Irish Wayside Hospitality

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 16, 23 April 1908, Page 35

Irish Wayside Hospitality

Mr. Charles Battell Loomis, the American humorist was travelling through .Wicklow, in- Ireland, when he found) himself with a whole .day to spare in a section, where there were no hotels within five miles. * I had no notion of going five miles on the road on the light breakfast I had eaten—and no certainty that there would be dinner at Rathdrum,' he writes in the New York: • Sun.' ' I set out as blithely -as I could (with the thought of my letfer of introduction crossing Mr W on his way to town and me a homeless wanderer), and before long I came to a little whitewashed canin, in front of which a handsome old woman in a man's cap was bending aver, some flowers. •* " Good morning. Can you let me have something to eat?'" ' , ( ,■ • j , •'■ iI | i-| i a '"Sure, 'tis little I have," said' she,' with a smile that took five years off her age.,- " ~ • ' '••Some fresh eggs, perhaps, or- some milk?" ' ''Aye, I can g*ve ye those, hut me house is no place for the likes '•; '•"'Tjhat'll be just what I want," said' I, and she werot into the house and bade me follow. - 1 Fresh, eggs and unlimited; milk, are notjjthe same a® ibjrill and ; young lamb, and- sauterne and cigars, and witty conversation," but when you are hungry from outdoor exercise they are not so bad. . - •VAnd,Mrs. Kelly,, like every man,- woman,- and" phiLd in the whole of Ireland, had relatives in America. 'She'd, a son there long since, and Ja-rames, 'just turned twenty-one, had gone there -this summer to ; the " States .of Indiana." Did I know theTSi;ates of ; Ihv diana ? '. - • ■ - • ' : i , '' |ip| 1 4 1 1. told he* ! did ; . that I!d been to them many a time. And where did Ja-ames go to^-to. what city ? "' To Lafayette (with as French an~- accent as you'd wish), and was I ever there? c ' n " .. --, -. -^' /■ 'I was. Her face lighted up. - ' "' -^ ,■?-<-!* ' '•If I went there ''again would I "ask for Ja-ames Kelly, a n,' he'd .lue her son, an' as fine a boy as ever left Ireland (with a true Dublin roll of the r). * Still thinking of - the dinner I had missed -a»t Heal>herdale, I asked her if she -Inew Mr. W . *-" Sure I do, a n' the finest- manjn all Ireland. Me boy Ja-ames worked there at ; an' whin .he' was leaving for America" Mr.^W gave" a dinner for hiina to all the villagers, and gave him; a/ watch wfctih his name on. it and _" In -Riemembirance of Heatherdale 'in it. Oh, yes, a fine man -air 1 - humble. Sure, if Jimmy 'd 1 be. sick for a day it's Mr. "W would be down here in me cottage askin' afther him, an' could tie be doing anything for him. 1 " Humbleness. That was what- the blessed- Lord taught us. He " could have been bom in a palace, but He was born in a stable in Betihlehem. Are you "a Catholic ?'" * " No——" '' " Ah, never mSnd. There's all kinds, of good peoP le^ — " - ■ , • • > i i I I 1 i IS '"Is-Mr...W a Protestant?-." „ , - ' " Sure, i dunno," was Mrs. Kelly's guarded reply. '•' Hie goes- to "the Protestant church, but I don't know what he is, on^y he's a good man— none- better in all - Ireland, r. . -.- - . . -.- t , ' '' The good' Lord," she continued, as she filled jny , cup with, rich mdlk (she had no, tumblers -at all, 'she said)," taught us "to be kind tq one another and to be " humble,, the same as He was kind apdi humble, although He could have had a palace if He'd chosen.". ■'•"I told her that 1" hadi heard such things ; that 1 " had a grandmother who taughc me all about Bethlehem; and the restr — . . •• " Oh, the good woman ! " said Mrs. Kelly, feelingly. "'Well, it's true. Be kind and be good and be humble, and ye' 11 be rewarded." * All the -afternoon I climbed the beautiful heatiherpurpled hills in the vicinity with her youngest son, a boy of- nineteen. The son was a very intelligent boy, and I was' struck -with' his .easy and, in the .main, oor-.r rect use of ' English. He told -me that it was easier to understand me than -an Englishman), and I took it a& a compliment, for I certainly never heard better > English spokea than is .talked in the Dublin district by ifich arid poor alike." London; and' New York sihiould -come to Duibiin to learn the proper pronunciation of- -iitag-v lisfo. ... ,- ... *As I left the village I felt that I had lost ' one_ good time to have another, and the day on the lulls" made^ ire sleep like a top.'