ling you! There are over forty States in
the Union, and many of them bigger than the whole of Ireland itself!
There are places in it where you could travel as far as from Dublin to
Belfast without ever seeing a town at all; just fields without stones or
trees lying there begging for the plough, and sorrow a person to give it
them!"

"Will you listen to that now?" said Grannie.

"And more than that, if you'll believe me," Michael went on, "there do
be places in America where they _give away_ land, let alone buying it!
Just by going and living on it for a time and doing a little work on it,
you can get one hundred and sixty acres of land, for your own, mind
you!"

"The Saints preserve us, but that might be like Heaven itself, if I may
make bold to say so," said Mrs Maguire.

"You may well say that, Mrs Maguire," Michael answered, "for there,
when a man has bent his back, and put in sweat and labour to enrich the
land, it is not for some one else he does it, but for himself and his
children. Of course, the land that is given away is far from big
cities, and it's queer and lonely sometimes on the distant farms, for
they do not live in villages, as we do, but each farmhouse is by itself
on its own land, and no neighbours handy. So for myself, I stayed in
the big city."

"You seem to have prospered, Michael," said Mr McQueen.

"I have so," Michael answered. "There are jobs in plenty for the
willing hands. Sure, no Irishman would give up at all when there's
always something new to try. And there's always somebody from the old
sod there to help you if the luck turns on you. Do you remember Patrick
Doran, now? He lived forninst the blacksmith shop years ago. Well,
Patrick is a great man. He's a man of fortune, and a good friend to
myself. One year when times were hard, and work not so plenty, I lost
my job, and didn't Patrick help me to another the very next week? Not
long after that Patrick ran for Alderman, and myself and many another
like me, worked hard for to get him elected, and since then I've been in
politics myself. First Patrick got me a job on the police force, and
then I was Captain, and since then, by one change and another, if I do
say it, I'm an Alderman myself!"

"It's wonderful, sure," Mr Maguire said, when Michael had finished,
"but I'm not wishful for to change. Sure, old Ireland is good enough
for me, and I'd not be missing the larks singing in the spring in the
green fields of Erin, an