The reference was had from the General that very evening, though the old soldier could not help smiling to himself over it, and the first of the week found Andy and Jim trudging daily to and from the pasture.
It was not without something like a spirit of envy that Barney and Tommie saw Jim and Andy driving the cows.
"Mother, why can't we be goin', too?" teased Barney, while Tommie stood by with pouting lips.
"And what for would you be goin'?" asked the widow. "Most cows don't loike little b'ys. They knows, does the cows, that little b'ys is best off somewhere else than tryin' to drive them about sayin,' 'Hi! hi!' and showin' 'em a stick."
The two still showing discontent, she continued: "But geese, now, is different. And who's to be moindin' the geese, if you and Tommie was to go off after the cows? Sure geese is more your size than cows, I'm thinkin', and, by the same token, I hear 'em a-squawkin' now. What's the matter with 'em? Go see. Not that anybody iver knows what's the matter with a goose," she ended as the little boys chased out of the shanty. "It's for that they're called geese, I shouldn't wonder."
CHAPTER IX
There is no whip to ambition like success. Every day the widow thought, and toiled, and kept her eyes open for chances for her boys. "For, after all," said she, "twenty-one dollars a month is all too small to kape six b'ys and mesilf when the winter's a-comin', and 'twon't be twenty-one then nayther, for cows ain't drove to pasture in winter."
It was the second son who was listening this time, and the two were alone in the shanty kitchen.
"The days is long, and I belave, Moike, you could do something else than our own housework, with Andy here to look after the little b'ys."