Free Collected Stories by Frank O'Connor

goes off to a bare mountain where he can’t even tell his troubles to the man alongside him; and still he keeps something back, some little thing to remind him of what he gave up. With me ’twas the horses and with this man ’twas the sup of beer, and I dare say there are fellows inside who have a bit of a girl’s hair hidden somewhere they can go and look at it now and again. I suppose we all have our little hiding-hole if the truth was known, but as small as it is, the whole world is in it, and bit by bit it grows on us again till the day You find us out.”
    Brother Arnold was waiting for him to play. He sighed and put his hand on the desk. Brother Arnold looked at it and at him. Brother Michael idly took away the spade and added the heart and still Brother Arnold couldn’t see. Then Brother Michael shook his head and pointed to the floor. Brother Arnold bit his lip again as though he were on the point of crying, then threw down his own hand and walked to the other end of the cowhouse. Brother Michael left him so for a few moments. He could see the struggle going on in the man, could almost hear the Devil whisper in his ear that he (Brother Michael) was only an old woman—Brother Michael had heard that before; that life was long and a man might as well be dead and buried as not have some little innocent amusement—the sort of plausible whisper that put many a man on the gridiron. He knew, however hard it was now, that Brother Arnold would be grateful to him in the other world. “Brother Michael,” he would say, “I don’t know what I’d ever have done without your example.”
    Then Brother Michael went up and touched him gently on the shoulder. He pointed to the bottle, the racing paper, and the cards. Brother Arnold fluttered his hands despairingly but he nodded. They gathered them up between them, the cards, the bottle, and the papers, hid them under their habits to avoid all occasion of scandal, and went off to confess their guilt to the Prior.

The Shepherds
    F ATHER WHELAN , the parish priest, called on his curate, Father De-vine, one evening in autumn. Father Whelan was a tall, stout man with a broad chest, a head that didn’t detach itself too clearly from the rest of his body, bushes of wild hair in his ears, and the rosy, innocent, good-natured face of a pious old countrywoman who made a living by selling eggs.
    Devine was pale and worn-looking, with a gentle, dreamy face which had the soft gleam of an old piano keyboard, and he wore pince-nez perched on his unhappy, insignificant little nose. He and Whelan got on very well, considering—considering, that is to say, that Devine, who didn’t know when he was well off, had fathered a dramatic society and an annual festival on Whelan, who had to put in an attendance at both; and that whenever the curate’s name was mentioned, the parish priest, a charitable old man who never said an unkind word about anybody, tapped his forehead and said poor Devine’s poor father was just the same. “A national teacher—sure, I knew him well, poor man!”
    What Devine said about Whelan in that crucified drawl of his consisted mostly of the old man’s words, with just the faintest inflection which isolated and underlined their fatuity. “I know some of the clergy are very opposed to books, but I like a book myself. I’m very fond of Zane Grey. Even poetry I like. Some of the poems you see on advertisements are very clever.” And then Devine, who didn’t often laugh, broke into a thin little cackle at the thought of Whelan representing the intellect and majesty of the Church. Devine was clever; he was lonely; he had a few good original water-colors and a bookcase full of works that were a constant source of wonder to Whelan. The old man stood in front of them now, his hat in his hands, lifting his warty old nose, while his eyes held a blank, hopeless, charitable look.
    â€œNothing