“Did Mary O’Connor catch one?” asked Eileen.

“Did she now!” cried Grannie. “Listen to this. One day Mary O’Connor was sitting in her bit of garden, with her knitting in her hand, and she was watching some bees that were going to swarm.

“It was a fine day in June, and the bees were humming, and the birds were chirping and hopping, and the butterflies were flying about, and everything smelt as sweet and fresh as if it was the first day of the world.

“Well, all of a sudden, what did she hear among the bean-rows in the garden but a noise that went tick-tack, tick-tack, just for all the world as if a brogue-maker was putting on the heel of a pump!

“‘The Lord preserve us,’ says Mary O’Connor; ‘what in the world can that be?’

“So she laid down her knitting, and she went ove. . . Read More