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

boats. They had to make a dozen trips to get it all and filled a lot of caves. He even filled the gold mine with rifles making a ladder and climbing up himself and getting the sailors to lift the long crates up to him. He put two thousand rifles in the gold mine plus twenty barrels of gunpowder.
Then they docked at Portsmyth and Sean and his grandsons said farewell to their friends and agreed to meet them the following year when they returned to Anamylia.
“I’ll send word to the Ridge when we’ve docked,” Captain Gaston promised as they hugged their farewells.
“Good sailing to you, Pierre, and stay away from the whales,” Sean said with a grin. Pierre nodded and grinned back.
In Portsmyth Sean bought another horse, this time a chestnut mare to mate with Sir William and called her Katie like Jamie’s old horse and bought a wagon to fill with supplies to last them until the summer harvest. He also bought a dozen head of cattle, two pigs, a hundred chickens and a dairy cow he named Betsy. Two more rented wagons followed them home. Danny and Ryan sat on comfortable pillows in the back of one of them. They left at dusk, camped out overnight and made the Ridge in the afternoon of the next day. Everyone on Main Street turned to stare as the three wagons drove down it of course, Sean had expected it. The two old men waved at everyone and called out greetings.
“Hey, look its Danny and Ryan Donoghue back from Ennis with their grandson,” someone called out. Danny called back.
“Is my sister Annie still alive?” he asked someone on the street. They nodded.
“She is Danny, she’s still living in Sean Donoghue’s old house waiting for you two to come home,” he told him. The two men laughed and hugged. They looked at Sean who was grinned.
“I told you she’d still be alive, Granddad, and I bet she wishes she’d come with us,” Ryan retorted. Sean nodded.
When they pulled up to the barn in front of Sean’s house, the two men rushed off the wagons, Sean had to rush over to help them.
“Slow down, you two boys, you don’t want to fall off and break something now do you?” he scolded them gently. Ryan flushed.
“No, I guess we don’t, sorry, Granddad,” he apologized. Sean laughed and ruffled his hair.
“She’ll still be there in a minute, hold on, Danny, let me help you down, I swear you two are worse than wee ones, you’re so impatient,” he said and grinned. Finally they were both safe on the ground and he let them go. The rushed up to the house and Annie was waiting on the porch. It was a very tearful reunion. Sean felt tears come to his eyes and he wanted to join them but there were wagons to unload and people wanting to go back to Portsmyth so he went to work instead.
Finally the chickens were in their house, the pigs were in theirs, the cow was in the barn, one of the cattle was tied up out back waiting to be butchered, the others in the corral, and all the supplies were in the house waiting to be put away and Sean was free to go inside. The rented wagons were on their way back to Portsmyth, the men happy with the twenty gilder bonus Sean had given them for their troubles.
“Well, I see you got my brothers home safe and sound, but we lost a year we should have spent together,” Annie said when he entered the kitchen. They were all sitting around drinking coffee. Ryan and Danny rolled their eyes. Sean grinned and bending down, kissed her cheek.
“How lovely it is to see you too, Annie, darling,” he told her and got a cup for his coffee. She sniffed.
“I’m seventy years old, Granddad, I don’t know how long I’ll live, you can’t be taking the boys away from me again,” she told him firmly and he nodded and sat down.
“Ah, lass, you’re so ornery, you’ll going to live to be ninety at least,” he teased her and she rolled her eyes.
“That’s not charming, Granddad, that’s just rude,” she snapped and all the men laughed. Sally the housekeeper offered them food and they all said yes. Sean got up and helped her to her surprise and soon they were eating fried potatoes with ham, eggs and toast.
Then the boys went to lie down in their room, Annie went to sit on the porch and Sean helped Sally and Bill her husband who both were living upstairs put away all the supplies and food. Soon the cabinets and cellar were filled. Then Sean harnessed up two of the mules he had just bought and began to plow the big field he used to plow with Jamie. No one had plowed it for years and the dirt was hard and tough to dig through but he had always loved digging up the dirt and today was no exception.
He plowed through dinner, just waved them aside when they called him and then plowed deep into the night. When it got to be after eleven he stopped and went in to eat and take a nice hot soak and go to sleep. He had muscles aching that he hadn’t used in years but it felt so good to be back in the fields again working in the land.
The next morning Sean woke up at five and went out to the barn to milk the cow and felt like crying, it felt so good to be back in the old routine.
“Hi, Betsy, it’s just you and me, lass,” he told her and gave her a cup of oats to munch on while he milked her. Toby the cat meowed at his feet and he squirted some milk onto the floor for him to lick up. The cat attacked it and wanted more so he gave him some more and then went to the house. Sally wasn’t up yet, he guessed she and Bill slept in because the old ones did.
So Sean made his breakfast as quietly as he could. He took out the milk fat for butter and put ice cubes in his glass of milk so he could drink it cold. He ate and then went out to the fields again. The sun was just up and the day promised to be a good one, nice and sunny. He could see others in their fields just like he was and some of them waved at him so he waved back. About two hours later the two brothers and Annie came out to the porch and waved at him so he waved back at them.
“He sure is a hard worker ain’t he?” Danny remarked as they watched Sean expertly turn the mules at the corner of the field and start another row. Ryan nodded.
“He’s never happier than when he’s digging up the dirt, he loves it,” he informed him and the grandchildren came to listen to stories about the cannibals and Ryan was so busy telling stories all morning he didn’t have time to watch Sean do his work.
“Tell the children about cannibals and giving them nightmares, their mothers are going to come up here and spank you, old man,” Sean teased when he took his supper break. Ryan looked guilty and Sean laughed.
“I didn’t mean to scare them,” he stammered. Sean put his hand on his grandson’s shoulder.
“Ah, lad, I was just teasing, that’s what Granddads are supposed to do, tell scary stories, let their parents deal with them,” he said and the two old men relaxed. They all went in to supper. Annie laughed.
“I don’t believe half of what you were saying anyway, Ryan Donoghue, people eating people, you were probably making it all up to scare the children,” she slapped his arm. Sean looked at her and shook his head.
“He wasn’t making any of that up, lass; those cannibals actually exist and they almost ate the missionaries and they would have if we hadn’t rescued them,” he informed her and Ryan shuddered. Sean put his arm around his shoulder and hugged him.
“You’re going to scare yourself with those old stories, silly goose,” he said softly and Ryan grinned.
“Not as long as I have Chris to protect me I won’t have any nightmares,” he told him and Sean nodded.
“What do you mean as long as you have Chris?” Annie demanded. “Chris is dead and buried on Topangan,” she snapped and Ryan shook his head. He went to his room and came back with the large beautiful clay jar containing the ashes of his loved one.
“Here is Chris,” he announced. Both Annie and Danny as well as Sally and Bill looked mystified. Sean explained about the jar containing the burned ashes of Ryan’s beloved Chris and how when Ryan died he would be burned the same way and his ashes combined in the jar with his lover’s and the two buried together. Danny, Sally and Bill all thought that was a lovely thing to do, but Annie clearly though her brother had gone mad.
“Ryan Donoghue, have you gone mad, what kind of crazy thing is that to do to your poor body. How’s it going to get to get to heaven when you’ve burnt it up to ashes, it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” she spat and turned to Sean. “And why are you encouraging him. And you let poor Chris burn up his body, you’re all fools. You lived on that island too long and all that sun’s fried your brains.”
Both Ryan and Sean burst out laughing. She glared at them; it seemed she didn’t appreciate their reaction to her outbreak. Sean took her hands in his.
“Annie, lass, your body doesn’t go to heaven, it stays here on earth in the grave where they bury it so you don’t need it anymore after you die,” he informed her gently. “It’s your spirit that’s goes to heaven. What Chris and Ryan are doing is an old Topangan custom and it’s a beautiful one, it ensures that their bodies here on earth will be together for all eternity while their spirits are together forever in heaven. You may not understand it but you have no right to condemn it, so hush your mouth, lass. You can do whatever you want with your body, it’s yours but your brother has every right to do what he wants with his body, it’s his right.” Sean’s voice was very firm and she slowly nodded. Ryan smiled and he reached out and took his Granddad’s hand and kissed it.
Once spring planting was over, Sean did the whole big field with vegetables and a whole field of melons and strawberries as well as trimming back the blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. Then he planted two big fields of barley and went across the river and trimmed back the hops that was growing wild and free. Next he and the boys built several tall, large targets so he could take out the rifles and practice shooting them. He read the instruction book that came with them, learned how to clean them, they came with a can of cleaning solution, several small cloths and a long metal stick that had a hook at one end that one attached a cloth to stick down the long barrel.