When eleven-year-old Andy was a baby Pat had taken him for a pet.
Accordingly, when, two years later, Jim was born, Mike took him in
charge. To-day Pat's arm was thrown protectingly over Andy's shoulders,
while Jim stood in the embrace of Mike's arm at the other window. Barney
and Tommie, aged seven and five respectively, whispered together in a
corner, and three-year-old Larry sat on the floor at his mother's feet
looking wonderingly up into her face.

Five days the father had slept in his grave, and still there was the
same solemn hush of sorrow in the house that fell upon it when he died.

"And what do you intend to do?" sympathetically asked Mrs. Smith, a
well-to-do farmer's wife and a neighbor.

The widow straightened her trim little figure, wiped her eyes, and
replied in a firm voice: "It's goin' to town I am, where there's work to
be got, as well as good schoolin' for the b'ys."

"But don't you think that seven boys are almost more than one little
woman can support? Hadn't you better put some of them out--for a
time?"--the kind neighbor was quick to add, as she saw the gathering
frown on the widow's face.

"Sure," she replied, 'twas the Lord give me the b'ys, an' 'twas the Lord
took away their blissid father. Do ye think He'd 'a' done ayther wan or
the other if He hadn't thought I could care for 'em all? An' I will,
too. It may be we'll be hungry--yis, an' cold, too--wanst in a while.
But it won't be for long."