"What else would he be using, and himself the descendant of minstrels?
But after a time he learned the English, too, and he used that in his
latter years because the understanding of the Gaelic began to die out."

"How wonderful he must have been!"

"Wonderful? For eighty years he held sway over the hearts of them, and
was known as the best story-teller of them all. This was the more
interesting, you see, because every year they gathered at a certain
place to have a story-telling contest; and great-grandfather was voted
the master of them until--"

Marna hesitated, and a flush spread over her face.

"Until--" urged Kate.

"Until a young man came along. Finnegan, his name was. He was no more
than a commercial traveler who heard of the gathering and came up there,
and he capped stories with great-grandfather, and it went on till all
the people were thick about them like bees around a flower-pot. Four
days it lasted, and away into the night; and in the end they took the
prize from great-grandfather and gave it to Gerlie Finnegan. And that
broke great-granddad's heart."

"He died?"

"Yes, he died. A hundred and ten he was, and for eighty years had been
the king of them. When he was gone, it left me without anybody at all,
you see. So that was how I happened to go down to Baraboo to earn