"Then we'll call the mother out and show her the surprise now," said Mike. "I'll make short work of cuttin' that hole after you're gone."
"Will you be steppin' out, mother dear?" invited Mike gallantly.
"You'll not be roastin' by the stove no more this summer," observed Pat.
The widow came out. She looked at the rough roof supported by the four scantlings, and then at her boys.
"Sure, 'tis a nice, airy kitchen, so it is," she said. "And as for the surprise, 'tis jist the koind of a wan your father was always thinkin' up. As you say, I'll not be roastin' no more. But it's awful warm you've made my heart, b'ys. It's a warm heart that's good to have summer and winter." And then she broke down. "Niver do you moind me, b'ys," she went on after a moment. "'Tis this sort of tears that makes a mother's loife long, so 'tis."
"Well, Mrs. Brady, ma'am, we're done," reported Pat at a few minutes before four. "Mike, he'd got up and dug all the holes before day, and it didn't take us so long."
"And is the stove out?" inquired Mrs. Brady kindly.
"It is, ma'am. Mike will be cookin' out there this evenin'. Mike's gettin' to be the cook, ma'am. I show him all I learn here, and he soon has it better than I have myself."
Mrs. Brady smiled. How Mike could do better than Pat she did not see, but she could see the brotherly spirit that made Pat believe it.
"Perhaps you had better go over again this evening," she said, "just to see if the stove draws well in the new kitchen."