Great is the mission of the plum pudding to elevate and refine. Poor
Mrs. M'Carty, who had been too tired even to throw a stick at the
Dooleys, and had meant only to wait for the return of the children to
seek her much-shared bed, now began to bethink herself of active
preparations for the unexpected festivities of the morrow.
The fire was encouraged to bestir itself, a kettle of water was put on
to heat, and pails and scrubbing-brush were brought from the lean-to.
At this juncture the returned sightseers burst into the room, Katy and
Norah both talking at once. Terence and Denny were not far behind in
their utterances, and though perhaps more coherent, were certainly not
less enthusiastic. It was well that the eloquence of tongues spoke in
their wonder-filled eyes, for otherwise no mere mortal could have
interpreted the steadily rising tones and varied inflections which
were excitedly mingled in a Babel of sounds.
The scraping of snow and the confusion attendant upon their sudden
entrance filled Mrs. M'Carty with new alarm, but she collected her
wits enough to whisper with desperate vehemence, while she waved her
scrubbing-cloth wildly:
"Whist now, will you, and mind that I don't hear another word out of
your heads, or you'll be waking up Granny, for upon my soul, her eyes
ain't been shut more than this blessed two minutes. I hope to goodness
you won't be disturbing her, for I be just going to do up her cap for
the Christmas. Now off with yourselves to bed, and not another word
out of your heads to-night, till to-morrow. Och, Katy dear! What would
you be telling me that for again? Sure you've repeated it three
times, not counting the twice of Terence's. Now, now, boys, will you
mind your mother, and go to bed like good children, and be getting up
bright and early with Christmas morning faces on you?"
The boys obeyed and were soon deep in dreams in which "cops" were
selling newspapers out in the cold, and newsboys were in Huyler's
warming their feet while ladies in fluffy furs treated them to candy
and ice-cream.
The widow bestowed a grateful look on the two lads asleep in the bunk
which had been built in the little jog between the kitchen and
lean-to. Then she tiptoed past them into the inner room where she
found Katy and Norah whispering excitedly and with no prospect of
cessation until their mother's voice reminded them of their promise to
be quiet.
"Now, child of grace, get into the bed," she said to Katy, "and don't
be keeping yourselves awake till the morning, and don't be forgetting
to say your prayers."
Mrs. M'Carty slipped back to the kitchen, where Grandad sat dozing in
his one-armed rocking-chair, and immediately began to busy herself
with fresh energy.
"Off with your shirt, Grandad," she said, cheerfully, as the old man
gave a sleepy jerk to his head. "It's the best one you have, and I'll
wash it out in a minute and iron it to-night. You can wrap that old
shawl about you, and while your shirt's a-soaking, I'll give you a
brush over with a bit of soap and water, for it'll be that lively in
the morning, there'll never be the bit of a chance, at all; and I'm
not one to leave till the proper time them things I've the opportunity
of doing now."
The shirt being consigned to the soaking process, Bridget next
attacked her father. When his ablutions were finished, she pinned a
shawl around his shoulders, and moved his chair nearer the fire. With
his cheeks glowing from their recent administration of soap and water,
Grandad watched the washing and starching of his blue gingham shirt,
thinking the while of its stiffness, which would encase him on the
morrow, but at the same time regarding it as one of those trials to be
borne without complaint.
Mrs. M'Carty hung the shirt close to the fire to dry, while she
"scrubbed thot strip in front of the sthove;" then she left the
strip, "bekase," as she said in her state of bewilderment and joy,
"Oi musht do the shirt whiles the irons is hot, an' it do beat all how
fasht thim irons does het oop whin ye ain't waitin' on thim." So,
getting up from her knees, and leaving a good-sized puddle for future
attention, she proceeded to pound the iron on Grandad's shirt and one
neck-cloth, turning now and then to the sweet-tempered old man, who
sat smiling at her as she bustled to and fro.
"Ye'll be that fine to-morrow," said Bridget, "that you'll not be
after knowing yourself, sure. And your hair will be combed that
smooth, you'll look ten years younger. It does be, I mind, it's the
hair that adds the years to your life."
Grandad Rafferty, his spirits undepressed by what sufferings the
ordeal of starch and comb might have in store for him, tapped his
empty pipe on the edge of the stove and responded softly,--
"'Tis ye, Biddy M'Carty, would hearten up a ghost, so ye would."
"It's a quare way ye have of jabberin' all through the night that a
body can't get a wink of slape," came the querulous tones of Granny
from her pallet in the farther corner of the inner room. "An' it's
that cold in here--an' why in the world do ye be burnin' the fire in
the night an' wasthin' the wood, an' we'll be sittin' 'round freezin'
to-morra with no fire at all,--so we will."
For a moment Bridget's spirits fell, but the next instant they rose
again.
"Wait a bit, now, Granny, and I'll be bringing you a warm iron to your
feet, and before you know it you'll be dreaming of the smell of fresh
peat coming in the door."
"Dhramin' is it, Oi'd be?" growled Granny, and in a moment more her
cane was heard thumping vigorously on the floor. Bridget and Grandad
had scarcely more than time to exchange a sympathetic glance when
Granny appeared with her red flannel petticoat over her nightgown and
a black and white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She came
hobbling in, sniffing the sudsy moisture and complaining:
[Illustration: "'IT'S MORE ROOMETIZ FOR ME, SO IT IS'"]
"It's more roometiz for me, so it is.--Begorra, but it's piercin' cold
in there.--It's you that has the comfortable spot, Misther Rafferty.
It do be that draughty when yer comin' through this way," and thus
speaking her mind on a few points, Granny made her way slowly to her
chair and seated herself in it.
Meantime Bridget was quietly raising geysers of suds in her endeavors
to conceal the luckless cap.
"Bridget M'Carty," demanded Granny, "what on earth do ye be workin' at
there that ye be puttin' out me eyes fairly, with splashin' soapsuds
in them? Is it my cap yer sousin' up and down, now? Indade, then, and
it is, an' me just wantin' it. No wonder I'll be gettin' more pain in
my bones, with the wind blowin' like a penethratin' blast through the
windy, an' me with no cap, an' ye kapin' yerself warm be exercisin'."
"Och, now, Granny," said Bridget, hoping to pacify her, "sure I
thought it would be a grand surprise for you when you woke in the
morning, to see them tie-ends hanging before your eyes all starched
up, that Miss Barney's mother might just be envying you."
"Envyin' me, would she?" replied Granny. "Like enough 'twill not be
dry by mornin' at all, an' whin I do put it on, I'll be gettin' that
pain in me head agin."
Grandad's conciliatory remark was never heard, for Granny's mutterings
continued while her patient daughter-in-law starched and ironed the
cap. When it was finished and hung by the fire to air, Bridget, with a
weary smile, turned to her father.
"Come now, Daddy," she said, "you'll not be wanting to get up if you
don't be getting to your bed soon."
"Well, thin, if ye're meanin' to put the light out in me face, I'll go
back to my bed before ye do," snapped Granny, and so she went.
When Grandad had been snugly tucked into his cot in the kitchen, and
the pails and mops put out of sight, Bridget lay down to a
well-earned sleep and dreamed that the fairies were pelting her with
puddings, every third one of which fell into her mouth and was
swallowed whole.
_Ninth Episode_