Her Pa's Watch
After supper was over, and Emma had finished tidying up the bunkhouse, she bid Teaspoon and the riders' goodnight, and headed over to her house. She was bone tired from the hard day's work, and was looking forward to sitting still for a spell and relaxing. Maybe she would enjoy a cup of tea in front of the fire while reading or doing some light mending.
She reached her house at last and went inside. Emma went into her kitchen, stoked the ashes in the stove, added more wood, and put on the teapot to heat up. Using the back staircase, Emma headed upstairs to her bedroom. She unfastened the black satin ribbon she used to hold her pa's watch in place while she worked and went to place it on top of her dresser, but stopped. Instead she lifted the watch to eye level so she could gaze at it more closely, and felt time slip away from her, and she was once again a little girl.
"Emma, lass, fetch me my watch." Padraic Shannon said as he rose from the supper table and slowly made his way over to the small grouping of furniture placed before a large stone fireplace. He settled wearily into his rocker before the roaring fire, placed his stocking feet up on the foot stool, and wiggled his cold toes. "Blarney 'tis cold as a cow's teat out there."
Emma bounded up from the worn, rag rug where she had been playing with her dolls, to do as her Pa requested. She scampered through the doorway into her parent's room, fetched the gold pocket watch off chest of drawers, and hurried back into the large room that served as the kitchen and parlor.
"Padraic, watch ye tongue! I willna have the lass swearin' like a sailor before she's ten years old." Molly Shannon scolded her husband, her lively green eyes held warning in them, that he best heed her words, or else.
"Aye, me darlin'," Padraic replied, a smile on his lips, and a twinkle in his warm brown eyes.
"Here it is Pa." Emma said, holding the gold watch out to him.
"Thank ye, lassie. Would ye like me to tell ye a tale about how this very watch saved my life?" Padraic asked her as he took his watch from her much smaller hands into his roughened one.
"Aye," Emma replied excitedly.
"Crawl on up here and we'll give it a go."
Emma shook her head to dispel the memory of that night so long ago when she was only nine years old. It did not matter to her that the watch no longer worked, because the memories it held within it, were far more precious to her than any amount of time.