"I'll have Pat and Moike see to gettin' him a new suit to-morrow. It's late to be gettin' him a new suit and him a-growin'; but if he can't wear it nixt fall Barney can, and it's proud he'll be to do it, I'm thinkin'. 'Tisn't often the nixt youngest b'y has a chance to wear a new suit got for his brother because he done good and hadn't nothin' fit to wear to a party, nayther. But Wennott's the town. A party for my Jim, and at Gineral Brady's, too! Would anybody have belaved it when we come with nothin' to the shanty? 'Tis the proudest thing that iver come to us, but no pride could there be about it if little Jim hadn't desarved it." The widow's heart was full. "Ivery b'y? as he has come along, has made me proud," she went on. "First Pat and then Moike and then you, Andy, with your book, and now little Jim with his foightin'. And that's what beats me, that I should be proud of my b'y's foightin'. And I am that." Friday evening seemed a long way off to little Jim when he lay down on his bed that night. He had never attended a party in his life. Andy had spoken of cake, and, by private questioning, little Jim had discovered that there would be ice cream. He tried to imagine what a party was like, but having no knowledge to go on, he found the effort wearisome and so dropped asleep. CHAPTER XXI Little Jim had never been farther than General Brady's kitchen. It was a kitchen of which he approved because it had no path in it. One might go through it in a great hurry without coming to grief on some chair back, or the footboard of the mother's bed, or the rocker of the father's chair. Neither was one in danger of bringing up suddenly on the corner of the table, or against the side of the stove. The younger O'Callaghans were free from numerous bruises only because they knew their way and proceeded with caution. There was no banging the door open suddenly at the shanty, because there was always some article of furniture behind the door to catch it and bang it back sharply into a boy's face. It was upon these differences in the two kitchens that little Jim reflected when, arrayed in the new suit, he slipped around the house and was ushered in by Andy. "What's this!" cried the General, who had caught a glimpse of the swiftly scudding little figure as it rounded the corner. "What's this!" and he stood smiling at the door that opened from the back of the hall into the kitchen. "The hero of the hour coming in by the back door. This will never do, Jim. Come with me." Bravely little Jim went forward. He stepped into the hall close behind the General, and suddenly glanced down. He could hardly believe his ears. Was he growing deaf? There walked the General ahead of him, and little Jim could not hear a footfall, neither could he hear his own tread.