My father was smoking his doodeen in the chimney corner, my mother was overseeing the girls that were tonging the flax, and I and the other gossoons were doing nothing at all, only roasting praties in the ashes.

"Only see how the white water comes biling like a pot of praties over the big, black rocks, down it comes, one tumble over the other, the green trees all the while stretching out their arms as if they wanted to stop it.