me did. And ain’t he a fine, strapping lad? Smart with numbers and letters, too.” Thomas rose from the chair and went to take Callie into his arms. “And none in all of Ireland, or elsewhere for that matter, has our Callie. Named her for a great lady I once knew when I traveled to London. A great lady. Kind and lovin’ and forgivin’. Callandre was her proper name. Aw, but you were such a wee one it seemed too large a name to fit you.”
Callie turned in her father’s arms, laying her head against his chest. Tears swam in her eyes. She did love her Da. She did. If only he hadn’t put another babe in her mum’s belly. If only he would try harder to find work.
Resting his chin on Callie’s head, he began to croon to her, a sweet, lilting melody she remembered from when she was a little girl. “Ah, Callie, no matter how old you get and no matter what you think of your old Da, you’re still my girl and I love you.”
A shudder went through Callie as she leaned against Thom, burying her face into his shirtfront. God help her, she was as weak as her mother when it came to loving him. And God save her from ever loving another man just like him!
Callie bustled the children out of the tiny row house on McIver Street, grasping the twins, Bridget and Billy, by the hands. It seemed to Callie that for the first time in months the children were bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. She knew it was impossible that hunger and privation could be assuaged by one meal, yet it gave her a kind of peace, temporary though it might be, to know that the little ones were free from the hollow cramps of hunger.
Georgie and Hallie walked together, excited about this rare outing with their older sister. They should be in school, Callie thought bitterly. Peggy’s effort to teach them their letters was squeezed between cleaning the house and laundering the fancy clothes the English officers’ wives sent to her, not to mention Aunt Sara’s frilly petticoats and bloomers, done for half price seeing as how she was family.
Most of the public schools in Ireland had closed as a direct result of the potato blight. Towns and cities suffered for taxes, and there was no money to pay teachers. The usual education of Ireland’s working class children had been sketchy and of short duration. When a child reached the age of ten, he was sent to work in the mills or a related industry. Callie herself had enjoyed the benefits of an education until she was nearly fourteen. Times had been better then; Thomas had held a regular position at the mill, and Granda had been a steady contributor to the family from his job as all-around man for several shops along Blakling Street. It wasn’t until just before the twins were born, in 1845, that the first potato crop had failed. The crops had failed ever since, and that was three years now. Lord only knew what the next crop would bring. English and Irish newspapers were already calling it the Great Famine, but naming it and living it were two different things, as Callie well knew. What she didn’t know were the reasons.
Ireland’s population had risen sharply during the sixty or so years prior to the potato failure. Land, which had always been scarce, had become almost impossible to obtain. Even the smallest plots that would hardly yield a living were unavailable to the common man. Irish peasants led a hand-to-mouth existence. It was common to see beggars on country lanes and city streets. Employment was so scarce and so poorly paid in Ireland that enterprising men left the country to find labor jobs in England after planting their potato crop, returning only after the harvest.
The introduction of the Corn Laws in 1846 further reduced the small number of land holdings. These laws prompted landlords to turn into pasture much of the land that had been used to produce grain, and in so doing, forced numbers of Irish peasants off their rented land into utter destitution.
Because so many Irish had so little land, there was urgent need for a staple crop whose seed was cheap and simple to plant, whose harvest was easy and would feed them for months afterward. The potato, only minimally nutritious, met most of these requirements. Supplemented with buttermilk, it became the dominant crop and staple diet of the Irish. But there was great danger in being totally reliant upon the potato.
Because it was subject to spoilage and because almost no one had land enough to harvest a year’s supply of food, peasants were often compelled to go into debt to live at the barest level of subsistence. There was no substitute for the potato in the event of a harvest failure, and most Irish would be unable to buy food if such a disaster should happen. When the insect that brought the potato blight struck with its full force in 1845, tragedy was the result.
But some people never seemed to have to do without, Callie thought as she hurried the children along McIver Street. Some like Aunt Sara and Uncle Jack and their precious only child, Colleen. That was why she had had to take the children out this afternoon—to avoid their telling Aunt Sara about the grocer’s basket. Aunt Sara would naturally draw her own conclusions about the windfall’s origins. Much as Mum refused to admit it, Aunt Sara was quite comfortable with the hard luck of the James’s family, and even took haughty pleasure in Peggy’s tribulations. If only Peggy hadn’t knocked out so many children, Aunt Sara was fond of saying in mild rebuke. If only she’d chosen a smart, enterprising man like Uncle Jack instead of a handsome rogue like Thom James. If only they’d learned to put enough by to see them through the hard times. If only, if only!
Callie pulled the twins along beside her at a pace that was almost too fast for their little legs. What would Aunt Sara know about it? She who had married that mewling Jack O’Brien just because he owned a dry goods store. And Colleen, that prissy arsed twit! Her, with her fancy lace drawers and nose-in-the-air manner. What would Colleen know about going to sleep hungry and hearing her stomach growl all the night through? Not Colleen with her handsome English soldier who led her about on his arm as though she were a grand duchess while Aunt Sara glowed with pride.
Things hadn’t always been rosy for the O’Briens. There was a time when they were no better off than the Jameses. But since hard times fell on the land and droves of English soldiers and their families poured into Ireland to “guard the order of the land,” Uncle Jack’s business had soared. The English had money to spend, and Aunt Sara and Uncle Jack waited with palms open. That the English were a hated reminder of Ireland’s subservience to Great Britain and in turn dealt with the Irish with a harsh type of justice meant nothing at all to the O’Briens. As long as their shop was frequented by those who had money, they would have served the devil himself. And as far as Callie was concerned, they did.
Rounding off McIver Street onto Bayard, Callie gripped the twins’ hands tightly to her sides. Horse-drawn wagons and pushcarts crowded the street, adding their noise to the calls of the peddlers and the general commotion of shoppers and workers and the men lingering outside Melrose’s Tavern. Women with dark shawls pulled over their heads bustled along, guarding their baskets of goods and keeping a watchful eye for roving bands of street arabs who were quick of hand and fleet of foot in their intent to separate a woman from her hard-earned purchases, her purse, or even the very shoes from her feet.
Bridget tugged at the skirt of Callie’s brown linsey-woolsey dress, a castoff from cousin Colleen. “Walk slower, Callie, I can’t keep up!”
“All right, then. Just a little slower until we get over onto Florham Way.” Callie was eager to cross Bayard Street onto the relative quiet of Florham Way where just a few streets down there was a park where the children could play. This was the way she had run home earlier that morning, after snatching her basket out of the arms of Mr. Kenyon.
Florham Way was a double-wide street that made traffic for the carts and carriages more orderly. Trees, still skeletal in these early weeks of March, nevertheless held a hint of green, a promise of spring. Hallie and Georgie followed close on their sister’s heels past rag shops and cobblers. Callie could remember when flower shops and glove shops and milliners lined the street, but in these hard times a body couldn’t eat flowers, and there was no money for gloves and hats. She’d heard stories of poor folk out in the countryside who had taken to eating roots and grasses, only to die for
