"I says to him, 'How can I get to be like you, sir, when you won't let me do the way you do?'"
"And then?"
"Then he opened the door, and his hand said, 'Go outside.' And just as I was goin' he said, 'Ask your mother.'"
"'Twasn't for naught he got made a gineral," commented Mrs. O'Callaghan. "'Tis himsilf as knows a b'y's mother is the wan. For who is it else can see how he's so full of brag he's loike to boorst and a-wantin' to do big things till he can't dust good nor wash the plates clean? Dust on the father's chair, down on the rockers where you thought it wouldn't show, and egg on the plates, and them piled so slick wan on top of the other and lookin' as innocent as if they felt thimsilves quite clean. Ah, Jim! Jim!"
The widow's fourth son blushed. He cast a hasty glance over the room and was relieved to see that Larry, his mother's only other auditor, was playing busily in a corner.
Mrs. O'Callaghan went on. She had Jim all to herself and she meant to improve her chance.
"You haint got the hang of this ambition business, Jim. That's the trouble. You're always tryin' to do some big thing and beat somebody. 'Tis well you should know the Lord niver puts little b'ys and big jobs together. He gives the little b'ys a chance at the little jobs, and them as does the little jobs faithful gets to be the men that does the big jobs easy."
Jim now sought to turn the conversation, the doctrine of faithfulness in small things not being at all to his taste. "And will I be havin' a bank, too, like the Gineral?" he asked.
His mother looked at him. "There you go again, Jim," she said. "And sure how can I tell whether you'll have a bank or not? 'Tisn't all the good foightin' men as has banks. But you might try for it. And if you've got a bank in your eye, you'd best pay particular attintion to your dustin' and your dishwashin'. Them's your two first steps."
Little Jim pondered as well as he was able. It seemed to him that the first steps to everything in life, according to his mother, were dusting and dishwashing. His face was downcast and he put the dishes on the table in an absent-minded way.