The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online

O’Briens, they’d be all over us like a rash. But we can’t donate organs to the church, or gold vestments to the sacristy, or a new horse and buggy to the nuns. So we don’t matter. They can do what they like to us.
    “I remember one day Sister Ag was so mad at me that she kept screaming at me, ‘Cry, for the love of heaven! Make a noise, Francis Cleary! If you’d give me the satisfaction of hearing you bellow, I wouldn’t hit you so hard or so often!’
    “That’s another reason why she hates us; it’s where we’re better than the Marshalls and the MacDonalds. She can’t make the Clearys cry. We’re supposed to lick her boots. Well, I told the boys what I’d do to any Cleary who even whimpered when he was caned, and that goes for you, too, Meggie. No matter how hard she beats you, not a whimper. Did you cry today?”
    “No, Frank,” she yawned, her eyelids drooping and her thumb poking blindly across her face in search of her mouth. Frank put her down in the hay and went back to his work, humming and smiling.
    Meggie was still asleep when Paddy walked in. His arms were filthy from mucking out Mr. Jarman’s dairy, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes. He took in Frank shaping an axle on the anvil, sparks swirling round his head, then his eyes passed to where his daughter was curled up in the hay, with Mr. Robertson’s bay mare hanging her head down over the sleeping face.
    “I thought this is where she’d be,” Paddy said, dropping his riding crop and leading his old roan into the stable end of the barn.
    Frank nodded briefly, looking up at his father with that darkling glance of doubt and uncertainty Paddy always found so irritating, then he returned to the white-hot axle, sweat making his bare sides glisten.
    Unsaddling his roan, Paddy turned it into a stall, filled the water compartment and then mixed bran and oats with a little water for its food. The animal rumbled affectionately at him when he emptied the fodder into its manger, and its eyes followed him as he walked to the big trough outside the forge, took off his shirt. He washed arms and face and torso, drenching his riding breeches and his hair. Toweling himself dry on an old sack, he looked at his son quizzically.
    “Mum told me Meggie was sent home in disgrace. Do you know what exactly happened?”
    Frank abandoned his axle as the heat in it died. “The poor little coot was sick all over Sister Agatha.”
    Wiping the grin off his face hastily, Paddy stared at the far wall for a moment to compose himself, then turned toward Meggie. “All excited about going to school, eh?”
    “I don’t know. She was sick before they left this morning, and it held them up long enough to be late for the bell. They all got sixers, but Meggie was terribly upset because she thought she ought to have been the only one punished. After lunch Sister Ag pounced on her again, and our Meggie spewed bread and jam all over Sister Ag’s clean black habit.”
    “What happened then?”
    “Sister Ag caned her good and proper, and sent her home in disgrace.”
    “Well, I’d say she’s had punishment enough. I have a lot of respect for the nuns and I know it isn’t our place to question what they do, but I wish they were a bit less eager with the cane. I know they have to beat the three R’s into our thick Irish heads, but after all, it was wee Meggie’s first day at school.”
    Frank was staring at his father, amazed. Not until this moment had Paddy ever communicated man-to-man with his oldest son. Shocked out of perpetual resentment, Frank realized that for all his proud boasting, Paddy loved Meggie more than he did his sons. He found himself almost liking his father, so he smiled without the mistrust.
    “She’s a bonzer little thing, isn’t she?” he asked.
    Paddy nodded absently, engrossed in watching her. The horse blew its lips in and out, flapping; Meggie stirred, rolled over and opened her eyes. When she saw her father standing beside Frank