The Widow OCallaghans Boys

The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys, by Gulielma Zollinger Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
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
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WIDOW O'CALLAGHAN'S BOYS ***

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, David Garcia, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

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 it won't be for long."
"But town is a bad place for boys, I'm told," urged the neighbor.
"Not for mine," answered the widow quietly. "They're their father's b'ys, an' I can depind on 'em. They moind me loightest word. Come here, Pat, an' Moike, an' Andy, an' Jim, an' Barney, an' Tommie!"
Obediently the six