Rose of Tralee Read Online Free PDF

ma’am.’
    Cook fumbled briefly in the purse, then produced a two-shilling piece and handed it to him, taking the parcel, which he immediately held out.
    ‘I don’t have any change, missus,’ Colm said, flustered. ‘But me mammy will bring it tomorrer, so she will.’
    ‘Oh, and it’s all right for me to wait for me money, is it?’ the cook said, but with good humour. ‘’Tis only the likes of yourself which must have money what’s owed immediate-like?’
    Colm hung his head but Caitlin was not to be so easily put down. ‘Sure an’ me big brother ’ud give you the money in a trice if he had it, missus,’ she assured the woman earnestly. ‘But we’ve done no messages today – we’ve been fishin’ in the canal down behind Polikoff’s.’
    Cook laughed again and sighed, too. ‘Sure an’ didn’t me brother and meself fish down there when we was kids?’ she demanded. ‘Lovely an’ cool the water was to dangle your feet in . . . wish I were still nine or ten, an’ fishing on a hot afternoon.’ She sighed, then added unexpectedly, ‘As for the thrupence, you can keep it for makin’ me laugh. It takes somethin’ to mek me laugh on a day like this ’un.’
    ‘Janey, thanks, missus,’ Colm gasped. Three pence! He and Caitlin could go to the penny rush at the Tivoli and still have money over for sweets. Or if his mammy would give an eye to Caitlin he could go to the swimming pond on Tara Street – he could give the other penny to the little girl to spend. Since girls were not allowed in the first-class pond he could not have taken her anyway and as she could not swim she could scarcely expect to take part in that particular outing.
    ‘That’s all right, young feller,’ the cook said. ‘Here ... we’ve a dinner party in an hour so I was just goin’ to get the staff à snack ... will bread an’ jam suit you?’
    Too astonished to answer, Colm and Caitlin stood side by side, Colm with the two-shilling piece safely stowed in his pocket, and waited whilst the cook cut and spread, and then handed them each a thick slice of bread and jam. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘That’ll see you home. Now young feller, I’ve had a thought. You’ve got a head on your shoulders, that’s plain to see, and won’t be shuffled out of the money your mammy is owed by any means. But what if it wasn’t your mammy, eh? What if you was asked to collect money owin’ for someone else?’
    Colm didn’t quite understand the question, because he could not imagine having to collect money owing for a stranger, and he was about to say so when he thought of the people who came round the Liberties to collect money owing. Tally men. People who needed good clothes for some purpose could buy them a bit at a time and if they were short one week they were supposed to pay double the next. Then there were the shops which delivered their goods and sent in a bill every so often. They must send someone to collect, he supposed vaguely. Wasthat what the cook meant? ‘D’you mean the ’surance men, an’ the tally men, ma’am?’ he asked politely. ‘I don’t think I’d like to be one o’ them!’
    Cook laughed. ‘No indeed. But what I’d got in mind, young feller, was deliveries. It’s me brother, see? He’s got a butcher’s shop in York Street an’ he needs a young feller to deliver on a Saturday – his boy’s just left. If you go round there an’ tell him Mrs Emms sent you an’ give him a note which I’ll write, there’s a good chance he’ll tek you on, so there is.’
    ‘And would I have to collect money?’ Colm asked rather nervously. He could not imagine asking for money from all the cooks in the big houses to whom he would be delivering – it was one thing standing out for what was owed to his mammy, but to try to get money from total strangers was a different matter. ‘I don’t know as I’d like that, ma’am. It ’ud mean carryin’ money round wit’ me, an’ I’m only thirteen, bigger lads