The Irish standard., 1915-10-23
The Fairy Tale That Came True
BY seumas MacManus.

BY seumas MacManus.
copyright in ireland, Britain and
its colonies.
Reading the papers the other day
tin my head ached with war and ru.
mors of war, l suddenly stumbled upon
a news item, which, to my relief, was
prefaced by neither Petrograd, Paris,
London nor Berlin, but only peace.
breathing Philadelphia. 1t bore the
caption "a Faithful Servant Reward.
ed" and it related that Mrs. Van Bell,
of Philadelphia, deceased, had willed
one of her fine houses and the income
from 100000 to cher faithful servant,
Maggie Burns" With a cry of de.
light, l jumped up and ran around
reading the good news to every one l
could corner. And l said to them,
"This is one of the real, live fairy
tales that occur once in so often in
real life"
Maggie Burns, who during her young
life at home in Donegal, was a gentle
lover of the fairies, had the most fas-
cinating collection of fairy lore that
my childhood knew; and to Maggie
Burns, in large measure, it is due that
/ became story writer and kind OF
biographer to the Little People. And
the Little People, the Gentle People,
have now rewarded her in large and
generous measure for providing them
with even this limping and lame, in.
competent chronicler.
On reading the item there flashed
before me my childhood days again
or more correctly, my childhood nights
when the di1ninutive lad who was T.
home from interminable rambles over
bog and moor hill and dale, his limbs
weary, and bare feet and legs hacked
and hewed by scrug and briar, took
from Maggie Burns serving supper
whose size would shame plowman-
and then took a creep-stool in the
glow of the turf in his fathers bright
and warm chimney corner, where, hap
pier far than any prince on his throne,
he forgot all aches in his Joints and
scrapes on his shins, while, with his
brothers and sisters, he hearkeend the
night long, to Maggie Burnside while
she knit the socks and patched the
clothes and BACKED the shoes of the
misunderstanding the lovely folktales
and beautiful fairy tales that her little
auditors never, never tired of-tales to
which, told by such charming story
teller, they could, in the red light of
that turf fire, listen on and on for a
lifetime, and then hope that their
heaven would be a beginning all over,
and never-ending of the same I'M
speakable delight.
Maggie Burns, the fortunate, though
not very much older, then, than we
children, had begun her career of SER
vice, and was my mothers helper. My
mother and Maggie, comparatively, did
the complete work of the household,
each taking up whatsoever came next
to her hand to do. After supper was
finished, and rosary said, we all sat
around the turf fire, the two women
workers knitting, patching or darning
Maggie sometimes embroidering. My
mother sang old ballads or snatches OF
song, and reveled in "reminiscences OF
her youth In the green and fertile land
that we could see from my fathers
door, beyond the bay-reminiscence
which, beyond anything have ever
since experienced, was rich in atmos
phere, humor and character. But Mag
gle, with her store Of tales ineXhaust
ible, did we'll the.hal of every nights
entertainment. And no dazzling aggre
cation of fabulously paid stars in gild
ed, glittering halls ever gave to theil
ennuye crowds 1.-THE of the profit
a hundredth of the genuine joy that
did my mother and Maggie Burns theil
glad audience in the glow of my
fathers turf fire.
Maggie Burns, whose faith in the
Gentle People Gas we name the Fairies)
was as firm and unquestionable as ours
was yet no more faithful believer than
vas my mother My mother had more
than once seen the fairies; had had
relatives who had encountered them
And in that rich, green, far.off, almost
tabled native land Of hers, ten miles
over the waves of Donegal Bay, she
knew of many a fascinating and many
thrilling fairy happening-and from
the Fairy Bible that was written in her
memory, could copiously quote, chap
ter and verse. Nevertheless, though
my mother would 60 joyfully to the
stake before she'd admit it, every one
else in the world knew that there were
at least five fairies on our more noun
famous, rugged, barren north side OF
the bay, for the one that was on her
native lovely green and fertile south
ern side. We needed more these kind
~, gentle folks. Consequently, while
the burden of my mothers stories were
rich and rare, real life experiences
sMaggie's were ever the old, old soul
stirring ones from the beauteous, limit