"That's right, you bet," one gray-haired man with a young face
exclaimed, getting rid of a bulky chew of tobacco that had slightly
impeded his utterance. "There's nothin' like keepin' up old
institootions."
By two o'clock fully one hundred people had gathered.
Thomas was radiant. "Every wan is here now except that old Papist,
O'Flynn," he whispered to the drummer. "I hope he'll come, too, so I
do. It'll be a bitter pill for him to swallow."
The drummer did not share the wish. He was thinking, uneasily, of the
time two years ago--the winter of the deep snow--when he and his family
had been quarantined with smallpox, and of how Father O'Flynn had come
miles out of his way every week on his snowshoes to hand in a roll of
newspapers he had gathered up, no one knows where, and a bag of candies
for the little ones. He was thinking of how welcome the priest's little
round face had been to them all those long, tedious six weeks, and how
cheery his voice sounded as he shouted, "Are ye needin' anything,
Jimmy, avick? All right, I'll be back on Thursda', God willin'. Don't
be frettin', now, man alive! Everybody has to have the smallpox. Sure,
yer shaming the Catholics this year, Jimmy, keeping Lent so well." The
drummer was decidedly uneasy.
There is an old saying about speaking of angels in which some people
still believe. Just at this moment Father O'Flynn came slowly over the
hill.
Father O'Flynn was a typical little Irish priest, good-natured, witty,
emotional.
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