Our Little Irish CousinWade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
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Our Little Irish Cousin
Wade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
Children -- Ireland -- Juvenile literature; Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile literature
"I quite agree with you," said her husband. "I have always wanted to
ride in a jaunting-car, but it is more fun to talk about it than to
really do it."
"But what is a jaunting-car?" perhaps you are wondering.
It is a carriage in which the seats are placed back to back, facing
sideways. It has no top, but has big wheels and big springs underneath.
A small jaunting-car, like the one which had passed the children, has
two wheels, and seats long enough to hold four people, two on each side.
The driver's place is built out in front, reaching over the horse's
back. Such a car is very light, and one horse can carry it easily.
But what the lady said was true. There was no way for the passengers to
hold on firmly. Besides this, they could see the view on only one side
at a time.
A story has been told of a man who was travelling in Ireland and wished
to see the country. He rode in a jaunting-car from Queenstown to Cork.
He sat on the side of the car toward the hill and did not get a single
view of the river. When he went back again he changed his seat to the
opposite side of the car. And still he saw nothing but the hill. It is
no wonder that, when people spoke to him about the river between Cork
and Queenstown, he said, "There is no river. There is nothing to be seen
except a hill."
Do you see the joke? And do you understand the reason why he saw only
one side of the country, though he travelled twice over the same road?
Norah and her little sister had just turned to go home, when they
noticed the sky had grown black with heavy clouds.
"It is going to rain, Katie. We must hurry, for I fear it will thunder
and lighten," said Norah.
The children began to run. Although they did not mind the rain, they
were both afraid of thunder-storms.
"There! hear that, and that!" sobbed Katie, beginning to cry. A streak
of lightning had darted across the sky, followed almost instantly by a
loud peal of thunder.
Down came the rain in torrents, just as the children turned from the
road and entered the lane leading to their own little village. As they
did so, the sound of wheels could be heard behind them.
They were in too great a hurry and too much frightened to turn around.
But as they reached their own door, the very jaunting-car they had met
on the road to Killarney drove up.
The children's mother had been watching from the doorway.
"Come in, children, as fast as you can. I was near beside mesilf, I was
that worried about ye."
Then the good woman, turning with a welcome smile to the people in the
carriage, asked them to shelter themselves from the storm in her poor
little cot.
The two drenched children rushed to the fireplace and stood there with
the water dripping from their skirts and making little puddles on the
floor of the cabin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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