Perhaps the reader is willing to take another point of view.
As the group stood there, talking over the riot as Mrs. MacNeil called
it,--as John Flagg tried to make Alice laugh by bringing her a
half-piece of frosted pound-cake, and proving to her that it had not
been on the floor,--as she said, her eyes streaming with tears, "I tell
you, John! I am a fool, and I know I am, and nobody but a fool would
have started such a row,"--as all this happened, Patrick Crehore came
back for his little sister's orange which he had wrapped in her
handkerchief and left on one of the book-racks in the room. Patrick was
alone now, and was therefore sheepish enough, and got himself and his
orange out of the room as soon as he well could. But he was sharp enough
to note the whole position, and keen enough to catch Alice's words as
she spoke to Mr. Flagg. Indeed, the general look of disappointment and
chagrin in the room, and the contrast between this filthy ruin and the
pretty elegance of half an hour ago, were distinct enough to be
observed by a much more stupid boy than Patrick Crehore. He went down
stairs and found Bridget waiting, and walked home with the little
toddler, meditating rather more than was his wont on Alice's phrase, "I
tell you, I am a fool." Meditating on it, he hauled Bridget up five
flights of stairs and broke in on the little room where a table spread
with a plentiful supply of tea, baker's bread, butter, cheese, and
cabbage, waited their return. Jerry Crehore, his father, sat smoking,
and his mother was tidying up the room.
"And had ye a good time, me darling? And ye 've brought home your
orange, and a doll too, and mittens too. And what did you have, Pat?"
So Pat explained, almost sulkily, that he had a checker-board, and a set
of checker-men, which he produced; but he put them by as if he hated the
sight of them, and for a minute dropped the subject, while he helped
little Biddy to cabbage. He ate something himself, drank some tea, and
then delivered his rage with much unction, a little profanity, great
incoherency,--but to his own relief.
"It's a mean thing it is, all of it," said he, "I'll be hanged but it
is! I dunno who the lady is; but we've made her cry bad, I know that;
and the boys acted like Nick. They knew that as well as I do. The man
there had to knock one of the fellows down, bedad, and served him right,
too. I say, the fellows fought, and hollared, and stole, and sure ye 'd
thought ye was driving pigs down the Eighth Avenue, and I was as bad as
the worst of 'em. That's what the boys did when a lady asked 'em to
Christmas."
"That was a mean thing to do," said Jerry, taking his pipe from his
mouth for a longer speech than he had ever been known to make while
smoking.
Mrs. Crehore stopped in her dish-wiping, sat down, and gave her opinion.
She did not know what a Christmas-tree was, having never seed one nor
heared of one. But she did know that those who went to see a lady should
show manners and behave like jintlemen, or not go at all. She expressed
her conviction that Tom Mulligan was rightly served, and her regret that
he had not two black eyes instead of one. She would have been glad,
indeed, if certain Floyds, and Sullivans, and Flahertys with whose
names of baptism she was better acquainted than I am, had shared a
similar fate.
This oration, and the oracle of his father still more, appeased Pat
somewhat; and when his supper was finished, after long silence, he said,
"We'll give her a Christmas present. We will. Tom Mulligan and Bill
Floyd and I will give it. The others sha'n't know. I know what we'll
give her. I'll tell Bill Floyd that we made her cry."