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Show IMPRESSIONS, OLD AND NEW (Writtctn for The Intermountain Catholic.) My purpose, Dear Reader, in those impressions is to take you with me over many countries and through many peoples, and to describe them to you as I saw them. You will pardon the many faults of diction and so forth, for my aim is not to give you eloquent cut sentences, but rather to hold a friendly chat with you, and so just seat yourself there in that chair of yours and listen, and if I help in any way to interest you, well, I am content. I will begin with the country of my birth, and when I have told you some few things about it we will visit Scotland. England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Ger-many, Switzerland, Italy, France and end up with, the dear old land of the Stars and Stripes America. Amer-ica. I just imagine, Dear Reader, I hear your cheery "Go ahead, old fellow, tell us what you know of these places in your own way; we are not critical and are always willing to listen as long as you have got anything to say, and are not too philosophic in the way y ou say it. t Bacon and Locke and Steward Hill Are interesting works until You just begin to yawn. But Dr. Sheehan and Mark Twain You read and read and read again From close of day to dawn." Thanks, Dear Reader, I. will begin this chat of ours and give you facts about places and peoples in a style simple and at times humorsome. Will any of you boys point me out America ? It is many a year ago since our teacher put that question ques-tion to a class of boys, of which I was one, and I with an eager desire to show my intellectual su periority over my classmates, seized an ash-stick which served a double purpose a rod of correction and a pointer (we had no modern school requisites then), and with pardonabl pride drove the point of it right through the map just where Washington was situated. If Washington had as unstable a position po-sition on this earth as it had on that old may, well there would never be a. White House there. . "This is America, ma'am," I blurted out, and in the next breath came the words : .... "And Christopher Columbus found, it" first, ma'am." ' Now was not I a clever boy, only I had a habit of doing things wrong. At the present time I am not a clever man but I generally manage to do things right. The wrong doing habit, ye modern mothers take note, is easily cured by a plentiful application of the stick. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" is an old adage. My teacher was a great lover of that adage and consequently when I applied ap-plied the point of the ash stick to the old map she applied the butt of it to me. I blamed her then. I called her all the hard names in the calendar beginning begin-ning with a tyrant and ending witfe an old maid. Yes, we boys could not see that those who corrected our faults then with a plentiful application of the stick were our best friends, we as men see it now and bless them for it. The years passed and looking look-ing back to the days of boyhood we feel that they were very happy days indeed. We were living in a little paradise of our own with no regret for the past w ith no anxiety for the future. Enough to eat, youthful playmates, tops, marbles and football, we saw not the dark clouds before us, those clouds that for most of us had few bright spots. We little dreamed of the life before us, its uphill fights, its sorrows, its hopes and disappointments. Happy we were then, so happy, 'though God knows, round about us on every side was suffering in every shape and form. The accursed hand of landlordism lay over the land with all its attendant evils. Hunger and eviction were rife, and an unjust government instead of alleviating the burdens which lay so heavily upon a poverty stricken, peaceable, God loving lov-ing peasantry heaped on more, draining the heart's blood out of a noble race. My father and mother had their sorrow and their hard struggles.' to keep poverty from the door and the old roof tree over our heads, and we their children knew not their trials for the . faithful loving Irish parents keep their sorrows in the deep silence of their own hearts and those hearts whisper, "Let the children be happy hap-py while they can." Little did we dream then that near us, so near us, were weary, broken hearts. Round about us the old roof trees were torn down and the bone and sinew of our race were compelled to seek the land of the stranger to earn a living which was denied them at home. "Good heavens ! what sorrows gloomed that parting day That called them from their natives walks away, When the poor exiles every pleasure past Hung round the bowers and fondly looked their last And took a long farewell and wished in vain For scenes like these beyond the western main, And shuddering still to face the distant deep, Returned and wept, and still returned to weep." And the exodus went on daily and we saw the young men and women who knelt with us in the old chapel on the hill, the young heroes of the football foot-ball and cricket field leave the land that they, loved as their very lives. There were many vacant chairs around the old fireside, those -old firesides where on the winter's night in the olden day the youthful sat to listen as the aged told the deeds of Ireland's saints and soldiers. Ah ! which of us now hearing that beautiful song sung can keep back the tears from coming into the eyes, can still the wild yearning yearn-ing that surges up in the heart for the dear old. turf fire and the kindly faces shining there in the blaze, faces on which purity, bravery, honesty, simplicity sim-plicity were visible as plainly as the sun in the heavens. "If you would like to see the height of hospitality, The crame of kindly welcome and the core of cordiality, cor-diality, Joy of the olden time1-you're wishing to recall again, Come down to Donovans and there you'll meet them all again. CHORUS. Cead mile faulte, they'll give you down at Donovan's, Dono-van's, As cheery as the springtime and Irish as the ccana-ban. ccana-ban. , The wish of my heart is if ever I had anyone That every luck that brightens life may light upon the Donovans. As soon as e'er you left the latch, the little ones are meeting you, - As soon as you're beneath the thatch, oh! kindly looks are greeting you. Scarcely are you ready to be holding out your hand to them, When down by the fireside you're sitting in the midst of them. There sits the cailin deas, oh! where on earth's the peer of her, The modest face, the gentle grace,, the humor and the cheer of her. Eyes like the summer skies when twin stars, beam above in them, Oh! proud will be the boy, that's to light the lamp of love in them. Then when you rise it's "All, there, now sit down again, Isn't it the haste you're in and won't you soon come round again? Your caiben and your overcoat you'd better put astray from them, 'Twill take you all your time to try and tear yourself your-self away from them. And our companions went and we boys saw them going. We were so sorry for the time being to part with them, but like all boys we soon forgot them in the whirl of the top, the fascinations of the football, the innings of the cricket field. We were living our earthly paradise, you know, and the veil that hid from us the trials and sufferings of life, the toils and heart yearnings of the future years was not yet withdrawn. Ah! I well remember with what feelings feel-ings of wonder we listened to the ballad singers as they sang in all the major and minor keys of woe about the cruelty of tyrants, the valor of our heroes, the exodus of our race. We looked upon those ballad bal-lad singers of that other day as our modern world looks upon an Albani or a Santley, and all our halfpence went to buy their ballads, and then, oh! well, then the very magpies ceased their shrill clat-terings clat-terings and hid their heads in shame as we drawled forth such productions as these: Come all ye gifted songsters, attention pay to me, For I am going to sing to you a mournful ditty, Of how our men and women by cruel tyrants banned Have to seek their bread and butter all in a foreign land. With my bundle on my shoulder, Sure no boy could be boulder, And I'm leaving dear old Ireland without warnin', For I lately took the notion To cross the briny ocean. And I'm off to Philadelphia in the mornm.' BY CABIN. " (To be continued.) |
