"Not much! Or, hold on, I don't know but I am. Why, yes, my great-grandmother came from the North of Ireland. Father is proud of it, I remember."
"Well, I don't care where you came from, you know. Nor whether you are Irish, or Dutch, or what; I am only telling you what they said. They told how you worked at Job Smith's for your board; and one of them said your father had run away and left you."
"Well, he has; run three thousand miles away, and left me, as sure as time. But he means to run back again, when he gets ready."
"I knew that wasn't true, Jerry; and I only tell you because I thought you might want to speak about your father in a way that would show them it wasn't so. But what I want to say is, that I know they will get all over those feelings when they come to know you; and they will like you, and invite you to places, if you don't go with me; but they won't any of them have anything to do with me, on account of my father. And, Jerry, I want you not to go with me, or talk with me any more."
"Just so," said Jerry, in an unconcerned voice. "Do you think I am making this stick too long for the frame? Our kitchen towels are pretty wide. Well, now, see here, Miss Nettie Decker, you would not make a very honest business woman if you went back on a square bargain in that fashion. You and I settled it to be partners in a very important business; and partners can't get along very well without speaking to each other. There is no use in talking. You are several days too late. The mischief is done. I'm your friend and fellow-laborer and partner in the cabinet business, and the upholstery line, and all the other lines. You will find me the hardest fellow to get rid of that ever was. I don't shake off worth a cent. I shall take walks with you every chance I can get; and shout to you from the woodshed window when you are over home, and wait for you to come out when I think it is about time you should appear, and be on hand in all imaginable places. Now I hope you understand what sort of a fellow I am."
If the boy had looked in Nettie's face just then, he would have seen a sudden light flash over it which carried away a good deal of the look of patient endurance which it had worn for the last few hours. Still her voice was full of earnestness.
"But, Jerry, they will not have anything to do with you if you act so. By and by they will not even speak to you. And they won't invite you to their parties, nor anywhere. There is going to be a party next week, and I think you would have been invited if you hadn't gone with me Sunday; now I am afraid you won't be." And now Jerry whistled a few rollicking notes.
"All right," he said in a cheery tone. "If there is any one thing more than another that I don't like to go to, it is a girls' party where they make believe act like silly, grown-up men and women. I know just about what kind of a party those girls in that class would get up. If you have been the means of saving me from an invitation, it is just another thing to thank you for. Look here, Nettie, let us make another bargain, sober earnest, not to be broken. I don't care a red cent for the girls, nor their invitations, nor their bows; I would just as soon they did not know me when they met me as not. If that is their game, I shall like nothing better than to meet them half-way; girls who would know no better than to talk the way they did about you, are not to my liking. If because you wear clothes that are neat and nice and the best you can afford, and because I am an Irish boy and work for my board, are good reasons for not having anything to do with us, why, we will return the favor and not have anything to do with them, for better reasons than they have shown. Let's drop them. I thought some of them would be good friends to you, maybe, and help you to have a nice time; but they are not of the right sort, it seems. You and I will have just as good times as we can get up. And we will bow to them if they bow to us; if they don't we will let them pass. What is settled is, that we are bound to work out this thing together. Understand?"
"Yes," said Nettie, with a little soft laugh, "I understand, and I don't believe I ought to let you do it. But you don't know how nice it is; and I can't tell you how lonesome I felt when I thought I ought not to talk with you any more."
"I should like to see you help yourself," said Jerry, in a complacent tone. "You would find it the hardest work you ever did in your life not to talk to me, when I should keep up a regular fire of questions of all sorts and sizes."