“Are your feet aisier now, Jim?” she asked.
“They feels as though they was kivered with welwet,” replied my father, holding up a foot, and regarding it approvingly. “They must have cost a goodish bit D’ye mean to say that you was able to screw the price of ’em out of Tim’s earnin’s?”
“Bedad, it would have puzzled me,” laughed Mrs. Burke. “No, Jim, I saved up to buy ’em for him; saved up out of my own earnin’s a pinny or so a day.”
“You don’t mean to say that!’ exclaimed my father, leaning back in his chair, and wonderingly regarding Mrs. Burke with his only half-sober eyes.
“And why not? Wasn’t it my juty so to do for the man who was workin’ and toilin’ for me from daylight till dark? If I couldn’t do that and a great deal more for the man of my choice and the mate of my hearth; if I hadn’t made up my mind to do it fust and forrard, I’m not the woman that would have crossed the church threshold wid him.”
After this my father settled down to his tea, without uttering another word, only from time to time regarding Mrs. Burke intently, and tossing his head as though his mind was still occupied with her astounding views of the duties of a wife.
“We ought to be very grateful, Jimmy,” said he, as he helped me to a drink out of his saucer; “even when our luck seems deadest out, Jimmy, we never knows what’s a-goin’ to turn up. As the puty song ses, ‘There’s a sweet little chirrup what sits in the loft,’ don’t you know”—
“Looks after the life of poor Jack,’” softly sang Mrs. Burke, in her pretty voice.
“Ah! and not on’y Jacks but Jims, and any other poor cove what stands in need of it,” said my father, wagging his head impressively. “I hope you will never stand in need of it, Jimmy; and if you bears in mind what the doctor said to you the other night, you won’t. So just you be a good boy, and mind what Mrs. Burke tells you.”
“He didn’t tell me to mind what Mrs. Burke told me, father; he told me to”—
“Never mind what he told you; what I tell you is what you’ve got to act up to, and let’s have none of your argyments about it,” interrupted my father, with a frown.
“Bless his little heart, he’s obejence itself,” said Mrs. Burke, at the same time handing me a slice of toast. “Eat this, my good little fellow.”
I was obliged to eat it, for she kept her eye on me all the time.
“You must have had a tightish time of it, I should think, marm,” my father presently observed, “what with minding the young ’uns, and making the place so beautiful and clean.”
“Indade the hintherence the little craythurs have been isn’t worth the talk you’ve wasted on it; they ’re rather an amusement than a hintherance,” replied Mrs. Burke, lightly.
“Well, you’re a queer sort,” said my father, pleasantly. “There’s no keepin’ a place tidy where there’s a young ’un; at least that’s what I’ve always been give to understand.”
“Tut; it just dipinds on the way of going about it,” replied Mrs. Burke. “When one’s used to tidying a place, the job comes as easy as play. But, there, Mr. Ballisat, I ’ll lave you to judge for yourself how much and how little throuble they’ve been to me, for here’s the sacks I’ve made meanwhiles at fourpence ha’penny each.”
“What! done all the clearing and made all them sacks?” exclaimed my father, running his thumb up the work to count it “Earnt eighteen-pence, minded two kids, and cleaned a place in one arternoon! Dashed, you’re the sort!”
“And not hurried myself nayther,” rejoined Mrs. Burke, laughing; “it isn’t a thrifle of work that frightens Kitty Burke, anyhow.”
Now, as the reader has already been made aware, this was not the truth by a very long way. She had not made all the sacks since she sat down; she had brought in three ready-made, and all she had completed was one and part of another. Thinking that it was merely a mistake on her part, I was about to correct her, but at the very moment of my opening my mouth her eyes caught mine, and, evidently guessing my intention, she shook her head, and frowned in a way that was not to be mistaken. But I didn’t care for her; I owed her a grudge for making me hold the candle, to say nothing about the name she had called me. Besides, my father was there, and she daren’t touch me. So, said I, edging closer to my father—
“What a wicked story-teller you are, Mrs. Burke!”
Her rage was tremendous. She glared at me till she squinted.
“What’s that?” asked my father, turning shortly round on me.
“So she is,” I stoutly replied.
“So she is what? Who are you a callin’ ‘she,’ you unmannered little warmint? She’s the cat, don’t you know? Now, then, what do you mean by sayin’ that Mrs. Burke is a story-teller?”
I watched his hand stealing to his waist-belt, and I was afraid to open my mouth.
“Lor’ bless his heart, don’t be angry with him, Jim; shure he manes no harm. He was only about to tell you of the purty stories I’ve been tellin’ him to keep him awake till his daddy come home. That’s what he meant by callin’ me story-teller, Jim.”
“Oh, that’s it! I thought he was going to insinivate that you was tellin’ a crammer about the sacks.”
“How do you mane, Mr. Ballisat?” asked Mrs. Burke, innocently.
“Well, I thought the young stoopid was going to say that you were wrong in the number; not that it’s any business of mine, or his’n either, come to that.”
“But the thruth is everybody’s business, Jim,” replied the virtuous woman. Then turning to me, winking and frowning, said she, “See, Jimmy dear, here is four sacks; tell your daddy how many I have made while you have been sitting and watching me.”
What was I to do? Evidently my father was more disposed to believe her than me. I had never tasted the strap myself; but I had seen it laid over my mother’s shoulders till she screamed murder.
“Four, ma’am,” I answered.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Burke, quietly; “that’s thrue all the world over.” And shortly afterwards she gave me a spoonful of sugar.
I think I may say that that was the first deliberate lie I ever told in my life; and I verily believe it was one of the most mischievous. My father being half tipsy at the time, he might have forgotten all about the circumstance by the morning; but, according to my experience of my father’s memory, what transpired in his presence at such times was tolerably accurate. To this day, I believe that when Mrs. Burke demonstrated to him how easily she could earn eighteen-pence, it made a strong impression on him—stronger even than the Irishwoman’s tea-table solicitude and the loan of the slippers. I further believe that the remarks I made tended to raise in his mind doubts as to the truth of her statement, and that the said doubts were completely dissipated by my corroboration of the said statement. If this view of the case is a correct one, I stand convicted of being an accessory to a very lamentable swindle.
At the time, however, I was incapable of this sort of reasoning, and I was inclined even to look gratefully on Mrs. Burke for helping me out of a threatened danger. I was glad that, just in the nick of time, the baby awoke, and put an end to the conversation concerning the sacks.
Mrs. Burke took the baby up, and, composing it comfortably on her lap, begged my father to be good enough to hand her the butter-boat from off the hob; and then she proceeded to feed the little thing, and kiss it, and talk to it in a way that quite went to one’s heart to witness. No doubt it would have gone to my father’s heart; but becoming drowsy, and feeling warm and at his ease, he presently dropped to sleep—a fact Mrs. Burke was unaware of until he began to snore, when she looked up, and with a little toss of her head finished feeding my sister in silence. The operation completed, she carried the baby off to her own room, and after that only came in once, to carry away the tea-things, waking my father by the clatter she made with them.