ay. It
would give a spring as if it were going straight off the bed upon the
floor, and when poor Ellen caught at it to save it, it would roll back
toward her, stop its crying for a second, and seem to be laughing at
her, and then it would do the same thing again.

"It's plain enough," Mrs. O'Brien said, as soon as she saw it. "It's
one of the Good People. But it's quick enough we'll be rid of it and
have back your own child. Bring me some eggs."

"I'll have nothing of the sort now," said Ellen. "It's bad the poor
child is with some sickness or other, but it's my own child, and I'll
have nothing done to it that's not to do it good. If you know anything
that'll help it, Mrs. O'Brien, tell me that, but don't be sayin' it's
not my child."

"I'll not hurt the child, whatever it is," said Mrs. O'Brien, "but
there are ways to tell whether it's your own child at all or one of
the Good People. If you find it's one of them, then it's easy to do
more, but in the meantime it's not harmed."

"I'll not have you trying any of them things," said Ellen. "I'll not
have you saying it's not my child, and I'll not be thinking of such a
thing myself. You see how poor and sick it's looking. If there's
anything you can do for the child, do it, but don't be talking that
way any more."

"Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, "you don't know what you're talking about
at all. Wait now till I tell you what was told to me when I lived in
Dublin, and I think that it was not far from there that it happened.
It's about a woman that talked as you do. A sailor's wife she was, and
there was a child born to her while her husband was away at sea. She
thought he'ld be home soon, and so she wanted to put off the
christening of the child till he'ld be back. So she waited and waited
for a long time, and her husband did not come. The neighbors told her
she was doing wrong to wait so long and she ought to have the child
christened before anything would happen to it. But she wouldn't listen
to them.

"So it went on for a year and a half, and still the father didn't come
home. But the boy was healthy and happy, and the mother never had any
trouble with him. But the trouble came. One day she'd been working in
the field, and she came home, and as soon as she was in the house she
heard crying from the bed where the child used to sleep. She ran to
look at him, and he lay there, looking sick and thin and weak, the way
your boy does, and crying that he was hungry. He was l