The Death of Michael Grady (1910)
"Wurra! Wurra!" says Mike, as he places his hands to stomach to accentuate the intense pain he is suffering in that part of his anatomy as he pursues his way homeward, explaining to his neighbors whom he meets, "he feels that sick he could die." "Poor man!" say the neighbors. "The saints be praised! It's a doctor you should see, and not be thinking of an undertaker." Reaching his home, Mrs. Grady hustles Mike into bed, gives him a good horn of whiskey and goes about her affairs, keeping a close eye and ear on her husband to keep tabs on his condition. The neighbors, glad to gossip and not slow to exaggerate, tell of Grady's sickness and how he was that bad that he felt the chill of death creeping over him. "A fine man is Mike, and Mrs. Mike too young to be a widdy, while Mike had such a good paying job." Mike lies moaning and groaning in his bed, underneath the window. His lamentations can be plainly heard by his sympathetic friends who chance to be passing the house, and when they are met by other friends who tell them about Grady's sickness they immediately add their acquired knowledge to the severity of the case until there is little hope in their minds for Mike's sojourn among them. Mrs. Grady in the course of her household duties is arranging an Irish stew and sets about peeling some onions, which make her eyes water, and she is obliged to relieve then occasionally by wiping her eyes with her apron, and when she is through with the onions she stands up and again applies her apron with renewed vigor to her suffering orbs. Two of her neighbors, who are appointed a delegation to inquire about Mike's condition, are just about entering the house, and, getting a glimpse of Mrs. Grady weeping onion tears and wiping her eyes, immediately come to the conclusion that Mike is dead, and they must lose no time in attending to the obsequies. They hurry to the undertaker, florist and monument builder, and make all the necessary arrangements for the funeral. Mike, relieved of his pain, is now sleeping a sound sleep. His wife, feeling satisfied that he is all right, goes out to do a little shopping. She no sooner leaves the house when the undertaker places a crepe on the door, and the mourning friends enter the house to "wake" the dead, taking possession of the parlor and asking themselves, "Why did he die?" A different scene is witnessed on the outside of the house when Mrs. Grady returns and sees the sign of mourning on the door. She falls in a heap and thinks her Mike has taken a sudden turn and succumbed to the inevitable. Recovering herself sufficiently to enter the house, she is ushered into the parlor and surrounded by the assembled wailers. Their noise and wails awake Mike, and he sits up in bed, listens, jumps to the floor and makes his way, in his long nightgown, into the parlor before the assembled friends, who mistake him for a ghost and hurriedly run pell-mell from the room. Mrs. Grady looks up between her sobs, and when she satisfies herself that Mike still lives she throws herself into his outstretched arms, and together they shed tears of joy. The too-previous friends regain their senses, and one by one they re-enter the room and congratulate Grady that he is not a corpse and Mrs. Grady that she isn't a "widdy."
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GenresDrama
Short
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