Besides, she was, one might say, one of the
landmarks of the town, the frail, shadowy little woman who sold her
apples and peanuts and candy from her stand on the street-corner.
Nancy's words reminded me that I had not seen Mona lately at her usual
place of business.
"Well," resumed Nancy, "Mona's gone, gone forever. Poor Mona! It's the
hard life she's had, and I'm after thinkin' she's not sorry that it's
over and she's found peace an' happiness at last. Want to know her
story? Well, I'll tell it to you, for it's me that can, havin' known her
since we was wee scraps of babies playin' on the floor together back
there in the old country. Yes, indeed, we were babies together, we grew
up together, an' we come out here to America on the same ship. Dear,
dear, how long ago that was, an' it don't seem much more than yesterday.
"Well, as I was sayin', times was mighty hard in Ireland that year,
specially in the little town where me an' Mona was born an' reared.
Crops failed, work was slack; finally, famine an' pestilence took
possession of the land. Ah! child, child, you cannot dream what them
words mean, famine an' pestilence. To see the rich growin' poor, the
poor starvin' an' dyin' on every hand; the little children cryin' with
cold an' hunger, an' the fathers an' mothers with ne'er a scrap of food
to give 'em.
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