Page 1 of 10 Music on the Wind —by Gardiner M. Weir In the spring of forty-six my Uncle Danny was around forty and still not married. His mother could not understand it at all. "Ye need to be fruitful and multiply!" she would remind him. "Aye!" "All the hard labor Ah've put into raisin' ye a Christian. An' Ye know why?" "Aye!" "So yer soul can dwell at ease and yer seed can inherit the earth. That's in the psalms so it is. So yer seed can inherit the earth. Can't ye see?" "Aye!" "It's this farm Ah'm talkin' about. This farm! All eighty acres of it!" "Aye!" Danny's mother had done her best over the years to help her son fulfill the spirit of the biblical text and, on his behalf, had sorted through the young women in the townland and many townlands beyond. "Ye don't want to marry a hussie, so ye don't!" A little lipstick and high heels was every indication of the wrong woman for her son. Those were hussies! But, from what I could gather, inheriting a few acres of land would fully compensate for any flights of fancy the candidate might have. "Don't ye realize a' the wimmen o' yer age are marriet already an' hae children. There's no a wan left." There was always an intense glare in her eyes when she confronted her son on the topic of marriage. But Uncle Danny was not to be rushed.  "Agh oh!" she would sigh. Auld Mrs. McKillop had watched her son grow older, more withdrawn and now, thick set, a bit humped on the back and hardly handsome, who would look at him? Only some penniless widow like Martha, and her with a child to rear. "Go talk to Martha! I tell ye. Ye'll wait an' ye'll wait and' she'll marry the schoolmaster." "Aye!" "She has sixty-wan acres an' needs a man. Sixty-wan acres! Think o' that! Sixty-wan!" "Aye!' Danny had indeed thought of Martha, a kindly woman whose farm joined his. "Martha! Whyn't you an' me get marriet?" He looked at her with his tight little eyes as if that was the most logical thing in the world. Martha simply shook her head. "Why not?" he continued, an intense argumentative tone to his voice. "Ah got eighty acres, so Ah have. An' over forty ewes this year an' maybe sixty next. What ye say, hi?" Continued on Music on the Wind, page 2 Copyright © Gardiner M. Weir.January 2000 Page updated 19 Nov  2005 Background and Ireland's OWN logo by Míchealín Ní Dhochartaigh Copyright © 2005 Ireland's OWN. All Rights Reserved.