The following images are reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland: L_CAB_04918, this page; L_ROY_08496, this page; L_IMP_1507, this page; CLON618, this page; CLON1646, this page; L_CAB_09217, this page; CLON2156, this page; L_ROY_01767, this page; L_ROY_02921, this page; M56/43, this page; L_ROY_09179, this page; EPH E124, this page; L_ROY_05267, this page; L_ROY_05256, this page; L_ROY_01772, this page; L_IMP_1506, this page; L_ROY_11600, this page.
The photographs on the following pages are reproduced courtesy of Historical Picture Archives: this page; this page; this page.
The books refered to on this page are the Lonford writer Maria Edgeworth’s
Castle Rackvent and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Copyright © 2019 by Patricia Reilly Giff
All Rights Reserved
HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
www.holidayhouse.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Giff, Patricia Reilly, author.
Title: A slip of a girl / by Patricia Reilly Giff.
Description: First edition. | New York : Holiday House, [2019] | Summary: “Set during the Irish Land Wars (1879–1882) this novel in verse follows Anna Mallon through a series of tragedies as her mother dies, older siblings immigrate to America, and she and her father and sister with special needs are about to be evicted from their farm”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2018040274 | ISBN 9780823439553 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Ireland—History—1837–1901—Juvenile fiction. CYAC: Novels in verse. | Ireland—History—1837–1901—Fiction. Family life—Ireland—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.G54 Sl 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040274
Ebook ISBN 9780823443086
v5.4
a
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Home
Sounds
The Hill
A Word
Liam
Spring
Leaving
Mam
Hens
Last Day
Saying Goodbye
The Well
St. Mary’s
The Rent
Another Promise
Reading
The Schoolmaster
Hungry July
Shapes
Rain
Awake
The Stranger
The Letter
The Little People
Fall
The River
Liam’s House
Counting
The Big House
Waiting…
The Agent
The Barracks
Away
Escape
The Shed
The Farmer
Food
The Road
Traveling
Another Shed
How Far?
The Well
The River
Lough Ree
The Loom
A Brown Cow
Days
Spring
Wool
Resting
Weaving
Martin
Nuala
Working
A New Day
The Big House
The Kitchen
My Book
The Lough
What I’ll Do
The Trip
Going Home
Almost There
The Beginning
The War
The Priest
Morning
The Second Day
The Third Day
After
The Fourth Day
The Field
Mae
My Loom
Years
Glossary
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
For my Longford great-grandmothers:
Elizabeth McClellan Reilly
of Clonbroney,
who survived the Hunger,
and
Anna Rogers Mollaghan,
and for her father, Thomas
of Drumlish,
who lived through the Land War,
with deepest admiration,
and for
their grandson,
William Reilly,
my dad,
with love
Home
Sounds
IN the back field,
I’m bent double, hidden,
pulling up chickweed
for our tea.
Since the Ryans were tossed out,
this field belongs to the English earl,
and his sheep,
who huddle near the stone wall.
Nearby, screams begin.
They come from a mud house
that shelters a family of girls:
Bridey, Mair, Kate,
and Mag,
I forgot the new baby’s name,
Cassie?
I stand tiptoed,
trying to see.
The crash comes
over their screams.
The bashing in!
Dust rises up:
the house of five girls
and a mam is gone.
They’re forced out on the road,
maybe to starve.
I clutch my fist to my chest.
I’m afraid for the five girls
and the mam.
I’m afraid for us,
Mam and Da,
Willie and John,
Jane and Nuala,
and even more afraid
for me, Anna.
But didn’t Da say
we’re all right?
A house that has been destroyed by a battering ram during an eviction in County Clare
(This image is reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland L_CAB_04918.)
The Hill
AFTER supper that night,
I climb my hill.
It’s steep and rocky,
but my bare feet know the way.
I sing one of Da’s old songs.
I won’t think about those poor things
on the road.
From behind the hedgerow,
my brother Will says,
“She has a mouth on her,
that Anna.”
And John: “With a voice like a frog.”
I make a frog sound,
laughing,
and go on.
I carry an old potato,
green with mold.
If one of the little people
comes up from the earth,
I’ll throw it to him,
and dash awa
y while he eats.
From here, I can see the world,
my world anyway:
the bogs that cover the earth
like blankets,
and the snipes that fly high.
There’s the top of Liam’s roof,
the thatch tan with weeds.
Beyond that, the schoolhouse.
I close my eyes.
I’ve never been inside.
I’m needed at home.
The corn mill rises up below,
its great wheel creaking
as it grinds the grain.
The English earl’s house spreads out
like a castle.
He’s a man to be feared.
He could put us out to starve,
if he wished.
A sudden wind loosens a stone.
It rolls and moves another.
Something is underneath.
I catch my breath.
A book!
I’ve never seen one before,
except in church.
One cover is missing.
The other is the color
of a January field.
It has a picture of a horse,
its mane flying.
I clutch the book to myself,
wondering at those silky pages.
Imagine knowing what the writing says!
I fly down the hill,
to tell my best friend, Liam.
and circle around the Donnellys’.
The oldest, Mae, raises her hand
to wave.
She looks tired.
She has more to do than any of us,
with her da gone,
and five children in
steps and stairs
behind her.
Liam meets me
at the crumbling stone wall.
I don’t say a word,
but hold the book in front of me.
“Oh, Anna,” he says.
He reaches out,
almost touching it,
and then my hand.
“If only I could read,” I say.
He nods.
A Word
THAT night while everyone sleeps,
I sit on the rush chair
at the hearth.
The room is cozy.
The banked glow of peat
gives enough light
to see my treasure,
the book!
I stare at the cover,
and picture the horse
pawing the ground,
as I climb on his back.
We soar across the field
and jump over the wall.
I lean closer to the firelight.
The circles and lines
under the picture must say
Horse!
A joy like listening
to Da’s stories,
or swinging along the boreen
with Liam,
fills my chest
and spills into my throat.
I go to Mam’s bed.
She never sleeps.
How thin she looks!
Her eyes are sunken,
her cheeks flushed.
Please, let her just be tired.
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“I can read a word.”
She touches my cheek.
“Alannah, my Anna,”
she whispers.
Liam
WE sit on the stone wall,
our heads close,
and search through the book
to see Horse.
It’s printed on almost
every page.
We know dozens of words,
all Horse.
But still…
“Anna?” Liam begins.
I glance at his blue-gray eyes,
the color of a windy sky.
“We haven’t paid the rent,”
he says.
“Not this quarter,
not the last two.”
“This year may be different,”
I say desperately.
grasping his arm.
“It’s almost time to plant.”
“If the weather holds,
we’ll have vegetables
to sell,
and lumper potatoes to fill us
next winter.”
“It’s too late,” Liam says,
his hand on mine.
“We’ll be out on the road,
Mam and me.”
I can’t see the earl’s house
from here.
Still I look toward it.
Rage rises up in my throat.
I swallow,
try to speak over it.
“Our land,” is all I can manage.
“Someday,” Liam says,
touching the curl of my hair.
Spring
MARCH is here,
time to plant.
With knives in our hands,
we cut the eyes
from seed potatoes.
We’ll tuck them in the earth,
where they’ll send up green shoots
and purple blossoms.
Then underneath,
lumpers!
My sister Jane is old enough
But her mind is far away,
on a ship to America.
She slices her finger
as well as the potato.
Ah, Jane.
Mam and I rub her arms,
while Willie pats her head,
and John finds a cobweb
to stop the bleeding.
Da croons, “Don’t cry, astore.”
We set the cuts in the field.
Mam bends,
trying to catch her breath,
her fine hair blowing in the breeze.
She pats the soil
the way she pats us.
“Our mother, the earth,”
she says.
Nuala grabs my skirt,
wanting a bit of potato,
not to plant, but to eat.
Her smiling face looks
almost like Mam’s.
I gather her up,
twirl her around.
“Someday,” I say.
If only the days are clear,
and the lumpers can grow.
“Listen, sky,” I yell,
my fist raised.
“Hold back the rain
for us,
and for Liam and his mam.”
Leaving
AFTER the potatoes, the oats,
and the summer cabbage
begin to grow,
Will and John go down the road,
arms slung around each other’s
shoulders.
They’ve worked hard in town,
mucking out the hotel barn,
washing windows,
and sweeping the street.
They have enough coins now,
just,
to pay for passage.
Their ship will sail from Cork,
to Brooklyn, America.
Da stands in the field,
one hand raised in blessing.
Mam’s face is set
so they won’t see her tears.
I look hard after my brothers.
I’ll never see them again.
“Take me,” Jane cries,
until the road turns
and they’re gone forever:
Willie who carried me on his shoulder
when I was Nuala’s age,
and John so tough
he could walk through nettles,
but was soft for Jane.
I pick up a clod of damp earth
and hold it tight in my fist.
America is not for me.
That faraway place is for my brothers,
and maybe for Jane.
But I belong to this country.
If only it belonged to me.
Mam
IT’S early, still dark.
Mam is at the hearth.
I go to help with the cooking.
She stands, stirring,
one hand
against the stones,
balancing herself.
The wooden spoon falls
to the floor,
spattering hot soup.
She sinks down for it,
her hand sliding,
and kneels there.
I stare at her.
She’s bone thin,
her hair was red
like mine
but streaked white now.
Are we going to lose her?
She turns.
I can’t hide my fear.
“I’m all right, child.”
She raises her shoulder
a bit.
I go toward her,
stumbling.
“I can’t do without you,”
I say fiercely.
I bury my head
in her chest.
All right, I tell myself.
She’s all right.
Hens