"There's them that think's that cookin's a special gift, and they're right, too. But there's things about cookin' that anybody can attind to, such as havin' kettles and pans clean, and kapin' the fire up when it's needed, and not roastin' a body's brains out when it ain't needed. Yes, and there's other things," she continued with increasing earnestness. "There's them as thinks if they've a book or paper stuck about handy, and them a-poppin' down to read a bit ivery now and then, it shows that cookin's beneath 'em. And then the meat burns or it sogs and gets tough, the potatoes don't get the water poured off of 'em in toime, and things biles over on the stove or don't bile at all, at all, and what does all that show, Moike? Not that they're above cookin', but that they're lackin' in sinse. For a sinsible person always pays attintion to what they're at, but a silly is lookin' all ways but the right wan, and ten to wan but if you looked inside their skulls you'd foind 'em that empty it would astonish you. Not that I'm down on readin', but that readin' and cookin' hadn't ought to be mixed. Now, Moike, if any of these things I've been tellin' you of happens to your cookin', you'll know where to put the blame. Don't say, 'I wasn't made to cook, I guess'. That's what I wanst heard a silly say when she'd burnt the dinner. But jist understand that your wits must have been off a piece, and kape 'em by you nixt toime. But what's that n'ise?" She stepped to the door. A short distance off Jim was trying to get something away from Barney, who was making up in roars what he lacked in strength. Up went Mrs. O'Callaghan's hands to curve around her mouth and form a speaking trumpet. "Jim, come here!" she called. Jim began to obey, and his mother, leaving Mike inside to think over her remarks on cooking, stood waiting for his lagging feet. "Well, Jim," she said when he stood before her, "it's ashamed of you I am, and that's the truth. A big b'y loike you, noine years old, a-snatchin' something from little Barney and him only sivin! It's my belafe your father niver snatched nothin' from nobody." At this Jim's countenance fell, for, in common with all his brothers, he shared a strong desire to be like his father. "You may go now, but remember you'll be takin' Andy's place some day, a-carin' for the little wans." The idea of taking Andy's place, even at so indefinite a period as sometime, quite took the edge off his mother's rebuke, and Jim went stepping off with great importance. "Jim!" she called again, and the boy came back. "That's a terrible swagger you've got on you, Jim. Walk natural. Your father was niver wan of the swaggerin' sort. And jist remember that takin' care of the little b'ys ain't lordin' it over 'em nayther." CHAPTER VII "If I'm goin', I may as well go," thought Pat as he left his mother's door on that mid-April Saturday morning. And away he went on the railroad track at a rapid pace that did not give him much time to think.