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

Ennis and found them all selling for fifty gilders.
“Fifty gilders for a coffeemaker; are you insane?” he snapped at the shopkeeper who shrugged.
“I paid forty for it, I have to make a profit,” he told him weakly. Sean was furious.
“The damned things are selling for five gilders back in Ennis,” he informed him. The shopkeeper shrugged.
“It’s the damned Hamish taxes, they make everything so expensive,” he explained. Sean left the store, bought some paper and wrote another editorial denouncing the taxes and explaining the differences in prices between Jamestown coffeemakers and Ennis coffeemakers.
“Do you want to print this one instead of the other one?” the editor asked. Sean shook his head.
“Only if you don’t want to print the other one, otherwise print them all,” he told him and paid for the extra one. The man shook his head.
“I’ll print this one this week with the one about slavery and the other one the next week,” he decided and Sean nodded. Then he was too furious to enjoy Jamestown and picked up his wagons and went home to work on his cannon which was what he was calling his latest project.
Sean had Lonnie, Todd, Young Sean and a couple of other lads helping him build his cannon. They took a nice piece of steel sheeting, heated it by holding it over a Peanja wood fire and rolled it into a long tube just like a rifle barrel. Next they welded it closed using Peanja wood of course and attached it to two big thick wooden wheels. It looked pretty study to them.
“It looks good, Granddad, what are we going to fire out of it?” Young Sean asked with a big grin. Sean shrugged and lifted a big round boulder he had carved.
“I thought we’d try this and see how it works,” he said and they all nodded.
So, they poured gunpowder down the tube and shoved it in with a long stick that Sean had carved with a handle at one end to scrape it down to the end and then put in the rock. Sean had put in a long piece of string with the gunpowder to light it which he called a fuse. He lit it and they all ran behind the cannon and watched for the rock to come out.
“Holy shit,” Lonnie exclaimed as the cannon blew up instead. Sean whistled. The seams hadn’t held, the explosion was too much for them and the steel had bubbled in places. The rock had been totally obliterated and turned to dust; obviously they weren’t going to be firing rocks out of the cannons. And not going to be using steel for the barrels either.
“Back the drawing boards, gentlemen,” Sean announced and they all grinned. This was big fun; they got to blow things up, what lad wouldn’t like that? So they went into Jamestown to purchase some cast-iron.
Their next cannon was made of cast-iron and two inches thick. Sean made a wood mold for the thing so he could pour it in one piece and added a hole at the bottom for a short fuse. In war time one didn’t want to wait minutes for a long fuse, time was of the essences. For the cannon balls as the lads were calling them, they used the steel they had on hand and melted it into three inch balls. The lads loved tossing them around.
The next attempt was a little more successful. They poured the gunpowder in, stuffed it down and put the cannon ball in. Then Sean aimed it at the mountain and lit the fuse and the cannon actually went off and the ball hit the side of the mountain and went in. Everyone cheered and patted each others back.
“It worked, Granddad, it worked,” Young Sean exclaimed as he jumped up and down. Sean grinned.
“So it did, lad, so it did,” he said. The cannon wasn’t so lucky. The barrel had bubbled in several places and the hole was closed over. Apparently two inches thick wasn’t thick enough.
So they started over once more and bought more cast-iron and Sean made another mold making the cannon three inches thick now and taking cannon balls eight inches wide. They were so enormous two people had to lift them into the barrel and twice as much gunpowder had to be used. But when they lighted the fuse and blasted a big-assed hole into the side of the mountain the cannon rocked back but the barrel remained the same and the hole was fine.
“Holy God, think of what that could do to a Hamish warship,” Sean muttered and Lonnie put his arm around his shoulder.
“It will send those Hamish cowards back to Hamish where they belong,” he told him and everyone nodded.
“Lads, we have changed the face of war forever,” Sean told them seriously and they all nodded. Sean went to Jamestown to fetch his committee to show them his new invention. He melted gold coins to engrave the name: Donoghue Cannon, on the side of it.
“Holy mother of God,” Henry muttered when he saw the cannon ball hit the side of the mountain. The other men appeared to be just as shocked.
“Ah, lad, God has a mother now does he?” Sean asked, amusement dancing in his eyes. All of his family had been gathered to watch the demonstration.
“This is a powerful weapon, we must make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands,” John said with a big frown on his face. Sean nodded.
“It’s the only one so far, but me and the lads will be making more,” he informed them. Kent Avery shuddered.
“Why in God’s name would you even make this one?” he demanded to know. Henry and the others looked at him with surprise. Sean just shook his head.
“Ah, lad, did you think that all the talk was just that; talk?” he asked him softly. Kent looked confused. So did Neil and Thomas. John and Henry didn’t. Sean continued.
“Eventually when the talking is over and the people have gotten together and gotten organized, someone, a group of someone’s, are going to have to ask the Hamish very politely and in an official document of some sorts to leave Anamylia. We’re going to elect us a President, a Vice-President and a Congress full of Senators like we’ve been talking about,” he explained. “We’ll have our own Army and our own Navy. Do you really think that the Hamish are going to take that without giving us a fight?” Sean asked calmly. The six men shook their heads and sighed.
“Well be careful who finds about this thing, Sean, you don’t want the Hamish to know about it,” Henry said before they left. Sean thanked him for his advice and watched them leave. They were nice men but they sure did a lot of talking.
The Ridge men did some more firing of the cannon and found out that by putting in more powder and lifting the barrel up they could shoot a long distance, firing the balls way over the forest trees.
“I’m not going to look for that one,” Young Sean remarked as they watched it sail away. Frankie snorted.
“I bet that one landed in Gannon’s,” he said proudly. He and his twin brother Freddie raced to see who would find it first. Sean grinned at the lads.
“Okay, lets build another one and if we’re going to keep losing balls like that, we’re going to need more steel,” he said and they all cheered and clapped. They hid the cannon in a cellar under the chicken house. No way the Hamish would look for it there.
In Jamestown and in Portsmyth Sean and his family bought up every bit of cast-iron and steel they could find, renting wagons to get it back to the Ridge and then they traveled up to Andalusia and down to St. Charles to look for more. In fact, they went to all six territories buying up all the cast-iron and steel they could get their hands on and storing it by the river behind Sean’s farm. They had a mountain of the stuff when they were through, everything from cast-iron fencing to steel rods.
Sean built a foundry next on the other side of the river so they could melt it all down in private. It was a very large building with no windows so no one could peek in a see what they were doing. And he put a good cast-iron lock on the door so no one could get into it. He asked for volunteers for hiding the finished cannons under chicken houses and wasn’t surprised when everyone of his family did.


For January first Seventeen Hundred the Ridge had a big party and Sean celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday, actually he was a hundred and eighty-eight but no one knew that except for Ryan and Danny who were the only ones who had asked him. A few people were saying that the beginning of a new century meant the world was going to end soon and the St. Charles Church was spouting doom and calling for the burning of witches and their familiars, the cat. Suddenly anyone with too many cats came under the suspicion of being a witch and Sean had a good laugh over that one.
“If you don’t have a cat in the house, then your house will get overrun with mice and you’ll get sick with disease and filth, the St. Charles priests are full of shit as usual,” he told everyone down at Jefferies who agreed with him.
“Those priests get this from that stupid book they won’t let anyone but them read,” Stan remarked. “I wonder what’s in that damned thing anyway?” Everyone shrugged. Sean wondered that himself, they sure did make a big fuss over it; not letting anyone read the stupid thing.
Winter was bitter cold and the brothers stayed inside most of the time, they were sixty-eight and seventy-one and didn’t want to risk catching a cold. Annie who was an amazing seventy-four went to Church every Sunday and didn’t care.
“I’m too old to care when I die anyway, every day is a blessing now,” she grumbled as she hobbled out the door. Sean would carry her over the snow to the carriage so she wouldn’t have to walk in the snow.
Sean and his lads made three more cannons that winter; it was a long process and took several weeks. Then they rolled them out in early March and fired them towards the Keetiks, they had enough balls to spare, no one would run and fetch these balls. Let the Indians try and figure out what they were and how they got there, maybe if they were lucky, they would actually hit a couple of them.
“Fire cannon number two,” Sean yelled and Todd who had won the lottery lit the fuse. Cannon two fired and the ball sailed high into the sky and disappeared into the forest.
“Take that you Keetik bastards,” Young Sean who was now seventeen shouted and they all cheered.
“Fire cannon three,” Sean shouted and Young Sean lit the fuse and the ball sailed even further while they all cheered. Then cannon number four fired and sailed over the trees. They were joyous, they had four cannons and they all were successful. Everyone hugged and then Sean instructed them to hurry up and