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Rann became to-day simply a heavier responsibility than usual. Her world was full of Mrs. Ranns, and she braved them with dauntless spirits and triumphant humour. As she buttoned her gloves on the way downstairs she was conscious of a singularly mild recognition of the fact that the world might have been the gainer had Mrs. Rann abided unborn.
On Friday night Joe climbed the three flights of the stuffy Eightieth Street tenement and had supper with the Ranns. That family of five circled him with such warmth of love that the occasion burst finally into good cheer. The two girls, seated opposite him, sent him smiling and wordless messages of love.
He undherstands a power o' ranns and prayers, an' has charms an' holy herbs for all kinds of ailments, no doubt." "These men, you see," observed Mrs. M'Kenna, in the true spirit of credulity and superstition, "may do many things that the likes of us oughtn't to do, by raison of their great fastin' an' prayin'."
Before the war and even long after nobody had heard of the Ranns; they had arrived as suddenly as the electric lights or the trolley cars. When Miss Chris had alluded to them as "new people," and Juliet Galt had declared that she "did not call there," Dudley had thrown out an uncertain line to Eugenia. "Rann is a useful man, my dear," he had said.
His brain was afire with the joyous madness of possession. Never had woman come to man more sweetly than Joanne had come to him, and as he felt her throbbing and trembling against him he was ready to rise up and shout forth a challenge to a hundred Quades and Culver Ranns hiding in the darkness of the mountains.
His work was established in a flexible routine mornings for writing; afternoons for callers, for circulation work, and for special trips to centers of labor trouble; evenings for going about with Giotto to see the Italians, or paying a visit, say, to the Ranns, or some others, or meeting at Latsky's cigar store with a group of revolutionists who filled the air with their war of the classes, their socialist state, their dreams of millennium.
With all kinds of charms, old ranns, or poems, old prophecies, religious superstitions, tales of pilgrims, miracles, and pilgrimages, anecdotes of blessed priests and friars, revelations from ghosts and fairies, was he thoroughly acquainted.
Darby honored the gift by immediate acceptance. "Well, Owen Reillaghan," said he, "you make me take more o' this stuff nor any man I know; and particularly by rason that bein' given, wid a blessin', to the ranns, an' prayers, an' holy charms, I don't think it so good; barrin', indeed, as Father Donnellan towld me, when the wind, by long fastin', gets into my stomach, as was the case today, I'm often throubled, God help me, wid a configuration in the hugh! ugh an' thin it's good for me a little of it."
A nice sliver was waved dripping on Joe's plate, which Joe proceeded to eat desperately, all in one mouthful. Whereupon the Ranns were convulsed with joy, and John kept "ha-ha-ing" as he thumped the table, and went to such excesses that he seemed to put his life in peril and Mrs. Rann and the girls had to rise and pound him until their hands hurt. "Serves you right, John," said Joe, grimly.
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