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

in Jamestown which he could now drive to in only four hours and blasted every Church service out every Sunday through the summer with the horns in his cars and trucks. The people in Jamestown were quite amused and went out and bought horns so they could help. The Bishop of the St. Charles Church and Reverend Daniels of the Freedom Church were not quite as amused.
“What is Sean Donoghue’s problem, the man is married and has five son for God’s sake, why does he care if Fey people can get married or not?” the Bishop snapped. Reverend Daniels sighed.
“I don’t know but if those blasted horns honk through another one of my sermons, I swear I’ll marry every Fey man in Anamylia just to shut them up, I don’t care what the Cardinal says anymore, I hear those damned horns in my sleep,” he sounded like he wanted to cry. The Bishop sighed. His five priests looked at him and sighed.
“Maybe we should ask him to stop,” one of the priests suggested. The Bishop glared at him.
“I sent him a letter and he sent one back demanding that I marry two men he knows in that valley of his who want to be married,” he snapped at him. The priest frowned. They couldn’t think of anything.
Then the next Sunday came and it was the Sunday heard all over the world as people in Hamish, Ennis, Chervek, Tolvski and Anamylia all got together and during the Sunday service blew their horns. The Cardinal was blasted out of St. Charles Square and the horns blared all afternoon until he couldn’t stand it anymore. They ran for nine days until the Church announced a revision of its earlier decision and said that it would marry anyone, straight or Fey who wanted to get married. The world celebrated with a big party and home in Donoghue’s Valley Sean was the happiest.
“You’re not even Fey, Dad, why’d you stick up for them like that?” his twelve year old son Kalin asked him. Sean looked down at him.
“Every man or women deserves the right to marry the person they’re in love with and to bring children into that union if they want to and no one has the right to tell them they can’t,” he explained. “And the minute you let someone take away the rights of someone, even if you’re not that someone, what makes you think they won’t be taking away your rights the next time?” Kalin nodded.
“You’re very clever, for an old man,” he teased him. Sean grabbed him and hugged him. The other boys, thinking this was time to wrestle, ran over and soon they were all over the floor while Claire watched and sighed.
“Why couldn’t at least one of you be a girl?” she asked. Ryan grabbed his twin.
“Danny wants to be a girl, Mom, put him in a pink dress, he’ll look really cute,” he told her with a sly grin. Danny laughed and grabbed his twin around the neck.
“You’ll die for that you Hamish pig,” he declared and they dropped to the floor while Claire laughed.
“Not even a dress would make either of you two a sweet little girl,” she said.
The next five or six years passed happily for the family on the mountainside. The valley churned out trucks, cars, plowers and motorcycles as fast as they could and people bought them just as fast. The barrels of gold in the basement stacked up
Then a Tolvski from an Orthodox religion suggested that everyone put their coin into banks and the government issue a paper currency called money in denominations of one, five, ten, twenty, fifty and hundred dollar bills that would be easy to carry in wallets and purses and wouldn’t be as heavy as gold. The economy would run more efficient and the government would back the money up by depositing the same amount that was out in paper in gold in a depository.
Thus, the department of Treasury was born and money was invented. Henry Adams of course was on the one dollar bill and John Matthews on the five dollar and the hero of the famous Battle of Jamestown Harbor, General Sean Donoghue was selected for the twenty dollar bill. Luckily for him, they used his picture from the painting of the younger more dashing hero. Sean almost refused them, but figured that in the years ahead, hairstyles and all would change and not many would recognize him. Besides he was fooling everyone anyway so why not everyone. And his family loved the idea of their granddad and father on a twenty dollar bill.
The money when it came out was green with pretty colors. His bill had a picture of Jamestown Fort with the harbor behind it. It was very impressive. He contributed two barrels of coin to the treasury so they would have enough gold to print the money. Everyone who wanted money went to the bank and purchased it with gold and soon it was all the rage and everyone agreed it was easier to carry than gold and silver.
Coins were also minted to replace the old ones and Sean found himself again on the dime, his majestic face on one side and Jamestown fort on the other. He bought six rolls of them and put them away along with fifty twenties and fifty of each bill. One day they would be worth a fortune if they were still being used in the future. He put away six rolls of every coin, pennies, nickels, quarters, half-dollars and silver dollars.
Of course some people preferred the old gold and still used it but more and more people began to use currency and it began to become more common. Banks became more common also and things like checking accounts began being used. You put your money in a bank and they gave you checks to write to the dress shop or store. The store took your check to the bank and the bank gave them the money. Usually the store had an account at the same bank and they just put the money from your account into the store’s account without actually touching the money. It was the wave of the future.
Sean could see some trouble in that, people writing checks with money they didn’t have, but if the banks wanted to trust people, that was his business. He was busy playing with the black crystal he had found in the cave behind the waterfall.
It wasn’t an energy crystal, that much was clear but it did make a nice sound whenever he touched it with a copper wire. The only problem was what could he do with that? He tried putting some of it in a box but it rang horribly and he didn’t like that at all, so he put it away for a couple of years.
Then a man in Tolvski, they were calling themselves scientist now along with being inventors, invented a process while he was playing around with carbo-oil, that produced a flaky item that when melted became very hard like metal. He called it plastic and it immediately became very popular. It could be melted and shaped into many different things from cups and bowls to spoons and forks and baskets and plates and anything you could imagine.
When Sean found out about it, he traded a barrel full of energy crystals for a ton of the stuff and brought it to his workshop.
“What have you got there, Dad?” sixteen year-old Kalin asked as he wandered into the workshop on a Saturday morning. Sean glanced up and grinned.
“This is something from Tolvski, it’s called plastic and I’m going to invent something with it,” he informed him. Kalin nodded and sat across from him.
“What?” he asked as he eyed the little black balls. He picked one up and studied it. His dad shrugged.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ve got these black crystals that I found in the mine a few years ago and they make a sound when you touch them with copper wire and I’m going to make a box out of the plastic and put one into it and see what happens,” Sean explained. Kalin nodded and he stood up. He patted his dear old dad on his back.
“Well have fun doing it, I’m going to ride my motorcycle down to the track with the boys,” he told him and Sean nodded.
“Make sure you wear your helmet or your mother will hear about it and you’ll never stop hearing about it,” he warned him and they both grinned.
“Ah, I will, I don’t want my head exploding like a melon,” his son said wisely and he left his father to his task. A few minutes later Zack wandered into the workshop but he was nine and didn’t have much to do so he stayed to watch and lend his dad a hand.
Together they melted the plastic and formed a nice little box with a lid and then rolled some copper wire really thin. They glued a little black crystal into the box and attached a copper wire to it and it made a nice sound. Sean had the idea of punching holes in the lid so the sound could get out and they could hear it better. Zach picked up the box and talked to it and the sound immediately sang back to them. They were both shocked.
“Do that again,” Sean ordered and Zack picked up the box.
“Hello, box,” he said.
“Hello, box,” the box said. They looked at each other and grinned.
“That’s very clever,” Sean told his son who beamed. Sean thought about it for a minute then began to draw. Zach grew bored with that and left. Sean then made another plastic model but this one was a long thing that had two boxes, one on each end and a wire that ran through it. He attached a crystal to each box and put the wire to each one and when he spoke into the mouth box, he heard it come out of the ear box. It was amazing. He had invented something but he didn’t know what it was or what he could do with it. But he did notice that the big crystals he had dug out hummed when he talked to the little ones.
Sean worked on his telephone for the next three years and his family was amused by his dedication to the project. His wife always enjoyed listening to stories about his tinkering as she called it and his children thought him funny, the way he carried about in his workshop. Sean had men to do his plowing and field work for him now, he was rich and working on his phone took all of his concentration, he didn’t want to be disturbed when he was on to something this important.
Still he took time out to take his sons fishing and hunting although the noise of the factories drove the game away and his boys weren’t that interesting in shooting things, they’d rather be riding their motorcycles or driving cars around the tracks or taking them apart. They were a different breed of mountain men than his previous sons. This was an industrial age and everyone was interested in how things worked and building better things to make the old tasks easier. Trains and cars got them there faster than mules and horses ever did and people worked