Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

‘A great idea.’

‘We’ll see,’ she said.

24 February 1862

Balfour has a most Poisonous tongue-he is often drunken & moves among the workmen as someone carrying the fever & infecting all who abide his foul ravings. He has twice refused payment for the Land deeded me-I am sick with anger for my witless impulse to take what cost nothing in order to more greatly supply the Needy. I may as well be a tenant in his view-he has long forgot his child who suffered near death until God wrought a miracle & enabled me to spare her life-nor does he seem to recall the many years of his dysentery which C fervently hopes-though she declines to pray-returns with a vengeance! But then I must strive to cure it again.

I have gone to the Mass Rock this day & prayed to God who didst teach the hearts of His faithful people by the sending to them the Light of the Holy Spirit & asked that He might grant me by the same Spirit to have right judgment in all things.

I trust it is not too late to have beseeched God for right judgment-C says that with God tis never too late.

Many delays in construction due to long sieges of punishing wether.

Keegan hung a young doe in the half-built stall & dressed it-A has never cooked deer loin thus Keegan will himself do the honors and has rigged a spit in the firebox. A Feast will bring much needed merriment to our hearth.

President Lincoln last month issued a war order authorizing aggression against the Confederacy. I had near forgot that country which educated and prospered me. I am saddened by the horrific tyranny of slavery, recognizing in it much that our own Irish have endured. Uncle freed his twelve slaves well before his passing, though our good Cook, Sukey, stayed on & was much accomplished in reading & writing. Her Cookery book writ in her own hand will come with our furnishings when we complete the many labours demanded by Catharmore.

‘What is this Mass rock business?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been meaning to find out,’ she said. ‘Help me remember to ask.’

‘And who will help me remember to help you?’

‘Please try.’

‘Righto. What happened to Balfour’s place, do you know? Might be something to see before we leave.’

‘Keep reading,’ she said.

12 May 1862

While one may despise the Oppressor, one clings to his language-it is spoken everywhere the print of his Boot is made-Keegan says the English is for ‘mekkin war & the Irish for mekkin love.’ Keegan has been twelve years widowed & I see him cast his eye about at the Women-he tells a rough joke on occasion which makes the old women laugh & the young hide their faces behind their hands.

He is correct in asserting that I should be handier at the doctoring if I chose to speak Irish with the people-though twas Mother’s milk to me until seventeen or more, I carry no blood memory of it-to have spoken it in America would have marked me as a simpleton. Keegan’s own English is good & he speaks enough Irish to have assisted in finding a Name for the place & to interpret when we stir about the Region-he is indispensable among the workmen.

A is a bright thing who wishes to teach us in the Evening-we point like dunces to this & that-the packed earth floor, the hearth, the chickens, the cooking pots- & she gives us the Irish in return. At the same time she is learning a bit of English from us, all of which turns the speech of this narrow household into a stew of befuddlement, causing Laughter to break out like measles & excite the Chickens.

Candle

Baby

Finger

May

coinneal

Leanbh

miar

Bealtaine

She brought very few personal items when she came to us, save for her most prized possession-her mother’s old three-legged milking stool. She sits on it before the fire conducting her language lessons, happy to have something to give beyond earnest common labor.

When I speak with Keegan about independence, he says tis a speabhraidi, a pipedream. I hope to soon turn him from this lazy-minded notion-it is a blasphemy.

John Mitchel said it for me-‘England is truly a great public criminal. England! All England! She must be punished; that punishment will as I believe come upon her by & through Ireland; & so Ireland will be avenged.’

Many casualties in the recent battle of Shiloh, well above ten thousand either side. It seems to me this war is not over human flesh but Greed as is the case in every armed conflict. God help the brothers who war against one another.

1 June

A fine, soft rain throughout the day-in America I had forgotten how often it rains in the Eire-gratifying nonetheless to be making the Rounds & seeing so many lift their Caps as we pass-Adam was given two apples by the children at O’Leary’s cabin, so well do they love my Mount & the fact that their Sister has a good home with the doctor & his wife.

Such a day is a Pleasure when one is haunted so gravely by the many one sees of Suffering.

Have hired on Danny Moore who is deft with the stump & gets about smartly on his crutch-though unskilled, he seems fitted for the plaster work & will apprentice to James Murray, a man of parts-I have given him a wage above that of other unskilled plasterers-he has given in turn his vow not to speak of it to the men as it would incite ill feeling-his mother came on foot to thank me-she & C having a fine tea together.

Will go down to the Dublin Apothecary Monday next, with further intentions of seeing our Solicitor & having a new coat with hood & warm lining fashioned for C-A shall also have something warm for her back-she is small & thin as a reed as are all her family from long years of poor nourishment.

Have today agreed with C how we shall divide our Estate as one never knows when one’s Call may come. Having no child of our own, I will name my orphaned nephew & namesake, Padraigin, as heir to Catharmore-he shows good sense in business affairs & is thrifty as a Scot. He has visited once at my decree-quite silent & cold as a trout but perhaps overstrained by travel undertaken on roads nearly in ruin-I would fain do for him what Uncle did for me. Only one of my brothers living & he in good fettle with fat cows & sufficient Bogland & a hale daughter to care for his needs. C’s widowed niece & her many offspring benefit in our lifetime rather than when we are laid in the Grave.

Without further delay of bad wether, we shall move our modest household into the manor no later than year’s end. Keegan will turn his cottage over to an ageing sister & lodge in a small room adjoining the Surgery.

C proposes that A should have the care of our lamps when in the house-she is deft at trimming wicks to produce a sweet flame & washing the chimneys without breakage. She will also have sole care of the laundry, the carrying out of ashes, emptying of slop jars & other general chores. A is pleased at the prospect of expanding her duties.

He came awake from Fintan O’Donnell’s complicated life and noted the simplicity of his own-Pud’s chin rested on his bare foot. Made him miss the Old Gentleman. He could say anything to Barnabas, read him the Romantic poets or discourse on the politics of the day; his good dog inevitably listened with grave interest. An elegant soul.

4 June

Balfour treats his servants the way slaves are said to be treated in the southlands of America. I doctered a southern slave on two occasions in Philadelphia-a striking figure of a black man with a voice as deep as that of a church organ & attired nearly as well as his Master in a vest of striped satin with a woollen frock coat & dove colored breeches-I recall that he carried a pocket watch & suffered from tumors of the mouth which we were able to address with some success-he oversaw the business dealings of a planter in the Carolinas & had a nobel manner about him.

Yesterday treated the head wound of a lad who was kicked by a horse while mucking Balfour’s stables-I learned that he was badly beaten twice when Balfour was in a drunken rage-He broke down in a fit of sobbing & pled with me not to tell it abroad else he be more fiercely treated & sent off the place. Having come from England with his father, now deceased, he would have no Family to turn to nor any place to lay his head.