Once upon a time, there was a boy with red hair. He lived on the very bottom of a mountain, in a wooden house that his great-grandpa had made with his own two hands. His great-grandpa was a very practical man; when he first built the house, way back when the redheaded boy was just a speck of nothing in the air, he built it just big enough for himself and his wife. He didn’t like looking into the future, much less planning for it. When his first child, a boy, was born, he built another room onto the house. When his next child, another boy, was born, he built another room onto the house. When his next child, a boy—yet again, was born, he built another room onto the house. His wife would nurse the babies, and he would be a bang-banging on the nails outside. His sons all learned to fall asleep to the sound of hammering. By the time the redheaded boy’s father was born, the house had already spread across most of their land. If they were farmers, they would have had to grow potatoes in the rooms themselves! But all the sons prospered as doctors and lawyers and got married to nice Irish girls who went to University. The redheaded boy’s father soon bought more land—not to farm potatoes, but to expand on the house.
The redheaded boy was the youngest son. He was born, and his dad hired men (he was a tax lawyer, and not used to making anything) to work on constructing the first room on the second floor. Work, he told them, and they worked all through the night and day. The redheaded boy learned to fall asleep to the sound of hammering.
One morning—this being years and years after the first room was constructed on the second floor—the redheaded boy asked for a flock of sheep. His oldest brother was going away to University, he said, and nobody else would play with him. He looked at his mother, eyes wide and imploring. Go ask y’r father, she said, patting him on the head. He grabbed a little chunk of carrot that she was chopping, and headed to the library to find his father.
He found his father hunched over a stack of papers. Can I have a flock of sheep? He asked. Ay, ay, lad, go ask y’r mother, his father said.
The redheaded boy went back to talk to his mother.
He got his flock of sheep within the week.
Every morning, the redheaded boy woke up at dawn, and armed with a pail of soda bread and milk, he made his way to his sheep. By then, they were mostly all awake, and were jittery to get their day started. But, they were also very docile. The morning the redheaded boy first got them, he led them up the mountain by sprinkling a heavy trail of forbs. He led them down the mountain by sprinkling a heavier trail of hay. His sheep, it would seem to an observer, loved the redheaded boy; they followed him so obediently. And they might have. Anyway, they were fat and hungry, and every morning when the redheaded boy with his soda bread and milk and pail came and opened their gate, they followed him like baby lambs up the mountain.
There, the redheaded boy would eat his soda bread and drink his milk and watch his sheep. Then, he would find a comfortable rock, and lie down under the cloudy sky. He did this everyday for four years and he loved his sheep. Maybe his sheep loved him, too.
But one day, as he was cutting himself a hefty size of soda bread (his portions always got bigger throughout the years and his pail always got heavier), the door opened, and in walked a golden-haired girl. He dropped his knife, and his oldest brother walked in past the girl and gave him a bear hug. He was back from University, and he had brought her home with him: this was the girl that he was going to marry. The redheaded boy hugged his oldest brother back, picked up his knife, and cut himself an even heftier size of soda bread. That day, as he lay on his comfortable rock under the cloudy sky, he dreamt of the golden locks of University girls.
Some say that the sheep intuited that their love was unrequited when they felt that he loved someone else. Others say that the boy was just being more careless, and his sheep just wandered off. Still others say that jealousy is a green-eyed monster whose favorite snack just happens to be sheep entrails. Whatever the case, the redheaded boy woke up from his cozy slumber atop the comfortable rock to an empty mountaintop. He looked all about him, hither and whither the mountain, and called out to his sheep. He climbed atop the highest trees, swam in the deepest parts of the rivers, looked under the biggest of rocks. He ran back home and made crisscrossing trails of hay and forbs all over the mountain. He cried. He hollered. He barked. But still the sheep were nowhere to be found.
That night, the golden-haired girl did a stepdance for his family. The redheaded boy’s mother said, oh deary, that was great. The redheaded boy’s father nodded. They were all pleased by their eldest son’s choice in a University girl, more specifically, an Irish University girl. The redheaded boy’s oldest brother would eventually get married to the golden-haired, stepdancing, Irish University girl, and they would have little redheaded boys. All of them would learn to fall asleep to the sound of hammering, and the house would grow and grow. But the redheaded boy, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him, was a very practical boy who didn’t look or plan for the future, and right now, after the golden-haired girl’s stepdancing, he just wanted to eat his dinner of mutton chops.