Marigold Hunt - St. Patricks Summer: A Childrens Adventure Catechism

MARIGOLD HUNT

A Children's Adventure Catechism

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS

Manchester, New Hampshire

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'his book is just a story. You needn't believe a word of it, except the bits about God and the Church. I had to be careful to make sure those were true, because it would really matter if they were not. But if anyone says, for instance, that St. Cecilia couldn't possibly have had her hair done like that, I shall say, "Well, that's how it looked to Michael and Cecilia, and if it really couldn't have been like that, then Michael and Cecilia and I are all wrong. But what St. Cecilia said about Heaven is still true; because it's just what any priest would tell you if you asked him."

The people who live in Shropshire in the book are not real, but some of the places are, only I have changed them around when I wanted to it is part of the fun of writing a book that you can put any place just where you want it.

I have changed some of the names too, like calling Bridgnorth "Northbridge," because I didn't want to get into trouble with Father Cronin, who has been parish priest there ever since I was younger than the children in this story.

There is a Catholic school and everything in the real Bridgnorth too, so you see there would really have been no great difficulty about Michael and Cecilia learning their Faith and making their First Communions at the proper time instead of having to wait until they were twice as old as they should have been. But in that case there would have been no need for St. Patrick doing what he did, and then what would have become of my story?

ichael and Cecilia were two children who lived in the country in the west of England, so far out in the country, in fact, that there was no school near enough for them to go to. Instead, they went every day to do lessons with a particularly nice old lady called Miss Murphy. She had been a schoolmistress when she was younger, but now she was retired and lived in a little house about half a mile from Michael's father's farm and a little further from Cecilia's grandmother's cottage. This cottage was at a place called the Smithies, because there once was a blacksmith's forge there.

Neither of them had a mother that they could remember, and although they were very well contented with things as they were, both of them used to think it would be rather lovely to belong to a large family and have two parents each instead of one father and one grandmother between them.

Both of them liked old Miss Murphy, although they found her very tiresome at times, as people who make us learn things usually are. As for Miss Murphy, she thought Michael and Cecilia the two brightest and best children in the world, but she took care not to let them know she thought so.

There was one thing that bothered her dreadfully, and that was that she always dreaded teaching them catechism. "For," said she, "the questions those two think of would puzzle the bishop, and I never did teach religion before, and the truth is I don't know how to go about it, and never shall. And to think of those poor children twice as old as the babies you see going to Communion these days, and they haven't made their First Communion yet."

There came a Saturday morning when Miss Murphy gave them a lesson on the Blessed Trinity, and by the time it was over she was almost in tears. Both children were being quite polite, but there was no disguising that they were hopelessly puzzled, and all three were very glad when twelve o'clock struck.

"Off you go now," said Miss Murphy, "and say a prayer to understand better next time."

The children grabbed their schoolbooks and packets of lunch they were going for a picnic, as it was Saturday and fled, calling out, "Good-bye, Miss Murphy! See you on Monday," as they ran.

Miss Murphy watched them running up the lane, and she said a prayer herself to St. Patrick, not for the first time. "Dear St. Patrick," said she, "you see how it is, and if there is anything you can do about it, I shall be very grateful, for although you couldn't have two nicer, brighter children, I'm just at my wits' end."

Michael and Cecilia ran all the way along Carter's Lane, walked up Scott's Lane (which is rather a steep hill), crossed over the motor road by the Smithies, over a field or two, and so came out onto a piece of rough hillside above a great wood.

They loved this place it was called the Thrift and it was all over heather, little birch trees, and bracken, and from it you could look down on the tops of the great trees in the wood below, and they looked like tapestry.

This was a hot June day, and they were glad to drop their books and flop down on the short turf and open their lunch packets. "I said a Hail Mary coming up the hill," said Michael, "about understanding better next time. But I don't think it's much use."

"Saying mine now," said Cecilia, with her mouth full, and neither of them said much else until they had eaten their hard-boiled eggs and bread and butter, started on apples, and opened their bottles of milk. These were not the sort the milkman leaves, but two old medicine bottles Michael's still had a label on it saying, "As directed, three times a day."

Then Cecilia said, "Well, I suppose Miss Murphy knows, but here's a clover leaf, which she says is just like a shamrock, only bigger, and how it can possibly be like the Blessed Trinity I still don't see, and I don't believe I ever shall."