but not a sowl of mankind stayed away. What’s that you say? They’d be Arangemen? What ilse was there in the sittlemint then? We didn’t talk in thim days about what makes strife, but lived as frindly as nabors could, helpin wan another, an niver askin what you were. Well, it was a fine day, tho hot, an aff we started, watchin for foot tracks an shoutin an blowin horns an firing shots, expectin the ould woman would hastin to us on hearin where we were. It was niver a bit o’ use. Hours wint by an we thravelled miles on miles an niver a sign. Whin we found a track we soon lost it, for the woods were cut up by slues. It was agrowin late whin a few o’ us met to talk it over. “We’ve gone north an east an wist,” says Sam Foster, the ouldest settler ov us all an a knowledgable man, “an havn’t found her or the cow. That shows me she has crossed the swamp to the south an gone towards the lines.” We agreed to this rasonin an shtarted aff for the swamp, which was as dirthy a puddle o’ black wather an green skum as there was in Ameriky. Sam was our guide, or we might av been thryin to crass it to this day. He knew where it was narrowest an by creeping along fallen trees we reached the ridge beyant, an hadn’t gone half a mile afore we struck the footprints of an ould woman an a cow. How did I know it was the footprints ov an ould woman? Hould yer whisht or I won’t be atellin you any more. It was a blessin we did, for it wad soon hev been too dark to have followed them up. I tell ye, we forgot our tiredness an hunger, an hurried on in great spirits, an in half an hour Sam shouts, “There she is,” apointin through the trees. I shouts Whuroo an dashes ahead o’ them all an in a minit I had the ould woman in my arms an the cow a lookin on as innocint as if it had niver played thricks whin a calf. The saints be praised ye are not kilt and ded, I cries, as I hugged her, for sure, though she was ould an wrinkled an bint, she was the mother o’ my darlin wife. Ded I wad hev been, says she, cryin wid joy, but for the crathur, an niver ben waked or buried. By this time the rist o’ the min kem up an awl sat down to hear the ould woman’s shtory. She tould us how, from the drouth, the cow found little to pick and kept amovin on and on until she was floundering in the swamp, an whin they got on solid land sorra the wan of thim knew where they were. “How did ye keep alive?” asks a man, “for ye are spry and hearty.” “I wunna tell ye,” says she. “Two days and two nights in the bush,” says another, “an you not hungry: it’s a mysthery.” “Hould yer whisht,” says another, “it’s a miracle: there be good people in thim woods as well as on the hills ov Ould Oireland.” It was growin late an there was no time for more talk an we shtarted for home, an, bedad, the ould woman bate us all wid the nimbleness she tripped through the bush an over the logs. Whin we got home, an glad my wife was when she hugged her ould mother, an the nabors left, I axed again how she had kept body an sowl