Mrs. O'Leary Makes a Morning

Call

BY LEILA MORGAN.

HE top o' the mornin' to ye, Mrs. McQuade," called Mrs. O'Leary, as she knocked at the former's back porch screen door. "Shure, an' I thought I'd be afther comin' over an' tellin' ye of the good toime ye missed last night at me daughter Mary Ann's party. It's meself that's sorry ye weren't there, for it was a grand affair, it was.

"And is it 'Who all was there?' that ye are afther askin' me? Why, faith, indade, no less swells than the McManns thimselves were there, with their swishin' silk gowns and danglin' ear-rings. If it's style one wants to see, shure one needn't go farther than our own town of Sleightenville to look for it.

"What did we do, do ye ask? The saint be blessed, faith, and it's what didn't we do ye should be afther askin'. It's yerself would have enjoyed the music, seein' as how ye're sich a player and singer. 'What was it loike?' Indade! Well, shure to me it was loike havin' a screamin' baby and a howlin' dog together in one room durin' a thunderstorm. But shure, the rist of the people seemed to think it was wonderful. For meself, I was that scared Mary Ann's new pianny would be smashed, I could hardly keep me chair at all, at all; Shure, how anny wan can call thim pieces that they pound off on the pianny music, is more thin I can iver tell. Now, if they had played 'Annie Rooney' or 'Little Kate Kearney,' shure, it would have been somethin' loike.

Afther we had a bits to eat-'refrishments,' as Mary Ann called thim-the young folks danced till mornin'. And, Mrs. McQuade, shure, it's me sides that were breakin' wid laughin' to see thim doin' the new kind of jig; the Hay Dance, faith, I think they called it. The 'Barn Dance,' is it? Well, shure, I knew it had somethin' to do wid the hay, but from the looks of it, indade, I would have thought it had more to do with lunatics.

For of all the jumpin' and kickin' and swingin', shure, there niver was the loike of that whin Pat and I wint to dances in the ould country. Now, don't tell me that's iliven o'clock I hear sthrikin'; well, thin, and I must be goin' this very minit. Shure, an' it's a cup of sugar I came over for an' your askin' me about the party made me fergit that there was a puddin' half made an' waitin' me return. Faith, an' it's mesilf that's much obliged to ye, an' if ye can jist let me have a couple of eggs an' some flour that's all I'll be afther botherin' ye about. Oh, an' I believe it's a cup of butter an' a teaspoonful of soda I'll be havin' to have, too. It's the kindhearted neighbor ye are, to be shure. Well, as I am after sayin' before, it's roight sorry I am ye couldn't be at the party, but I knew ye'd enjoy hearin' of it, so that's why I came over.

"Good-day to yez, Mrs. McQuade, an' shure it's yersilf must come over an' see me now. Good-mornin' to ye, thin, I'll say."

A Citizen of Sunlight

BY FRANK L. STANTON.

He was never in the lowgrounds, where the wind of trouble chills;

A citizen of sunlight-a brother of the hills;

"How's the world a-goin'?" An' his answer still was: "Prime!

I'm havin'-oh, I'm havin' of a halleluia time!"

A citizen of sunlight, he met the mornin' bright; Opened all Life's windows, an' bathed his soul in light; He heard the bells of mornin' on the highest hilltops

chime,

Forevermore a-havin' of a halleluia time.

No storms could blow the stars out-no thunder's solemn roll

Could drown the joyous echoes of the singing in his soul; Peace dwelt with him forever-the peace of God sublime, An' that's why he was havin' of a halleluia time!

The Confession*

BY GEORGE DYRE ELDRIDGE.

IMMY, "the Oyster," was lying in St. Barnabas with a hole, bored by a pistol ball, through the small of his back.

"It's a moighty small hole for a man to crawl out of," he said to Father O'Drea; "but it's the door to Purgatory, sure." And Father O'Drea found it in his conscience to answer, "Tut, tut, Jimmie! Ye'll live to cut up scandalous at me wake," and almost cheated himself into believing that Jimmy didn't see the tear that gathered in his eye and rolled down his rosy cheek before he could catch it under pretense of smothering a sneeze.

He was weaker the next day, and his eye burned with a feverish light. He had caught a word that morning. Mike McCreary had been put on trial for the Dolan murder and as the day wore on Jimmie had before him the picture of Mike battling for life with judge, jury and the district attorney's office for odds against him. That night he confided his fears to Father O'Drea.

"They've it in fur him, Father," he moaned. "He voted the precinct agin Big Bill an' the man he was afther for alderman; an' sure I knew then they'd get him!"

"Nonsense!" answered the priest. "He killed Dolan, an' ye know it. Do you want all the scallawags to get off?"

"It's mostly the scallawags, Faither, who's ben kind to me," moaned Jimmie. "T'others ha' ben too busy to bother."

"But 'twas a dirty trick o' Mike's," urged the other. "If he'd got to get Dolan, why didn't he do it in a fair fight? Answer me that, man Jimmie!"

"Whist, Faither. When I was a little lad, an' me mither so poor she didn't buy us clothes fur fear we'd eat 'em, an' didn't buy us grub 'cause she didn't have the money, I saw a loaf o' bread one night be'ind a winder, an' somehow just then the winder got broke, an'

*From Adventure.

then I was runnin', like Paddy McGlyn wid the Devil behind him, an' I was a huggin' that loaf o' bread as if 'twas a gurl wid rid hair an' blue eyes, an' plump! I run into Mike, fur he was the cop thin, an' a foine one he was, begorra."

"Whar'd ye get that?' he ses.

"I picked it up,' ses I. "In the street?' ses he.

"In the street,' ses I.

""Then, begorra,' ses he, 'ye'd betther get home, an' you an' yer mither an' the kids tuck it away, fur I see the baker comin', an' it's some tall lyin' I'll have to do, or it's the Island where ye'll find the nixt bit o' bread!'

"An' he lied fur me like a Christian, Faither. Do ye think he's the man w'd shtick the likes o' Dolan wid a knife? Faith, I believe Dolan was lyin' himself and was never shtuck at all, at all."

"Sure, Dolan was dead when they found him. If he hadn't been, he wouldn't a' ben the fool you are an' kept his mouth shut."

"Faith, the skunk did it himself."

"And what did he do with the knife? Will ye tell me that?"

"Whist, Faither; will they hang him?"

"Mike? They will."

"Sure, did the dochter say how long I'd last?"

The question came so suddenly and so took the priest off his guard that he had no time to cover his tracks, and before he could find himself he had given away the fact that the lad could not hope for more than forty-eight hours.

"Sure, then it's time I got the load off me soul. 'Twas meself that killed Dolan, an' ye can tell the judge so whinever ye want to.'

Father O'Drea looked at the lad for a moment, and then shook his head.

"It's lyin' ye are, Jimmie, me lad; and you that near death."

The lad gave him back his glance, with eyes in which fear, almost terror, lurked. Once, twice, he tried to speak, and it was not till the priest had given him a drink that he whispered:

"It's the truth, Faither, I tell ye; an' I'll have the murder of Mike on me soul too if ye don't help me!

I crep' up be'ind Dolan an' I drove the knife between his ribs, an' down he wint, wid a groan, an'—an' that was all."

The priest gazed down on the boy, and doubt grew in his face. That he was laboring under some terrible excitement-fear, hope, remorse, possibly-he was certain; and yet he doubted.

"What did you kill him for?" he asked.

"Sure, yer Riverence knows how he treated me sister Mary?"

Too well the good father knew, and he felt that here indeed was a motive that accounted for the crime as fully as that which the district attorney's office had patched up to tighten the net about Mike McCreary. What if the lad was telling the truth, and he, by his obstinate unbelief, was helping to hang the other for the crime of which he was innocent?

"What did ye do with the knife?" he asked, suddenly. The lad's face lightened.

"I'll tell the judge and the cops when they come," he said; "I'll tell 'em where they'll find it."

The priest knew that the search for the weapon had been high and low, and that if indeed the lad could tell the hiding-place it would go far to prove the confession true. He stooped over the couch.

"Jimmie, me lad," he said solemnly, "it's the deadly sin ye're committing if ye're lying and ye so near death. If ye're lying, tell me!"

"Sure, it's the truth I'm tellin'."

"Do ye swear it on the blessed cross?"

The lad's face grew ghastly. Terror filled his eyes, and horror looked out from them. But this was for a moment only. As the good priest shuddered at his own hardness of heart in putting the lad to such a test, the other looked up, an almost beautiful smile broke over his face and he whispered:

"I swear it on the blessed cross!"

It was almost noonday when the officers of the law returned to St. Barnabas and brought the knife with which Dolan had been killed. They had found it where Jimmie told them to look, and the physicians who had examined the wound left no doubt in any mind that it was the veritable weapon with which the deed was done.