Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/242

 2IO Collectanea.

Barrel-grown Wheat {Local).

The name is Mescall, and he got married, and he waited long enough, he got a fine decent girl. But he was a regular miser ; when he would see any poor person goin' up to the house, he would say, " There's no one, adin [within] " ; but she, poor woman, when he would be out, would let nobody go without somethin'. When the spuds would be dug he would measure them, and put in as much as should do a month. Well, she could not give and have, so when she did give to the poor she used to borry from the neighbours. At lash, all the spuds were gone, and there was nothing left to give but whate [wheat], that he had locked in a barrel, for seed. When the poor people would come, she could not let them go adout [without] some- thin', so she used to manage to get a key and open the barrel and give them the whate. At last that was all gone, and this night the husband says, " I think I'll set that whate tomorrow." The poor woman did not know what to do, so she gets up early in the mornin', and goes to her mother's about two mile away. When he got up an' did not see her, they had one little boy in the house, some relation of his, and he axed him where was the misses. He said she was gone over to her mother's. " Gone over to her mother's, and so much to be done ! Go over after her an' tell her to come home quick, and tell her I am going to set the whate. Come out first, an' bring that bucket there." So out they went to the barn and he opened the barrel ; and God be praised, the barrel was packed with the finest whate that ever was see [seen]. He filled the bucket, an' off went the boy for the misses. When he got there, he tould her that the master was setting the whate, an' he wanted her home. " Where did he get the whate } " says she. " In the barrel in the barn, and every bit of it buddin'. I never saw him so glad." "Thanks be to God," says she. The whate was set, and cut and trached Tthrashed] and a better crop there wasn't in the county. She tould him about it after, and id changed him altogether, for he was a charitable man to the day he died. There is plenty of her relations in the county around here. — Told by Mrs. Guerin, Shanagolden.