The two brightened. "I couldn't believe little Jim was so bad, mother," said Mike.
"Bad, is it? Sure and he ain't bad yet. And now's the toime to kape him from it. 'Tis little you can be doin' with a spoiled anything. Would you belave it? He made his bed three toimes this mornin' and done his best at it, and me a-seein' him through the crack of the door where it was open a bit. But I can't say nothin' to him nor show him how, for showin's not for the loike of him. And them that takes iverything hard that way comes out sometimes at the top of the hape. Provin' things is a lawyer's business. If Jim iver gets to be a lawyer, he'll be a good wan."
Mike, when he went to bed that night, looked down at the small red head of the future lawyer, snuggled down into the pillow, with the bedclothes close to his ears. "I'll not believe that Jim will ever come to harm," he said.
CHAPTER XX
"There's another day comin'," little Jim had said when he lay down in acknowledged defeat on the night that followed his first day of real trying. The other day came, and after it another and another, and still others till the first of March was at hand. In the three months, which was the sum of those "other days," Jim had made good progress. For many weeks he had been perfect in the art of bed-making, but instead of giving up the practice of that accomplishment, as he had declared he would do so soon as he could prove to his mother that he could make a bed, he had become so cranky and particular that nobody else could make a bed to suit him. And as for studying—he was three classes ahead of where the first of December had found him. He could still whip any boy rash enough to encounter him, but his days and even his evenings, in great part, were given to preparing a triumph over his mates in his lessons, and a surprise for his teacher.
The widow used to lean back in her husband's chair of an evening and watch him as he sat at the table, his elbows on the pine and his hands clutching his short hair, while the tiny, unshaded lamp stared in his face, and he dug away with a pertinacity that meant and insured success.
"And what book is that you've got?" she would ask when he occasionally lifted his eyes. He would tell her and, in a moment, be lost to all surroundings. For little Jim was getting considerable enjoyment out of his hard work.
"Pat nor Moike niver studied loike that," thought Mrs. O'Callaghan. "Nor did even Andy. Andy, he always jist loved his book and took his larnin' in aisy loike. But look at that little Jim work!" As for little Jim, he did not seem to observe that he was enjoying his mother's favorable regard.
"And what book is it you loike the best?" she asked one evening when Jim was about to go to bed.