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

Sean agreed with her.
“Five boys are enough children for any woman, Claire, we have a fine family. Let’s devote some time on the boys and ourselves,” he said and she smiled at him.
“You’re a good man, Sean,” she declared and kissed him. A lot of men would have insisted that she had only three of them and made her have more but not him. She loved him more every day. And she was very impressed with his ability to dream up inventions and make them real.
“How do you do that, think up stuff, draw them up and then make them real?” she asked him one day as she watched him and his men tinker around the truck in the workshop. Their sons played with little miniature trucks Lonnie had made them out of scrap metal, the little tires in them actually rolled around.
“I don’t know really,” Sean said with a big grin. “I guess if a man can think of something, he’ll figure out how to make it work eventually.” Todd gave a shout.
“The window shield wipers work now, Granddad,” he announced proudly and Sean grinned again.
“See what I mean,” he said and kissed her. Ryan and Danny who were three covered their eyes and giggled. Bobby who was six rolled his eyes.
“You guys are always doing that,” he complained. Sean ruffled his hair.
“Be grateful you little brat that you have parents who love each other,” he told him and Bobby grinned.
“Ah, I am, Dad,” he informed him. “But kissing a girl has got to be disgusting, it sure does look disgusting to me,” he told him and all the men in the room laughed. Kalin made a face, he agreed with his brother.
“You’ll find out when you’re older, lad, kissing can be fun with the right lass or lad,” his father told him. Both boys nodded and giggled. Claire looked worried.
“Should you be telling them about kissing lads?” she whispered. “After all the fuss the Church is making about people being Fey?” Sean frowned.
“The Church is always making a big fuss about something, there’s nothing wrong with being Fey, it’s just as natural for two men or two women to get married as it is for a man and a woman. You can’t pick what you are or what God made you for crying out loud,” he explained and she smiled.
“I love you, Sean Donoghue,” she said and to their older boy’s disgust they kissed again. Both boys rolled their eyes.
When the truck was ready to show off to the people, Sean drove it down to the road which had been paved for the motorcycles and everyone watched with amazement as he drove forward and then backed up. His team beamed with pride as the windshield wipers worked and the heater and air coolers blew hot and cold air. Everyone wanted one. Sean let more than a hundred men take a test drive around the town before it was too dark, the headlights and taillights worked great. Then he turned the project over to Lonnie and Todd for production and grinned at Young Sean who looked disappointed.
“Ah, lad, I’ve got another project in mind for you and Scott,” he said and Sean perked up.
“Better than the truck?” he asked with hope in his eyes. Sean nodded.
“About the same line, but its going to be better,” he told him and they went back to work. It took them a year to come up with the automobile or the car, as old Ryan named it and it was a beauty. Young Sean was very happy he had waited for the car.
January first seventeen eleven the family threw a huge two hundredth birthday party for Sean and while his wife and children didn’t get the joke, after all, they thought he was only thirty-six, Sean was touched by the gesture. He was even happier that his two grandsons Ryan who was eighty-two and Danny who was seventy-nine were still alive to celebrate with him.
“I can’t believe you’re two hundred years old, Granddad,” Ryan said when Sean sat down next to the two brothers at the party. Sean grinned and kissed him. Then he kissed Danny.
“I don’t feel a day over ninety,” he teased them and they laughed. Ryan sighed.
“I never thought I’d live to see eighty-two,” he said softly. “Do you know it’s been sixteen years since my Chris died?” Sean nodded and patted his hands. Danny sighed.
“My Elizabeth been dead for eighteen years,” he remarked sadly. Sean patted his hands next. “I can’t believe we’ve had these sixteen years together, us two brothers, we’ve been very lucky,” Danny added. Both Ryan and Sean nodded.
“I remember my brothers,” Sean told them. “I can still see their faces clearly in my mind. There was Charlie, he was a thinker that one, always working things out in his mind. Then there was Kevin, he was a rascal, always in trouble, he never stood still, always on the go. And then Brian, the last one, Annie spoiled him rotten but he was the nicest of all of us. Everyone liked him, but he used to play pranks like putting spiders in the girl’s bathrooms just to hear them scream,” Sean laughed just to remember them. Now both men patted his hands.
“Since you can draw so well, Granddad, maybe you should draw your family and friends from all of your lives, so you don’t forget what they looked like, before you get too old and forget them,” Ryan suggested gently and Sean looked surprised.
“I don’t think I could ever forget anyone, Ryan,” he told him just as gently. But then he nodded. “That might be a good idea anyway,” he said and kissed them.
So Sean got some really good, thick drawing paper and some good colored pencils, they called them pastels and began drawing his family and people from his past and putting them in leather books. He started with Hamish and when he was a lad growing up with his granddad Kevin and his grandmother Katherine and was surprised that he had to concentrate on her face to get it to come up. Maybe Ryan had been right, maybe he would forget some of the people.
Drawing his mother Bridget made him cry, so did Megan at eight. He drew several sketches of the village of Sweetwater and was surprised that it made him homesick. So did the ones he drew of the Fairie Mountains. The ones he did of Count Marley and the odious Richard made him hate them again and he was glad to put them in the book. But the ones he did of the townspeople made him smile as he remembered each and everyone. Sean started putting words on the back of the sketches of who the people were and how he knew them so he would know who each was when he was older. Just in case he forgot them.
He hid his new project from his wife knowing how difficult it would be to explain it to her. How could he explain who all these people were, especially when she saw the dates he wrote after each name? How could he explain knowing a shopkeeper named Ed Mason in fifteen hundred and twenty-four when he wrote about buying broken jars from him? It would be impossible.
The following year they rolled the car out and everyone gasped with excitement when they saw it.
“Oh, my God, Sean, what have you boys invented now?” someone yelled. Sean stood on a chair so the crowd could see him.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is the Donoghue automobile or the car as we like to call it and it’s going to make the horse and carriage obsolete,” he declared and they believed him. They especially believed him when he got in and drove it around the town. Then everyone begged him to ride in it and drive it themselves. Young Sean and Scott built a huge factory on the top of the west hill and started production immediately. Everyone was demanding a car of their own.
That summer a fleet of a hundred trucks rolled into Jamestown and astonished the citizens. With horns blasting they scared all of the horses and carriages out of the streets and took over the town. At the President’s offices, they looked out the windows and saw the strange looking contraptions racing up the streets.
“President Adams, come look quick, General Donoghue is driving up in one of those strange motorized wagons they’re calling the Donoghue Truck,” his secretary Beatrice called him from the doorway. Henry went to his window and watched with amazement as the strangest thing he had ever seen came moving down the driveway and came to a stop in front of the building. Sean Donoghue got out and looking up, waved at him. Henry laughed and waved back. He walked out of the office followed by his guards, the Security Chiefs.
“Sean, you old bastard, what have you invented now?” Henry and John greeted him and stared at the truck with complete amazement. Sean grinned at them.
“This, gentlemen is going to make wagons pulled by mules obsolete,” he informed them. “This is the crystal powered Donoghue truck and soon everyone in Anamylia is going to be driving them so if I were you I would order a couple of billion tons of that new stuff called concrete from the Tolvski’s and start paving the roads because the future is here.” They both looked shocked.
“You think this thing is going to replace the horse and wagons?” John asked with disbelief in his voice. Sean nodded and he leaned forward.
“And wait until you get a look at my automobile that’s going to replace horses and carriages,” he informed them and winked. They were both astonished.
“Just what are you people doing in that valley of yours?” Henry demanded to know. Sean grinned.
“It’s the Eighteen Century, gentlemen, you have to learn to keep up or get left behind,” he told them and offered them the chance to drive the truck. They couldn’t pass that up so they did and found out soon he was right, this was the wave of the future.
“That is the most clever man I have ever met,” Henry remarked to his best friend as they watched Sean and his new truck drive away. John nodded.
“And to think he started with taking apart toasters,” he said with awe in his voice. They both went back to work and marveled at it all. Henry decided to start a department of transportation right away to begin paving roads. If Sean said they needed to be paved, well then, they needed to be paved. He had been right about so many things; Henry wasn’t going to start doubting him now.
The following year a hundred cars rode down the streets of Jamestown and the people went wild. Here was something for everyone not just for the man who wanted to haul stuff. It had four doors and could seat a family of six comfortably and could be had for the low price of two hundred gilders. Everyone wanted one and young Sean and his partner took a thousand orders that week they debuted it. Production in their factory went to twenty-four hours a day and they became millionaires, building big mansions on the