The following year the same unexpected luck brought another boy, and again we young girls, being much at leisure, carried our congratulations: "What will be the name of this little boy, Mrs. Godfrey?"
"Pathrick John, miss—Pathrick afther the saint, an' John afther the father."
A confused sense of having heard that sentence before came over me. "Why, Mrs. Godfrey," I said, "was not that the name of your last child?"
"To be shure, miss. Why would I be trating one betther than the other?"
A member of this same family, upon receiving a blow with a stone in the eye, left her somewhat overcrowded paternal home for the quieter protection of her widowed aunt, Mrs. King, and one day my sister and myself knocked at Mrs. King's door to inquire about the state of the injured organ.
"Troth, miss, it's very bad," said Mrs. King.
"What do you do for it, Mrs. King?"
"Do?" said Mrs. King, suddenly applying the corner of her apron to her overflowing eyes—"Do?" she continued in a broken voice. "I've been crying these three days."
"But what do you do to make it better?"
Mrs. King took heart, folded her arms, and thus applied herself to the setting forth of her humane exertions: "In comes Mistress Magovern, an', 'Mrs. King,' sez she, 'put rar bafesteak to the choild's oye;' an' that minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak wint to it. Thin comes Mrs. Haley. 'Is it rar bafesteak ye'd be putting to it, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Biling clothes, Mrs. King,' sez she. That minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak come afif an' the biling clothes wint to it. In comes Mrs. Quinlan. 'Will ye be destryin' the choild's oye intirely, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Cowld ice, Mrs. King.' An' that minit, ma'am, the biling clothes come aff an' the cowld ice wint to it. Oh, I do be doin' iverything anybody do tell me."