"If I'm goin', I may as well go," thought Pat as he left his mother's
door on that mid-April Saturday morning. And away he went on the
railroad track at a rapid pace that did not give him much time to think.
It was the General himself who answered his knock that had a strange
mixture of the bold and the timid. The General had been listening for
that knock. He had been wondering what sort of a boy it was who was
willing to go out by the day to do housework. The knock, told him. "He
hates to come, but he comes, nevertheless," thought the General. And he
arose and opened the door.
He looked into the boy's face and he saw a determined mouth and pleading
eyes.
"Grit," thought the General. But he only said, "Come in, my boy."
"Yes, sir, if you please, sir, will you be tellin' Mrs. General Brady
that I'm here, sir?" was Pat's answer as, with flushing cheeks, he
stepped awkwardly into the room. What a fine soldierly bearing the
General had, and how he must despise a boy who could turn himself into a
girl!
"Sit down, Pat," said the General pleasantly. "That's your name, isn't
it? I'll tell Mrs. Brady presently."
Pat sat down. He could not imagine the General with an apron on doing
housework, though that was what he was trying to do while he sat there
with cheeks that grew redder and more red.
"Mrs. Brady tells me you are excellent help, Pat," went on the General.
"Yes, sir," stammered Pat.
"Have you come to stay, or just for the day?"
The boy's eyes were almost beseeching as he answered, "I've come to
stay, sir." What would the General think of him now?
"I suppose you like housework, then?"
"No, sir," came the answer in a low tone. "But father's gone, and
there's mother and the boys and there's no work for boys in Wennott
unless they turn themselves into girls."
"Better turn into a girl than into a tough from loafing on the streets,
Pat," said the General heartily, as he rose from his chair. "I'll tell
Mrs. Brady you are here."
There was not so much in what the genial master of the house had said,
but Pat's head lifted a little. Perhaps the General did not despise him
after all.
"I've good news for you, Fannie," said the General as he entered the
dining-room. "Your boy has come, and come to stay."
"Oh, has he? I'm so glad." And she smiled her pleasure. "He's such a
nice boy."
"He's a brave boy," said her husband with emphasis. "That boy has the
grit of a hero. He may come into our kitchen for a time, but, please
God, he shan't stay there. I know what he will have to take from those
street boys for doing the best he can for his mother and younger
brothers and he knows it, too. I saw it in his face just now. The boy
that has the moral courage to face insult and abuse deserves to rise,
and he shall rise. But, bless me! I'm getting rather excited over it, I
see." And he smiled.
[Illustration: "'I've good news for you, Fannie,' said the General."]
"Perhaps, Tom, you could shield him a little in the street," suggested
Mrs. Brady.
"I'll do my best, my dear." And then the General went away to his bank,
and Mrs. Brady went into the kitchen to see Pat.
Pat was sensitive. There was something in the General's manner as he
left him, something in Mrs. Brady's tones as she directed him, that
restored his self-respect.
"If only I never had to be goin' on the street till after dark,
'twouldn't be so bad," thought Pat. "But there's school, and there's Jim
Barrows. I'll just have to stand it, that's what I will. Mother says I'm
brave, but it's not very brave inside I'm feelin'. I'd run if I could."
But Pat was to learn some day, and learn it from the General's lips,
that the very bravest men have been men who wanted to run and
_wouldn't_.
At General Brady's there was light lunch at noon and dinner at five,
which was something Pat had already become accustomed to from having to
do his own family cooking for the last six weeks. He was pretty well
used to hurrying home the moment the afternoon session of school was
over to prepare the meal of the day for his hungry brothers and his
tired mother. On Monday, therefore, he came flying into the Brady
kitchen at fifteen minutes of five. There was the dinner cooking, with
no one to watch it. Where was Mrs. Brady? Pat did not stop to inquire.
His own experience told him that that dinner needed immediate attention.
Down went his books. He flew to wash his hands and put on his apron. He
turned the water off the potatoes in a jiffy. "Sure and I just saved
'em, and that's all!" he cried, as he put them to steam dry.
"I'll peep in the oven, so I will," he said. "That roast needs bastin',
so it does."
He heard the General come in.
"There's a puddin' in the warm oven," he continued, "but I don't know
nothin' about that. It's long since we've had puddin' at home. I'll just
dress the potatoes and whip 'em up light. I can do that anyway, and give
the roast another baste. It's done, and I'll be settin' it in the warm
oven along with the puddin'. For how do I know how Mrs. Brady wants her
gravy? Where is she, I wonder?"
"Why, Pat," said a surprised voice, "can you cook?"
"Not much, ma'am," answered Pat with a blush. "But I can sometimes keep
other people's cookin' from spoilin'."
"Well said!" cried the General, who was determined to make Pat feel at
ease. "Fannie, give me an apron, and I'll make the gravy. I used to be a
famous hand at it in the army."
Pat stared, and then such a happy look came into his eyes that the
General felt a little moisture in his own.
"How that boy has been suffering!" he said to himself.
"I was detained by a caller," explained Mrs. Brady. "The dinner would
surely have been spoiled if Pat had not come just when he did."
And then Pat's cup was full. He blushed, he beamed. Here was the
General, the man whom his mother had held up to Pat's admiration, with
an apron on, cooking! And Mrs. Brady said that he had saved the dinner.
"Let Jim Barrows say what he likes," he thought. "I'd not like to be
eatin' any of his cookin'."
Cooking had risen in Pat's estimation.
"She asked me, 'Will you please not be nickin' or crackin' the dishes,
Pat?' And says I, 'I'll be careful, Mrs. Brady.' But I wonder what makes
'em have these thin sort of dishes. I never seen none like 'em nowhere
else."
Dinner was over and Pat was alone in the kitchen.
[Illustration: The General makes the gravy.]
"But the General makin' the gravy was fine, and sure I never tasted no
better gravy neither. I wish I could just be lettin' 'em know at home.
Mike will have to be turnin' into a girl, too, one of these days, and it
might ease him a bit if he could know the General wasn't above cookin'.
My mother said I'd be comin' to visit 'em when my work was done, if Mrs.
Brady could spare me."
A half-hour later a trim-looking boy presented himself at the
sitting-room door.
"Come in, Pat," invited the General, looking up from his paper with a
smile.
Pat smiled back again, but it was to Mrs. Brady that he turned as he
entered the room.
"Mrs. Brady, ma'am," he said, "the dishes are done and the kitchen made
neat. Will you have me to be doin' something more for you this evenin'?"
"No, Pat," replied Mrs. Brady kindly. "Your work, for to-day, is done.
You may take off your apron."
"Yes, ma'am. Would you kindly be lettin' me go home a little while
then?"
Pat's look was eager but submissive.
"Certainly, Pat," was the reply. "Take the kitchen key with you."
"Thank you, kindly, ma'am," returned Pat gratefully. And with another
smile for the General, who had not resumed his reading, the boy left the
room, and, shortly after, the house.
"Listen!" cried Mrs. O'Callaghan, with uplifted ringer. And the
rollicking talk about her ceased on the instant.
"'Tis Pat's step I hear outside, and here he is, sure enough. Now, b'ys,
don't all of you be on him at wanst. Let him sit down in the father's
chair."
Pat, feeling the honor paid him, and showing that he felt it, sat down.
The little boys crowded around him with their news. Jim and Andy got as
near to him as they could for furniture, while Mike looked at him from
the farther side of the tiny room with a heart full of love and
admiration in his eyes. They had not seen Pat since Saturday morning
except at school that day, and that was not like having him at home with
them.
"And how does your work come on?" asked his mother as soon as she could
get in a word.
"Fine," said Pat. "'Tis an elegant place." Then, with an air that tried
hard to be natural, he added, "The General himself made the gravy
to-day."
"What!" exclaimed his mother. "The Gineral!"
"He did," said Pat. "He put on one of Mrs. Brady's aprons, and 'twas
fine gravy, too."
The widow looked her astonishment. "And do you call that foine?" she
demanded at last. "The Gineral havin' to make his own gravy? What was
you a-doin', Pat?"
"I was helpin' Mrs. Brady with the puddin' sauce and dishin' up. 'Twas
behind we all was, owin' to a caller, and Mrs. Brady said if it hadn't
been for me the dinner would have been spoiled sure. I got there just in
time."
"The Gineral," said Mrs. O'Callaghan, looking about her impressively,
"is the handsomest and the foinest gintleman in the town. Iverybody says
so. And the Gineral ain't above puttin' an apron on him and makin'
gravy. Let that be a lesson to you all. The war's over. You'll none of
you iver be ginerals. But you can all make gravy, so you can."
"When, mother, when?" asked Barney and Tommie eagerly, who saw at once
that gravy would be a great improvement on mud pies, their only culinary
accomplishment at present.
"When?" repeated the widow. "All in good toime, to be sure. Pat will be
givin' Moike the Gineral's receipt, and the b'y that steps into Moike's
place--and that'll be Andy, I'm thinkin'--he'll larn it of Moike, and so
on, do you see?"
"And I was just thinkin'," put in Pat, with an encouraging glance at
Mike, "that Jim Barrows's cookin' was like to be poor eatin'."
"True for you, my b'y!" exclaimed the widow. "The idea of that Jim
Barrows a-cookin' niver struck me before. But, as you say, no doubt
'twould be poor. Them that's not above nignaggin' the unfortunate is apt
to be thinkin' themsilves above cookin', and if they tried it wanst, no
doubt their gravy would be a mixture of hot water and scorch, with, like
enough, too little salt in it if it didn't have too much, and full of
lumps besides. 'Tis your brave foightin' men and iligant gintlemen loike
the Gineral that makes the good gravy."