A few days ago when he was reading a folk-tale from Douglas Hyde's
Beside the Fire, something caught his eye in the translation.
'There's a mistake in the English,' he said, after a moment's
hesitation, 'he's put "gold chair" instead of "golden chair."'
I pointed out that we speak of gold watches and gold pins.
'And why wouldn't we?' he said; 'but "golden chair" would be much
nicer.'
It is curious to see how his rudimentary culture has given him the
beginning of a critical spirit that occupies itself with the form of
language as well as with ideas.
One day I alluded to my trick of joining string.
'You can't join a string, don't be saying it,' he said; 'I don't
know what way you're after fooling us, but you didn't join that
string, not a bit of you.'
Another day when he was with me the fire burned low and I held up a
newspaper before it to make a draught. It did not answer very well,
and though the boy said nothing I saw he thought me a fool.
The next day he ran up in great excitement.
'I'm after trying the paper over the fire,' he said, 'and it burned
grand. Didn't I think, when I seen you doing it there was no good in
it at all, but I put a paper over the master's (the school-master's)
fire and it flamed up. Then I pulled back the corner of the paper
and I ran my head in, and believe me, there was a big cold wind
blowing up the chimney that would sweep the head from you.
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