MRS. MULVANEY'S AIR CASTLE
When Mrs. Mulvaney saw the Christmas tree she shook her head. "I'm glad
you're with me, Chinky," she began, "I'd hate to be here alone, and
what's more, I hate to touch that tree. Poor man! To think how he's
missed his folks and him so good. I'd no more take any money for doing
a neighbourly act like this than I'd fly."
"Well, ma," observed Chinky, "I'd rather see you with the money than
trying to fly with wings. Only think how you'd look! I bet your feet'd
drag."
"Young man, if you'd use your eyes more and your tongue less, why then
instead of making fun of your poor old mother you'd be learning a
lesson from this tree before we take it out."
"What'd I learn?"
"You'd learn how Christmas trees is trimmed. I think we ought to take
pattern by this so's we'd know how to get up our own."
"Sure enough, ma, I'll run home and get a pencil and a piece of paper
and I'll draw that tree just as it stands, so we'll know where to hook
up the strings of pop-corn, and the paper trimmings, and have a tree
that is a tree."
Chinky was gone but a short time and soon finished three remarkable
sketches which he put in his pocket for future use.
"We'll have a Christmas this year that'll make up for lost time," said
Mrs. Mulvaney, smiling at Chinky through clouds of dust. "I believe we
shall have to take everything in this room out-doors if we ever expect
to get this place clean. How it all comes back to me the way my mother
used to do things. We better shut up the piano, though I don't know so
much about this kind as I do about another."
"You used to call your wash-board a piano, didn't you, ma?" Chinky
remarked.
"So I did, and that ain't saying's I liked the music of it, either,
still, who knows but our Hannah'll be learning to play this—I mean,
to play a sure enough piano some day. And Chinky, how'd you like to go
to college?"
"Why, Ma Mulvaney!"
"Well, how'd you like it?"
"Not for me, ma, I'm going to raise hens and turkeys, and I don't want
to take on any more schooling than I have to. What I'm going to be is a
rich farmer. Hannah, she can go to college," and Chinky grinned.
"I shouldn't be a mite surprised," added Mrs. Mulvaney, "if it all
happens."
"What's getting into you, ma?" asked the boy. "You're talking just like
Sally Brown. I know she thinks that smarty brother of hers'll be the
President of the United States."
"Hoping," agreed Mrs. Mulvaney, wiping the dust from two little rockers
that she decided would fit Nora and Dora, "hoping is just as Sally
Brown says; it won't do one mite of harm, and I hope to see my seven
children amounting to something in the world. My! This is a pleasant
room. Just see the view from the bay-window. That poor man, to be
living here all alone! What are you laughing at, Chinky?"
"Well, ma, let me tell you. The other night Stubbins and I were
over here helping Mr. Hodgkins feed the pigs,—you know he has about
twenty-five,—and of course Stubbins he loves the pigs. Well, Mr.
Hodgkins said 'Stubbins, you'd better come over here, and live with me.
I'll give you all the pigs if you will,' but Stubbins wouldn't do it;
he said, 'even with the pigth it would be too lonethome."
"And Mr. Hodgkins," inquired Mrs. Mulvaney, putting the tin horn in a
box, and wondering if Mike would ever have a chance to blow it, "what
did he say?"
"Oh, nothing much, he laughed and said something about our being lucky
kids, and he didn't blame Stubbins for wanting to stay with his ma."
Mrs. Mulvaney, with her back to Chinky, nodded her head and squinted
her eyes curiously, then turned a big rocking-chair around and sat down
for a moment.
"Well, ma, thinking of buying the chair, are you?"
"Why, Chinky?"
"Because anybody'd think you was in a store picking out chairs to take
home the way you try 'em all. Which are you going to keep?"
[Illustration]
"All of 'em, like enough, since you're so bright," admitted the woman,
laughing softly as she rocked. "And now say, you get to work and no
more fooling. We'll make a bonfire of that tree. That poor man to be
coming home from town this noon, and no family here to meet him and
no dinner ready. Come, Chinky, fly around and we'll get his dinner,
pudding and all before we leave. What if we was all dead and 'twas your
pa?"
Mr. Hodgkins was surprised and pleased when he reached home. Not for
years had any one taken the least interest in him. With the coming of
the Mulvaneys he began to realize what he had missed. It was pleasant
to be on friendly terms with one's neighbours. He was glad the children
liked to visit him. They were good children, too; never made him any
trouble and were always well behaved. He wondered why Sally Brown had
called them quarrelsome, and why she had said Mrs. Mulvaney was cross.
Mr. Hodgkins never saw the little shanty in the city down by the
railroad-tracks and the river, where the seven children were packed in
like sardines. He never knew how hard was Mrs. Mulvaney's life when she
washed clothes from morning until night, merely to keep the seven from
starving, so of course he didn't realize that after a few months in the
country, a great change had come over the family. At last they were
folks.
While Mr. Hodgkins ate his dinner that day, the Mulvaneys gathered for
the first time in their lives around a tablecloth, and if the cloth
happened to be one of the new sheets folded in half what difference did
it make?
"We've got to begin to practise putting on style without losing no
more time," declared Mrs. Mulvaney, "and, Chinky, you tell Hannah to
ask Sally Brown to come over first chance she gets, and show you young
ones table manners. You've got to learn 'em. I may want to ask company
in to tea before long, and we don't want no pigs to the table. Watch
out, there, Stubbins, you've got your elbow in the butter. If you want
something you can't reach, don't climb up on the table after it, that
ain't manners. Take your fork and reach over for it this way, do you
see?"
"Thay, ma, what if I wath after thyrup! Th'pothe I could hook into that
with a fork? Oh, ouw, oh, thay, don't thlap me again. Oh, ouw, thay!
I'll be good, I'll be good!"