"Sure and I don't know. I've just the calicoes and the ginghams and the muslins."
"Ah!" breathed the widow. And she sat silent in thought a while. The small lamp on the pine table burned brightly, and it lit up Pat's face so that with every glance his mother cast at him she read there the discouragement he felt.
"Pat dear," she began presently, "there's beginnin's in all things. And the beginnin's is either at the bottom or at wan ind, depindin' which way you're to go. Roads has their beginnin's at wan ind and runs on, round corners, maybe, to the other ind. Permotions begin at the bottom. You moind I was tellin' you 'twas loikely there was permotions in stores?"
Pat gazed at his mother eagerly. "Do you think so, mother?"
"I think so. Else why should they put the last hand in to sweepin' out and sellin' naught but ginghams and calicoes and muslins? And will you be tellin' me what the b'y that swept out before you is sellin'?" continued the little woman, anxious to prove the truth of her opinion.
"Sure and he ain't sellin' nothin'," responded the son. "He ain't there."
"And why not?" interrogated Mrs. O'Callaghan.
"I'm told he didn't do his work good."
Mrs. O'Callaghan looked grave. "Well," she said, "there's a lesson for them that needs it. There's gettin' out of stores as well as gettin' in, so there is. And now, Pat, cheer up. 'Tis loikely sellin' things is a business that's got to be larned the same as any other."
"Well, but, mother, I know every piece I've got, and the price of it."