The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys Part 26

"Yes, sir. I never had such a toime before in my loife. 'Tis parties as are the thing." He paused and then asked, "How will I be goin' at it to get me a house like this?"

And then the General looked astonished. He had not yet fully measured little Jim's ambition that stopped at nothing. Hitherto it had been that pernicious ambition that desires, and at the same time, lazily refuses to put forth the exertion necessary to attain, or it had been that other scarcely less reprehensible ambition that exerts itself simply to outshine others, and Mrs. O'Callaghan had had good cause to be anxious about Jim. Tonight it was the right sort of ambition, backed by a remarkably strong will and boundless energy. He looked up at the General with confidence and waited to be told just how he could get such a house for himself.

The General gazed down into the clear, unashamed depths of little Jim's blue eyes. The att.i.tude of the O'Callaghan's toward him always touched him. His money had nothing to do with it, nor had his superior social position. It was he himself that the O'Callaghans respected, admired, loved and venerated, and this without in the least abating their own self-respect and independence. It was like being the head of a clan, the General told himself, and he liked it. So now he answered with his hand on little Jim's shoulder, "Work, my boy, and study, work and study."

"And is that all?" questioned Jim disappointedly. "Sure and that's like my mother tellin' me dustin' and dishwashin' was my two first steps."

"Well, they were your first steps, Jim, because they were the duties that lay nearest you. But it will take more than work and study, after all."

"I thought it would, sir. This is an awful nice house."

"Would you like to walk upstairs and look about?" asked the General.

"I would," was the eager answer.

So the General and Mrs. Brady and Jim went up.

"This is the sort of a room for my mother," declared little Jim, after he had carefully examined the large guest chamber. "Pat and Mike got her the summer kitchen, but I'll be gettin' her a whole house, so I will.

Sleepin' in the kitchen will do for them that likes it. And now what's the rest of it besides work and study?"

"Have you ever seen any poor boys smoke cigars, Jim?"

"Yes, sir."

"And cigarettes?"

"Yes, sir."

"And pipes?"

"Yes, sir."

"And drink beer?"

"Yes, sir."

"And whisky?"

"Yes, sir."

"And chew tobacco?"

"Yes, sir."

"Those are the boys who, when they are men, are going to be poor. Mark that, Jim. They are going to be poor."

"They won't have any house like this?"

"Not unless somebody who has worked hard gives it to them, or unless they cheat for it, Jim."

"Huh!" said Jim. "I'm down on cheatin'. I'll lick any boy that cheats me or tries to, and I don't want n.o.body to give me nothin'." And with that little Jim cooled down to pursue his former train of thought.

"And if I work and study and let them things alone I can have a house like this some day?"

"Yes, Jim, if some misfortune does not befall you, like a long sickness in the family, or an accident to you."

"I'm goin' to try for it," declared Jim with decision. "Them that would rather have cigars and such than a nice house like this can have 'em, and it's little sense they've got, too. I'll take the house."

The General laughed. "You will take it, Jim, I don't doubt," he said.

"Come to me whenever you wish to ask any questions, and I will answer them if I can."

"I will, sir," replied little Jim. "And when you want me to I'll wash your dishes. I said once I wouldn't, but now I will."

"Thank you, Jim," responded the General.

Peppery, headstrong little Jim went home that night walking very erect.

Pat and Mike were one on each side of him, but he hardly knew it, he was so busy looking forward to the time when he should have a house like the General's, when his mother would pin a flower on his coat, and he should give parties, and as many of them as he chose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Pat and Mike were one on each side of him."]

And of all these plans his mother heard with wonder and astonishment.

"Your party's made a man of you, Jim," said the widow at last. "I'd niver have thought of a party doin' it, nayther, though I was wantin' it done bad. Your father was the man as loiked noice things, and he'd have got 'em, too, if sickness hadn't come to him."

And now little Jim's reward had come. At last his mother had said he was like his father. He was as good as Pat and Mike and Andy, and his heart swelled.

"But, Jim, dear, you'd be gettin' your house quicker if we was all to help toward it."

"And then 'twouldn't be mine," objected Jim.

"No more it wouldn't," a.s.sented Mrs. O'Callaghan, "but 'twould be better than livin' in the shanty years and years. You don't want to kape livin'

here till you have a foine house loike the Gineral's, do you, Jim?"

"No," reluctantly answered the little fellow, glancing about him.

"I knowed you didn't. For sure you're not the wan to let your ambition run away with your sinse. A neat little house, now, with only two b'ys to a bedroom and wan bedroom for me--what do you say to it, Jim?"

Then and there it was settled, and that night each boy had a different dream about the neat little house to be--Jim's, of course, being the most extravagant. That week the first five dollars toward it was deposited with the General.

"And I'll be keepin' a sharp lookout on Barney and Tommie," was Jim's unasked promise to his mother. "You've no idea what little chaps smoke them cigarettes. I can fix it. I'll just be lettin' the boys know that every wan of 'em that helps Barney and Tommie to wan of them things will get a lickin' from me."

"Is that the best way, do you think, Jim?"

"Sure and I know it is. I've seen them big boys givin' 'em to the little wans, particular to them as their folks don't want to use 'em. The General's down on them things, and Barney and Tommie shan't have 'em."

"Five dollars in the bank!" exclaimed the widow. She was surrounded by her eldest four sons, for it was seven o'clock in the morning. "Two years we've been in town, and them two years has put all four of you where I'm proud of you. All four of you has sat in the father's chair for good deeds done. What I'm thinkin' is, will Barney and Tommie and Larry sit there, too, when their turn comes?"

"They will that!" declared Jim with authority.