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If Daddy were living I think he would say we have reached the limit with apartment house homes minus fireplaces, with restaurant dining minus a blessing, with jazz music minus melody, with jazz dancing minus grace, with national progress minus cradles." "Linda!" cried Eileen indignantly. "Good gracious!" cried Linda. "Do I get the shillalah for that? Weren't all of us rocked in cradles?
"Praise be!" chortled Murphy. "Somebody got it where it hurts. That Indian, he's a man afther me own hear-rt. Oh, mother, for me shillalah about the heads o' thim!" Ten minutes of complete silence fifteen. Murphy's impatience was becoming vociferous; he began to be jealous of Huggins up there with Mollie, with a fight at hand any time he wanted it. Torrance was scarcely less clamorous.
Until we began hitting out with our little shillalah, nobody had ever dared venture a peep of disapproval. So, business got to thinking it could do as it pleased. You can't really blame business much. Immunity from criticism isn't ever good for the well-known human race." Hal took the matter of the "Sewing Aid" swindle home with him for consideration.
The shillalah proper is about four feet long and is usually made of blackthorn, oak, ash, or hazel; and it is a great point to get it uniform in thickness and in weight throughout its entire length.
In his hand he held a favorite shillalah, which he had brought with him from his native land, and with the end of which he occasionally poked the ribs of the oxen, with many Irish ejaculations, which no doubt alarmed the animals not a little. The Yankee rode sometimes near one, sometimes by another, seldom exchanging a word with any one.
Some authorities advocate "life-preservers," but later on I hope to give my reasons for not caring much about this combination of lead and cane. In Ireland they were formerly very partial to the use of the shillalah, and even to this day there is a little bit of fun in this line to be seen at most of the fairs.
'An' where the heart rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like to live here, Larry, said he. "'I know where my heart is now, I told him. 'It rests on a girl with golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair but me feet don't seem to get me to her, I said." The brogue thickened. "An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled his shillalah.
I haven't saan the day for twinty year whin I couldn't dance at me grandmother's wake, or couldn't use a shillalah at me father's fourteenth weddin'. Teddy sad? Well, that is a is a a mistake," and the injured fellow further expressed his feelings by piling on the fuel until he had a fire large enough to have roasted a battalion of prize beeves, had they been spitted before it.
I did n't consider it likely that all of them folks would talk in that style unless they meant it, and half a dozen of us made up our minds that the best thing we could do was to go back, or stop where we was. We wint to Misther Barnwell and plaided with him, and I was ready to break a shillalah over his head by way of convincin' him of the truth of me remarks, but it was no use.
The next night, he provided himself with a "shillalah," or big stick, and put on a pair of sharp spurs, and when the Phooka appeared, and invited him to take another little excursion, he mounted, and so belabored the head and cut up the sides of the beast, that he was quite subdued, and trotted home, with Jerry, to his own cabin door.
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