"Well, Jim," she said when he stood before her, "it's ashamed of you I am, and that's the truth. A big b'y loike you, noine years old, a-snatchin' something from little Barney and him only sivin! It's my belafe your father niver snatched nothin' from nobody."
At this Jim's countenance fell, for, in common with all his brothers, he shared a strong desire to be like his father.
"You may go now, but remember you'll be takin' Andy's place some day, a-carin' for the little wans."
The idea of taking Andy's place, even at so indefinite a period as sometime, quite took the edge off his mother's rebuke, and Jim went stepping off with great importance.
"Jim!" she called again, and the boy came back.
"That's a terrible swagger you've got on you, Jim. Walk natural. Your father was niver wan of the swaggerin' sort. And jist remember that takin' care of the little b'ys ain't lordin' it over 'em nayther."
CHAPTER VII
"If I'm goin', I may as well go," thought Pat as he left his mother's door on that mid-April Saturday morning. And away he went on the railroad track at a rapid pace that did not give him much time to think.
It was the General himself who answered his knock that had a strange mixture of the bold and the timid. The General had been listening for that knock. He had been wondering what sort of a boy it was who was willing to go out by the day to do housework. The knock, told him. "He hates to come, but he comes, nevertheless," thought the General. And he arose and opened the door.