Connecticut western news., 1890-04-30
PATSY.

They all called him Patsy, Uncle Michael, Aunt Margaret, the boys i'll the street, everybody. He may have been christened Patrick, after the mo- ther country's patron saint when he was tiny child, but the abbreviation held good, and Patsy he was to every body. His father and mother died when he was very small and Uncle Michael, who earned his living by working in the nursery near by, grumbled at the extra mouth he had to feed, for he had six gray eyed little roysterers of his own to care for, and A mt Margaret said he ate more than two grown men and did nothing in the wide world but tear his clothes. And yet Aunt Margaret would have been awfully lonely without Patsy. Who would have trotted to market with her and have carried home the big basket of truck" without mur- mur as Patsy did, and what boy would have handed over every cent of weeks earnings in the nursery with out sneaking enough to buy himself some hot roasted peanuts from the Eyetalian on the corner? :.
 Patsy didn't have much schooling. He could read and write and he could count a row of trees by walking along the furrow and touching each one and then walking back and counting them all over again The two counts did not always tally, but Patsy wasn't to blame. Uncle and aunt could read. Uncle knew all about how Napoleon fought and died, and aunt could tell stories about the great Alexander that would make Patsy's brown unkempt hair literally stand on end. He did not feel very sorry about not having an education. It was sufficient that a part of the family were learned.
 If Patsy couldn't count straight he could place bud on a tree in the nur- sery so that it could grow we'll and straight, and he knew all about cle- matis and roses, and he could trans plant cabbages in Aunt Margaret's gar den so the hottest summer sun would not wilt them. He knew where the first arbutus grew in the woods that sheltered the nursery on one side, and where the honeysuckles, as he called the wild columbines, hungs their bells in June time.
 Father Knight, the village priest, looked upon Patsy as something not far short of a little heathen. He did not know 'him very well, for Patsy never went to church when he was not positively obliged to. Father Knight talked rather sharply to Uncle Michael about Patsy once, and Michael promised to send him to church twice on Sunday thereafter. But he reckoned without his host for when the next Sunday morning came Patsy was three miles down the creek hunting watercresses when the bells rung for mass, and Father Knight on his way to the mission that afternoon met him coming home, barefoot, tan ned and dirty. The priest was tempted to stop and give him talking to, but | the laughing blue eyes that looked up ! at him as he passed, the frank smile that was on the straight red mouth melted him and he passed on. Patsy's l heart just quaked within him, for he was aWfully afraid of that dignified looking man, but there was too much of the fearless Irish spirit in him to sneak by. His hand had gone up to his cap at the first glance and Father Knight was bound to recognize him. The next day, as Patsy was fitting a bud into the soft bark of an early Crawford and getting ready to twist the bit of basswood shaving around it to hold it snugly in place, dark shad- ow fell across the row, and he became standing beside him. He felt in his heart who it was, and he went right on with his work, pretending not to I tln act fho lotf
 ''Are you Patsy Flanagan2'
 "Yes, sir" He expected that it was coming now, but instead of the words he expected the priest said:
 MT. Bidwell said you might come and transplant some shrubs that ] have just bought for my garden. He treated"
 "Yes, sir"
 "You may come right along with me. I want to show you where to put them"
 Shades of Erin's green isle, was he to walk though the street with the ele gant looking man beside him9 H. guessed he was, for Father Knight hat said SO, and he was almost positive that such nice looking man wouldn' | IuluS uC ulo uOG S< Patsy picked up his ragged jacke from the row and away he trotted af ter the priest.
 How it came about Patsy nevel knew, but before he was aware of i
 he was chattering away to Fathe Knight as he would have talked t. Aunt Margaret, and the priest was lis tening interestedly to it all.
 ''How would you like to go to schoo and becomea scholar, Patsy2"
 ''Faith, I wouldn't like it at all, sir I'd rather work in the nursery" Yes, Father Knight guessed on tn
 whole that Patsy would do better il the nursery, but he talked with tn
 boy until he found that there was al innate wit and shrewdness in him tha should be cultivated, and which if lei
 latent would rob the world of ma [ that was needed, so before Patsy g
 through with his days work Fatht F Knight had induced him to say ths he would come to church on Sunday
 and to the night school.
 So all the day long Patsy worked the nursery. Every morning he wer } down the lane, past the Maginnis co
 tage, whistling like lark as it noun
 into midair. Maggie Maginnis woul
 open her sleepy blue eyes and hes