"'So much th' betther fur me,' says he, an' off he walked between the cans. At Mary McKinstry's doore that afthernoon we stood till the shadows began t' fall."
From the accounts rendered, old Mary did not lack for water-carriers for months after that. One evening Mary made tea for the water-carriers and after tea she "tossed th' cups" for them.
"Here's two roads, dear," she said to Anna, "an' wan day ye'll haave t' choose betwixt thim. On wan road there's love an' clane teeth (poverty), an' on t'other riches an' hell on earth."
"What else do you see on the roads, Mary?" Anna asked.
"Plenty ov childther on th' road t' clane teeth, an' dogs an' cats on th' road t' good livin'."
"What haave ye fur me, Mary?" Jamie Irvine, Anna's friend, asked. She took his cup, gave it a shake, looked wise and said: "Begorra, I see a big cup, me bhoy—it's a cup o' grief I'm thinkin' it is."
"Oul Mary was jist bletherin'," he said, as they walked down the road in the gloaming, hand in hand.
"A cup of sorrow isn't so bad, Jamie, when there's two to drink it," Anna said. He pressed her hand tighter and replied:
"Aye, that's thrue, fur then it's only half a cup."
Jamie was a shoemaker's apprentice. His parents were very poor. The struggle for existence left time for nothing else. As the children reached the age of eight or nine they entered the struggle. Jamie began when he was eight. He had never spent a day at school. His family considered him fortunate, however, that he could be an apprentice.