"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