The Widow OCallaghans Boys

The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys

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Title: The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys
Author: Gulielma Zollinger
Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9329] [This file was first
posted on September 23, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys
BY GULIELMA ZOLLINGER
(1904, 10th edition)

[Illustration: "CAN'T I DIPIND ON YE B'YS?"]

ILLUSTRATIONS
Can't I depind on ye, b'ys?
It's your father's ways you have
For every one carried something
"Cheer up, Andy!" he said
Mrs. Brady looked at the tall, slender boy
Pat donned his apron
"I've good news for you, Fannie," said the General
The General makes the gravy
Pat doing the marketing
Pat and Mike building the kitchen
Up on the roof sat Mike with his knife
Barney and Tommie a-takin' care of the geese
The merchant turned to the girl clerk
Mrs. O'Callaghan looked astonished
Little Jim became downright sulky
In they came at that moment
Jim made a clatter with the dishes
Open the oven door, Jim
Look at that Jim work
Three cheers for Jim O'Callaghan
Pat and Mike were one on each side of him

CHAPTER I
When Mr. O'Callaghan died, after a long, severe, and expensive
sickness, he left to his widow a state of unlimited poverty and seven
boys.
"Sure, an' sivin's the parfect number," she said through her tears as she
looked round on her flock; "and Tim was the bist man as iver lived,
may the saints presarve him an' rist him from his dreadful pains!"
Thus did she loyally ignore the poverty. It was the last of February.
Soon they must leave the tiny house of three rooms and the farm, for
another renter stood ready to take possession. There would be nothing
to take with them but their clothing and their scant household furniture,
for the farm rent and the sickness had swallowed up the crop, the
farming implements, and all the stock.
Pat, who was fifteen and the oldest, looked gloomily out at one of the
kitchen windows, and Mike, the next brother, a boy of thirteen, looked
as gloomily as he could out of the other. Mike always followed Pat's
lead.
When eleven-year-old Andy was a baby Pat had taken him for a pet.
Accordingly, when, two years later, Jim was born, Mike took him in
charge. To-day Pat's arm was thrown protectingly over Andy's
shoulders, while Jim stood in the embrace of Mike's arm at the other
window. Barney and Tommie, aged seven and five respectively,
whispered together in a corner, and three-year-old Larry sat on the floor
at his mother's feet looking wonderingly up into her face.
Five days the father had slept in his grave, and still there was the same
solemn hush of sorrow in the house that fell upon it when he died.
"And what do you intend to do?" sympathetically asked Mrs. Smith, a
well-to-do farmer's wife and a neighbor.

The widow straightened her trim little figure, wiped her eyes, and
replied in a firm voice: "It's goin' to town I am, where there's work to
be got, as well as good schoolin' for the b'ys."
"But don't you think that seven boys are almost more than one little
woman can support? Hadn't you better put some of them out--for a
time?"--the kind neighbor was quick to add, as she saw the gathering
frown on the widow's face.
"Sure," she replied, 'twas the Lord give me the b'ys, an' 'twas the Lord
took away their blissid father. Do ye think He'd 'a' done ayther wan or
the other if He hadn't thought I could care for 'em all? An' I will, too. It
may be we'll be hungry--yis, an' cold, too--wanst in a while. But