The Widow OCallaghans Boys | Page 2

drew near. She raised Larry to her lap, and looked up touchingly into their faces. "Can't I depind on ye, b'ys?"
"Yes, mother, course you can," answered Pat for them all.
A moment the widow paused to steady her voice, and then resumed, "It's all settled. A-Saturday I goes to town to get a place. A-Monday we moves."
The neighbor saw that it was indeed settled, and, like a discreet woman, did not push her counsel further, but presently took her leave, hoping that the future might be brighter than it promised for Mrs. O'Callaghan and her boys.
* * * * *
"Aise 'em up an' down the hills, Pat, the dear bastes that your father loved!"
Mrs. O'Callaghan and Pat were driving to Wennott behind the team that was theirs no longer, and it was Saturday. No need to speak to Pat. The whip rested in the socket, and he wished, for his part, that the horses would crawl. He knew how poor they were, and he did not want to go to town. But mother said town, and town it must be.
Down across the railroad track, a little northeast of the depot, was a triangular bit of ground containing about as much as two lots, and on it had been erected a poor little shanty of two rooms. The widow knew of this place, and she meant to try to secure it.
"'Twill jist do for the loikes of us, Pat, for it's a low rint we're after, an' a place quiet loike an' free from obsarvers. If it's poor ye are, well an' good, but, says I, 'There's no use of makin' a show of it.' For it's not a pretty show that poverty makes, so it ain't, an', says I, 'A pretty show or none.' I see you're of my moind," she continued with a shrewd glance at him, "an' it heartens me whin ye agree with me, for your father's gone, an' him and me used to agree wonderful."
Pat's lips twitched. He had been very fond of his father. And all at once it seemed to him that town and the shanty were the two most desirable things in their future.
"But, cheer up, Pat! 'Twas your father as was a loively man, d'ye moind? Yon's the town. It's hopin' I am that our business'll soon be done."
Pat's face brightened a little, for he found the entry into even so small a town as Wennott a diversion. To-day he looked about him with new interest, for here were streets and stores that were to become familiar to him. They entered the town from the south and drove directly to its center, where stood the courthouse in a small square surrounded by an iron hitching-rack. Stores faced it on every side, and above the stores were the lawyers' offices. Which one belonged to the man who had charge of the place the widow wished to rent, she wondered, and Pat wondered, as she stood by, while he tied the horses.
[Illustration: "It's your father's ways you have."]
Above the stores, too, were doctors' offices, and dentists' offices, dress-making-shops, and suites of rooms where young couples and, in some instances, small families lived.
"We'll jist be inquirin', Pat. 'Tis the only way. But what to ask for, I don't know. Shall I be sayin' the bit of a place beyant the tracks?"
"Yes, mother. That's what you want, ain't it?"
"Sure it is, an' nothin' else, nayther. It's your father's ways you have, Pat. 'Twas himsilf as wint iver straight after what he wanted."
Pat's eyes beamed and he held himself more proudly. What higher praise could there be for him than to be thought like his father?
It chanced that the first lawyer they asked was the right one.
"Luck's for us," whispered the little widow. "Though maybe 'twouldn't have been against us, nayther, if we'd had to hunt a bit."
And then all three set out to look at the poor little property.
"Sure, an' it suits me purpose intoirely," declared Mrs. O'Callaghan when the bargain had been concluded. "An' it's home we'll be goin' at wanst. We've naught to be buyin' the day, seein' we're movin' in on Monday."
Pat made no answer.
"Did you see thim geese a-squawkin' down by the tracks?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan, as she and her son settled themselves on the high spring seat of the farm wagon.
Pat nodded.
"There's an idea," said his mother. "There's more than wan in the world as can raise geese. An' geese is nice atin', too. I didn't see no runnin' water near, but there's a plinty of ditches and low places where there'll be water a-standin' a good bit of the toime. An' thim that can't git runnin' water must take standin'. Yis, Pat, be they geese or min, in this world they must take what they can git an' fat up on