"Come, Jim," she said, "less n'ise. If you was hustlin' them thin china dishes of Mrs. Gineral Brady's loike that there'd be naught left of 'em but pieces--and dirty pieces, too, for they'd all be broke before you'd washed wan of 'em." "I ain't never goin' to wash any of Mrs. Gineral Brady's dishes," remarked Jim calmly. "You're young yet, Jim, to be sayin' what you're goin' to do and what not," was the severe response. "At your age your father would niver have said he would or he would not about what was a long way ahead of him, for your father was wise, and he knowed that ne'er a wan of us knows what's comin' to us." [Illustration: "Little Jim made a clatter with the dishes."] But Jim's countenance expressed indifference. "Gineral Brady's got a bank without washin' dishes for it," he observed. The widow stared. This was a little nearer to impertinence than anything she had before encountered. "You moind the Gineral made gravy, do you?" she said at last. "And good gravy, too?" Jim was obliged to own that he remembered it. "And that he done it with an apron on to kape from gettin' burnt and spattered?" Jim nodded. "Him that ain't above makin' gravy, ain't above washin' dishes, nayther," was the statement made in Mrs. O'Callaghan's most impressive manner. "Show Gineral Brady a pile of dishes that it was his place to wash, and he'd wash 'em, you may depind. 'Tis iver the biggest folks as will do little things loike that when they has to, and do 'em good, too. What's got into you, Jim?" "You think Pat and Mike and Andy's better than me," burst out the jealous little fellow. "I think," said his mother, "that Pat and Moike and Andy _does_ better than you, for they takes what's set for 'em and does it as good as they can. But you're all Tim's b'ys, so you are." "If I done like Pat and Mike and Andy," asked Jim hesitatingly, "would you think I was just as good?" "Sure and I would, Jim," said his mother earnestly. "Will you try?" "I will." And then steps crunched on the snowy path that led to the shanty door, and Mike came in. There was that in his face that told his mother without a word that he brought good news. "Moike! Moike! 'Tis the shanty's the luckiest place in town, for there's naught but good news comes to it, do you see? What have you got to tell?" "I've got to tell," cried Mike in ringing tones, "that next fall I'm to go to Mr. Farnham's store at fifteen dollars a month. Pat shan't do all for you, mother. I'll do some myself." For a moment the widow was dazed. Then she said, "I don't know what I was lookin' for, but it wasn't anything so good as this. 'Twas Gineral Brady got you the place, was it?" "It was, mother."