For the cart contained freshly-gathered
vegetables, and the fact that McCarty had been Sabbath-breaking was
painfully evident. Father Sullivan was quick to turn an incident
that provoked only the risibilities of his audience into a moral
lesson. "It's the poor dumb beast that has a more Christian sowl
than Michael," he commented; but here Jinny assented so positively
that they were fain to drag her away by main force.
To her eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded a calm maturity in
which her conservative sagacity was steadily developed. She now
worked for her living, subject, however, to a nice discrimination
by which she limited herself to a certain amount of work, beyond
which neither threats, beatings, nor cajoleries would force her.
At certain hours she would start for the stable with or without the
incumbrances of the cart or Michael, turning two long and deaf ears
on all expostulation or entreaty. "Now, God be good to me," said
Michael, one day picking himself out from a ditch as he gazed
sorrowfully after the flying heels of Jinny, "but it's only the
second load of cabbages I'm bringin' the day, and if she's shtruck
NOW, it's ruined I am entoirely.
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