The Fourth Life of Sean Donoghue by Trish Hanan (children's books read aloud .txt) 📕

your fault at all, it will be their fault; how could they possibly blame you for it?” he said reasonably and they looked at one another and nodded. Maurice reached out for the bag. Sean held it away for a second. Maurice frowned.
“Same deal as last time,” Sean said firmly. “Extra casings, bullets and presses,” he added and both men nodded. Sean handed over the bag. Maurice spilled the contents onto the desk top and they both gasped.
“Make sure it’s all delivered today, if the rifles are leaving in two days, that doesn’t give me too much time to get organized,” Sean told them. He made Maurice give the order to his secretary before he left to make sure then he left the two men to drool over the gemstones in private. The secretary glared at him as he left and Sean just smiled at him.
Sean had men watching the warehouse to make sure the extras were delivered and they were. He used long boats and docked them at the end of the sewer system where they ran off into the water. Then he, his men and the sailors simply entered the sewer system from the long boats and found the pile of garbage. Using ladders they climbed up to the bottom of the warehouse and cut the floorboards. Sean carefully tapped to find a hollow spot; he didn’t want a stack of boxes coming down on them. They entered the warehouse and quietly sneaked the boxes down into the sewer and then into the boats. It was a time consuming job, especially because they had to be so quiet, but the guards outside were making so much noise stomping around, gathering around fire cans, joking and laughing that they didn’t hear them. The warehouse didn’t have any windows and they worked by the light of dim glows.
It took them six hours but the warehouse got emptied and they made their way to the ship and sailed with the morning tide. Sean gave all the men a hundred gilder bonus for a job well done and they loved him even more.
Back in Tibor, Annie was up in arms, Marianne wanted to marry a wealthy merchant who was twice her age. Sean took one look at the happy couple and approved the marriage. Annie was flabbergasted.
“You can’t be serious, Granddad, he’s a filthy old leech,” she screeched. Sean shrugged.
“Well, Marianne’s a filthy young leech, they’ll be very happy together and he’s very rich so she’ll be very happy,” he informed her. Todd and Lonnie laughed. And to her surprise all the young people agreed.
“Marianne will never be happy with any man on the Ridge, she’s always wanted to find a rich man,” Joanie told her grandmother and Cathy agreed.
“If you force her to go back to the Ridge, she’ll only make everyone miserable and she’s a bit of a bitch,” she said and everyone agreed with that statement.
So Marianne was happily married and they left Ennis without her. But they did leave with a thousand ice cream makers, a thousand toasters and a thousand coffeemakers so Sean was happy.
And when they arrived back in Anamylia they took everything up the river but instead of putting it all in the caves like the normally did, Sean put in the forest in deep caves he had them dig in the side of some hills and he lined the inside of the hills with logs and put boulders in front of the entrances and bushes so it looked normal.
“No one would even know anything was there, Granddad,” Douglas said, admiring the handiwork. Sean put his arm around his youngest grandson’s shoulder.
“Ah, lad, that’s the whole point of it,” he said with a grin.
Danny and Ryan were glad to be home.
“Any more adventures, Granddad, you’re going to have to go without me,” Danny said as he sat on the porch in his rocker. Ryan sat down beside him in his. Sean laughed at them both.
“Danny Donoghue, you’re only sixty-seven years old, you’re not dead yet, don’t act that way,” he admonished him. Ryan laughed and patted his brother’s hand.
“Really, Danny, I’m seventy and you don’t see me complaining yet,” he said with a sly grin. Danny glared at both of them.
“Well, screw you both,” he said and farted loudly. All of them laughed at that. Annie shook her head.
“Men are such idiots,” she told her great-great-granddaughter Leslie who was giggling. Sean picked the little girl up.
“Why don’t I show you how to make ice cream, would you like that, lass?” he asked her. Leslie frowned.
“What’s ice cream?” she asked. Sean tickled her.
“The most delicious thing in the world,” he told her. Annie smiled.
“Make some chocolate, that’s my favorite,” she called out as they went inside. Both brothers nodded.
“I like strawberry too,” Ryan remarked. Danny nodded.
“Peach is nice too,” he commented. They all agreed; there really wasn’t an ice cream flavor that wasn’t tasty and delicious.
Sean’s ice cream makers, toasters and coffeemakers hit Ben’s store and the Ridges went crazy. All ten Ridges rushed over to buy them and they made a fortune. Especially since they were only selling them for ten gilders apiece, but only at that price to Ridge folks. Ben kept people in his store who knew who how to identify the Ridge people from the city people and of course the Hamish was always easy to spot. They were so rude and haughty, talking down to the mountain folk like they were stupid, but they didn’t come up the mountains much, they sent their servants. And the servants were easy to spot; they tended to talk with their eyes lowered.
Once when Sean was in the store and a servant was in trying to buy a coffeemaker, Sean leaned down to whisper in his ear.
“You do know that here on the Ridge you’re a free man and you don’t have to go back to Portsmyth and your Hamish master,” he told him. The man’s eyes widened.
“I don’t?” he whispered. Sean shook his head.
“People are free on the Ridge,” he informed him. The man swallowed.
“But what will I do? I don’t have any coin?” he stammered. Sean grinned.
“You can stay with me and I’ll help you build you a house and give you five hundred gilders, you can have a farm of your own, get married, have a wife and children, you don’t have to be a slave,” he told him. The man gasped.
“Why would you do that for me?” he asked him with suspicion in his eyes. Sean smiled.
“I’m a man who hates slavery and I’ll do anything to get even one person free,” he explained and the man nodded. Sean took him home and in a month the man had his own home. In three months he was married to a nice Ridge girl. In a year they had their first son and named him Sean. The Hamish who owned him never did find out what happened to him, he just walked off, but they never sent another servant to the Ridge to buy anything.
Sean went into Jamestown to visit with his committee as he was calling them, to tell them the rifles were safely hid, although he knew that Kent Avery had already reported that. Kent didn’t know where they were though. The sailors had put them in the caves when they first arrived; it was Sean and his family who had moved them to the hills. And he had another idea; he wanted to start a fund for servants who wanted to get away from their Hamish masters. He took with him ten thousand gilders in gold.
“Sean, how nice to see you, how was your trip?” John and Henry who were partners in a law firm greeted him warmly. Sean smiled and sat in a chair facing them.
“I wouldn’t be talking too loudly about my trip if I were you,” he said softly but firmly. They both nodded.
“Sorry, but it was just us, I assumed it was safe,” Henry apologized. Sean nodded.
“You just never know who might be listening, it’s always best just not to mention certain things aloud,” he suggested and they both nodded, it seemed like sound advice.
“So what brings you to Jamestown?” John asked and he leaned back in his chair and lit one of those big smelly cigars. Sean wagged a finger at him.
“Those things will kill you,” he warned him. John shrugged.
“You have to die one day,” he said. Sean nodded. He lifted his bag of gold on the desk top where it made a delightful clank. The men looked interested.
“This is twenty thousand gilders,” Sean informed them. “Now five thousand is for our cause, the cause of liberty, or whatever you gentlemen want to call it.” They both nodded.
“That’s very generous of you, especially seeing on how you purchased the rifles,” Henry remarked. Sean shrugged.
“So make me a General, I’ve always wanted to lead an army and I think I’d be good at it,” he said with a grin. They both looked at each other and grinned. You had to like this kid; he had plenty of coin and the nerve to go with it. Then Sean continued.
“With the other fifteen thousand gilders I want to start some kind of fund to help servants here in the city, if they want to escape from their Hamish masters, then the fund will pay their way to the Ridges and help them start a farm of their own,” he explained. Now both men really looked interested.
“That’s a very good idea, I’m surprised that no one has thought of that before,” Henry stated and John nodded.
“The people on the Ridge are always willing to help people escape from the Hamish and they’d be willing to hide them and help them build houses and start them off and the fund will give them the coin necessary,” Sean explained further. “They all can’t come to O’Brien’s Ridge, we’ll have to split them up between the ten Ridges so they don’t get too crowded but there’s plenty of room for a lot of people on the mountains and down in the valley, plus down in the south near St. Charles.” Both men nodded.
“This is a very clever plan, you’re a very clever young man, has anyone ever told you that?” Henry asked him. Sean shrugged.
“I may have heard that a time or two,” he admitted with a slight smile.
He left their office and walked to the Chronicle to deliver his latest cartoon, this one a big arrogant Hamish Count whipping a group of poor half-starved peasants and slaves all bearing the names of the five territories while Andalusia, a women, stood by and wept. The editor looked at it and whistled.
“Oh, man, they’re really not going to like this one,” he said and grinned. Sean shrugged.
“The Hamish do have trouble with reality don’t they?” he asked dourly. The man nodded and Sean paid for his two editorials both on high taxes and the unjust treatment of the peasants and slaves, calling for the people of Anamylia to stand up to the Hamish and call for the release of the peasants and the return of the Topangans to their native home.
For a lark he checked out the price of the items he had purchased in