 The Hallmark card, when you carry it up, to send the very best. Singuished novelist, Mr. James Hilton. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and so tonight the Hallmark Playhouse will celebrate the Irish anniversary by presenting an utterly delightful story by Charles O'Neill called The Three Wishes of Jamie McRuin. Mr. O'Neill, as you might imagine, is of Irish descent, and his story, which won a coveted Christopher Award last year, has all the wayward charm of which Irish literature is so full, and which, by the way, you often find in Irish people too. When I told Mr. O'Neill how happy we were to dramatize his story on the air, he told me of plans afoot to produce it as a stage play on Broadway next season, so that gives our performance tonight the quality of a real first. And to make this a double first, our star is none other than Richard Todd, born in Ireland, who is winning high renown as an actor these days, and whose appearance here tonight on our Hallmark Playhouse is the first time he has acted in a radio drama in this country. And now a word about Hallmark Cards from Frank Goss, before we begin the first act of The Three Wishes of Jamie McRuin, starting Richard Todd. There are Hallmark Cards for every memorable occasion on your calendar, for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. Yes, for every occasion that calls for remembrance, for a friendly greeting, a word of good cheer, and expression of sympathy. There is a Hallmark Card that says just what you want to say, the way you want to say it, and that identifying Hallmark on the back. Well, that says you cared enough to send the very best. Now Hallmark Playhouse, presenting Charles O'Neill's The Three Wishes of Jamie McRuin, starring Richard Todd. Those were kind, and eagles of the air built their nests in the beards of giants. A green-coated lad with a stick in his hand and a bundle of balance over his shoulder went out on the rocky roads of the world to push his fortune. Three times I saw Queen Euna in my dreams. Three times I spoke to the Fairy Queen Cousin Davish. And was she very beautiful, Jamie? Aye, with a glowing golden beauty that could consume the heart of any man. And she granted me three wishes, as is the custom. We don't say so. Well, tell me, what did you ask for? First, I asked for travel. Enough to make a man homesick. Ah, that's a good wish, lad. Next, I asked for a woman of my choice to be as beautiful as the Fairy Queen herself. To marry with. And the third wish, I asked for a wonderful son. One who'd have the gift of poetry and speak in the ancient tongue of Gaelic. The way some other men take to drink, left his home in Ireland and came to America. And with him was Cousin Owen Rowe Davish, a wonderful old man with the warmth and lift of the true Irish heart. In Georgia, they came upon an encampment of Irish travelers, illustrators who lived in tents. It was here in the year 1895 that Jamie came upon the beautiful May Paragon. Not a month out of the old country and lost in the new one already I am. Indeed, no. Anna, don't go. I've a feeling if you walk out of me sight, something will happen to the eyes of me and they'll never be able to look at another girl again as long as I live. It isn't proper for traveller women to be speaking freely without ciders and strangers. An outsider I may be, but no stranger. We too have met before. It is not possible. Anna, not in the towns, nor along the red roads of Georgia, but in the early morning of time when the world was just beginning. I've got to go. Let me go with you. I'll guide you to the magic well with water of such marvelous sweetness to whisper to anyone drinking it falls in love with the first person they see. I'd better not. I'll teach you how to place your ear to the ground and hear the fairy music rising from hollow hills. No, no that either. Is everyone in Ireland as daft as you? Everyone. But since we're all of us alike there, it's not so noticeable. You laugh, but I tell you, there's a strange and wonderful power in that madness. I really must go. I can see it in your eyes. You're thinking mine is high talk for one with only the clothes on his back. But I'll tell you a secret. At home, I was known as one of the Flauleth ones. What does it mean, Flauleth? It means you belong to the hills and to the sea. That you can see with one eye into the future and with the other into the past. That you have a power of kindling new fires under all forgotten dreams. You say we've never met before. I say we stood side by side in an ancient wood while druids with beards like fire and voices that rang like bells joined our hands and led us through the elements of earth and air and fire and water. Jamie. Goodbye. Oh, Tavish. Did you see her? At a glance, lad. Oh, lovely as a portrait she is, Tavish. Her name's Maeve, like the ancient queen of the West. I think I'd like to marry her. You must speak to her father, Tavish. Oh, that I will. That I will. How is your morning this morning, I'll say? I don't know you, but a young friend of mine who spilled his witch somewhere between here and Galway wishes to marry your daughter. I tell you, I've looked into her eyes and to see I'll marry her no one. Ah, it's hard I'd come to you, Maeve. We were destined for each other. It takes two to dream a dream like mine. But we've known each other less than an hour. How can you be so sure of yourself? As sure as a man who's looked into tomorrow. But you're making a fool of yourself. I've been promised for over a year. Tavish Bun loved me. What do you think I do not? I promise for a year, say you. What's this prior claim to mine that goes back to the beginning of time? You just must understand. Ah, I do. To have my doom you're pronounced. Only you didn't add Maeve got to have mercy on your soul. You said from this moment, Jamie McRoon, you're a dead man. You may walk and talk and breathe the air. You can smash your great fists into men's faces and feel their blood on your knuckles. But you'll be dead for all that. You've been killed inside, Jamie. Maeve. Maeve, darling, this was to be my dance. Travis Bun. It's Jamie McRoon who came from Ireland. Oh, from Ireland? Is he, is he to be a traveler with us? Ah, Mr Bun. But not the kind you think. Was the first of three wishes granted me a long time ago when I... Let's leave now. No, Tavish, I've got to see her. Jamie, Jamie, come on. Maeve, my heart's love. It is I, Jamie, the lost. Come to beg your forgiveness for loving him. I wouldn't be causing you a minute's unhappiness, but I couldn't help myself. To say the heart has ears that hear our words before they pass the lips, then maybe in your sleep you'll be hearing what I'm saying and know that it's all the truth. I'm going away now, but I couldn't without saying goodbye. Jamie, what are you doing here outside? Is it in your mind to destroy us both? Ah, no, my darling. Only myself, or that part of me that's left after roaming the woods half the night. Ah! He'll have forgotten me by the next turn of the road. Does a man forget the woman that bore him? I was born again this day when I saw you and changed you from me own. Is this the way you shame your father in his own camp, Maeve Harrigan? And the man you're going to marry to? Not's been said or done to bring shame to anyone, Travis Bun. Jamie, please. He meant no harm, Travis. Is it a crime to fall in love with Maeve? Oh, in love with Maeve, I am accrued. All right, then. Come on away from these chents. We'll settle this by ourselves. I'll not go with you. I'm not out of cowardice either. I could whip you any time I care to. But I'll not raise me hands to you. All right, then, if you won't... Jamie! In God's name defend yourself! From what? From this sparrow pain those pillows for fists. The ground is slumping me from one side and buns hammering me from the other. Is that a fair fight now? Say you've had enough, Macaron. Say it, go on! Say it, Jamie, and you'll stop! Please, Jamie, please! Oh, sure, now his fists are weak, but he slays armies with his tongue. Does it hurt so terribly, Jamie? Only where I'm flesh and blood, Maeve. Would you be lifting one corner of us an eyelid so that I might catch a glimpse of your dear face? And I still, Jamie. Not so long ago, the fairy queen, Una, granted me three wishes. Travel enough to make a man homesick. And sure, I've had that already. The woman of my choice. And when I lost you, Maeve, then I lost everything. The belief in my three wishes and the belief in the magic of my dreams. What was the third wish? A son. One who'd speak in the ancient tongue. What a strange wish. Ah, strange, but wonderful, too. Jamie, why didn't you fight Travis back? Lee, hands on him you were going to marry. Sure, I'd sooner kill a robin and a robin's a sacred bird. Kill one and it raises a lump in a man's hands so I can never work again. There may be no lumps in your hand, but sure, Travis Bun has raised them in every part of you. Ah, I'd like to keep them always. For your two hands have blessed them with a touch. Ah, there'll be others I'm thinking. It's your fate to be getting more and better once. Ah, but you'll not be there to heal them. Oh, maybe I will. What might that mean? Your maybe? The same as a woman's maybe. Anywhere? Oh, would it be? Oh, why didn't I just speak with your father? Father will draw the speaking and to me. All the bitter words in the world and a few new ones invented for the occasion. Then, when my kinsman's tongues are tired and all the unkind words been said and a bucket of tears spilled and me banished from the camp and brought back and banished again. Aye. And then... McRuin? The second act of the three wishes of Jamie McRuin, starring Richard Todd. It was Mark Twain, the great American humorist, who said, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Now, maybe you've never thought of it just that way, but I'm sure you know what a difference the right words make when you send a greeting card to someone. Those who make hallmark cards know they know too that the cards you choose are never for yourself, only for others. And you want each message to represent you as truly as a personal visit. That's why, for every occasion, you will always find hallmark cards to say just what you want to say, the way you want to say it. Just the right words to cheer and comfort friends who are ill or add extra happiness on special days your dear ones like you to share. And, of course, your hallmark cards reveal your appreciation of fine design and fine craftsmanship. And that's why, if you ask your friends what name they think of in greeting cards when they want to send the very best, they will quickly answer hallmark cards. So it is easy to remember it would be difficult to forget to look for that hallmark on the back of each card you choose when you carry enough to send the very best. Now, back to James Hilton and the second act of the three wishes of Jamie McRuin, starring Richard Todd. Since Jamie and Maeve had been married and during that time, Jamie in partnership with Cousin Tavish had prospered as a horse trader beyond belief. Yet with all his affluence, Jamie felt for lawns. God had not seen fit to bless him with a son, the son who was to speak in the poetry of the ancient tongue. And Maeve felt Jamie's disappointment very keenly, so this day she planned a surprise for him, an adopted son, seven years of age. Jamie, remember how we spoke of finding a little boy to adopt? It was mentioned once or twice in passing. Father Kerrigan has found this one. Here he is. Stroll down to the corral and have a look at Big Red. Me prize mule. Jamie, the crisp means about to begin. Tavish is to be Godfather and once the boy named Kevin, Role, Tavish, McRuin. Do you like it? You mean he's not being baptized? That he has no names? Well, of course, all of his son's names to begin with are the same. When this one came along, well, he had run out of names. He called him number seven. Where's his family now? Somewhere in the backwoods. His mother, Mrs. Prattie, is very poor and, um, Mr. Prattie, her husband deserted her when Kevin was a babe in arms. And Father Kerrigan wished him upon us as a gift, I suppose. Oh, no, he was not a gift. Offerance of the good of your soul and the forgiveness of your sin. What sin? The real father should. Well, I've not said I would. Oh, please. You'll not say no to me in this. The little one has set up housekeeping in my heart. Say yes. And we'll live the richer for it all the rest of our day. You've got to say, Ninon. You haven't made a sound. There's something else you must know. What is it? From the look on your face is the day of judgment. The little one. The child. There's no power of speaking. In that dreadful home somewhere along the way, he lost it. Or was born without. The little one came here. And he was so full, Lord, how much more he needs us now. For you, Jamie MacRowan. Me wonderful son, a dummy. A lavishest couple. No, they're not. No crying, mind you. No crying. I know why you ran away and hid here. I know what's been tearing your poor little heart for the last two weeks. Jamie's left me. You think you're to blame. Well, no, I have the answer. I have plenty of money and a few of us are going back to Ireland. Now, you like that, don't you? We'll walk the lanes in the summer and I'll show you the fairy mountains where the little people live. And sneak in a walk-in. We'll be needing a good walk-in stick. We'd never do to go home to Ireland without proper sticks. You know, a man is known there with a walk-in stick he carries. No, look, lad. Let's climb up here to this tree. There's a limb that'll make a perfect walk-in stick. Mate, I'll climb up. And look, lad. You'll not mind my taking you away from Maeve and leaving the others, will you? Maeve gets selfish in me to take you away, but I think it's for the best. Well, now, here's the limb. It's badly hurt. I can't move a leg. I send a little boy like you into the dark woods without a special prayer to protect you. Now, come closer. Come closer, son, and listen to me. Now, this is such a wonderful prayer that anybody using it will never feel fear again, not so long as he lives. It is the cry of the deer who was invoked by St. Patrick on his way to Tyre bringing Christianity to the pagan Irish. Now, listen to me, Kevin. If you repeat this in your mind after me, should any danger threaten you, in a twinklin' you'll be changed into a great stag with fleshing antlers and whos the sharpest savers who know, come close here. Come close while I say the prayer. I place all heaven within his power and the sun with his brightness and the snow with its whiteness and the fire with all the strength it had and the winds with the swiftness along their path and the sea with its deepness and the rocks with their steepness and the earth with its darkness all these I place by God's almighty help and grace between Kevin McRuin and the powers of darkness. I came in the back way to camp. I didn't want the others to see me like this. About Tavish, I only heard this morning. Only I'd known. There was nothing you could do. His back was broken. Did he say anything? He was conscious up to the very last. He blessed us all and spoke a while in Gaelic to Kevin. He'd made a will giving his money to the boys and then he said goodbye. Towards the end, he asked that a corner of the tent be raised to make it easier for his soul to pass. Then he asked us to leave him. We waited outside and sang alone a room when inside he talked of mighty Hulun and the great Khan of Neon in cheer tree of all the souls and then at last his words drifted away into silence and he went... And with men, what happened to me? Where did I lose my way? For sure as the stars are fixed on that last now I stumbled and fell once and when I rose up the world around me was strange. Hard to forgive me, but it wasn't just the taking of someone else's child or his lacking the power of speech. It was the final admission that you and I would never have a child of our own that another child would be standing where yours and mine should stand asking for and taking the love we'd stored away for one of our own. Justice of it chokes me. Help me before it's too late. But there be things a man must do all on his own. I think it has to do with growing up. What you just said about that is your children. And a man with men. You'll have to grow up, my husband. Leave, leave. Oh, Jamie, thank God you're here. The sheriff's here with a Mr. Pradi who claims to be Kevin's father. He's come to take him away. What do you say? They're Kevin? I'm sure. Which one of you is Jamie McRoon? I am. Seven boys and she had camp and they all lined up outside this tent. Jess Pradi's going to pick his note. Well, I guess a man has his right sheriff. Jamie! But not when he hasn't seen the boy since he was born. Why did he suddenly come here? A fellow by the name of Travis Bunn told him the child inherited a bunch of money. Oh, so that's the reason. Well, Pradi's trash, but the law says if he wants his son he can have him. Let's go outside. Remember his own child. He doesn't know Kevin. Not from yourself I'm asking it, nor from me. Just from the little one. He is only beginning to find a little kindness in the world. I want what's mine, Mr. Knott. It's a lecture boy. McRoon? I guess it's Jason Mawiah. Pradi, tell him to arrest you for trust. Kevin, Travis, McRoon, and this is me home. Do you realize what that means? Why is this the other wish? The third wish of Jamie McRoon. I saw today and I thought it particularly wonderful because it just seemed made for a neighbor of ours who was always doing nice things for our family. You probably know someone for whom this card would be perfect too. The verse is about the candles on a birthday cake. I've never seen a more beautiful cake in real life than the one on the card. Decorated with roses, lighted with pink candles, and the white frosting really sparkles. When you open the card, you read, each candle on your birthday cake should stand not for a year, but for some thoughtful little thing you've done to bring folks nice things that you've done were counted up that way. A million candles on your birthday cake today. And that's just one of many delightful Hallmark birthday cards you'll find at the friendly store where you buy Hallmark cards. For each friend, each loved one, you can choose a Hallmark birthday card that seems especially created for that very person to say just what you want to say, the way you want to say it. And you'll be proud of that Hallmark on the back for it says you cared enough to send the very best. Here again is James Hilton. Richard Todd, your performance has brought back so many happy memories of the times I myself spent in Ireland, and I'd like to thank you for that, as well as for your grand portrayal of Jamie McRuin tonight. No wonder your performance in The Hasty Heart has won you a nomination for this year's Academy Award. Thank you, Mr. Hilton. And thanks to Lorraine Tuttle for being such an enchanting maid. It was a rare treat to play Jamie McRuin. And so appropriately, too, on the Eves and Patrick's Day. Yes, and it also appealed to us on the Hallmark Playhouse because it's told in that rich vein of poetry for which the Irish have such a gift. They do indeed, Mr. Hilton. The Irish have a wonderful way with words. I may say the same of Hallmark cards. That's what I've noticed particularly about them. The messages are so exactly what one wishes to say. Now, Mr. Hilton, what are you planning for next week? Next week we shall dramatize a story by Winston Churchill. And I don't mean the Great British Statesman, but that fine American novelist of the same name. And our star will be the distinguished actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Our Hallmark Playhouse is every Thursday. Our director-producer is Bill Gaye. Our music is composed and conducted by Lynn Murray. And our script tonight was adapted by Jack Rubin. Until next Thursday then, this is James Hilton saying, Good night. Police elected to give you expert and friendly service. Remember Hallmark cards. When you carry enough, you send the very best. Mr. Richard Todd appears through the courtesy of Warner Brothers and associated British Pictures Corporation. Mr. Todd may soon be seen in the Warner Brothers production stage fright. This is Frank Goss saying, Good night to you all until next week at the same time when James Hilton returns to present Douglas Fairbanks Jr. on the Hallmark Playhouse and the week following Opal Lee Berryman's pioneer preacher starring Charles Bickford. And the week after that, we will have as our Easter story, Margaret E. Sankster's The Arbutus Bonnet on the Hallmark Playhouse.