The Fourth Life of Sean Donoghue, Trish Hanan [interesting books to read txt] 📗

of the Ridge weren’t as loose as they had been on the island so he guessed he would have to settle for good old fashioned masturbation for a while.
“Any of those young ladies look interesting to you, Granddad?” Ryan whispered as they sat in their pew, he glanced over at a group of ladies who were whispering and looking at Sean and giggling.
“They’re giggling, Ryan, for God’s sake, your grandmom never giggled like that,” Sean snapped. Ryan and Danny looked at each other and raised an eyebrow.
“He’s not going to be easy to marry off,” Danny whispered. Ryan nodded.
“I tried for forty-eight years on Topanga and he never met anyone he liked,” he whispered back. Annie shushed them; Father Zucker was beginning the service.
And it was a long and boring service, at least to Sean who had sat through hundreds of them. He was a hundred and eighty-seven and he had been attending Church most of his life so he figured he had sat through at least a million of these same boring services. And they all said the same thing. God is love, be kind to your neighbor, do to others the way you want them to do to you. Give generously to the Church so they can spread the message of love to the world. And women obey your husbands because they’re the leaders of the house and they know what’s best and God told you to. It’s your job to bare the burden of bearing children and a sin to do it outside of marriage so be strong and don’t do it. Men are weak and it’s a woman’s job to be the stronger one and wait until marriage. Sean thought it all a load of crap. What right did the priests who knew anything about women or children have to tell them what their jobs were.
But he sat through the service and saw all the women nodding their heads like good little girls and knew they believed what they were hearing and wondered how long it would take them to quit and tell the priests to go pound sand up their arses. Maybe when they got tired of being the strong ones who got blamed for everything and had to bare the responsibility when too many children were born and the poor husband worked himself to an early grave trying to support all of them.
“Did you enjoy the service, Sean?” Annie asked as they stood in the foyer. She was surprised when he shook his head; she had thought it a lovely sermon.
“Any woman who believes all that rot is an idiot,” he told her and several women nearby gasped. Mrs. Carter, an older woman marched up to him and demanded he explain why he thought that, she believed a woman’s scared duty was to bear children for God.
“A woman doesn’t have a duty to God, she has a duty to live the best, happiest life she can, to find someone to love who loves her and if having children makes them both happy they should have children,” Sean informed her. “But if they don’t want children and want to devote themselves entirely to making each other happy, then they should be able to, it’s their lives and no one has the right to tell them how to live it, not their parents, not their friends, and especially some priests who has made the decision not to marry and have children himself.” A few people nodded and a few people were shocked. Mrs. Carter was shocked.
“Father Zucker can’t get married and have children, he’s given his life to God,” she snapped. Sean nodded.
“And it’s his life to do that. But he has no right telling other people how they should live their lives, especially telling women, who priests know nothing about, that they should kill themselves having child after child because God told them to,” he snapped back. “Does God tell them how to feed and clothe all those children or how to get another husband because the one who gave you all those children has died killing himself working to support all those children? The priests don’t mention that in their sermons do they?”
Now more than a few people were nodding and Mrs. Carter looked like she was going to faint. Sean took pity on her and bid her a good day and walked away. Several people clapped as he left the Church.
“I think in the spring I’ll be planting a whole lot of Wild Blue Tansies,” Sean remarked casually as he drove the carriage home. Annie laughed.
“Blue Tansies, I haven’t thought about those for years. I guess no one has,” she commented with a sly grin on her face. “I suspect the Ridge’s birth rate is going to be getting a lot less in the years to come.” The men laughed.
In December Sean bundled up the two men and loaded up the wagon with barrels of beer and headed down to Jefferies. When they walked in with Sean carrying a barrel over his shoulder the tavern went silent.
“Hey, Granddad, is that your famous beer?” Todd yelled across the silence. Sean nodded and put the barrel up on the bar. One man turned to Todd.
“Why do all of you call Sean, Granddad, he’s only twenty-one?” he asked. Todd and a few others laughed.
“It’s because he looked just like the first Sean Donoghue, the one in the painting with Maggie,” Ryan announced and they all nodded. The other man nodded, it made some sense to them. They watched with bated breath as Sean shoved the tap in without using a hammer.
“He’s a strong one,” someone remarked.
Then Sean poured a little and then dumped it out, explaining to Stan about the rinsing out the tap and, of course, someone complained about his beer tasting like metal. Sean had to grin; it was like a scene from his life playing all over again and again. Then he poured a nice full mug for Stan to taste and waited for the next comment, it didn’t take long.
“It’s a nice color,” someone commented and Sean grinned as he handed the mug over. Stan took it and took a big sip. His eyes widened and he grinned.
“That’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted, God-damned that’s good,” he declared and everyone rushed to empty their glasses in the buckets Ryan and Danny held out and stood in line for Sean to fill them. Then Sean filled mugs for him and the boys and everyone cheered.
“This is the best damned beer I ever tasted,” Todd exclaimed and he came over to pat Sean on the back. Douglas nodded.
“This is better than Danny used to make,” he said and apologized to Danny who shrugged.
“Guess who taught me how to make beer?” he teased and hugged Sean. Everyone who knew the secret laughed. Even those who had no clue laughed, they were so happy. Sean and Stan agreed on a fair price which was three gilders less than the price he was paying now and some men went out to the wagon and brought in the other seven barrels.
“And there’s plenty more where that came from so drink up boys,” Sean told them and they cheered again. Sean laughed and sat down with his grandsons. Douglas came over to join them and the four men talked. Then his brother Ben came in and his eyes lit up when he heard that Sean had made the beer.
“Granddad made the beer, oh, my God, I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he declared and he sat with him and took a big sip. Sighing with pleasure he closed his eyes. “Oh, Danny, that’s even better than yours,” he said and apologized. Danny laughed.
“That’s okay, Granddad is the one who taught me how to process the barley when I was just a wee lad,” he told him and of course he and Sean had to tell them that story which led to other stories and Douglas who had just been born after Ryan and Sean left for Topanga and missed those days got misty-eyed. Sean patted his hands.
“I’m sorry, Douglas, I wasn’t here for when you were a wee lad,” he said and Douglas nodded.
“I know why you had to go, Granddad, people would have wondered after you reached ninety or so why you didn’t die, after a hundred they would have blamed it on Satan and burned you for a witch,” he leaned forward to whisper. Sean nodded.
“Maybe in the future people won’t be so superstitious to believe in such nonsense,” he said. They all looked surprised.
“But don’t you believe in witches and the devil?” Ryan asked him. Sean shrugged.
“Most of the stuff that these so-called witches do are mostly herbs and stuff like that, I don’t believe they can put a hex on a person,” he said firmly. “And as far as the devil is concerned, I think man is evil enough, he doesn’t need any help from Satan to think of new ways to torment his fellow man.” They all nodded and Ryan and Sean thought of the cannibals and shuddered.
Winter Solstice came and the whole Ridge celebrated with a big party on Main Street. It was uncommonly warm for the time of year and they had big fires going so Sean’s house went. Sean took five barrels of beer since the Ridge had grown so much. Annie and Sally baked several cakes and pies and Sean made a big pot of stew.
“Sean made the stew, well; the man is really handy isn’t he?” Betty Vernon remarked as she put the stew over a fire and stirred it up. Betty was one of the single ladies who had set her sights on the handsome young man. The only fly in her ointment was the three old people he had living with him, but she intended to send them packing first thing. She wasn’t spending her early married days caring for three old folks, not when little children were coming.
“Oh, yes, Sean can cook, bake and run the sewing machine, he’ll make a girl a fine husband,” Sally informed all the young ladies listening to the conversation. She didn’t like Betty Vernon one little bit. She’d noticed that little face of disgust the girl made whenever she looked at old people like she couldn’t stand them. And she knew how much Sean loved those three old people he lived with, Betty didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere with him if she went around making those faces.
Sean gathered in a group of men around one of the fires that included the current land grant holder Mike O’Brien and Ben Stone the owner of the five and dime. Both men greeted the young beer maker and made room for him. Anyone who had two thousand gilders to spend on liquor licenses was a man worth knowing. Plus Ben was doing business with him in the store. Someone who could bring back merchandise under the Hamish noses was also someone worth knowing.
The men were talking about poor Kenneth Hamilton who had just been refused permission to marry the young Miss Emily Duncan. Sean was astonished.
“How old is Miss Duncan?” he asked calmly.
“Nineteen,” Ben replied and Sean snorted.
“Well the lass is old enough to make up her own mind on who she wants to