“Anne, your obstinacy in refusing to join our family worship has made me resolve not to let you go to hear the old priest.  And your refusal to attend to the sermon of our preacher, Mr. Scullion, has also displeased me much.  I mean to punish you according.”

“Why should I go hear the old sinner’s stuff,” said Anne, “when your own sons laugh at him and say he is a fool?  Besides, I am told he is ever abusing the Catholics, and I heartily despise his nonsensical, lying cant.”

“Well, Anne, I am determined to punish you for it,” calmly replied the mistress.  “So you can’t see the priest to-day.  That settles it.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am; the priest I will see, please God, let what will happen.”

“You must leave this house, then.”

“Small loss, madam.  America is wide, thank God!” answered Anne.

“Don’t you know Mr. Scullion is a brother of mine?”

“I don’t care, ma’am, if he was your father.  I know he is ignorant or malicious, either one or the other, or maybe both, or he would not speak of the Catholic Church as he does.  Oh, dear,” she cried, bursting into tears of anger, “what a ‘free country’ it is!  The Protestants in Ireland were decent.  They came, attended by the peelers, to their tenants, telling them they must conform to the will of the landlord, or quit their homes; but here ye say all religions are equal, and yet ye try to compel us to go to listen to low, ignorant preachers, who know they are lying about the Church of Christ.  Ye want us to change the religion of St. Patrick and of the martyrs for such ridiculous churches as ye have here.  Oh, dear! oh, dear!” said the poor girl, as she contrasted her present situation with what it was when she was at home at her father’s, where she heard Mass daily, and knew not what it was to suffer persecution for conscience’ sake.

While scenes such as we have here described were taking place in the farmers’ houses, and such scenes are not occasional nor unusual, all was busy preparation at the shanties.  The largest shanty in the “patch” was cleared of all sorts of lumber.  Forms, chairs, tables, pots, flour and beef barrels, molasses casks, and other necessary stores were all put outside doors.  The walls, if so we can call them, of the shanty, were then hung round with newspapers, white linen tablecloths, and other choice tapestry, while a good large shawl, spread in front of the altar, served as a carpet on which his reverence was to kneel and stand while officiating.  Green boughs were cut in a neighboring wood lot and planted around the entrance by the men, while around the altar and over it were wreaths of wild flowers and blossoms, gathered by the little girls of the “patch” in the adjacent meadows, in order to prepare a decent place for the holy Mass.  At an early hour the priest made his appearance, and was very much pleased to see the transformation which the piety of these poor, hard-working people wrought