"Cheer up!" was her greeting as they came into the kitchen where she was already bustling about the stove. "Cheer up, and stand ready till I give you the word. I'm goin' to have wan more big try at Jim. You took such a load off me with your listenin' to me and promisin' to help that it's heartened me wonderful."
The two elder sons smiled. To be permitted to hearten their mother was to them a great privilege, and suddenly little Jim did not appear the hopeless case he had seemed when they went to bed the night before. They cheered up, and the three were pleasantly chatting when sleepy-eyed little Jim came out of the bedroom.
"Hurry, now, and get washed, and then set your table," said his mother kindly.
But little Jim was sulky.
"I'm tired of gettin' up early mornin's just to be doin' girl's work," he said.
Mrs. O'Callaghan nodded significantly at Pat and Mike. "What was that story, Moike, you was tellin' me about the smartest fellow in the Gineral's mess, before he got to be a gineral, you know, bein' so handy at all sorts of woman's work? Didn't you tell me the Gineral said there couldn't no woman come up to him?"
"I did, mother."
"I call that pretty foine. Beatin' the women at their own work. There was only wan man in the mess that could do it, you said?"
"Yes, mother," smiled Mike.
"I thought so. 'Tain't often you foind a rale handy man loike that. And he was the best foighter they had, too?"