And of all these plans his mother heard with wonder and astonishment.
"Your party's made a man of you, Jim," said the widow at last. "I'd niver have thought of a party doin' it, nayther, though I was wantin' it done bad. Your father was the man as loiked noice things, and he'd have got 'em, too, if sickness hadn't come to him."
And now little Jim's reward had come. At last his mother had said he was like his father. He was as good as Pat and Mike and Andy, and his heart swelled.
"But, Jim, dear, you'd be gettin' your house quicker if we was all to help toward it."
"And then 'twouldn't be mine," objected Jim.
"No more it wouldn't," assented Mrs. O'Callaghan, "but 'twould be better than livin' in the shanty years and years. You don't want to kape livin' here till you have a foine house loike the Gineral's, do you, Jim?"
"No," reluctantly answered the little fellow, glancing about him.
"I knowed you didn't. For sure you're not the wan to let your ambition run away with your sinse. A neat little house, now, with only two b'ys to a bedroom and wan bedroom for me—what do you say to it, Jim?"
Then and there it was settled, and that night each boy had a different dream about the neat little house to be—Jim's, of course, being the most extravagant. That week the first five dollars toward it was deposited with the General.