Legacy

Top of the morning to ye.  My name is Jodi O’Reilly, I’m twelve years old, and it’s me myself telling this story.  My father is Shaun O’Reilly, and me sainted mother is Colleen O’Reilly.  I have a baby brother who is eight years old, his name is Timothy O’Reilly, and he’s a big pest.  But still he’s me brother and I love him.

Me father came over from the ol’ sod twenty some years ago. He located here near Peru, Indiana, where he became a very good potato farmer.  It was shortly there after he met me mother Colleen, who was not an O’Reilly at the time but the daughter of one Shamus  Mahoney.  I guess that makes me a double dose of Irish.  And right proud of it I am.

Now you know all ye need to know about me, the teller, of this here tale.  You might want to know more, but it’s none of your business.

As I said, my father is a potato farmer.  He is a very hard worker and nips very little, which I’m told is unusual for an Irishman. He is a successful potato farmer and has provided me mother and we kids a fine farmhouse to live in.  He is as frugal as a Scotchman, but not as stingy.  He saves his money as best he can and gets nice things for us all as he can and still be true to his frugal nature.  This is leading in to the bit regarding me mother Colleen who is a pretty fine artist in addition to being a fine wife and mother.

Me mother has sold a few of her paintings to help supplement the family savings, but art supplies are not cheap.  It’s also hard for her to concentrate on being inspired while in the house with all the noise you know.  That’s why she has wanted me father to build her a small art studio out near the barn.  A place for her to be her and be her created self to boot.

Me father has long been aware of me mother’s dreams of an art studio.  He would have liked to build her one.  He has the ability for he is a very fine carpenter as well as a fine farmer.  He built our fine house, ye know.  But the problem is, times are a bit tough, money a bit short.

I’d over-heard me father talking with me mother in the kitchen.  The conversation would usually go a bit like this.  “Some day, me darling, I want you to have a studio.  It grieves me I haven’t been able to build it.  But the materials would run about four thousand dollars, which is twice what I dare take out of our meager savings.”  I’d heard them talking about it more than once.   Now me father was sincere, he wasn’t being cheap and trying to cop out.  He was telling it like it was.

It was early spring when me mother had to take a trip to help watch the children of an ailing sister who was widowed.  She was expected to be gone about two months.  Just long enough for her sister’s broken leg to mend and her sister could be back at things like normal.

About a week after me mother was gone to visit her sister, me father and I were on our way into town for a few thing from the general  store.  We had to stop at the railroad crossing  for a train was passing by.  It was the most odd train I’d ever seen.  It wasn’t the longest I’d ever seen, just the oddest.  It had cars that looked like cages, but nothing was in the cages.  It had cars that looked a little like passenger cars, but had little chimneys like a house might.  There were many boxcars, brightly painted all colors.  Then I saw one that  I thought exceptionally pretty.  No, it wasn’t kelly green, it was a bright purple.  How grand, I thought.

Me father said that it was a circus train.  He had heard it was coming to Peru, an old circus town, to be auctioned off since the circus had gone out of business.  He said he supposed that the original owners hoped that because Peru was an old circus town there might be another circus wanting to bid high for the train.

We, me father and I, and my pest brother came back to town a few days later when the train was to be auctioned off.  I wasn’t sure why he cared as we had no need for a train, nor could we afford one.

As it seems, no one was interested in the train as a whole, so it was auctioned off piece meal.  When they got to the purple boxcar, me father, who hadn’t been nipping much or so I hoped, began bidding on it.  My eyes about popped out of me face and me ears almost fell off.  It was one hundred dollars then two hundred, then more.

I wondered if me father had gone daft. Maybe he’d forgotten the time me mother made him sleep in the  barn for coming home with a new stove we couldn’t afford and didn’t need, so she said.  Funny thing was, she loved that stove. I’ll never understand grownups if I live to be a hundred.  The next thing I knew was the auctioneer said “Sold” to me father for  five hundred dollars.

I almost fainted, but me pest brother thought it was cool.  I thought them both daft.  Oh, when me mother finds out I don’t even want to be in the same county.  Five hundred dollars was a lot of money.  It gets worse.  Here I am, twelve years old and starting to get gray headed or so I thought that’s what I’d see the next time I looked in me mirror.  Horrors of horrors, he was paying some trucking company to haul it out to the farm, and there went another five hundred dollars.

By now I was almost beyond shock, so I didn’t flinch much when he went to the lumber yard and bought materials like roofing and shutters and small windows.  Even a small potbellied stove with chimney makings. There went another five hundred dollars.

I began to wonder if there was enough money in me piggy bank to buy him a cemetery plot.  Me mother would surely kill him.

A few days went by and the purple boxcar was delivered.  He had the movers set it near the barn.  Me pest brother, still thinking it was cool, said it would make him a wonderful clubhouse and no girls would be allowed. I thought if anything, it would be the opposite of that. And I stuck me tongue out at the little pest.

As it turns out, neither of us would get possession.  Me father started to do things to it. He first fabricated a bit of regular looking roof over it.  Then he cut in some window holes and put in some windows with pretty little shutters on each side.  I was impressed and wondered if he might be making it suitable for me.  If so I’d start painting me sign that said “Pests Keep Out.”  Well, he kept at it. He slid the side door back just a wee bit and framed and put in a regular door in the gap.

He installed the potbellied stove and ran a chimney out the side and up.  He sanded, stained, and put a nice finish on the floorboards, and painted the inside real nice.  Even hung some curtains.  I was happy with me new clubhouse, until it became obvious it wasn’t me new clubhouse.  What gave it away was when me father started moving in me mother’s art tables and supplies.  Then I got the picture real clear.  I wasn’t too disappointed as I was happy for the surprise me mother would get.  On the other hand, from past experience I thought it might be my father getting the surprise.  At least he’d have a place to sleep.

Well, me mother came home.  And indeed she was most surprised.  She had the look that was confusing because it could have meant, “I’m going to hug you or kill you.”

It started off bad.  She began to rant like a banshee.    “Yes I’d always dreamed of this, but  me darling husband” she said sarcastically, “we both know we can’t afford it.”  He just kept smiling.  That was unusual, he usually looks for a rock to hide under when me mother starts lacing him out.

Then he calmly said, “Colleen, me darling, it was all done for five hundred dollars less than we could afford and now you have plenty of money left for the best of art supplies.”

Now I knew me mother could dance, but that was the finest Irish Jig I’d ever seen her do.  My, it was a happy and glorious  homecoming.  For many a year her art studio was admired by many.