A PRESENT FOR PAUDEEN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 152, 24 December 1926, Page 14

A PRESENT FOR PAUDEEN

Christina liad a great wish to catch ;i Jcpa'chauii. Thougli she was only twelve years old sho was the oldest of a long family, and Paudeeii, the next to this baby, had been a cripple from the" day he was born. Christina just doted on lior iamo brother. 'Whßrcver she wont he had to go; whether sho carried him in her arms, or on her back, there he was, joining in ail tho fun that was forward. So it cau. easily bo seen that by tho time Paudeen wanted a rest, and sho had finished with minding the baby and helping the mother in the house,' Christina had not much leisure. Sho did her best though. When the work was done, and sho iould shake off her comrade-children, she would be hunting the lonely lanes, and tho haunted raths, to see could sho find tho shoemaker fairy. But sight nor light of the leprechaun' could she see. As Christina was sititng on her heels in the garden, thinking of nothing at all but the weeding she was doing, what should she spy but the leprechaun himself, plying his hammer beneath the shadow of a tuft of scarlet poppies in her father's potato patch. Ho wore a cocked hat and a red coat laced with gold, which was hard to tell from the colour of the flowers around. But Christina fixed her eyes upon him, and said, to her ownself only, "I have you now, my boyo, as safe as a buttercup in a bull's mouth!" For the way to catch a leprechaun is never to stop looking at him. ,Keep your eye on tho creature, and he is bound to do your bidding; look away, and he is gone. Well, this small hero' thought that Christina, being as young as she was, he could give her the slip; so a^ay he whisked, like a red poppy leaf blown before the wind. But the child ran too, and never lost sight of him. Over the mountainy roads and the boggy places they went, and never came to a stop till they reached the rainbow's end. "You have me beat!" says the leprechaun, and begins scraping like a terrier beneath a clump of foxgloves. "Whatever are you doing1?" says Christina. "Digging up the crock of gold," says he. "Isn't that what you are asking me?" "No buried treasure at all, at all," says she. "What lam asking is the other thing you have at your disposal. It is well known that the .leprechaun only makes ono shoe, not two, and I want you to make one shoe, no bigger than you would for your own people." "Who for?" says tho leprechaun, cocking an artful eye at her. '' My little lame brother, Paudeen.'' says Christina. "Maybe he was ill-wish-ed when he was an infant child, or an elf-bolt struck him; but his right leg is withered, and the foot too short to touch the ground, so that the other leg is no good to him. Tho mother is too poor to buy shoes for those who don't need them, so Paudeen has to sit with only socks on his feet. You would' pity the creature; he is so jealous of • the other boys' brogues, and him in. his stocking soles. So what I am asking you I to do, your honour, is to make Mm a ! shoo for his well foot." ' j "I will not," says the leprechaun, , "I will make him a, shoe for his lame, foot." "Whether or which, it won't matter to Paudeen," says Christina, "as long ' as ho gpts one." . j The leprechaun set to work, and in the twinkling of a bee's eye he had a little moleskin brogue made and given to tho sister. "Good ltick to the wearer!" says he. It was not much to look at, but when Christina fitted it on Paudeen's lame foot it reached down to the ground in some wonderful way, so that lie could walk with the short leg, and get the good of both. The Tillage shoemaker made him other brogues to match it, but the loprcchaun's shoo always grew with Paudeen's growth, and never needed patching or soling. It was the grand clay's work Christina had done, not only for her cripplo brother, but for herself, for she had grown nearly crooked with the weight of carrying him.