LITMIR.BIZ

      It was November of 1914. The world was at war. Ireland was shaking with rage at its exploitation by the English lords. The mess had started centuries ago, when the screaming Tudor woman had colonized them and used them to defeat Spain. Through the following centuries, famines were excuses for the bloody royals to seize their lands and rob them blind by taking the income and produce. There had also been fighting between Protestants and Catholics, maybe because England was a Protestant nation and the Prots wanted to be linked to England for protection. At any rate, a Protestant community flourished in Belfast, and Greens and Oranges fought some pretty fierce battles. The Mikawber family was pretty outspoken and were said to show a little Orange when they lost their tempers or yelled. Tyndall Mikawber and his five sons, McTavish, Oleander, Brython, Michael, and Craine stood for the Auld Orange and resisted the recently formed gangs of Sinn Fein that looked for Prot sacrifices to their pagan altar.

      Craine was on his way to Greg Moriarity’s grocery with a shopping list. It was a family rule since Mum had died two years ago, that the first one home had to do the shopping. Across the street, Craine saw several boys that had accompanied their fathers to Sinn Fein meetings. They knew what he was about and circled around the door to the grocery. He crossed the street, he heard, “Good morrow, me Prot laddie. Would ye like to accompany me to the true Church of a Sunday or do ye plan to continue yer present devilment?” “Up yer arse, Lobsterback,” was Craine’s hot reply. The boys advanced and one of them had a razor. Craine was not new at this game, and he pulled out his knife and said, “O.K., let’s have at it then.”

      As the boys advanced on each other, Craine gulped because he well knew that one or both of them could end up stuck for eternity and stone cold dead. The decision was made, as neither was backing down. How one came to God seemed to be the major issue. A human life had no meaning in the decision about how a person or a nation came to the Lord. Each one felt he was fighting for the right way to approach God and would be blessed for fighting for the right way.

      The Sinn Fein youth slashed out, and Craine ducked and fell to his knees. He slashed at his opponent’s leg. “Take that one back to your priest, Boyo,” he sniggered. He was yanked backward by a pair of hands and held lying on his back. The knife bearer was sitting on him and slashed his face in the rage that followed the leg wound. Another boy tried it on Craine’s legs but Tyndall’s son knew more about fighting and kicked him in the face. He bridged up by putting his crown down on the ground and struggling to raise his chest, toppling his assailant off of him. Quickly he got to his feet and reached for his knife, as his opponent did the same.

      Both of them prepared to stab the other, and the other young men tried to get the knife away from Craine, as he slashed out. Some of them caught a slash in the process. Suddenly Craine felt a pair of strong arms around him forcing his knife hand down; as did the other fellow. He heard a familiar voice holler out, “Hold on me fighting colt,” and recognized the voice of his brother, Brython. Oleander held his opponent. The other boys scattered. McTavish, Michael, and Tyndall had happened along after finishing helping a neighbor paint his barn. Tyndall brought the two boys together asking for an explanation of the events that brought four or five boys to attack his son and to bring the issue of knives to the forefront. After he heard the explanation from both sides, he asked the boy his name. The answer he got was that he didn’t feel obliged to share his name with a Protestant heretic. He answered the lad with a statement that heretic or not, he was entitled to respect because he was the boy’s elder and because he had spoken respectfully to the youth even though he had a knife to his son.

      The youngster answered just as saucily as before: “If ye can’t come to God in the right way, me Da taught me that ye ain’t worth wastin’ no courtesy on, grown or otherwise.” Tyndall replied, “So that’s the way of it. Well, we can also be rude. McTavish come here. You’re the family artist, aren’t you?” His eldest son acknowledged the question affirmatively. “Well, we need your help with a brush and orange and black paint. Oleander, you hold his arms; Michael, you hold his legs. Brython pull his trousers down. McTavish, start painting his face orange, and we’ll figure out the rest.”

      What was figured out was that after oranging up his face, the young miscreant was flipped over on his stomach, and a picture of St. Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland was painted on his posterior. His clothing was put in a tree and tied around a thick branch too high for him to climb. A note was attached to him explaining about the attack and that every person, including Romish Pagans was entitled to courtesy. After all we’re all Irishmen and want to be free of the English bull. Freedom would come eventually. However, violence was not the answer.

      The boy’s name was Delphious Ornam, and his family not only did not accept Tyndall’s correction, but vowed revenge against the Protestant hog.