The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys Part 20

"His next brother, Mike, is at our house, and just as much of a born trader as Pat. His ways, however, are a little different."

Mr. Farnham put out his hand. "I take this hint as very kind of you, General. When may I have him?"

"Could you wait till next fall? He ought to finish this school year.

Next winter I could take charge of him one evening a week together with Pat. The terms must be the same for him as they were for Pat when he began--fifteen dollars a month and one evening each week out."

"All right, General. I'll be frank with you---I'm glad to get him on those terms. I begin to think that it's enough of a recommendation for a boy to be an O'Callaghan."

The General smiled as he left Mr. Farnham's desk, and on his way out of the store, he stopped to speak to Pat.

"What is your greatest ambition, my boy?" he asked. And he knew what answer he would receive before Pat replied, "To have a store with O'Callaghan Brothers over the door."

Again the General smiled, and this time very kindly. "I'll tell you a sort of a secret," he said, "that isn't so much of a secret that you need to hesitate about speaking of it. Mike's coming to Mr. Farnham next fall."

Then the boy got hold of the man's hand. "General Brady," he began after a moment of silence, "you know I can't thank you as I ought in words, but----" and then he stopped. This boy who could fight to defend his small brother, who could face contempt to ease his mother's burdens, who could grub and dig and win a chance for his own promotion, was very near to tears.

He did not wish to shed those tears, and the General knew it. So with a hearty "Good-by, Pat," the fine old soldier pa.s.sed on.

CHAPTER XVII

The shanty by the tracks had never seen such rejoicing as occurred within its cheap walls that January evening. Pat had said nothing at supper time of his wonderful news concerning Mike. He knew how anxious his brother would be to tell it himself, and he had left the tale of his own advancement to follow Mike's disclosure. For he felt sure that he should find Mike upon his return from the store at nine o'clock, and that he would spend the night at home, as he sometimes did. Many times that day he glanced at the print and gingham counter and imagined Mike's st.u.r.dy figure behind it. Pat's hands were long and slender, while Mike's were of the sort known as "useful." "Before ever he comes in he shall know how to measure and display goods, and how to make neat packages,"

he thought. "I'll teach him myself odd times."

And then followed visions of the increased comfort to come to the shanty. He saw his mother, with never a wash place, staying at home every day to guide and control the little boys. He saw Andy, quiet, studious Andy, moving gently about in General Brady's house, and the thought came to him that the General would probably like him better than he did either Mike or himself, though Andy would never be much of a hand at marketing. And then came the most daring thought of all--"Andy shall go to college. Mike and I will help him to it."

But never an opportunity of making a sale did Pat miss. With that last decision to send Andy to college he had hung upon himself a new weight.

Not a weight that oppressed and bent him down, but a weight that caused him to hold his head up and resolve, as never before, to do his best.

"Andy's not strong," his busy brain, in the intervals of trade, ran on.

"But with Mike on one side of him and me on the other, he'll get to the place where he can do his best. General Brady is helping Mike and me.

It's a pity if the two of us can't help Andy."

It was hard to keep still at supper time, but Pat succeeded, only allowing himself to bestow a look of particular affection on his favorite brother.

But his mother was not to be deceived. She followed him to the door and, putting her head outside, said softly, "You may kape still if you want to, Pat dear, but 'tis mysilf as knows you've somethin' on your moind."

"Well, then, mother," prophesied Pat with a laughing backward glance, "I think Mike will be over to spend the evening with you." And he was off.

"And what does he mean by that?" wondered Mrs. O'Callaghan, looking after him. "There's somethin' astir. I felt it by the look of him."

She turned back and shut the door, and there was little Jim loitering as if he hardly knew whether to wash the dishes or not.

"'Tis the bank that's ahead of you, do you moind, Jim? Hurry up with your dish pan. Pat was sayin' maybe Mike'll be home this evenin'."

In response to this urging little Jim made a clatter with the dishes that might be taken by some to represent an increase of speed, but his mother was not of that number.

"Come, Jim," she said, "less n'ise. If you was hustlin' them thin china dishes of Mrs. Gineral Brady's loike that there'd be naught left of 'em but pieces--and dirty pieces, too, for they'd all be broke before you'd washed wan of 'em."

"I ain't never goin' to wash any of Mrs. Gineral Brady's dishes,"

remarked Jim calmly.

"You're young yet, Jim, to be sayin' what you're goin' to do and what not," was the severe response. "At your age your father would niver have said he would or he would not about what was a long way ahead of him, for your father was wise, and he knowed that ne'er a wan of us knows what's comin' to us."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Little Jim made a clatter with the dishes."]

But Jim's countenance expressed indifference. "Gineral Brady's got a bank without was.h.i.+n' dishes for it," he observed.

The widow stared. This was a little nearer to impertinence than anything she had before encountered.

"You moind the Gineral made gravy, do you?" she said at last. "And good gravy, too?"

Jim was obliged to own that he remembered it. "And that he done it with an ap.r.o.n on to kape from gettin' burnt and spattered?"

Jim nodded.

"Him that ain't above makin' gravy, ain't above was.h.i.+n' dishes, nayther," was the statement made in Mrs. O'Callaghan's most impressive manner. "Show Gineral Brady a pile of dishes that it was his place to wash, and he'd wash 'em, you may depind. 'Tis iver the biggest folks as will do little things loike that when they has to, and do 'em good, too.

What's got into you, Jim?"

"You think Pat and Mike and Andy's better than me," burst out the jealous little fellow.

"I think," said his mother, "that Pat and Moike and Andy _does_ better than you, for they takes what's set for 'em and does it as good as they can. But you're all Tim's b'ys, so you are."

"If I done like Pat and Mike and Andy," asked Jim hesitatingly, "would you think I was just as good?"

"Sure and I would, Jim," said his mother earnestly. "Will you try?"

"I will."

And then steps crunched on the snowy path that led to the shanty door, and Mike came in. There was that in his face that told his mother without a word that he brought good news.

"Moike! Moike! 'Tis the shanty's the luckiest place in town, for there's naught but good news comes to it, do you see? What have you got to tell?"

"I've got to tell," cried Mike in ringing tones, "that next fall I'm to go to Mr. Farnham's store at fifteen dollars a month. Pat shan't do all for you, mother. I'll do some myself."

For a moment the widow was dazed. Then she said, "I don't know what I was lookin' for, but it wasn't anything so good as this. 'Twas Gineral Brady got you the place, was it?"

"It was, mother."

"I knowed it. He's the man to be loike." She looked around upon her sons, and then she said, "I want all my b'ys to remimber that it's honorable empl'yment to do anything in the world for Gineral Brady and Mrs. Gineral Brady, too. The toime may come when you can do some big thing for 'em, but the toime's roight here when you can sweep and cook and wash dishes for 'em, and make 'em aisy and comfortable, and so lingthen out their days. Moike goin' to the store gives Andy a chance to show that the O'Callaghans knows how to be grateful. And, Moike, you'll be takin' home another goose for 'em when you go. A goose ain't much, but it shows what I'd do if I had the chance. And that's all that makes a prisint seem good anyway--jist to know that the giver's heart is warm toward you."

She paused and then went on, "Well, well, and that's what Pat was kapin'

still about at supper toime. I could see that he knowed somethin' that he wouldn't tell. He'd be givin' you the chance to bring your own good news, Moike, do you see? Pat's the b'y to give other folks the chances as is their due. There's them that fond of gabblin' and makin' a stir that they'd have told it thimsilves, but sure O'Callaghan ain't their name."

At this every face grew bright, for even Barney and Tommie saw that no undue praise of Pat was meant, but that, as O'Callaghans, they were all held incapable of telling other people's stories, and they lifted their heads up. All but Larry who, with sleepily drooping crown, was that moment taken up and prepared for bed.