Salt tears trickled down the poor woman's cheeks and fell into the tub where she was "doin' out" the wash of some street-car conductors not fortunate enough to have womenfolk of their own.
"Indeed," said Bridget with doleful humor, "that's all the salt water these poor shirts will be getting to set their color, and oh, dear! I wish they were Michael's."
She sank down on an upturned tub and gave way to her bitter grief as she seldom allowed herself to do.
"Sure, it's the first Christmas since my name was M'Carty that the tub will be upside down. The childer couldn't always spare a stocking apiece for hanging up, but it was many a bit they found in the tub. My pie, Mike used to be calling it.
"And now it's him that is dead, and we've not even a meal in the pantry—no, nor pantry neither, and what'll become of us now?"
But Mrs. M'Carty soon realized that even the luxury of time to mourn was denied the poor, and she controlled herself resolutely with the words:
"There, ain't ye ashamed of yourself, Biddy M'Carty? As if it were not bad enough to have the trouble in your heart without grieving about it aloud into the bargain. Supposing the children were all dead, and Grandad were blind, and—and Granny were took away, and yourself were in the insane crazy asylum. Then would be time to be wasting in weeping."