Busily he measured and stirred and tasted, and with every taste more sugar was added, for little Jim liked sweets. At last it was ready for the oven, even down to the raisins, which had been picked from their stems and all unwashed and unstoned cast into the pudding basin. And never before had that or any other pudding dish been so full. If Jim so much as touched it, it slopped over. "And sure and that's because the puddin' dish is too little," he remarked to himself. "They'll have to be gettin' me a bigger wan. And how long will it take it to bake, I wonder? Till it's done, of course." He turned to the stove, which was now in the house again, and the fire was out. "Huh!" exclaimed little Jim. "I'll soon be makin' a fire." He rushed for the kindling, picking out a swimming raisin as he ran. "They'll see the difference between Andy's cookin' and mine, I'm thinkin'. Dustin' and dishwashin'! Just as if I couldn't cook with the best of them!" The sugar was sifted over the table, his egg-shells were on the floor, and a path of flour led to the barrel when, three-quarters of an hour later, the widow stepped in. But there was a roaring fire and the pudding was baking. "Well, Jim," cried his mother, "'tis a big fire you've got, sure. But I don't see no potatoes a-cookin'." Jim looked blank. He had forgotten the potatoes. He had been so busy coaling up the fire. "Run and get 'em," directed his mother. "There's no toime for palin' 'em. We'll have to b'ile 'em with their jackets on." But there was no time even for that, for Pat and Mike came in to supper and could not be kept waiting. Hastily the widow got the dishpan and washed off the sticky table, and her face, as Jim could see, was very sober. Then, while Jim set the table, Pat fried the steak and Mike brushed up the flour from the floor. And now a burnt smell was in the air. It was not the steak. It seemed to seep out of the oven. "Open the oven door, Jim," commanded Mrs. O'Callaghan, after one critical sniff. [Illustration: "Open the oven door, Jim."] The latest cook of the O'Callaghans obeyed, and out rolled a cloud of smoke. The pudding had boiled over and flooded the oven bottom. Poor Jim! "What's in the oven, Jim? Perhaps you'll be tellin' us," said his mother gravely. "My puddin'," answered little Jim, very red in the face. At the word pudding the faces of Barney and Tommie and Larry, who had come in very hungry, lit up. But at the smell they clouded again. A pudding lost was worse than having no pudding to begin with. For to lose what is within reach of his spoon is hard indeed for any boy to bear. "And what was it I told you to be cookin' for supper?" asked the widow when they had all sat down to steak and bread and butter, leaving the doors and windows wide open to let out the pudding smoke.