"Be patient and wait only a few more thousands of years," the bogs would say to us if they could, "and you may have coal instead of peat. Father Time will make the change without any work on your part." But the people of Ireland cannot wait. Most of them are very, very poor. They live from day to day, glad if they have a roof to cover their heads and food enough to keep them from starving. Norah's father hires the land for his little farm from a rich lord who lives most of the year in England. The Irishman built the little hut on this land for himself and wife, and his family of growing children. "What use would it be to spend much time on it?" he would say. "The better I make the place, the more rent I shall have to pay." Every year he planted his patch of potatoes and cabbages for himself, besides oats and turnips and other things for his fowls and pigs and goat. He mended the thatched roof when it leaked too badly for comfort, and they all tried to be happy. They succeeded pretty well. When each new year came around, the home looked about as usual. It was no better, and no worse, unless, perhaps, it was a wee bit more shabby. But the children grew fast. They were merry and rosy, and thought very little about the shabby stone hut they called "home." "Sivin of us there are," Norah would tell you, "and baby Pat is the dearest and best of us all." As she came in to supper that night, her mother lifted the kettle that hung by a hook over the smoky fire and made a pot of tea. Then she placed a dish of steaming potatoes and a plate of dark, heavy bread on the table. "A good supper, indade," thought the hungry children, and in a few minutes not a sign of anything to eat could be seen. "Here chick! chick!" called Norah, dropping crumbs to her pet chicken. It had kept close beside her during the meal, and once had grown so impatient that it flew up into the little girl's lap. An old hen had already gone to roost on the rung of a stool in a dark corner of the room, while the much-loved goat stood munching grass at Norah's elbow. The child's mother did not seem troubled in the least by these things. She was busy as busy could be, giving hot potatoes and slices of bread to Mike and Joe, Norah and Katie, while she trotted baby Patsy on her knee. But when the whole flock of geese came running and flying into the hut for their share of the family supper, it was a little too much. "Away with you, noisy creatures!" cried the busy mother. "Away with you! Mike, take the broom and drive them out. Joe, lend a hand and help your brother." When the room had been cleared of the greedy geese, every one went on eating, until not even a crumb was left on the table. The girls cleared away the dishes; the boys brought a load of peat into the house, and placed it before the fire to dry for burning; the mother rocked Patsy to Dreamland, and the father smoked his pipe. Then, when the work was all done, he told the children there was good news.