The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys Part 3

Is Friday an unlucky day? You could not get Mrs. O'Callaghan to think so, for it was upon the Friday that closed a week of anxious thinking that Mrs. Brady called at the shanty. Neither could you get Mrs. Brady to think so, for--but let us begin a little farther back. Hired girls, as they were called in Wennott, were extremely scarce. Mrs. Brady was without one--could not get one, though she had advertised long and patiently. Now she was tired to exhaustion. Sitting in the old wooden rocker that had been Mr. O'Callaghan's, Mrs. Brady rested a few moments closely surrounded on all sides by the O'Callaghan furniture.

"'Tis a bit snug, ma'am," Mrs. O'Callaghan had said when piloting her to this seat, "but it's my belafe my b'ys don't moind the snugness of it so much as they would if they was girls."

Mrs. Brady mechanically agreed.

The four walls of the kitchen were rather too close together to inclose a bed, a wash-bench, two tubs, a cooking stove, a table, seven Windsor chairs, the water pail, the cupboard, and the rocking-chair in which Mrs. Brady sat, and leave anything but a tortuous path for locomotion.

The boys knew the track, however, and seldom ran up against anything with sufficient force to disturb it or their own serenity. But there was not a speck of dust anywhere, as Mrs. Brady noticed.

The widow's face was a little careworn and anxious as she sat close at hand in one of the wooden chairs listening to Mrs. Brady's explanation of her need of help.

"You have been recommended to me by Mrs. Thompson. Could you come to me to-morrow, Mrs. O'Callaghan? It will be a day of sweeping and general cleaning," she concluded.

The widow's countenance began to brighten. She saw her way out of the difficulty that had been puzzling her.

"I can't come mesilf," she answered politely, "for what with my sivin b'ys I've my own work that can't be neglected. But my son, Pat, will do it for you. I'll come with him jist to get him started loike, for he's niver swept a carpet, though he swapes a bare floor ilegant."

Well, to be sure, Mrs. Brady was not overjoyed. But she saw it was Pat or n.o.body, and she was very tired. So she agreed to try him.

"And when will you have him come?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan. There was no doubt expressed on the mother's face; no fear lest her son might not be able to please.

"At eight," responded Mrs. Brady. "I cannot be ready for him sooner."

"Then together we'll be there, you may depind."

And Mrs. Brady, on the whole dissatisfied, went on her way. "If that boy--Pat, I think she called him--can do housework satisfactorily, he's the only boy that I've heard of here that can," she thought.

The next morning when the two presented themselves, Mrs. Brady, after showing Mrs. O'Callaghan where to leave her wraps, led the way at once to her bedroom. "Perhaps you will just make my bed for me before you go, Mrs. O'Callaghan," she insinuated. "It has been properly aired and is ready."

"Oh, Pat will make it for you, ma'am," was the answer, and again Mrs.

Brady yielded.

"Now, Pat, on with your blouse."

The two women waited while Pat untied the bundle he carried and put on a clean cotton blouse.

"'Twas his father's blouse, ma'am. A bit loose now, but he'll grow to it. He's very loike his father."

Mrs. Brady looked at the tall, slender boy wearing his father's blouse and his mother's ap.r.o.n, with an old straw hat on his head for a dust protector, and then at the mother watching his every movement with loving eyes, and only anxious that he might give satisfaction. And all sense of incongruity vanished from her mind.

"Now, Pat, show the lady what you can do." And Pat obeyed as if he were five instead of fifteen. The dead father had trained his sons from their babyhood to yield implicit obedience to their mother. Deftly he set to work. He turned the mattress; he smoothed and tucked in each sheet and cover as he put it on; he beat up the pillows, and within ten minutes the bed was perfectly made. There was no need for Mrs. Brady to speak.

She showed her surprise and delight in her face.

"I was thinkin' Pat could suit you, ma'am," smiled the mother. "And now, if you've more beds, maybe Pat had better make 'em before the dust of the swapin' is on him."

"I have no more this morning," responded Mrs. Brady courteously.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Mrs. Brady looked at the tall, slender boy."]

"Then, Pat, there's the broom." Then she turned to Mrs. Brady. "Now, ma'am, what's your ideas about swapin'? There's them that says, 'Swape aisy and not be gettin' the wools off the carpet.' But them wools don't many of 'em come off the carpet. There's a plinty of 'em comes on bare floors that ain't swept regular. I says, 'A vigorous swapin' and no light brushin' except by a lady loike yoursilf as hasn't got strength.'"

"Those are my ideas, too," said Mrs. Brady as with an air of satisfaction she began to spread the dust covers over her bed.

All day Pat swept and dusted and wiped paint and window panes, and at night he went home with seventy-five cents in his pocket.

The widow was getting supper, but she worked mechanically, for her heart was in her ears, and they were listening for Pat's step. The brothers, stowed here and there in c.h.i.n.ks between the pieces of furniture, watched with eager eyes their mother's movements, and sniffed the savory odors that escaped from a perfectly clean saucepan in capable hands. But no boy lounged on the bed, nor even leaned against it, and no one sat in the father's chair. To sit there meant special honor at the hands of the family.

"And it's Pat will sit in the rocking-chair and rest himsilf this avenin'," cried Mrs. O'Callaghan, returning to her cooking from a brief trip to the door. "It's Pat'll be bringin' home money the night; honest money that he's earned."

The little boys appeared impressed, and on Mike's face came a look of determination that led his mother to say, "All in good toime, Moike.

You're as willin' as Pat any day. I know that. And the way you look after the little b'ys, your father himsilf couldn't do better."

And then Pat came stepping in.

"Did she praise you, Pat?" cried the little woman as she dished up the supper. She was hungry for appreciation of her boy.

"She did that. She said, 'Patrick, you're elegant help, and will you come again next Sat.u.r.day?"

"And what did you tell her?"

"I told her I would, and let that Jim Barrows keep a civil tongue in his head when he hears of it, or I'll be teaching him another lesson. He'll not be throwin' it up to me that it's girl's work I'm doin' if he knows what's best for him."

"Listen to me, Pat," said his mother, soberly. "I'll be tellin' you now my plans for you so you'll not be runnin' agin 'em. It's to be a gintleman you are, and gintlemen don't fight jist because some Jim Barrows of a fellow says tauntin' words to 'em. You had to kape him off Andy, but moindin' his impudence to yoursilf is another thing."

For the first time in his life Pat looked unconvinced of his mother's wisdom, and she went on soothingly, "But sure and I don't belave he'll be sayin' a word to you, Pat. And anyway you know how many of the blissid saints and angels was women on the earth, and how it was their work to kape things clane and pleasant for them they loved. And that ain't a work to be ashamed of by girl or b'y."

The little boys busily eating had seemed not to notice. Only Mike had looked on with interest. But into all their hearts had sunk the lesson that gentlemen did not fight.

"Are we all to be gintlemen?" asked Barney looking up when his plate was quite empty.

"Ivery wan of you. What should your father's b'ys be but gintlemen and him the best man as iver lived?"

It was not to be expected that in any place service such as Pat's would be willingly done without, least of all in Wennott. The more Mrs. Brady thought of it, the smaller and more unsatisfactory did Sat.u.r.day appear, and on Friday morning she went again to the shanty.

"And I hope you're not come to say you've changed your moind about wantin' Pat to-morrow," said Mrs. O'Callaghan when civil greetings had been exchanged and Mrs. Brady sat once more in the rocker.

"In one sense I have changed my mind," answered Mrs. Brady with a smile.

"I want Pat to-morrow, but I want him all the other days of the week, too."

The widow was silent. She had not planned so far as this. What would Pat say? Would he do it?

"I will give him his board and lodging and a dollar a week to help me Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, and before and after school the other days of the week. Sat.u.r.day he would have to work all day, of course, but Sunday he would have almost nothing to do," said Mrs. Brady. "The washing and ironing I put out," she added as Mrs. O'Callaghan still hesitated.

"You're very koind, ma'am," responded the widow after a pause. "I hope Pat'll go to you. I'll ask him."

"What makes you think he might not like to come?" inquired Mrs. Brady, anxious in her turn.

"Well, you see, ma'am, 'tis girl's work entoirely you want him to do.

And Pat's been put on and made fun of almost more than he can bear since we moved to Wennott. Sure and them b'ys--I'd call 'em imps, only they're big for imps, bein' bigger and stouter than Pat himsilf--they sets on him and foretells when his arms is goin' to burst through his sleeves and such as that, loike an almanac, ma'am. And him a-loikin' nice clothes as well as any one, only he can't get 'em because it's poor we are, ma'am. Not that there's anything wrong about that. 'Tis the Lord's will that it's so, and we're doin' our best with it. But Pat's young. He didn't mean to tell me of it, but his moind bein' full of it, it slipped out.