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Show IRISH CHARACTER SKETCHES. THE VILLAGE HUNTER. (Written for the Intermo'untain Catholic.) Cath-olic.) The village boasted of no co-operative store, but right there in the middle of it was a hunter's shop, over the door of which was written in badly-formed red letters: "John Dowd, Grocer and Provision Merchant," and underneath: "Licensed to sell tobacco and sundries." sun-dries." "You can have everything here, ma'am," says the owner of -the premises, prem-ises, leaning his hands on the smaJl counter, from a .farthing needle to a cowld slice ov an elephant. Yes. ma'am, everything, and at marketp rice, too." It 'would be hard to guess John Dowd's age. If we could believe himself, him-self, "he was getting on to forty," but if we trusted to appearances, he was over sixty. John was not a native of the place, having come there some vrs before "to do a stroke of business," busi-ness," as he himself put it. He spent a short time in America, and having his wits sharpened up there, if indeed they needed sharpening, he came back to his motherland with just thirty pounds in his pocket, and settled down to the huxter's business in the town that I speak of. He was known to the people peo-ple far and wider under the appropriate appropri-ate name of "Johnny Come Lately." I see him behind his counter, a small, well groomed man, with half-closed eyes, shaded by spectacles, the glass of one eye cracked across, and when he looked at you he seemed to be looking out over the rim of his specs. If he was not engaged in serving the people, he sat behind the counter on a high stool, pouring over the pages of the Cone Examiner, Ex-aminer, especially the report column of the different county councils. When a customer entered his shop, he arose obsequiously, ob-sequiously, and, with a smile and hands laid on the counter, he would politely say, "Well, ma'am, what can I do for you today." After serving his customer custo-mer with her wants, he would add: "There's nothing else you want today, to-day, ma'am," and without giving her time to renlv. he would go on with: "This is a lovely flitch ov bacon, ma'am. I got it yesterday from Limer-! ick. Ye ought to try a bit ov it, ma'am, lest I might not have any ov it when ye call agin. No. ye don't any now, ma'am. Well, any pins, thread or starch. No? Now what do ye owe me, ma'am. Ah! let me see. One quarter ov tay, one pound ov sugar, a loaf ov bread, one stone ov male and a candle. One shilling an sevenpince halfpenny, with a stress on the halfpenny, foMhat halfpenny came in every bill. Good day, ma'am, an thank ye. I hope himself him-self an the childers well. Can't complain com-plain meself, ma'am, notwithstanding the times." When a child of the village called for anything, he would rub his hands, sxd say: "Ah! me dear; I know ye have a sweet tooth:" and then he would give him or her the magnificent gift of one sweet, with the same grace as If he were bestowing a kingdom. Their change, if there was any, he would roll up in various folds of paper, and then tying it in the corner of their handkerchief, hand-kerchief, he would dismiss them thus: "Run off now, Alannah; and mind don't lose yer change, an tell yer mammy the loaf is a halfpenny dearer." The window of Johnny's shop was very small and it was always ornamented orna-mented with the following: Two clay pipes, their shanks laid across each other, flanked on one side by a half-empty half-empty jar of lozenges and sweets (bull's eyes) and on the other by a jar of sugar stick of every shade and color. Pasted on the top of the window was a greasy-sheet greasy-sheet of paper, bearing the words, "Reckitt's Blue and Colman's Starch," and immediately inside all this fascinating fascinat-ing paraphernalia a loaf of bread, two yellow candles and a slice of flabby bacon were placed upon a board. The outside of the shop was in keeping with the inside. On one side of the street door was a barrel of red herrings, that pass as often as you will, seemingly suffered no diminution, and on the other side a barrel of American apples, that from the look of them came from America Amer-ica the same time as himself. An old mangy collie dog, with a blind eye, lay now beside the barrel of apples, now beside the barrel of herring, and there he lay thoroughly impervious to sun, rain, wind or the kicks of the pas-sersby. pas-sersby. John Dowd was a batchelor, and when twitted by his neighbors, and especially by Jim Scully, upon his single state, he would join his hands most unctiously on his breast and answer: "Me prepinsities (propensities) never led me in that direction." " 'Twas well for ye they didn't," said Jim Scully to him on one occasion, "for iv ye marrit any dacint girl an' trated her as rascally as yer after trating me now by giving me such a mane ounce ov baccy, be Gob, I'd want Father Tom's microskop to see it. I say, iv ye trated her so, well, iv she had only the blood ov a grasshopper in her con-stitushun. con-stitushun. she'd make a dishcloth ov ye: that she wud." I will be more charitable than Jim Scully, though I, to, had a grievance, and many a one, against John Dowd on account of the smallness cf his pennyworth penny-worth of sweets, still, I say I will be more charitable than Jim Scully, and only add this: "If John Dowd took UHto himself a wife, and both were living in this one day, there is one thing I am certain Mrs. Dowd would be, and this is a suiirageue. now otten nave i watched John Dowd on a Sunday in the church. He Is seated up in the front benches, wjth the fingers of his right hand stuck into a large, well-worn prayer book, and hand and prayer book are placed behind his ear, in order to catch the better Father Toil's words. When Father Tom said a thing that pleased him, he turned his head half round to the congregation with a nod and a smile, but if there was anything unpleasant in Father Tom's words or an illustration he could not understand, the hand and prayer book came down from John's ear. and he sat bold upright up-right in the seat. "- atch ould Dowd, boys," says Jim Scully, "and by his shapins (shapings) I know the bint ov the sarmin; he's the sarmin's weathercock." And the collection when it was being made on the Sunday, and the collector came as I far as John Dowd's seat, John would bow, and with a grace, a kindly grace, put into the box a half-crown, the reader read-er will say: "No, only one halfpenny." Let us kindly presume it was not a bad one, for Father Tom had a veritable collection of bad coins, notably old George's. It is an October's evening, and there is a little star in the village, on account of poor law elections. John Dowd stands at his door, addressing in a very excitable way some five or six men gathered around him. We draw near and listen. Alas! we have come too late, for John's great Philippic is ended and we only catch the concluding words: , "Some day I hope to riprisent ye, boys, at the council board, an' thin, plaze God. whin that day comes, I'll go in for electricity an' the steam roller; that I will." May John Dowd live to carry out his cherished dream. |