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

The Major rode his hundred soldiers straight to the middle of the village and began to burn down the houses which appeared to be made out of animal hides. The Blackeyes hiding, thinking that these were the only forces, attacked immediately, coming out of the houses and hiding spots under blankets. Sean’s men rushed in and began to fire at the Indians and soon all hell broke loose once again and it was hand-to-hand combat. Sean fired his rifle as much as he could, it really was more effective than a sword or a knife, but when he was attacked in person, the sword was much handier.
“Don’t kill her, she’s a woman for God’s sake,” he grabbed the arm of a soldier who was going to knife a woman holding a baby. The soldier glared at him.
“We’ve orders to kill all the Blackeyes, even the women and children,” he spat at him. Sean sighed and helped the woman to her feet. His men rounded up all the women, old people and children that were left of the village. It was a small number, only about forty. The Major glared at him.
“What the hell are you doing, we’re supposed to kill all of the Blackeyes,” he snapped at him. Sean glared back at him.
“We’re not massacring innocent women and children, we’re soldiers not murderers. The Governor said he was going to put the woman and children on a reservation in the St. Charles and these are going,” Sean informed him firmly and the Ridge men glared at the soldiers. The Major looked at the rifles they were holding and swallowed nervously.
“Fine, they’re your responsibility,” he said and he walked away.
“Those murdering bastards,” one of the Ridge men exclaimed and the other men looked shocked. Sean sighed.
“What do you expect from the Hamish, we should have let the Blackeyes kill them before we killed the Blackeyes,” he suggested and more than one Ridge man thought that was an excellent suggestion.
When they brought their captives back to camp the General wasn’t pleased.
“I thought I told you not to bring back any prisoners,” he said to the Major who glared at him.
“Tell that to those stupid Ridge men, they’re the ones who insisted we couldn’t murder the innocent women and children,” he stressed the words murder and innocent. The General laughed.
“Did you inform them that these aren’t people at all that they’re filthy animals and that the women will just have more filthy savages that will grow up to murder them?” he said in a reasonable tone. The Major snorted.
“Try telling that to that Sean Donoghue and his men, they’re no better than animals themselves,” he whined. The General sighed.
“This war will be over with soon and those mountain men will go back to the mountains and drink beer like they like to and you and I will go back to civilized society,” he consoled him. The Major sighed.
The famous Blackeyes Indian war of Seventeen Hundred lasted a month and they collected well over eleven thousand ears before they were satisfied that the Indians were wiped out sufficiently enough. Two thousand women, children and a few old people were transferred to St. Charles for the priests to take care of on a reservation and the two territories of Pembroke and Northwest opened up tremendously.
Sean and his people all went home without a single injury. To those who didn’t take a single ear he offered a different bounty, two small emeralds and two gold twenty gilder coins, one to melt down to make earrings and one to pay the jeweler to make the earrings. When the other Ridge men heard about Granddad’s bounty they all rushed over to O’Brien’s Ridge to see if they qualified. Sean assured them they did, as long as they didn’t take any ears and they brought buddies with them to say that they didn’t and he handed out emeralds and gold coins to all of the men. Over fifteen hundred women the following year wore the earrings proudly as a symbol of her man’s bravery and courage in the war. And Sean figured that was fifteen hundred men he could count on to join him if he ever needed an army. And that was a handy thing for a man to have.
A lot of word of mouth had gotten around about Sean being the one to see about buying a rifle and O’Brien’s Ridge got a lot of travelers from the other territories all looking for the same thing, one of those rifles. Sean sold a lot of them for the bargain price of twenty gilders and he made sure to sell a press to a good man in every territory. He was out in the fields working when three men rode up and he grinned thinking he was going to make another sale. Bill went to greet them as Sean walked up the slope. He saw that two of the men were obviously nobles; they were too well dressed for common men. The third was a farmer; he looked like someone who worked in the sun. Sean gave Bill the signal and waved his head a bit at the third man, he was the only man to do the polite thing and get off his horse. The other two talked down to Sean and sneered at him.
“Are you Sean Donoghue?” the blonde one asked. Sean nodded.
“That would depend, there are four Sean Donoghues living on the Ridge,” he replied. The two men looked at each other and laughed.
“Why on earth would there be four Sean Donoghues living here?” the dark-haired one asked. Sean grinned up at them.
“Well, Sean’s an important name in the Donoghue family,” he informed them. He turned and waved at his house. “The first Sean Donoghue left Ennis in fifteen eighty-nine and came to Anamylia and settled here on the Ridge, married and built this house. Every generation that follows names a son Sean in honor of him.” The both laughed again.
“Well, how do you keep track of all of them?” the blonde asked.
“That’s easy,” Sean explained. “First there’s old Sean, he’s in his forties, then there’s young Sean, he’s in his twenties, then there’s baby Sean, he’s just a wee lad of six months old and then there’s me and everyone called me Granddad.” They both looked confused by that.
“Why do they call you Granddad, you look like you’re only in your twenties,” the dark-haired one asked. Sean nodded.
“They call me Granddad because I look so much like the first Sean Donoghue, we have a painting of him,” he explained and they still looked confused. Sean shrugged; figures that the Hamish was too stupid to get it.
“Well, we’re looking for the Sean Donoghue who’s got the rifles for sale, we want to buy a rifle to hunt with,” the blonde announced. Sean frowned.
“Ah, lads, you’re too late, I sold my last rifle last week,” he told them. The third man behind them looked disappointed and started to turn away. Bill grabbed his arm and whispered something in his ear. The man stopped and waited. The two men frowned down at him.
“Well, you’ve got a rifle don’t you?” the dark-haired man asked and Sean nodded. The man smiled. “Then sell me yours, I’ll give you five hundred gilders for it,” he informed Sean and smiled again. Sean shook his head.
“Then I wouldn’t have a rifle and I just got finished fighting in an Indian war, what if I got called up again and didn’t have a rifle to fight with, no, I couldn’t possibly sell you my rifle,” he informed them. The two men got angry.
“Do you know who I am?” the dark-haired man snapped. “I’m the son of Count Bentley and I demand that you sell me your rifle and that one of your relatives sell my friend theirs or I’ll have the soldiers up here inspecting your property faster than you can blink,” he threatened. Sean laughed.
“Sonny, you can bring the whole Hamish army up here if you want, we just fought with them against the Blackeyes and the Major we fought under was such a coward he hid underneath a big rock ever chance he could, we’d all love a big laugh,” he informed them. They looked angry and as if they’d like to run Sean over with their horses but then they noticed Ryan and Danny standing on the porch looking at them. Their hair might have been white, but there was nothing old about the rifles they were holding.
“I think you boys need to ride back to where you came from where daddy can protect you and give you every single thing you ask for,” Sean told them softly. “Up here on the Ridge is the real world and we don’t like the Hamish up here, now go on, go home little boys.” They looked around and suddenly noticed there were a lot of people watching them and a lot of those people had rifles in their hands.
“Maybe we should head back to Jamestown,” the blonde suggested. The dark-haired one glared at Sean.
“I’ll see you one day off of your mountain, Granddad,” he sneered. Sean laughed.
“You’d better hope not, sonny,” he told him. And watched them ride away. Then he waved at the family watching and went and sold another rifle.
The next day four wagons filled with rifles left the Ridge and headed to the Northwest territory, and then to Pembroke and New Lennox and St. Charles and finally Andalusia. And everywhere they stopped men remembered the Ridge men from the Indian war and the rifles because they had been so effective and so handy. Sean and his family were heroes for selling them so cheap. And he used the phrase ‘concerned citizen’ everywhere they went so they knew where the rifles were coming from. He knew that the odds were that some of the rifles would end up in the hands of Hamish sympathizers, but that most of the people were sick and tired of the Hamish and their outrageous taxes. The Hamish was making it too easy for the committee too for delegations of concerned citizens in every major city.
When the committee came to O’Brien’s Ridge and Henry made a speech about unity and forming a congress of delegates to address their problems to the Hamish, it was such a good speech everyone was impressed. Sean was very impressed. The community elected Mike O’Brien of course; he was the land grant holder and a natural leader. He asked Ben to go with him to Jamestown and then asked Sean if he wanted to go. Sean grinned at them both.
“I’m already invited, gentlemen, but thank you for the offer,” he told them and they looked confused. Sean leaned forward.
“Guess who is the General of the Anamylian Army?” he whispered. They both shocked.
“You’re the General of the Army; but we don’t have an Army,” Ben said weakly. Sean shrugged.
“Well, then, I guess I’ve been passing out all those rifles for the fun of it,” he said with a sly grin. They both nodded.
“So that’s what you’ve been doing with all those wagons and all those trips,” Mike said with admiration in his voice. Sean took a bow.
“Stock up on black dye in your store, Ben, I’m putting all the men in black coats when the time