Читать книгу The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping - Elizabeth Hale Gilman - Страница 6

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Do you ever have Irish Stew for luncheon? Most Irish Stews are a good deal alike, but this is the story of one that was different.

Once upon a time there was an Irishman who lived in a little two-roomed hut on the edge of a bog. All day, he cut peats in the bog, for that is the way he made his living. It was not a very good living; in fact, he was very poor indeed. At night, when he came back to the hut, there were often only a few potatoes for supper, which he boiled in a pot over the fire. His old father had died a few years before, and that was the reason he lived alone.

Photograph by Helen W. Cooke

A Play-house Somebody Else Has Made

One chilly, foggy night, the Irishman had come home late through the wet and the dark, and lighted his fire. There was very little for supper, and he had not had a chance to cook that, when Thump! Thump! came a knock on the door. He was ever so frightened, but he thought it would be better to open the door than have it thumped in. When he did open it—Preserve us! there were five big robbers with knives, and pistols, and high boots and fierce, bright eyes. They all crowded into the little hut, and threw more peat on the fire and demanded supper. The Irishman apologized, and said he had only potatoes. The robbers said they had to have something better than that, and all five of them laid their five big knives on the table with a look which meant, "Supper or your life!"

The Irishman went into the other little room and sat down on a chest to think. There was nothing in the room but the chest, and nothing in the chest but a few old clothes, and the more he tried to think, the less he was able to do it. At last, for no reason at all, he opened the chest. In it lay an old cloak, which his father had worn forty years and more.

No sooner had he seen it, than he went back to the room where the robbers were, and they saw him take the pot into the little room, and very soon come back and put all the potatoes into it and some water, and hang it over the fire, which was now so hot and bright that the pot soon began to boil. It simmered, and bubbled and steamed and soon the robbers began to sniff their supper. It did not smell like anything they had ever had before, but was not bad for a cold, foggy night. Pretty soon the Irishman set the pot on the table, and the robbers ate heartily. The Irishman was busy arranging something near the door. All of a sudden, one robber choked. He choked, and choked, and two others beat him on the back. He coughed and coughed, and then, something flew out of his mouth. It was a button.

The Irishman turned up his eyes to the roof and said, "Ah me, that is the last of a good old cloak." Before the robbers could move, he had opened the door and disappeared into the fog.