Three cheers for Jim O'Callaghan

Pat and Mike were one on each side of him






CHAPTER I


When Mr. O'Callaghan died, after a long, severe, and expensive sickness,
he left to his widow a state of unlimited poverty and seven boys.

"Sure, an' sivin's the parfect number," she said through her tears as
she looked round on her flock; "and Tim was the bist man as iver lived,
may the saints presarve him an' rist him from his dreadful pains!"

Thus did she loyally ignore the poverty. It was the last of February.
Soon they must leave the tiny house of three rooms and the farm, for
another renter stood ready to take possession. There would be nothing to
take with them but their clothing and their scant household furniture,
for the farm rent and the sickness had swallowed up the crop, the
farming implements, and all the stock.

Pat, who was fifteen and the oldest, looked gloomily out at one of the
kitchen windows, and Mike, the next brother, a boy of thirteen, looked
as gloomily as he could out of the other. Mike always followed Pat's
lead.