"Mother, dear, we'd like to be takin' down your stove, if you'll let us," said Pat. The widow smiled. "I lets you," she answered. Down came the stovepipe to be carried out. Then the lids and the doors were taken off to make the heavy load lighter. And then under went the truck that Andy had run to borrow, and the stove was out. Mrs. O'Callaghan carefully refrained from looking at them, but cheerful sounds came in through doors and windows as the big boys worked and the little ones crowded close with eager enjoyment of the unusual happening. Presently there came tones of dismay. "Pat," said Mike, "there's no hole to run the pipe through. What'll we do?" "We'll have to be cuttin' one, and with a jackknife, too, for we've nothin' else. But I'll have to be goin' now. I was to be back by four, you know." "Then we'll call the mother out and show her the surprise now," said Mike. "I'll make short work of cuttin' that hole after you're gone." "Will you be steppin' out, mother dear?" invited Mike gallantly. "You'll not be roastin' by the stove no more this summer," observed Pat. The widow came out. She looked at the rough roof supported by the four scantlings, and then at her boys. "Sure, 'tis a nice, airy kitchen, so it is," she said. "And as for the surprise, 'tis jist the koind of a wan your father was always thinkin' up. As you say, I'll not be roastin' no more. But it's awful warm you've made my heart, b'ys. It's a warm heart that's good to have summer and winter." And then she broke down. "Niver do you moind me, b'ys," she went on after a moment. "'Tis this sort of tears that makes a mother's loife long, so 'tis." "Well, Mrs. Brady, ma'am, we're done," reported Pat at a few minutes before four. "Mike, he'd got up and dug all the holes before day, and it didn't take us so long." "And is the stove out?" inquired Mrs. Brady kindly. "It is, ma'am. Mike will be cookin' out there this evenin'. Mike's gettin' to be the cook, ma'am. I show him all I learn here, and he soon has it better than I have myself." Mrs. Brady smiled. How Mike could do better than Pat she did not see, but she could see the brotherly spirit that made Pat believe it. "Perhaps you had better go over again this evening," she said, "just to see if the stove draws well in the new kitchen." "Do you mean it, ma'am?" asked the boy eagerly. "Yes." "Thank you, kindly. I'd like to go, but I wasn't goin' to ask. My mother says askin's a bad habit. Them that has it is apt to ask more than they'd ought to many times." Meanwhile, up on the roof of the new kitchen in the hot afternoon sun sat Mike with his knife. He had marked out the size of the pipe-hole with a pencil, and with set lips was putting all the force of his strong, young arms into the work. A big straw hat was on his head--a common straw, worth about fifteen cents. Clustered below were the little boys. "No, you can't come up," Mike had just said in answer to their entreaties. "The roof won't bear you."