The Widow OCallaghans Boys | Page 8

fighting," said the principal, as he stopped Pat the next day in the street.
"At least, there are marks of Andy's fist and Andy's foot on Jim
Barrows." His eyes twinkled as he spoke and then grew grave again.
"Fighting's a bad thing in general, but you are excusable, my lad, you
are excusable."
Pat looked after the principal going with a quick firm step on his busy
way, and thought him the finest man in town, for, so far, nobody had
given the poor Irish boy a word of sympathy and encouragement.
That evening Pat ventured to tell his mother.
"And so that's what the principal said, is it?" commented Mrs.
O'Callaghan. "He's a man of sinse. Your father was a man of great sinse,
Pat. Fightin' is a bad thing, so it is. But your father's gone, and it's you
must kape the little wans from harm in his place. You'd be but a bad
brother to stand by and see any wan strike little Andy. There's some
things has got to be put a stop to, and the sooner it's done the better,
says I." Then after a pause, "I hope you larn your lessons, Pat?"
"I do, mother."
"I thought you would. Your father always larnt all that come handy to
him. Larnin's no load, Pat. Larn all you can."
Now Pat, with the exception of Latin, was no whit behind other boys of
his age, for he had been sent to school in the country from the time he
was five years old. The fight being over, he gave his mind thoroughly
to his books, a thing he could not do while he did not know what to
expect from Jim Barrows and his set, and his class-standing was high.
And now the first of April was at hand. The O'Callaghans had been a
month in town and the widow was beginning to see that she had
overestimated the purchasing power of what she could earn at four
washing places. Four dollars a week needed a supplement. How could
it be supplied? Mrs. O'Callaghan cast about in her mind. She had
already discovered that Wennott offered a poor field for employment,

so far as boys were concerned, and yet, in some way, her boys must
help her. By day, by night she thought and could hit upon nothing
unless she took her sons from school.
"And that I'll not do," she said, "for larnin' is at the root of everything."

CHAPTER IV
Is Friday an unlucky day? You could not get Mrs. O'Callaghan to think
so, for it was upon the Friday that closed a week of anxious thinking
that Mrs. Brady called at the shanty. Neither could you get Mrs. Brady
to think so, for--but let us begin a little farther back. Hired girls, as they
were called in Wennott, were extremely scarce. Mrs. Brady was
without one--could not get one, though she had advertised long and
patiently. Now she was tired to exhaustion. Sitting in the old wooden
rocker that had been Mr. O'Callaghan's, Mrs. Brady rested a few
moments closely surrounded on all sides by the O'Callaghan furniture.
"'Tis a bit snug, ma'am," Mrs. O'Callaghan had said when piloting her
to this seat, "but it's my belafe my b'ys don't moind the snugness of it so
much as they would if they was girls."
Mrs. Brady mechanically agreed.
The four walls of the kitchen were rather too close together to inclose a
bed, a wash-bench, two tubs, a cooking stove, a table, seven Windsor
chairs, the water pail, the cupboard, and the rocking-chair in which Mrs.
Brady sat, and leave anything but a tortuous path for locomotion. The
boys knew the track, however, and seldom ran up against anything with
sufficient force to disturb it or their own serenity. But there was not a
speck of dust anywhere, as Mrs. Brady noticed.
The widow's face was a little careworn and anxious as she sat close at
hand in one of the wooden chairs listening to Mrs. Brady's explanation
of her need of help.

"You have been recommended to me by Mrs. Thompson. Could you
come to me to-morrow, Mrs. O'Callaghan? It will be a day of sweeping
and general cleaning," she concluded.
The widow's countenance began to brighten. She saw her way out of
the difficulty that had been puzzling her.
"I can't come mesilf," she answered politely, "for what with my sivin
b'ys I've my own work that can't be neglected. But my son, Pat, will do
it for you. I'll come with him jist to get him started loike, for he's niver
swept a carpet, though he swapes a bare floor ilegant."
Well, to be sure, Mrs. Brady was not overjoyed. But she saw it was Pat
or nobody, and she