The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-06
the mist kept wandering the hills for days
together-crawling the hills rather.
Cutting the Winters Fire.

| AhGAtS 0SOps ny ASAi anu ny lOhls OuN VI
the black soft peat. Layer after layer is
cut off the turf bank, as for as eight.
| twelve or in good Dogs even twenty feet
| deep. Each succeeding layer is blacker
and deuser, and makes a better turf than
! the previous layer. With one thrust of
| the double bladed spade 0he blades are
set at right angles) he cuts a clean turf
and throws 1t over his shoulder onto the
| bank above. There a man with turf
barrow adds It to his load, and wheels
| the fresh turfs off to free ground, where
they are laid singly to dry-for at least
two-thirds of the weight of the new turf
| is water.
1 In the middle of the day, when ali
| hands Stop work, they unite the wrap
pers in which they carried with them
their buttered bread and bottles of milk,
and, sitting around in circle, they make
a merry meal.
A couple of days after being cut and
| spread, the turf are "footed"-that is,
| placed on end; three or four leant to-
gether. A week later, being fairly dry,
| they are built into turf clamps-long lit
tie stacks-and in another week or so they
are perfectly dried and are built into one
great stack. in which they are kept till
ready to be carted home and built in a
stack by the side of the house.
! Deep down in the bog, oak and fir some
| centuries or a thousand years old are
| found The fir is full of resin, and burns
with a beautiful blaze. The old tree
| trunks are cut with very heavy, long
handled ak made specially for the pur-
| pose, win in the sun and brought
home to help the winters fire.
or to Seek His Fortune.
AS the boys grow up the little farm is
unable to support ell. So, one morning,
the eldest and strongest ties few sorry
belongings in a red handkerchief, takes
o0d t.{ foil
| er's and mothers blessing, strikes out
upon the road that leads over the noun
tains. and is gone to push his fortune.
For those whose fathers cannot give
| them the $25 necessary to pay their way
| to America, two other doors are open TO
| for4une-though narrow doors enough.
| Such a boy may walk forty miles to the
| port of Derry and get conveyed to GAS
| gov at a cost of $1.25, and in that big
| citv (where are thousands of our Donegal
| bows always) may get employment in iron
works at a wage of "a week; or, OFT
| ener he may walk thirty miles to the
| borders of the County Tyrone hire for
| $40 a year ana MS support III INC Aaiih-
| er's house.
| These big Scotch farmers occupy the
| rich alluvial lands of the Northern Irish
counties-lands from which their hired
| boys forefather a century and hai ago
| were driven-driven into the mountain
| poor boy tlls for stranger the soil that
! should be his Life here is not the peas
| ure IL was in his mountain home. To the
| Scotch Irish farmer existence is a very Sc
rious matter. He has his boys astlr at
| o'clock in the morning, and, with the ex-
cention of a very short rest for meals,
works them till just before retiring at
night. Except for attending the cattle
and the horses watering and feeding
them, the boy has Sunday for free day
but during the remainder of the week
he has not one free half hour from
o'clock in the morning TIL bedtime, which,
in these Scotch districts, is from o'clock
till 9 o'clock in the evening. AT home the
boy went to bed at II or II o'clock. His
mistress allows him plenty of food-of the
commonest quality. He eats at the table
with his master, who sometimes lives on
as poor fare as the poorest of the boys
poor mountain neighbors at home.
Another thing that jars upon the Irish
lad is that there is sometimes want of
cleanliness-what he calls "a roughness'
| about the serving of food, TO which ne
was unused at home.
'"rhis bowl is ma over clane o the out
side" said one of these mistresses to her
mountain boy, as she handed him bowl
of tea, but ah make my own o. YOU"
"Troth, then, ma am" said he, as he
reached for dish clout and wiped it,
I'D thank We to make a stranger of
me-"
AS 1t generally pays better to give the
| buttermilk to the calves and the pigs than
to Kitchen" ones meal with it, the hired
boy sometimes finds himself set down to
fine table of potatoes without any drink
or continent. On one such occasion the
sarcastic boy said:
Master, / don't see any wee tatties
here-let me have some"
"For why do We want wee praties, boy?"
Because me mother used to tell me
/ khot in, "a ord ffraac batY q,
gran thing entirely to kitchen the wee
wan to the big wan"
All Irish Eyes Turn to America.
When the boys come home many and
droll are the tales they tell of their late
masters households. And after they have
earned enough money to help their father.
and to put few pounds, over and above,
in their own pockets, they leave the big
farmers for good and prepare to set out
for America, that land to which all Irish
eyes turn
There are parts of our county-the very
poorest-from which every able bodied boy
and man migrates early in June, 10 win
the harvest in the Scottish lowlands. With
his little red bundle and his sickle. each
Joins band bound for the port Of Derry.
They travel on foot the thirty or forty
Irish miles-almost always accomplishing
the journey in one day. After some months
they tramp back again into their own val
ley, brown, hale, happy and wealthy with
the wealth of twenty, thirty and even
sometimes forty dollars-more than enough
to pay the rent, and quite early enough TO
begin late harvest of their own.
Though the winter is the time of Brian's
ease and amusements-when he attends
the nightly dance or rattle, wedding
christening or spree, or Joins the sto
telling circle by neighobors's firesde-
he does not neglect his sports around the
summer-his football his "saman shin
nv-and hunting-hares and rabbits-and
his courting-all which he enjoys 10 the
FULLEST in the glorious, long and sunny
sunday evenings that seem to fall with
Gods benson on our valleys and on
o,,r rnoors, and to irradiate them, bare
.hough they be- with Gods own smile
Seumas MacManus
..,-, 49, newt ely .oantk. rx,.s.-.--