In the morning we would bundle up and make our way to the one-room school a quarter of a mile away. Since this was a special day, we were allowed to stay for lunch. All morning we would color, cut and paste shamrocks, Leprechauns, pipes and high-topped hats with gold and silver buckles onto colored construction paper.
The older children would paint St. Patrick Day themes on the windows. One such mural clings to my memory. Possibly because my older brother took part.
All morning the grade six, seven and eight students stood on desks, decorating the high windows. When they were finished, every window was painted with a St. Patrick's Day theme to commemorate this special day. That year, one window stood out above all the rest. A Leprechaun sat behind a hedge with a large, cast iron pot filled with gold coins. A rainbow's hues of purple, mauve, pink, green and yellow stretched across the sky. One end of it shone from the Leprechaun's pot.
I was six at the time and gasped in delight at the beautiful artistry. That proved it then. There really was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I smiled with joy. Excitement tingled along my spine. When I grew up, I would travel to the rainbow's end and bring that pot of gold home to my parents. I knew they didn't have much money and if I could retrieve that pot of gold, it would make their lives so much easier.
After school that day, I hurried home. I burst through the door, book bag in hand. I stopped. There on the table sat the most beautiful shamrock cake, decorated with green icing. A Leprechaun sat in the center of the cake, his pot of gold beside him. A rainbow had been added to make the effect even more profound.
That evening when my father pulled into the yard from a hard day's work shoveling coal, I ran to meet him.
"Daddy, Daddy, Mom made a shamrock cake with a pot of gold and a rainbow on top." I grabbed his coal-blackened hand. "Hurry, come see."
Dad chuckled. "Where did that come from?" he asked.
I looked up at his smiling, black face. "Why Mom made it."
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