ‘d be the oldest in the parish this tin years past.”
“Nora said ‘t was a fine funeral; they ‘d three priests to her, and everything of the best. Nora was there herself and all our folks. The b’ys was very proud of her for being so old and respicted.”
“Sure, Mary was an old woman, and I first coming out,” repeated Patrick, with feeling. “I went up to her that Monday night, and I sailing on a Wednesday, an’ she gave me her blessing and a present of five shillings. She said then she ‘d see me no more; ‘t was poor old Mary had the giving hand, God bless her and save her! I joked her that she ‘d soon be marrying and coming out to Ameriky like meself. ‘No,’ says she, ‘I ‘m too old. I ‘ll die here where I was born; this old farm is me one home o’ the world, and I ‘ll never be afther l’avin’ it; ‘t is right enough for you young folks to go,’ says she. I could n’t get my mouth open to answer her. ‘T was meself that was very homesick in me inside, coming away from the old place, but I had great boldness before every one. ‘T was old Mary saw the tears in me eyes then. ‘Don’t mind, Patsy,’ says she; ‘if you don’t do well there, come back to it an’ I ‘ll be glad to take your folks in till you ‘ll be afther getting started again.’ She had n’t the money then she got afterward from her cousin in Dublin; ‘t was the kind heart of her spoke, an’ meself being but a boy that was young to maintain himself, let alone a family. Thanks be to God, I ‘ve done well, afther all, but for me crooked leg. I does be dr’amin’ of going home sometimes; ‘t is often yet I wake up wit’ the smell o’ the wet bushes in the mornin’ when a man does be goin’ to his work at home.”