Jim was enterprising. Far more enterprising than anybody gave him credit
for. He had been set to copy the General, and that night as he lay down
to sleep he resolved to outdo Pat and Mike. The little boys were
insignificant in his eyes as he thought of what was before him, and even
Andy offered small food for jealousy. To excel the two big boys was
worth trying for.
Now the General was more familiar to Jim's ears than to his eyes. He at
once resolved to remedy that.
"I'll have to be followin' him around and be seein' how he does, so I
will," he told himself. "And I'll have to be gettin' my work done quick
to be doin' it."
Accordingly he hustled through the dishwashing at a great rate the next
morning, for his mother had lately decided that he might wash the dishes
as well as wipe them. The dusting, usually carefully done, was a whisk
here and a wipe there in the most exposed places. By such means did he
obtain a half hour of extra time, and off he went up the railroad track
on his way to General Brady's. He soon came to the point where he must
leave the track for the street, and, the street being comparatively
unused and so without a pavement, he was compelled to wade the snow.
Into it with his short legs he plunged, only anxious to reach the house
before the General started down town. And he was almost out of breath
when he came to the corner and turned south on the cleared sidewalk. On
he hurried and around to the kitchen door.
"Is he gone?" he inquired, poking his head into the room where his
brother was busily washing dishes.
Mike stared. The door had opened so softly, the words were so
breathless, and the little boy so very red in the face. "Who?" he asked
in astonishment.
"The Gineral," said Jim impatiently.
"Just going," returned Mike. And at the words Jim was out with the door
shut behind him.
"What's got into little Jim?" thought Mike. Out of the yard flew Jim,
and took on an air of indifferent loitering as he waited. Yes, there
came the General. How broad his shoulders were! How straight his back!
How firm his tread! At sight of all this little Jim squared himself and,
a half block in the rear, walked imitatively down the street. It was all
very well for his mother to say that Jim was a born fighter. But she had
entirely overlooked the fact that he was a born mimic also.
Here and there a smiling girl ran to the window to gaze after the two as
they passed--the stately old General and his ridiculous little copy. But
it was when they neared the square that the guffaws began. The General,
being slightly deaf, did not notice, and little Jim was so intent on
following copy that he paid no attention. Thus they went the entire
length of the east side of the square, and then along the south side
until, at the southwest corner, the old soldier disappeared in the
doorway of the bank. By this time little Jim's shoulders were aching
from the restraint put upon them, for Jim was not naturally erect. And
his long walk at what was, to him, an usually slow pace had made his
nose blue with cold. But instead of running off to get warm he pressed
close against the big window and peered in at his pattern. He knew his
back and his walk now, and he wanted to see his face.
Presently one of the amused spectators stepped into the bank and spoke a
few words to its president, and the General turned to look at the little
fellow.
"Who is he?" he asked.
"One of your O'Callaghans, General," was the laughing answer.
The General flushed. Then he beckoned to Jim, who immediately came in.
"Go back to the stove and get warm, my boy," he said. "You look cold."
Jim obeyed and presently the General's friend went out.
"Now, my boy," said the General, walking back to the stove, "what did
you mean by following me?"
Little Jim's blue eyes looked up into the blue eyes of the old soldier.
"Our eyes is the same color," he thought. And then he answered: "My
mother told me to be makin' a pattern out of you. She told the same to
Pat and Mike, too, and I'm goin' to do it better than they do, see if I
don't. Why, they don't walk fine and straight like you do. But I can do
it. I larned this morning."
The General laughed. "And what were you peering in at the window for?"
"Sure and I wanted to be watchin' your face, so I did. 'Tis my mother as
says I'm the born fighter, and she says, 'Look at the General. Does he
be goin' round fightin' in times of peace? That he don't.' And she wants
me to be like you and I'm goin' to be."
"What's your name?"
"Jim."
"Well, Jim, I don't think your mother meant that you should follow me
through the street and try to walk like me. And you must not do so any
more."
"But I knows how now, sir," objected Jim, who was loth to discard his
new accomplishment.
"Nevertheless you must not follow me about and imitate my movements any
more," forbade the General.
"And how am I to be like you then, if you won't let me do the way you
do?"
For a moment the General seemed perplexed. Then he opened the door and
motioned Jim out. "Ask your mother," he said.
"I won't," declared little Jim obstinately, when he found himself in the
street. "I won't ask her."
But he did. The coasting was excellent on a certain hill, and the hill
was only a short distance northwest of the O'Callaghan home.
"'Twill do Andy good to have a bit of a change and eat wanst of a supper
he ain't cooked," the widow had said. And so it was that she was alone,
save for Larry, when Jim came in after school. Presently the whole
affair of the morning came out, and Mrs. O'Callaghan listened with
horrified ears.
"And do you know how that looked to them that seen you?" she asked
severely. "Sure and it looked loike you was makin' fun of the Gineral."
"But I wasn't," protested little Jim.
"Sure and don't I know that? Would a b'y of mine be makin' fun of
Gineral Brady?"
"He said I wasn't to do it no more," confided little Jim humbly.
The widow nodded approbation. "And what did you say then?" she asked.
"I says to him, 'How can I get to be like you, sir, when you won't let
me do the way you do?'"
"And then?"
"Then he opened the door, and his hand said, 'Go outside.' And just as I
was goin' he said, 'Ask your mother.'"
"'Twasn't for naught he got made a gineral," commented Mrs. O'Callaghan.
"'Tis himsilf as knows a b'y's mother is the wan. For who is it else can
see how he's so full of brag he's loike to boorst and a-wantin' to do
big things till he can't dust good nor wash the plates clean? Dust on
the father's chair, down on the rockers where you thought it wouldn't
show, and egg on the plates, and them piled so slick wan on top of the
other and lookin' as innocent as if they felt thimsilves quite clean.
Ah, Jim! Jim!"
The widow's fourth son blushed. He cast a hasty glance over the room and
was relieved to see that Larry, his mother's only other auditor, was
playing busily in a corner.
Mrs. O'Callaghan went on. She had Jim all to herself and she meant to
improve her chance.
"You haint got the hang of this ambition business, Jim. That's the
trouble. You're always tryin' to do some big thing and beat somebody.
'Tis well you should know the Lord niver puts little b'ys and big jobs
together. He gives the little b'ys a chance at the little jobs, and them
as does the little jobs faithful gets to be the men that does the big
jobs easy."
Jim now sought to turn the conversation, the doctrine of faithfulness in
small things not being at all to his taste. "And will _I_ be havin'
a bank, too, like the Gineral?" he asked.
His mother looked at him. "There you go again, Jim," she said. "And sure
how can I tell whether you'll have a bank or not? 'Tisn't all the good
foightin' men as has banks. But you might try for it. And if you've got
a bank in your eye, you'd best pay particular attintion to your dustin'
and your dishwashin'. Them's your two first steps."
Little Jim pondered as well as he was able. It seemed to him that the
first steps to everything in life, according to his mother, were dusting
and dishwashing. His face was downcast and he put the dishes on the
table in an absent-minded way.
"What are you thinkin' about, Jim?" asked his mother after many a
sidelong glance at him. "Cheer up!"
"Ain't there no other first steps?" he asked gloomily.
"Not for you, Jim. And it's lucky you are that you don't loike the
dustin' and the dishwashin'."
Jim was evidently mystified.
"Because, do you see, Jim, iverybody has got to larn sooner or later to
do things they don't loike to do. You've begun in toime, so you have,
and, if you kape on, you can get a lot of it done before you come to the
place where you can do what you loike, such as kapin' a bank and that.
But it's no business. The Gineral's business was foightin', you know. He
kapes a bank jist to pass the toime."
Little Jim's eyes widened. Here was a new outlook for him.
"But you must do 'em good," admonished his mother. "There's nothin' but
bad luck goes with poor dustin' and dirty dishwashin'. And spakin' of
luck, it's lucky you are I caught you at it the first toime you done 'em
bad, for, do you see, I'll be lookin' out for you now for a good bit
jist to be seein' that you're a b'y that can be trusted. It's hopin' I
am you'll be loike your father, for 'twas your father as could be
trusted ivery toime. And now I've a plan for you. We'll be havin' Moike
to show you how they lays the table at the Gineral's. 'Twill be a foine
thing for you to larn, and 'twill surprise Pat, and be a good thing for
the little b'ys to see. Them little b'ys don't get the chance to see
much otherwheres, and they'll have to be larnin' their manners to home,
so they will. Pat and Moike with the good manners about eatin' they've
larned at the Gineral's, and the little b'ys without a manner to their
back! Sure and 'twill be a lesson to 'em to see the table when you've
larned to set it roight."
Jim brightened at once. He had had so much lesson himself to-day that it
was a great pleasure to think of his younger brothers being instructed
in their turn. In they came at that moment, their red little hands
tingling with cold. But they were hilarious, for kind-hearted Andy had
taken them to the hill, and over and over they had whizzed down its long
length with him. At another time Jim might have been jealous; but
to-night he regarded them from the vantage ground of his superior
information concerning them. They were to be instructed. And Jim knew
it, if they did not. He placed the chairs with dignity, and hoped
instruction might prove as unwelcome to Barney and Tommie as it was to
him. And as they jounced down into their seats the moment the steaming
supper was put upon the table, and gazed at it with eager, hungry eyes,
and even gave a sniff or two, he felt that here was a field for
improvement, indeed. And he smiled. Not that Jim was a bad boy, or a
malicious one, but when Barney and Tommie were wrong, it was the thing
that they should be set right, of course.
[Illustration: "In they came at that moment"]