Ham And Eggs

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Title:     Ham And Eggs
Author: Seumas O'Brien [More Titles by O'Brien]

"Wisha, in the name of all the nonentities that a man meets at a fancy dress ball, or a lawn tennis party," said Padna to Micus, as he saw him holding a lantern over a pool of water, on a dark night, at the crossroads of Carrignamore, "what are you doing, at all, at all?"

"I'm looking for the moon that was here in the pool, less than an hour ago, and a more beautiful moon was never seen in any part of the whole world," said Micus.

"Well," said Padna, "if 'twas twice as beautiful, and twice as large, and the size of a Chinese sunshade inself, you'd have no more chance of finding it on a dark night like this, than you'd have of finding a circus at the North Pole, or discovering why women will worry about their husbands when they stay out late at night, and then abuse the devil out of them when they come in, even though they had to stay out through no fault of their own."

"What you say may be true," said Micus, "but 'tis better a man should have an interest in astronomy or something else, and go looking for the moon in a pool of water at the crossroads, than have no interest in anything at all, except killing time talking about the wars of the world, or the ways of his neighbours. And sure if a man couldn't find the moon inself, he might find something else while he'd be looking for it."

"Bedad, and that's true enough too! Many a man found happiness when he went looking for trouble, and many a man found trouble when he went looking for happiness, and a man often found a friend where he expected to find an enemy, and found an enemy where he expected to find a friend," said Padna.

"In a word, we go through life looking for what we can't find, and finding what we didn't go to look for. Think of poor Columbus, and what he found, and he not looking for America, at all. Sure, that sort of thing would encourage any one to set out on a voyage of adventure, even though he mightn't know where he'd be going to, or what he might be doing," said Micus.

"Talking about findings and losings, and strange happenings in general, I wonder if you ever heard tell of the bishop who took off his hat to a poor man," said Padna.

"I did not, then, and I don't believe a word of it either," said Micus.

"Oh, bedad, whether you believe it or no, 'tis a fact, then, nevertheless," said Padna.

"Well, it must have been a mistake of some kind, or maybe an accident. 'Tis possible, of course, that His Lordship took off his hat to leave the air to his head when the poor man was passing, but I can't imagine that he removed it for any other purpose, unless, maybe, a wasp, or a fly settled on his bald crown. In that case he would take off his hat to scratch his head," said Micus.

"If you don't believe what I'm telling you, there's no use going on with the story," said Padna.

"There is not then. But surely," said Micus, "you must have something else to relate, and I not to lay eyes on you since Monday was a week."

"I have another story, if you'd like to hear it," said Padna.

"Of course, I'd like to hear it. What is it all about?"

"'Tis all about a pig and a clucking hen," said Padna.

"Let us take the shortest cut home, and I'll listen to the story as we walk along. And 'tis glad I am that I went looking for the moon, this blessed night, else I mightn't have found yourself, and I dying to have a talk with some one," said Micus.

"Well," said Padna, as he sauntered leisurely along with his friend Micus, who kept swinging a lantern, "on my way home from market yesterday evening, as the sun was sinking behind the hills, I strolled along the road that leads to Five Mile Bridge, and I felt so tired after the journey from Cork to Ballinabearna that I was compelled to say to myself: 'Padna,' ses I, 'why the devil don't you be sensible once in a while, and take a rest for yourself when you feel tired? What's the use in wearing yourself out, and causing yourself unnecessary pain and torture, when in a few short years you will be as dead as decency, or disinterested kindness, which is no less than one and the same thing. And once you are dead, you are dead for ever and ever, and no one will bother their heads about you, or care whether you lived or not, or just existed, by trying to please every one but yourself. The man who tries to please everybody,' ses I to myself, 'won't live half as long as one of the aristocracy, who don't care where the money comes from so long as he has it to spend.' And when all that was said, I then up and ses: 'Padna,' ses I, 'that's good sound advice, and don't forget what I have told you.' And then and there I made one jump and landed on top of a ditch, and as I looked over my shoulder into the field behind, what did I see but a pig and a clucking hen, and they exchanging salutations. And then they began to talk and this is what I heard:

"'Good evening,' ses the pig.

"'Good evening kindly and good luck. How are you feeling to-day?' ses the hen.

"'Just about the same as ever,' ses the pig. 'Sure, 'tis a sad world for us all!'

"''Tis, God help us!' ses the hen. 'But don't start me crying again, this sorrowful day, for 'tis myself who has shed a bucketful of tears, since my poor grandmother was choked this morning.'

"'I wouldn't be crying about that, if I were you,' ses the pig. 'Sure, 'tis as good to be choked as to have your head cut off with a rusty knife.'

"''Tisn't about that in particular that I have fumed and worried, and wept so copiously,' ses the hen.

"'And about what then?' ses the pig.

"'About everything in general. The ingratitude of man, the presumption and assumption of women, and the consumption of ham and eggs,' ses the hen.

"'Ah, wisha, God knows,' ses the pig, 'you couldn't waste your tears over a more worthy and likewise unworthy object. And like the pessimist that I am, myself, 'tis but little respect that I have for man or woman either. Only for the fact that I have still some pride left, and wouldn't like to disgrace my own family, I'd end my miserable existence by committing suicide, and drown myself in the horse pond.'

"'If you were to do the likes of that, you would sin against tradition, and only be sold as sausages. Whereas, if you were to die a natural death by strangulation, amputation of the head, or bisection of the windpipe, you would be sent to the best butcher's shop in the town, and the different parts of your anatomy would be sold at the very highest rates, the same as all your family, relations and ancestors,' ses the hen.

"'Don't mention my family or my ancestors to me. They were all snobs, each and every one of them,--father, mother, sisters, and brothers. 'Twas little respect they ever had for myself, and always said that I was only fit to be used for sausages, anyway. As though, indeed, I didn't come of as good a stock as the best of them.'

"'I often heard that you came of very respectable people,' ses the hen.

"'Respectable isn't the name for them belonging to me. There were gentry, and no less, in our family.'

"'Is that so?' ses the hen.

"'Yes, indeed, it is,' ses the pig. ''Twas a piece of my great-great-great-great-grandfather's great-grandfather that gave Napoleon indigestion before Waterloo. And that's how he lost the day by giving wrong orders to his generals,' ses the pig.

"'And 'twas from eating a bad egg,' ses the hen, 'that King George got the hiccoughs, and fell from his horse while reviewing his troops in France. And that's how he won the Victoria Cross and got a rise of two and tuppence a week in his wages. Howsomever, be that as it may, 'tis a pension yourself should have from the German and English Governments, instead of earning your living by eating yourself to death, so to speak. An aristocrat of your social standing should be living on some one else's money, and your time should be divided between sleeping and eating, like all the other members of the fraternity.'

"'Oh,' ses the pig, 'my associates and equals wouldn't think of recognising me, unless I was fully dressed for dinner at some fashionable hotel or restaurant.'

"'Fully dressed!' ses the hen. 'With bread crumbs on your hind quarters, you mean?'

"'Yes,' ses the pig.

"'Well,' ses the hen, 'I come of good stock myself. The members of my family always supplied eggs to the King of Spain, the Mayor of Boston, and the Royalty of England and America.'

"'Wisha,' ses the pig, 'what are a few eggs, even when they are fresh inself, compared to a fine ham, two pork chops, a soft crubeen, or a flitch of bacon, boiled down with plenty of cabbage, and set before a battalion of hungry policemen on a cold winter's day?'

"'Oh,' ses the hen, 'no one would think of eating bacon and cabbage all the time, while eggs are always in season. But 'tisn't quarreling about such a trifle that we should be, when we have no great grievance against ourselves, but against mankind in general.'

"'The inconsistency of mankind is disgusting, to say the very least of it,' ses the pig. 'Every one from the king to the beggar has a bad word to say for the pig. We stand for all that's contemptible, loathsome and vile, and yet the most delicate and refined people will always call for ham and eggs, in the morning, in preference to anything else. And if one of those genteel young men who might have had my poor grandmother's liver for supper, was to meet myself on the road, and he with a young lady by his side, and she as fond of ham and eggs as himself, neither of them would bid me the time of day, or ask how I might be, or say as much as go to Belgium, or anything at all, but make disparaging remarks about my idiosyncracies.'

"'And think of myself,' ses the hen. 'I that have laid more eggs than you could count in a lifetime, and I have reared five large families, besides. And the day I can't lay any more, I'll be killed by some caubogue of a churn boy, and sold to some landlady who boards tramps, navvies, and all kinds of traveling tinkers. I wouldn't mind inself if I went to nourish and sustain some decent people, who could appreciate the tender parts of my constitution. Or if I could be like my poor father, who was killed with a new razor, stuffed with bread and currants, roasted on a spit, and exhibited in a shop window before Christmas.'

"'Ah! we live in a thoughtless and heartless world!' ses the pig.

"'I know it,' ses the hen. 'Only about one in every ten thousand has either the power or the privilege of thinking for themselves.'

"'Everything seems to go by contrary. Take the decent people,--the Jews, for instance. They have no respect for the members of my family, but they are consistent. They wouldn't write their name, or my epitaph, on my back with a hot poker, and make fun of my table manners, and then go home and have pork for dinner and say 'twas worth walking to America for,' ses the pig.

"'Nevertheless,' ses the hen, 'when I think of what yourself and myself does for mankind, and the poor return we get, I feel proud to know that we can be of service to those who don't and can't appreciate us.'

"'Yes, indeed, and so do I,' ses the pig. 'What would life be to most people without their ham and eggs every morning, and the newspaper thrown in. And a cigar never tastes sweeter than after a good feed of spare ribs and yellow turnips.'

"'Or even sausages,' ses the hen.

"'I object to sausages and salt meat in general, because it makes people cranky and disputatious,' ses the pig.

"'Of course,' ses the hen, 'there's no doubt but we do a lot of good, though we have been neglected. And it makes my heart bleed, when I think of the stupidity of man and his perverted sense of honour. After all those years of preaching and reform, no poet has ever written an ode to a hen or a pig, and all the poets liked their ham and eggs. There was Shakespeare himself,--people thought he forgot nothing, or what he forgot wasn't worth remembering, but where's the mention of either hens or pigs in all his highly respected works?'

"'Tis no wonder there is war in the world to-day,' ses the pig.

"'Indeed it is not, when married men will spend all their money on finery for their wives, so that they can look better than they really are, and elope with other women's husbands. Sure, only for the motherly instinct that's in myself, I would leave my family of ducklings and die by my own hand, but I don't want one of them to be neglected and feel the pangs of adversity, like yourself and myself,' ses the hen.

"''Tis instinct rather than reason that guides most people. If we were always to act reasonably, people would think we had no sense, at all. However, there's a compensation in all things, and we can enjoy ourselves in our own old way. And while it is a great consolation to know that we can do a lot of good, it is a greater consolation still to know that we can do a lot of harm as well,' ses the pig.

"'Like myself, you share the same sentiments as all good and pious people. The satisfaction of doing harm is the only enjoyment some of us receive for doing good, when our kindness is not appreciated,' ses the hen.

"'When I think of all those who suffer from dyspepsia after eating my friends and relations, I ses to myself: "Well, things could be worse even for such as my humble self. You mightn't have the satisfaction of knowing that there was such a thing as indigestion." And when I think of what people must pay for pork chops, in a restaurant after the theatre at night, and how they must suffer from cramps, pains in the stomach, and a bursting headache next morning, well then I feel as happy as a wife when she is abusing her fool of a husband for giving her too much of her own way,' ses the pig.

"'And when I consider the little nourishment there is in cold storage eggs, and the price the poor lodgers must pay their landladies for them, I feel like dancing a jig on a milestone. And whenever I hear of some one eating a bad egg, disguised by frying it hard in margarine, and seasoning it with salt and pepper, I takes a holiday for myself. Ptomaine poisoning is as good as cramps, or pains in the head, at any time,' ses the hen.

"'Of course, when we are really hungry, we don't care what we eat. I have eaten pieces of my relatives and friends dozen of times, when they were mixed with my food, but to tell the truth it never gave me any trouble. And in many respects I am no better and no worse than those who don't care how they make their living, so long as they have what they want,' ses the pig.

"And then two farmers came on the scene, and one ses to the other, as he pointed to the pig with a stick: 'How much do you want for the beast?' ses he.

"'As much as he will fetch,' ses the owner.

"'One would think 'twas a work of art you were trying to dispose of,' ses the man with the stick. 'I'll give you the market price and not a ha'penny more.'

"'Very well,' ses the owner, 'I'm satisfied.'

"'And what do you want for that old hen?' ses the man with the stick.

"'Oh,' ses the owner, 'she is no more use to me, and for that reason I must charge you ten or a hundred times her legitimate value. She is an antique. You can have her for ten shillings, and be under a compliment to me for my decency, besides.'

"'I'll owe you the money,' ses the man with the stick, 'so that you won't forget your generosity.' And with that they walked away, and I jumped off the ditch and turned home," said Micus.

"'Tis a queer world," said Padna.

"A queer world, surely!" said Micus.

[The end]
Seumas O'Brien's short story: Ham And Eggs

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