Then she turned to Mike. "And how are you comin' on at the Gineral's?" she inquired. "It's hopin' I am you're watchin' him close and larnin' to be loike him."
"I'm trying, mother," was the modest answer.
Mrs. O'Callaghan nodded approvingly. "A pattern's a good thing for us all to go by," she said. "Your father's gone, and you can only be loike him by heedin' to what I'm tellin' you about him. But the Gineral you can see for yoursilves. If you can get to be loike your father and the Gineral both, it's proud I'll be of you. And I will say that you're a-comin' to it, Moike.
"And there's another thing. The little b'ys has their chance, too. And it's because Andy here takes as natural to bein' a gintleman as thim geese takes to squawkin'. Whether it's loikin' his book or what it is, he's the wan to have handy for the little b'ys to pattern by. As far as he's gone he knows, and he can't be beat in knowin' how to treat other folks nice. And he's that quiet about what he knows that you wouldn't think he knows anything only for seein' him act it out."
And now little Jim was completely miserable. Constantly craving praise was little Jim, and the loss of it was torture to him. The widow glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She saw it was time to relieve him.
"But there's wan thing Jim's got that no other wan of my b'ys has," she continued.
Jim pricked up his ears.
"He's the born foighter, is Jim. If he was big now, and there was a war to come, he'd be a soldier, I'm thinkin'. He's for foightin' iverything, even the words of a body's mouth."
This praise might be equivocal, but little Jim did not so understand it, and his pride returned.
His mother observed it. "But what you need, Jim," she went on, "is to be takin' a tuck in yoursilf. Look at the Gineral. Does he go foightin' in toimes of peace? That he don't. Will you look at the Gineral, Jim?"