a farm and can do anything. If they hire him he goes to work right away with his cap on and his collar and tie. He works so hard and long the farmers have to tell him to stop. They wonder how a man can work through a long hot day with no thought of food or drink. Dad smiles. He never brings home the money he earns on farms.That money seems to be different from the dole, which is supposed to be brought home. He takes the farm money to the pub and drinks it. If he’s not home when the Angelus rings at six o’clock Mam knows he had a day of work. She hopes he might think of his family and pass the pub even once, but he never does. She hopes he might bring home something from the farm, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, carrots, but he’ll never bring home anything because he’d never stoop so low as to ask a farmer for anything. Mam says ’tis all right for her to be begging at the St.Vincent de Paul Society for a docket for food but he can’t stick a few spuds in his pocket. He says it’s different for a man.You have to keep the dignity. Wear your collar and tie, keep up the appearance, and never ask for any- thing. Mam says, I hope it keeps fine for you. When the farm money is gone he rolls home singing and crying over  Ireland  and  his  dead  children, mostly  about  Ireland. If  he  sings Roddy McCorley, it means he had only the price of a pint or two. If he sings Kevin Barry, it means he had a good day, that he is now falling down drunk and ready to get us out of bed, line us up and make us promise to die for Ireland, unless Mam tells him leave us alone or she’ll brain him with the poker. You wouldn’t do that,Angela. I would and more.You better stop the nonsense and go to bed. Bed, bed, bed.What’s the use of going to bed? If I go to bed I’ll only have to get up again and I can’t sleep in a place where there’s a river sending poison to us in mist and fog. He goes to bed, pounds the wall with his fist, sings a woeful song, falls asleep. He’s up at daylight because no one should sleep beyond the dawn. He wakes Malachy and me and we’re tired from being kept up the night before with his talking and singing.We complain and say we’re sick, we’re tired, but he pulls back the overcoats that cover us and forces us out on the floor. It’s December and it’s freezing and we can see our breath. We pee into the bucket by the bedroom door and run down stairs for the warmth of the fire Dad has already started.We wash our faces and hands in a basin that sits under the water tap by the door.The 95