Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — THE SPALPEENS. [ARTICLE]

THE SPALPEENS.

BY MARY C. BARTLETT.

Granny Welch was a funny little Irish woman, who wore a plaid shawl at all times and seasons, and whose tight-fitting hood could not—-indeed, it did not attempt to —conceal the broad white cap-frill which bobbed up and down as she talked, which was pretty often, I assure you. Granny Welch hated boys, all but one; and that was Mikey, the son of her “ darlin’” daughter, who had Jeftther three years ago. “ Mikey isn’t jist but a baby yet,” she would sometimes say, apologetically, to a neighbor;” but if iver he grows into one of them imperdint spalpeens beyant I’ll kill him.” Then the neighbor would laugh, and Mikey would laugh, and finally Granny Welch herself would laugh until her capfrill shook and her bead-like eyes twinkled like a couple of very small stars. Time had dealt gently with theoldlady. He had given her no painful rheumatism, no feeble limbs or stiffened joints. He had onlj r bleached her hair and wrinkled her face and shriveled her up, so that she grew smaller and smaller, until it really seemed as if she might blow away some day, “ when she’d grown old enough,” as Frank Wellington had said. Frank Wellington was one of the boys whom Granny Welch hated. She hated him because he had asked her to “lend him the loan of her shawl” one stinging winter day; she hated his brother Tom because he had said that Mikey looked like a frog in the new. jacket and pants which she had worked So hard to make him; but more than all she hated them both because they were veritable boj r s, or “ spalpeens.” The words were synonymous with Granny ■Welch. It was the day before Christmas, and Mikey sat watohing the stove and waiting for his grandmother, who had gone to church. He couldn’t go out into the street, for his toes wjw;e peeping through his little, worn shoes? “Granny” had promised him a new pair “ when her ship came intil the harbor;” but he was almost tired of waiting for that. Mikey knew very little about Christmas. No one had told him to hang up his stocking and he had heard no hint of presents. He had a vague idea that it must be a good time, because everybody in the court went to church. That was all Mikey knew about the day to which most little people look forward so eagerly. He didn’t like to sit in the kitchen all alone. Granny Welch haff often boasted that the room “fronted the coort and thpre was a great dale of things to be seen from it.” But Mikey found it a lonesome

place now. The people who came by walked very fast, and had their cloaks drawn tightly about them, as if they were cold. The wind was blowing too. He didn’t like the wind; it made him think of what Frank Wellington had said. What if his grandmother should “ grow old enough” that very day. Dinner time was coming, too, and he was hungry. He began to cry. “Whist, whist, now! Where’s me little man? This isn’t him, sure. It’s a baby we have here., intirely.” There she was —Granny Welch. Just a little old Irish woman —that was all; but to Mikey she was everything—fire and light, and dinners and suppers, aye, and jacket and trowsers, too. So it was no wonder that his face brightened as she appeared. Granny Welch always went along the streets with her eyes on the ground. If she saw a piece of wood large enough to make a blaze, she picked it up. It really seemed as if Santa Claus must have strewn some nice bits in her way this morning, her arms were so full. Among others was a bough of an old elm, which seemed almost like a free itself, it was so tall and had so many little branches, Mikey looked at it with longing eyes. Are ye “wantin’ it, Michael?” t “ I am.” “Ou yer back?” inquired Granny Welch, with a fierce bobbing of her cap-border. “Nc, sir,” replied irreverent Mikey. “ There’s where ye’ll get it, thin.” Mikey laughed. He was very well acquainted with Granny Welch. “ I’ll take it from yer,” he cried, gleefully, suiting the action to the word. “ Granny” caught him in herarms, and gravely administered a few sounding slaps, which didn’t hurt him a bit. “Is it a Christmas ye’ll have?” she asked, when her pretended wrath was appeased. “Yes.” She took dofrn an old skillet from the wall and put it upon the stove, then she dropped into it a handful of corn and awaited the result.

Mikey listened for the popping, and at last it came. When the kernels were “ all snapped out” she took a large needle and some blue yarn and strung them thereon. Then she tied the string to the old bough, winding it in and out among the withered branches, whence it hung in long white loops. “ There’s yer Christmas,” said she, with a satisfied air. “ Look well now. Don’t break it.” He took it in his plump hand. He walked proudly up and down the room, the corn waving gracefully. “That’s a nice Christmas,” said Granny Welch, the queer cap-border bobbing again. “ “ Yes.” “ A nice Christmas. Nice little boys gets nice Chrietmasses.” Mikey’s stout figure straightened. “There’s little Biddy McLaughlin beyant, as cries wid the toot’ache. She gets no Christmas at all. Mind that, now.” Mikey looked sober. The little girl was his best-beloved playmate and he was very sorry for her. He thought of her all the while he w*as eating his dinner, holding his potato in one hand and grasping his newly-acquired treasure in the other. When the meal was over and his grandmother was busy putting away the fragments he took to his little heels and ran across the court to “ Biddy’s part."< Poor Biddy looked up with tearful eyes. “ Toot’ache now?” inquired Mikey. “ It’s stoppin’,” replied Biddy, soberly. “ There are a clove in it.” “ See my Christmas, Biddy.” She looked admiringly. “Come out intil the court, Biddy. We’ll have a percession. Pretind its banners.” ■ “ But I have none,” whined Biddy. Mikey broke his bough in two, scattering bits of wood and kernels of corn as he did so. To arrange the two “ banners” gracefully w*as a work of time, but the children did it, or thought they did it, at last.

The “percession” had been in motion hardly five minutes when it was unceremoniously ordered to halt. “Stand still there! What do you call that ? A string of snow-flakes ? Give us one, won’t you?” The chilaren stood still and looked terrified. ' ~ ‘ “ Oh! Frank! Come here a moment.” Frank came, a merry-faced boy, with clear gray eyes. “ What is it, Tom?” “Just look at those little rats. They’ve a whole string of snow-flakes and they won’t give a fellow one.” “Nonsense!” laughed Frank. “Let ’em alone.. “It’s my Christmas,” faltered Ifttle Mikey. “Aour what?” “ My Christmas.” “ Je-rusalem!” exclaimed Tom, thinking of the stately evergreen, at which he had managed to get a peep, in his parlor at home. “ Don’t you get any presents?” inquired Frank, kindly. “I’m to get a new’ coat,” spoke up Biddy. “ It’s makin’ out of a lady’s dress —good an’ warm, wid quiltin’ in it.” Alas! there was need of it, poor little Biddy. “ I’m to have some shoes —some time,” said Mikey. The gray eyes looked a little less clear. Something dimmed them. For a moment Frank seemed lost in thought; then he suddenly pulled from his pocket a small rule. “Put your foot on this,” said he to Mikey. “Il won’t hurt you (seeing that the child hesitated). Just for a minute. Come!" Mikey did so, wonderingly; and Frank, after examining it carefully, put thq rule in his pocket again, and the bovs walked off. ** What are you going to do now, Frank?” inquired Tom. “ I can’t stand it, Tom,” replied Mark, earnestly. “ Here am I—great man almost, with everything I want. And just think of those little chaps! It makes a fellow feel mean, somehow. Father gave rfffe five dollars yesterday. It was tp go toward my printing-press; but that youngster shall have some new shoes to-day or my name’s not Frank Wellington.”

Tom made no reply. He also had a little money, which had been given him to spend as he pleased, and he had noticed what seemed to have escaped the sharp eyes of his brother—viz.: that Biddy’s brown locks were straggling through the many loop-holes in herworn-outhood. “Do girls’ heads have to be measured? he inquired at length. “No. Anything fits’em. Why?” “ Oh, nothing,” replied Tom, carelessly. Half an hour afterward the boys stood again at the entrance of the court. The children were still there but the “ trees” were stripped. Most' of the corn. had found 'lts way into the two little red mouths, which were even now quite full. “Bring those what-do-you-call-’ems here,” called Frank. “ Both of you.” But the “ what-do-you-call-’ems” didn’t move, so the boys went to them. Hastily snatching the “banners” from the bewildered children, they proceeded to tie thereon some queer-looking packages—one suspiciously like a doll, another like a horse, besides a couple of well-filled horns, the contents of which, of course, nobody could guess, and two larger Bundles, which were reserved for the last. .They had fastened them all on securely, as they thought, when snap, snap went the withered old branches, sending the packages ignominiously to the ground, where they lay surrounded by broken twigs and scraps of wood. Mikey gave one cry. It brought Granny Welch quickly to the spot. Her capborder seemed fairly to dance and her little black eyes to flash Are as she caught sight of the boys. “ An’ it’s ye, Frank Willin’ton —ye an’ yer brither—as couldn’t let a poor b’y play wid a few rotten sticks unmerlisted. It’s little enough he has, thin—he nor Biddy nayther. Be off wid yees,” she added, fiercely, raiding her voice. “Go home wid yees, now, or I’ll—l’ll ” The boys didn’t wait until the sentence was finished. They walked away without a word. They were sober and thoughtful that evening. The mother wondered what had come over her fun-loving lads; but she waited patiently for a solution of the mystery. And at eight o’clock came a furious pull at the door-bell. “ It’s old Mrs. Welch, and she wants to see you boys, both of you,” said the father, half-anxiously. “You haven’t been up to any mischief to-day, have you?”

“No., sir,” replied Tom, meekly, while Frank colored up to the roots of his hair. They looked like a couple of culprits as they went into the hall, where sat Granny Welch wringing her wrinkled hands. “ God forgive me for wrongin’ yees,” said she, speaking very fast. “ But whin I seen the shoes foreninst me on the ground I had like to faint. An’ Biddy’s hood’s an illigant fit; an’ she an’ Mikey’s that pleased wid the candy an’ the t’ys they can do nothin’ intirely but jist turn ’em over an’ over an’ laugh like a pair of babies. An’ Mrs. McLaughlin (she’s a babe wid the measles, an’ she can’t leave the night), she sinds ye her bist thanks an’ rispects, and may ye nivef want for a Christmas gift.” Frank and Tom looked at’each other. Neither spoke. “ Folks get that tired of workin’ an’ scrapin’ that they gets hard sometimes,” continued Granny Welch, plaintively. “ An’, ye sees, I didn’t sinse it at all. Ye’ll forgive me, won’t yees, now?” “ Oh! that was nothing,” stammered Frank. “We don’t care a fig about it,” added Tom, magnanimously. “ Thank ye. God bless yees both. I’m very much obliged to yees. May ye live till a hundred Christmases!” and she was “What does this mean, boys?” inquired the mother, when they returned to the sitting-room. “It means—you tell her, Tom.” Tom tried to tell her the story, but he failed signally. Then Frank took up the broken thread of the discourse, with little better result. Between them both, however, the lady at length gained the truth. When they had finished her own eyes were moist. “ I thank God for my boys,” said she, fervently kissing Hie blushing chaps. “ They have made me very happy. This will be a good Christmas for them, I am sure.” And it was. Granny Welch always makes two notable exceptions now when she speaks of “ imperdint spalpeens.” Indeed, she has' learned to like all boys., better for the sake of “thim tinder-hearted young gintlemin, the Willin’tons.”—2F. Y. Independent.

—The letter attributed to Thomas Carlyle, flinging disdain on American colleges, has already been denounced. as a hoax. What he really wrote to President Eliot, under date of Nov. 23, was as follows: “Some days ago I received;your courteous and obliging letter and along with it the university diploma appointed for me on the 30th of June last, which now lies safely reposited here. In return for all which I can only beg you to express to the governing boards of the university my lively sense of the honor they havj done me, and „my cordial thanks for this proof of their friendly regard, which I naturally wish may "long continue on their part. Toward Harvard University I have long had a feeling 'of affection—in some respect almost .generation—and to Harvard and to youpts distinguished President, I now cordially wish all manner of prosperity and good esteem from wise men on- both sides of the ocean.” —The doctors in Tamaqua, Pa., have formed a mutual aid society and issued the following manifesto: “ We,the undersigned, physicians of Tamaqua, have been pressed into the formation of an aid society by our inability to collect medical fees of parties whose greatest desire consists in owing all the doctors and paying neither. We therefore respectfully request all staph parties to make a speedy settlement, as any party whose name is found on more than one physician’s exchange list at any time will hot be able, under any circumstances, to secure the services of any of the undersigned physicians, even for cash, until all bills are paid.*’