The Widow OCallaghans Boys | Page 3

it as much as they can, too."
The thin little woman--thin from overwork and anxiety and grief--spoke thus to her tall son, who, from rapid growing, was thin, too, and she spoke with a soberness that told how she was trying to strengthen her own courage to meet the days before her. Absorbed in themselves, mother and son paid no heed to their surroundings, the horses fell into their accustomed brisk trot, and they were soon out on the narrow road that lay between the fields.
"Now, Pat, me b'y," said Mrs. O'Callaghan, rousing herself, "you're the oldest an' I'll tell you my plans. I'm a-goin' to git washin' to do."
The boy looked at his mother in astonishment.
"I know I'm little," she nodded back at him, "but it's the grit in me that makes me strong. I can do it. For Tim's b'ys an' mine I can do it. Four days in the week I'll wash for other people, Friday I'll wash for my own, Saturday I'll mind for 'em, an' Sunday I'll rist."
A few moments there was silence. The widow seemed to have no more to say.
"An' what am I to do?" finally burst out Pat. "An' what's Mike to do? Sure we can help some way."
"That you can, Pat. I was comin' to that. Did you notice the biggest room in the little house we rinted the day?"
Pat nodded.
"I thought you did. You're an obsarvin' b'y, Pat, jist loike your father. Well, I belave that room will jist about hold three beds an' lave a nate little path betwane ivery two of 'em. It's my notion we can be nate an' clane if we are poor, an' it'll be your part to make ivery wan of thim beds ivery day an' kape the floor clane. Larry an' mesilf, we'll slape in the kitchen, an' it's hopin' I am you'll kape that shoinin', too. An' then there's the coal to be got in an' the ashes to be took out. It does seem that iverything you bring in is the cause of somethin' to be took out, but it can't be helped, so it can't, so 'Out with it,' says I. An' there's the dishes to be washed an'--I hate to ask you, Pat, but do you think you could larn cookin' a bit?"
She looked at him anxiously. The boy met her look bravely.
"If you can work to earn it, 'tis meself as can cook it, I guess," he said.
"Jist loike your father, you are, Pat. He wasn't niver afraid of tryin' nothin', an' siven b'ys takes cookin'. An' to hear you say you'll do it, whin I've larnt you, of course, aises me moind wonderful. There's some as wouldn't do it, Pat. I'm jist tellin' you this to let you know you're better than most." And she smiled upon him lovingly.
"If the most of 'em's that mean that they wouldn't do what they could an' their mother a--washin', 'tis well I'm better than them, anyway," returned Pat.
"Ah, but Pat, they'd think it benathe 'em. 'Tis some grand thing they'd be doin' that couldn't be done at all. That's the way with some, Pat. It's grand or nothin', an' sure an' it's ginerally nothin', I've noticed."
A mile they went in silence. And then Mrs. O'Callaghan said: "As for the rist, you'll all go to school but Larry, an' him I'll take with me when I go a--washin'. I know I can foind thim in the town that'll help a poor widow that much, an' that's all the help I want, too. Bad luck to beggars. I'm none of 'em."
Pat did not respond except by a kindly glance to show that he heard, and his mother said no more till they drove in at the farm gate.
"An' it's quite the man Pat is," she cried cheerily to the six who came out to meet them. "You'll do well, all of you, to pattern by Pat. An' it's movin' we'll be on Monday, jist as I told you. It's but a small place we've got, as Pat will tell you there. Close to the north side of the town it is, down by the railroad tracks, where you can see all the trains pass by day an' hear 'em by night; an' there's freight cars standin' about at all toimes that you can look at, an' they've got iron ladders on the inds of 'em, but you must niver be goin' a-climbin' on top of thim cars."
At this announcement Andy and Jim looked interested, and the eyes of Barney and Tommie fairly shone with excitement. The widow had accomplished her object. Her boys were favorably inclined toward the new home, and she slipped into her bedroom to shed in secret the tears she could no longer restrain.

CHAPTER II
Sunday dawned cold and blustering--a sullen