Chapter Two.

The Tea-Party.

“Sure, this is a fine day for me, altogether,” said Grannie Malone as she got out her bit of flour to make the cake. “I can wait for the letter from himself, the way I know they’re in health, and have not forgotten their old Mother. Troth, we’ll have a bit of a feast over it now,” she said to the Twins. “While I’m throwing the cakeen together do you get some potatoes from the bag, Eileen, and put them down in the ashes, and you, Larry, stir up the fire a bit, and keep the kettle full. Sure, ’tis singing away like a bird this instant minute! Put some water in it, avic, and then shut up the hens for me.”

Eileen ran to the potato bag in the corner and took out four good-sized potatoes. “There’s but three of us,” she said to herself, “but Larry will surely be wanting two, himself.”

She got down on her knees and buried the potatoes in the burning peat. Then she took a little broom that stood near by, and tidied up the hearth.

Larry took the kettle to the well for more water. He slopped a good deal of it as he came back. It made great spots of mud, for there was no wooden floor—only hard earth with flat stones set in it.

“Arrah now, Larry, you do be slopping things up the equal of a thunderstorm,” Eileen said to him.

“Never you mind that, now, Larry,” said Grannie Malone. “It might have been that the kettle leaked itself, and no fault of your own at all! Sure, a bit of water here or there does nobody any harm.”

She hung the tea-kettle on the hook over the fire again. Then she brought the cakeen and put it into a small iron baking-kettle, and put a cover over it. She put turf on top of the cover. “’Twill not be long until it’s baked,” said Grannie, “and you can be watching it, Eileen, while I set out the table.”

She pulled a little wooden table out before the fire, put three plates and three cups on it, some salt, and the jug of milk. Meanwhile Larry was out trying to shut the hens into the little shelter beside the house. But he couldn’t get them all in. One old speckled hen ran round the house to the door. Larry ran after her. The hen flew up on top of the half-door. She was very much excited. “Cut-cut-cut,” she squawked.

“Cut-cut yourself now!” cried Grannie Malone.

She ran toward the door, waving her spoon. “Shoo along out of this with your bad manners!” she cried.

Just that minute Larry came up behind the hen and tried to catch her by the legs.

“Cut-cut-cut-a-cut,” squawked old Speckle; and up she flew, right over Grannie’s head, into the rafters! Then she tucked herself cozily down to go to sleep.

“Did you ever see the likes of that old Speckle, now?” cried Grannie Malone. She ran for the broom. “Sure she must be after thinking I was lonesome for a bit of company! Do you think I’d be wanting you at all, you silly, when I have the Twins by me?” she said to the hen. She shook the broom at her, but old Speckle wasn’t a bit afraid of Grannie; she didn’t move.

Then Grannie Malone put the broom under her and tried to lift her from her perch, but old Speckle had made up her mind to stay. So she flew across to another rafter, and lit on Grannie Malone’s black coat that she wore to Mass on Sundays. She thought it a pleasant warm place and sat down again.

“Bad luck to you for an ill-favoured old thief!” screamed Grannie. “Get off my Sunday cloak with your muddy feet! It’s ruined you’ll have me entirely!”

She shook the cloak. Then old Speckle, squawking all the way, flew over to Grannie’s bed! She ran the whole length of it. She left a little path clear across the patchwork quilt. Larry stood in one corner of the room waving his arms. Eileen was flapping her apron in another, while Grannie Malone chased old Speckle with the broom. At last, with a final squawk, she flew out of the door, and ran round to the shelter where the other hens were, and went in as if she thought home was the best place for a hen after all. Larry shut her in.

As soon as the hen was out of the house, Eileen screamed, “I smell something burning!”

“’Tis the cakeen,” cried Grannie.

She and Eileen flew to the fireplace. Eileen got there first. She knocked the cover off the little kettle with the tongs, and out flew a cloud of smoke.

“Och, murder! ’Tis destroyed entirely!” poor Grannie groaned.

“I’ll turn it quick,” said Eileen.

She was in such a hurry she didn’t wait for a fork or stick or anything! She took right hold of the little cakeen, and lifted it out of the kettle with her hand!

The little cake was hot! “Ow! Ow!” shrieked Eileen, and she dropped it right into the ashes! Then she danced up and down and sucked her fingers.

“The Saints help us! The cakeen is bewitched,” wailed poor Grannie. She picked it up, and tossed it from one hand to the other, while she blew off the ashes.

Then she dropped it, burned side up, into the kettle once more, clapped on the cover, and set it where it would cook more slowly.

When that was done, she looked at Eileen’s fingers. “It’s not so bad at all, mavourneen, praise be to God,” she said. “Sure, I thought I had you killed entirely, the way you screamed!”

“Eileen is always burning herself,” said Larry. “Mother says ’tis only when she’s burned up altogether that she’ll learn to keep out of the fire at all!”

“’Twas all the fault of that disgraceful old hen,” Grannie Malone said. “Sure, I’ll have to be putting manners on her! She’s no notion of behaviour at all, at all. Reach the sugar bowl, Larry, avic, and sit down by the table and rest your bones. I’ll have the tea ready for you in a minute. Sit you down, too, Eileen, while I get the potatoes.” She took the tongs and drew out the potatoes, blew off the ashes, and put them on the table. Then she poured the boiling water over the tea-leaves, and set the tea to draw, while she took the cakeen from the kettle.

“’Tis not burned so much, after all,” she said, as she looked it over. “Sure, we can shut our eyes when we eat it.”

She drew her own chair up to the table; the Twins sat on the bench on the other side. Grannie Malone crossed herself, and then they each took a potato, and broke it open. They put salt on it, poured a little milk into the skin which they held like a cup, and it was ready to eat.

Grannie poured the tea, and they had milk and sugar in it. The little cakeen was broken open and buttered, and, “Musha, ’tis fit for the Queen herself,” said Larry, when he had taken his first bite.

And Eileen said, “Indeed, ma’am, it’s a grand cook you are entirely.”

“Sure, I’d need to be a grand cook with the grand company I have,” Grannie answered politely, “and with the fine son I have in America to be sending me a fortune in every letter! ’Tis a great thing to have a good son, and do you be that same to your Mother, the both of you, for ’tis but one Mother that you’ll get in all the world, and you’ve a right to be choice of her.”

“Sure, I’ll never at all