Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry | Page 7

appearing in a dun-colored shirt, which resembled a
noun-substantive, for it could stand alone. The absence of soap and

water is sometimes used as a substitute for milling linen among the
lower Irish; and so effectually had Phelim's single change been milled
in this manner, that, when disenshirting at night, he usually laid it
standing at his bedside where it reminded one of frosted linen in
everything but whiteness.
This, with but little variation, was Phelim's dress until his tenth year.
Long before that, however, he evinced those powers of attraction which
constituted so remarkable a feature in his character. He won all hearts;
the chickens and ducks were devotedly attached to him; the cow, which
the family always intended to buy, was in the habit of licking Phelim in
his dreams; the two goats which they actually did buy, treated him like
I one of themselves. Among the first and last he spent a great deal of
his early life; for as the floor of his father's house was but a
continuation of the dunghill, or the dunghill a continuation of the floor,
we know not rightly which, he had a larger scope, and a more unsavory
pool than usual, for amusement. Their dunghill, indeed, was the finest
of it size and kind to be seen; quite a tasteful thing, and so convenient,
that he could lay himself down at the hearth, and roll out to its foot,
after which he ascended it on his legs, with all the elasticity of a young
poet triumphantly climbing Parnassus.
One of the greatest wants which Phelim experienced in his young days,
was the want of a capacious pocket. We insinuate nothing; because
with respect to his agility in climbing fruit-trees, it was only a species
of exercise to which he was addicted--the eating and carrying away of
the fruit being merely incidental, or, probably, the result of abstraction,
which, as every one knows, proves what is termed "the Absence of
Genius." In these ambitious exploits, however, there is no denying that
he bitterly regretted the want of a pocket; and in connection with this
we have only to add, that most of his solitary walks were taken about
orchards and gardens, the contents of which he has been often seen to
contemplate with deep interest. This, to be sure, might proceed from a
provident regard to health, for it is a well-known fact that he has
frequently returned home in the evenings, distended like a
Boa-Constrictor after a gorge; yet no person was ever able to come at
the cause of his inflation. There were, to be sure, suspicions abroad,
and it was mostly found that depredations in some neighboring orchard
or garden had been committed a little before the periods in which it was

supposed the distention took place. Wo mention these things after the
example of those "d----d good-natured" biographers who write great
men's lives of late, only for the purpose of showing that there could be
no truth in such suspicions. Phelim, we assure an enlightened public,
was voraciously fond of fruit; he was frequently inflated, too, after the
manner of those who indulge therein to excess; fruit was always missed
immediately after the periods of his distention, so that it was impossible
he could have been concerned in the depredations then made upon the
neighboring orchards. In addition to this, we would beg modestly to
add, that the pomonian temperament is incompatible with the other
qualities for which he was famous. His parents were too ignorant of
those little eccentricities which, had they known them, would have
opened up a correct view of the splendid materials for village greatness
which he possessed, and which, probably, were nipped in their bud for
the want of a pocket to his breeches, or rather by the want of a breeches
to his pocket; for such was the wayward energy of his disposition, that
he ultimately succeeded in getting the latter, though it certainly often
failed him to procure the breeches. In fact, it was a misfortune to him
that he was the Son of his father and mother at all. Had he been a
second Melchizedec, and got into breeches in time, the virtues which
circumstances suppressed in his heart might have flourished like
cauliflowers, though the world would have lost all the advantages
arising from the splendor of his talents at going naked.
Another fact, in justice to his character, must not be omitted. His
penchant for fruit was generally known; but few persons, at the period
we are describing, were at all aware that a love of whiskey lurked as a
predominant trait in his character, to be brought out at a future era in
his life.
Before Phelim reached his tenth year, he and his parents had
commenced hostilities.