Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-09-28

rem, OF whom the cider was not eleven.
and the younger only four, used to
play together all day upon the golden
sands in front Of their shabby lodgings,
while the Irish nurse gossipped with
the landlady, or sat in the sun darning
and patching the childrens wellworn
frocks or the Captains decaying shirts.
The two girls were happy in those
sunny summer days by the sea, in spite
of their poor lodgings and scanty fare
Fruit was cheap, and flowers were
abundant everywhere, and there was
no stint of bread and butter, and milk
and eggs. The children wanted moth
ing better. But it was a dismal change
for them when their father carried
them back to Belgium, and established
them in a stony street in Bruges,
where the peaked roofs of the opposite
horses seemed to shut out the sun,
and where. instead of the sweet doors
Of sea and seaweed. there was an
everlasting stencil of dried fish and
sewage.
1t was winter by this time, and il
seemed to be the winter of their lives.
Kathleen cried for the sea and the
flowers Of sunny Jersey She could
hardly be made to understa nd that
summer was only a happy interval
in the year, and that flowers do not
grow in the stony streets of a city The
days in Bruges were cold and dismal,
evenings long and gloomy If it had
not been for Biddy Ryan the poor
children might have pinned to death in
/ their solitude. Captain O'Hara was
never at home in the evening, rarely
at home in the afternoon, and he never
/ left his bed till the carlton at the Ca
rthedral had played that lovely melody
! of BeethoTen's, Hope told a fiattering
, tale which the bells rang out every
! day at nOOn-tide. The Captain found
the cafe indispensable to his comfort,
the petit yerre d'absinthe suisse a ne
Cessity Of his being, a game at DOM
inOeS or draughtS the only distraction
for the canker at his heart; thus the
children, whom he loved fOndly enough
after his manner, were dependent on
Biddy Ryan for happiness; and the
faithful soul did her utmost to cheer
and amuse them in their loneliness.
She told them her fairy stories, the
legends of her native Kerry; she de-
scribed the green hills and purple
mountains, the lakes, the glens and
gOrges, the islands and groves and
abbeys, of that romantic country; until
Rose, who had seen but little of the
grandeur and glory Of earth, lOnged
with q passionate longing for that land
of lake and mountain, which was il
sOmewise her own land, inasmuch as
her father had been born and bred
within a few miles of Killarney.
And yen both go there some day
my darlints," said tender-hearted Bid
dy, and it's ladies yell be, and never
a poor day yen know in ould Ireland
for by the Lords grace the Captains
rich cousins may all die off like ratten
sheep, and his honor may come in fol
the estate? There's quarer things have
happened than that in my knowledge
and sure it's great hunters the gentle
man are, and may ride home Will
broken necks any day
Rose said she hoped her cousins
would not die; but she wished they
would ask her father and all of then
to go and live at the great white house
near the lakes, which Biddy described
as a grander palace than the kings
chateau at Lacken, which she and Rose
had been taken to see one day Will
the Captain and his young wife, before
kathleen's birth.
~
hearing Biddy talk of the lakes ant
mountains. the Druids' Circle, Mac
Gilycuddy'S ReekS, and the grea1
house in which their father was born
1t was their ideal Of paradise, q home
where sorrow or care could never enter
gardens always full of flowers, a lane
of everlasting summer, woods anC
glens peopled with flares, skies with
out a cloud, %ladneSs without alloy
One gray hopeless afternoon, Wher
there had not been rift in the slate
cOlored sky since daybreak, Kathleen
suddenly turned from the window
against which she had been fattenins
? her pretty little nose, in the hopeless
. attempt to find amusement in looking
into the empty street, and asked
, Does it ever rain in Ireland, Bid
dy?"
Yes, love, it does rain sometimes
5 and sure, darlint, that's why the hills
, and the valleys are so soft and green
; You wouldn't have it always dh1y; the
, flowers wouldn't grow without any
, rain"
Must there. be rain?" inquired
! kathleen simply. Papa says
mustn't cry. Why should the sky cry
The sky is good, isn't it?'
| Yes, dear; it is Gods sky"
But papa says it's naughty to cry
The time came only 100 soon wher
very real tears, tears of passionate
grief and wild despair, We're shed il
that dingy Belgian lodging; and wher
the two children and their faithful
: servant found themselves alone in the
bleak strange world, face to face will
starvation.
The Captain caught cold one bitter
February night, coming home, in the
teeth of the east wind, from his favor
lite cafe; and although deyotedly nUrsed
by Biddy and Rose who was sensible
and wOmanly beyond her years, the
cold developed into acute bronchitis
under which James O'Hara succumbed
a few days after his thirty-seventh
birthday, leaving his children penniless
and alone in the world. There were
only a few francs in the Captains
1,11ltSn a. tbn tivon of his doc FIJI. fC,, +bf