If only it were recess, and you and I and five or six other children were playing together, what a good time we should have! I need someone to play with today, for I have just thought of a new game, and games are always jollier when several people enjoy them together. But I suppose I shall have to turn this one into a sort of solitaire, as I am all alone in my study with nothing more human than a fountain pen for company. Not but what there are plenty of people and things less human than a fountain pen—at least, than my fountain pen. It can talk; don't you hear it—now? Sometimes I almost believe it can think. And I am quite sure it makes me think.

It made me think of the new game. I had just said: "Now come, we must write a letter to the little schoolmate all about the new story, which is all about Ireland,"—when the pen said: "How much more fun it would be if we could play a game!" "What game?" said I. And immediately that helpful pen began to ripple out ideas till there was quite a brook.

And now he suggests that it won't be a game of solitaire after all, since here are three of us to play it together—you and he and I. He is really a very intelligent pen; don't you think so?

The name of the game is "A Penny for your Thoughts," and you play it by sitting in a circle around the leader, who sits in the middle. You and I shall have to sit in a circle around the fountain pen.

Come, pen, give us the word! Drop it into our minds as if it were a penny dropping into a slot, and let us see what will come out.

"Why," says the pen, "I thought we had decided that the word was to be Ireland. Isn't that what the new story-book is all about? Isn't that why we are playing the game?"

So now, little schoolmate, tell us what thought pops up to answer when you hear the word Ireland ringing like a little bell at the door of your mind. You and I shall take turns at thinking thoughts, and the pen will tell us why we think them, and will make an Irish picture for us—a sort of frontispiece to this storybook.

Ready:—Ireland!

"Potatoes!" do you say?

"Ho, ho!" laughs the pen, "that's easy. Everybody knows that potatoes grow in Ireland; and everybody who studies geography knows also that Irish potatoes are not Irish at all; they grew first in America, and America gave them to Ireland. But what everybody doesn't know is how the potato drove Irishmen to America.

"In the middle of the nineteenth century in Ireland, much of the land was owned in great tracts by landlords who did not till the soil themselves but leased it out in little potato farms to the Irish peasants. For the landlords had discovered two things by experience: first, that land planted with potatoes would support three times as many people as land sown with wheat; and secondly, that land divided into small farms brought in more rent than land leased in one large farm. So these greedy landlords made their tenants plant potatoes, because the more acres there were in potatoes the more tenants could live off the land, and the more tenants there were, the more rent went into the landlords' pockets.

"But, although the landlords knew so much, there were still a few things left for them to learn, by experience; and one was that although people can live if they have almost nothing but potatoes to eat, they are not as strong and healthy as they would be if they were fed chiefly on wheat; they fall ill more easily. And another thing they had to learn was that if you keep on planting the same crop on the same land, year after year, the land gets tired of the crop, and the crop gets tired of the land, and presently the crop fails. This is what happened in Ireland in 1846. The potatoes fell sick and rotted, and there was little else to eat. That meant famine, you know,—a dreadful word; a dreadful thing. And all because of the greedy landlords who knew so much,—and so little."

So now you know why the Irish, began to go across the sea to America in such great numbers, in the middle of the last century. They were hungry; and in America there was bread to spare, as well as potatoes.

Do you like our game, little schoolmate? Shall I take my turn now and tell you what I think of when I hear the word Ireland?

I think of fairies.

"The little people," the Irish call them. There are old men and women in Ireland,—yes, and in America too,—today, who can tell you breathless tales of how their grandfathers or grandmothers saw the little people dancing on a lonely heath at midnight. Ireland is full of fairy lore, some of it merry, some of it sad. The Irish fairies are a whimsical race, fond of a practical joke, but tenderhearted too. If you want to know how they look, you must read William Allingham's poem called "The Fairies." This is the way it begins:—

and it goes on to tell how:—

Very old he must be, for their wits are the last thing that the Irish, fairy-folk or human-folk, ever lose. And there is more in the poem, about how:—

Another fairy poem, written many hundreds of years ago, tells us that:—

These seem to be taller and stronger than the "little people," cousins, perhaps, for the poet says:—

Now, if you ever go to Ireland and meet a fairy you will know him by his blue-starred eyes, and his crystal teeth, if he doesn't happen to be wearing a white owl's feather,—which is, of course, the surest sign of all.

But if you want to know more about the looks and the habits of Irish fairies, you must read the fairy books which Lady Augusta Gregory and Mr. Douglas Hyde and Mr. Joseph Jacobs have written. Indeed, I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Padraic Colum had tucked a fairy-tale or two into this very story-book of yours. Look and see!

Meanwhile, the fountain pen is tapping on the table and sputtering ink. He says that Ireland is famous for more things than fairies and potatoes, and it is time he had a chance to speak.

He says he thinks of St. Patrick when we talk of Ireland. He thinks of the sixteen-year-old boy from Roman Gaul who was stolen by pirates and sold into slavery, long ago. For six years the young Patrick was a herd boy in Ireland, and he must have been a friendly lad, loving his enemies, for when at last he was freed and went back to Gaul, he saw always in his dreams the pagan children of Green Erin, holding out their little arms to him and calling: "Dear Christian child, return among us; return to save us." So after he had been made a bishop he went again to Ireland to preach Christianity to the kings and chiefs and poets of the country; and they all listened to him and loved him,—especially the poets. These Irish poets, or bards as they were called, were important folk at court in those old days; they were kings' counselors, and all men honored them. No great feast was complete without the bard and his harp; he kept fresh in men's minds the heroic deeds of their forefathers, and in time of war he filled the soldiers' hearts with courage. The most famous of these bards, Ossian, became Patrick's friend, and helped him to build some of the churches and monasteries whose ruins are still seen in Ireland. Some day you must read of the friendship of this Irish bard and the Gallic Saint, and of how they argued together about Christianity.

But St. Patrick is not the only saint for whom Ireland is famous. There is not space enough in this letter for stories of all of them, but the pen insists that I shall tell you the name of at least one more, another missionary, St. Columba; but instead of being a missionary to  Ireland, like St. Patrick, he was a missionary from  Ireland. He crossed the Irish Sea to carry the message of Christianity to the wild tribes called the Picts, who lived, in those days, in Scotland. And it was particularly hard for St. Columba to be a missionary, for he loved Ireland as little children love their mothers; he was homesick if he was away from those green hills and shining lakes, even for a day. Yet he went away into a strange land and lived there the half of his long life. He left his beloved for love's sake.

This is how it came about: St. Columba, like some of the rest of us, was fond of books, and in those days books were very great treasures, for they all had to be copied by hand. There were no printing presses. And it happened one day when Columba was visiting a friend of his, the Abbot Finnian, that the abbot, to entertain him, showed him a beautiful Psalter—a book of Psalms—which belonged to the monastery. Now St. Columba coveted the Psalter, and when he was left alone with it he set to work to copy the Psalms out for himself carefully by hand. It was discourteous of him, to say the least, not to ask the abbot's permission, and it is not surprising that the abbot was angry when he found out what his guest was up to. He and St. Columba had a lively Irish quarrel; the abbot said the copy belonged to him, because the Psalter was his; St. Columba contradicted him flat, and so they had it back and forth: "It's mine!"—"No such thing; it's mine!"—"You're a thief!"—"You're a liar!"—and so on. It sounds very childish, doesn't it? But it threw poor Ireland into a sad state, for the kings and chieftains took sides in the quarrel, some with the abbot and some with St. Columba, and there was battle and bloodshed and the horror of war throughout the green island. And at last St. Columba came to his senses and saw what he had done, and he was very sorry and ashamed.

And because he had offended against God by quarreling with his neighbor, and by setting his fellow-countrymen against one another and sowing seeds of hate where he might have sown love, he decided that to bring peace to Ireland, he, the quarrel-maker, must go away and live somewhere else; he, who had sent many men to death in an unchristian battle, must bring living souls to Christ; he, the sower of hate, must be a harvester of love. So he went to Scotland to be a missionary, and the story of his life on the little island of Iona on the Scotch coast is too long to tell here, but you must surely read it some day in the book of his life by Adamnan, or in Monsieur Montalembert's series of Saint-stories called "The Monks of the West."

And now, do you think you can play this game by yourself, without the pen and me? Try! What else do you think of when you hear the word Ireland? Perhaps Mr. Colum's story of Finn O'Donnell will help you.