Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/88

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82
ANNALS OF THE

ing it, and one man who was begging most earnestly for food, when offered some of this prepared in Irish style, turned away in contempt, saying, "No, thank God, I've never been brought to ate the yeller indian."

This industrious woman, like Solomon's prudent wife, had not only risen "while it was yet dark," to prepare meat for her household, but she had been in her meal-room at four in the morning, weighing out meal for the poor, the Society of Friends in Dublin having furnished her with grants. This I found was her daily practice, while the poor through the day made the habitation a nucleus not of the most pleasant kind. The lower window-frame in the kitchen was of board instead of glass, this all having been broken by the pressure of faces continually there.

Who could eat, who could work, who could read, or who could play in such circumstances as these? Certainly it sometimes seemed that the sunshine was changed, that the rain gave a stranger pattering, and truly, that the wind did moan most dolefully. The dogs ceased their barking, there were scarcely any cocks to be heard crowing in the morning, and the gladsome mirth of children everywhere ceased. O! ye, whose nerves are disturbed at the glee of the loud-laughing boy, come to this land of darkness and death, and for leagues you may travel, and in house or cabin, by the wayside, on the hill-top, or upon the meadow, you shall not see a smile, you shall not see the sprightly foot running in ecstacy after the rolling hoop, leaping the ditch or tossing the ball. The young laughing full