Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER IV MRS. PRESTON

When­ev­er God­frey Pre­ston had any dif­fi­cul­ty with his fa­ther, he al­ways went to his moth­er, and from her, right or wrong, he was sure to ob­tain sym­pa­thy. So in the present in­stance, fail­ing to re­ceive from his fa­ther that moral sup­port to which he deemed him­self en­ti­tled, on en­ter­ing the house he sought out his moth­er.

Mrs. Pre­ston, who was rather a spare la­dy, with thin lips and a sharp, hatch­et-​like face, was in her own room. She looked up as God­frey en­tered.

“Well, God­frey, what's the mat­ter?” she asked, see­ing on her son's face an un­mis­tak­able ex­pres­sion of dis­con­tent.

“Mat­ter enough, moth­er. Fa­ther's al­ways against me.”

“I know it. He ap­pears to for­get that you are his son. What is it now?”

“He came up just as I was thrash­ing a boy down in the yard.”

“What boy?”

“No­body you know, moth­er. It was on­ly an Irish boy.”

“What was your rea­son for pun­ish­ing him?” asked Mrs. Pre­ston, adopt­ing God­frey's ver­sion of the af­fair.

“He was im­pu­dent to me. He was lean­ing against the fence, and I or­dered him away. He was a ragged boy, with a bun­dle on a stick. Of course, when he wouldn't move, I went out and thrashed him.”

“Was your fa­ther there?”

“He came up in the midst of it, and, in­stead of tak­ing my part, he took the part of the Irish boy.”

“I don't see how Mr. Pre­ston can be so un­fair,” said his wife. “It is his du­ty to stand by his fam­ily.”

“I felt ashamed to have him scold me be­fore the im­pu­dent boy. Of course, he en­joyed it, and I sup­pose he will think he can be im­pu­dent to me again.”

“No doubt. I will speak to your fa­ther about it. He re­al­ly shouldn't be so in­con­sid­er­ate. But what is that stain on your coat, God­frey? I should think you had been down on your back on the ground.”

“Oh,” said God­frey, rather em­bar­rassed, “I hap­pened to slip as I was wrestling with the fel­low, and fell on my back. How­ev­er, I was up again di­rect­ly and gave it to him, I can tell you. If fa­ther hadn't stopped me I'd have laid him out,” he con­tin­ued, in a swag­ger­ing tone.

It will be seen that God­frey did not al­ways con­fine him­self to the truth. In­deed, he found it rather hard at all times to ad­mit ei­ther that he had been in the wrong or had been worsted. Even if his moth­er some­times sus­pect­ed that his ac­counts were a tri­fle dis­tort­ed, she for­bore to ques­tion their ac­cu­ra­cy. Moth­er and son had a sort of tac­it com­pact by which they stood by each oth­er, and made com­mon cause against Colonel Pre­ston.

“Don't you know the boy? Doesn't he live in the neigh­bor­hood?” asked Mrs. Pre­ston, af­ter a pause.

“He's just come in­to the town, but I'll tell you who he is. He's the son of that wom­an that comes to work for you once a week.”

“Mrs. Burke?”

“Yes; he told me that his name was Andy Burke.”

“He ought to know his place too well to be im­pu­dent to one in your po­si­tion.”

“So I think.”

“I shall speak to Mrs. Burke about her son's bad be­hav­ior.”

“I wish you'd dis­charge her. That's a good way to pun­ish the boy.”

“I shouldn't ob­ject to do­ing that, God­frey, but Mrs. Burke is a cap­ital hand at iron­ing shirts. Yours and your fa­ther's nev­er looked so nice as they have since she has been here.”

God­frey looked a lit­tle dis­con­tent­ed. Be­ing es­sen­tial­ly mean, he thought it would be an ex­cel­lent plan to strike the son through the moth­er.

“You might threat­en her, moth­er, a lit­tle. Tell her to make her boy be­have him­self, or you'll dis­charge her.”

“I will cer­tain­ly speak to her on the sub­ject, God­frey.”

At the ta­ble Mrs. Pre­ston in­tro­duced the sub­ject of God­frey's wrongs.

“I am sur­prised, Mr. Pre­ston, that you took part against God­frey when he was rude­ly as­sault­ed this morn­ing.”

“I thought God­frey in the wrong, my dear. That was my rea­son.”

“You gen­er­al­ly ap­pear to think your own son in the wrong. You are ready to take part with any stranger against him,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, in a com­plain­ing man­ner.

“I don't think you are quite right just there,” said her hus­band, good-​hu­mored­ly. “I must say, how­ev­er, that God­frey gen­er­al­ly is in the wrong.”

“You are very un­just to him.”

“I don't mean to be. I would be glad to praise him, but he is so over­bear­ing to those whom he con­sid­ers his in­fe­ri­ors, that I am fre­quent­ly ashamed of his man­ner of treat­ing oth­ers.”

“The boy has some rea­son to feel proud. He must main­tain his po­si­tion.”

“What is his po­si­tion?”

“I don't think you need to ask. As our son he is en­ti­tled to a de­gree of con­sid­er­ation.”

“He will re­ceive con­sid­er­ation enough if he de­serves it, but this is a re­pub­lic, and all are sup­posed to be on an equal­ity.”

Mrs. Pre­ston tossed her head.

“That's well enough to say, but don't you con­sid­er your­self above a man that goes round saw­ing wood for a liv­ing?”

“At any rate I would treat him with cour­tesy. Be­cause I am rich­er, and have a bet­ter ed­uca­tion, it is no rea­son why I should treat him with con­tempt.”

“Then I don't share your sen­ti­ments,” said Mrs. Pre­ston. “I am thank­ful that I know my po­si­tion bet­ter. I mean to up­hold the dig­ni­ty of the fam­ily, and I hope my son will do the same.”

Colonel Pre­ston shrugged his shoul­ders as his wife swept from the room. He knew of old her sen­ti­ments on this sub­ject, and he was aware that she was not like­ly to be­come a con­vert to his more demo­crat­ic ideas.

“I am afraid she will spoil God­frey,” he thought. “The boy is get­ting in­tol­er­able. I am glad this Irish boy gave him a les­son. He seems a fine-​spir­it­ed lad. I will help him if I can.”

“Ellen,” said Mrs. Pre­ston the next morn­ing, “when Mrs. Burke comes let me know.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“She's come,” an­nounced Ellen, half an hour lat­er.

Mrs. Pre­ston rose from her seat and went in­to the laun­dry.

“Good-​morn­ing, Mrs. Pre­ston,” said Mrs. Burke.

“Good-​morn­ing,” re­turned the oth­er, stiffly. “Mrs. Burke, I hear that your son be­haved very bad­ly to my God­frey yes­ter­day.”

“It isn't like Andy, ma'am,” said the moth­er, qui­et­ly. “He's a good, well-​be­haved lad.”

“God­frey tells me that he made a bru­tal as­sault up­on him, quite for­get­ting his su­pe­ri­or po­si­tion.”

“Are you sure Mas­ter God­frey didn't strike him first?” asked the moth­er.

“Even if he had, your son shouldn't have struck back.”

“Why not?” asked Mrs. Burke, her eyes flash­ing with spir­it, meek as she gen­er­al­ly was.

“Be­cause it was im­prop­er,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, de­ci­sive­ly.

“I don't see that, ma'am. Andy isn't the boy to stand still and be struck.”

“Do I un­der­stand,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, in a freez­ing tone, “that you up­hold your son in his atro­cious con­duct?”

“Yes, ma'am. I stand up for Andy, for he's a good boy, and if he struck Mas­ter God­frey it was be­cause he was struck first.”

“That is enough,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, an­gri­ly. “I shall not re­quire your ser­vices af­ter to-​day, Mrs. Burke.”

“Just as you like, ma'am,” said Mrs. Burke, with qui­et pride, but she thought, with a sink­ing heart, of the gap which this would make in her scanty in­come.