Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/356

344 ground full o' rat-holes," he explained, "an' throw yer horse."

She did not answer; and he returned to the squirrel. It came to the middle of the walk, but it would come no nearer. He tossed it the nut, and it ran back to the grass to peel and eat it there. "Were ever out West, ma'am?" he asked her, shoving back into the seat.

She woke to his question. "Niver a foot," she said. "Niver a foot. It 's fifty year an' more since I landed in Noo York, an' niver a foot have I put out 'f it yet."

"Fifty years," he said. "Well, well.…. The town's changed since then, ma'am."

She nodded and nodded, compressing her lips in an expression that said the thing was beyond words. "Aw, my, my," she sighed; and the thought of the past loosened her face in a pathetic droop of mouth.

"I was a boy here myself, ma'am," he said.

She did not hear him. "Aw, my, my," she went on. "Whin I think 'f it—of a Sunda', whin there 's nuthin' to do on'y sit with yer hands in yer lap! Whin I think 'f it— An' all thim that's dead an' gone." She shook her head sorrowfully from side to side.

"It 's a long time," he said.

"Ain't it now? A long time! Fifty year an' more since I come over in th' ol' City o' Dublin!… I mind we had the ship fever aboord, an' nineteen poor souls were thrown in the sea, without so much as puttin'