Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER V A PROFITABLE JOB

Af­ter fin­ish­ing her work at Colonel Pre­ston's Mrs. Burke went home. She did not see Mrs. Pre­ston again, for the lat­ter sent her the mon­ey for her ser­vices by Ellen.

“Mrs. Pre­ston says you're not to come next week,” said Ellen.

“She told me so her­self this morn­ing. She is an­gry be­cause I took the part of my boy against Mas­ter God­frey.”

“God­frey's the hate­fulest boy I ev­er see,” said Ellen, whose gram­mar was a lit­tle de­fec­tive. “He's al­ways putting on airs.”

“He struck my Andy, and Andy struck him back.”

“I'm glad he did,” said Ellen, em­phat­ical­ly. “I hope he'll do it again.”

“I don't want the boys to fight. Andy's a peace­able lad; and he'll be qui­et if he's let alone. But he's just like his poor fa­ther, and he won't let any­body tram­ple on him.”

“That's where he's right,” said Ellen. “I'm sor­ry you're not com­ing again, Mrs. Burke.”

“So am I, Ellen, for I need the mon­ey, but I'll stand by my boy.”

“You iron re­al beau­ti­ful. I've heard Mrs. Pre­ston say so of­ten. She won't get no­body that'll suit her so well.”

“If you hear of any­body else that wants help, Ellen, will you send them to me?”

This Ellen faith­ful­ly promised, and Mrs. Burke went home, sor­ry to have lost her en­gage­ment, but not sor­ry to have stood up for Andy, of whom she was proud.

Andy was at home when she re­turned. He had found enough to do at home to oc­cu­py him so far. The next day he meant to go out in search of em­ploy­ment. When his moth­er got back she found him cut­ting some brush which he had ob­tained from the neigh­bor­ing woods.

“There, moth­er,” he said, point­ing to a con­sid­er­able pile, “you'll have enough sticks to last you a good while.”

“Thank you, Andy, dear. That'll save Mary and me a good deal of trou­ble.”

There was noth­ing in her words, but some­thing in her tone, which led Andy to ask:

“What's the mat­ter, moth­er? Has any­thing hap­pened?”

“I've got through work­ing for Mrs. Pre­ston, Andy.”

“Got through? For to-​day, you mean?”

“No; I'm not go­ing to work there again.”

“Why not?”

“She com­plained of you, Andy.”

“What did she say, moth­er?” asked our hero, lis­ten­ing with at­ten­tion.

“She said you ought not to have struck God­frey.”

“Did you tell her he struck me first?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what did she say, thin?”

“She said that you ought not to have struck him back.”

“And what did you say, moth­er?”

“I said my Andy wasn't the boy to stand still and let any­body beat him.”

“Good for you, moth­er! Bul­ly for you! That's where you hit the nail on the head. And what did the ould la­dy say then?”

“She told me I needn't come there again to work.”

“I'm glad you're not goin', moth­er. I don't want you to work for the likes of her. Let her do her own ironin', the ould spalpeen!”

In gen­er­al, Andy's speech was tol­er­ably clear of the brogue, but when­ev­er he be­came a lit­tle ex­cit­ed, as at present, it was more marked. He was more an­gry at the slight to his moth­er than he would have been at any­thing, how­ev­er con­temp­tu­ous, said to him­self. He had that chival­rous feel­ing of re­spect for his moth­er which ev­ery boy of his age ought to have, more es­pe­cial­ly if that moth­er is a wid­ow.

“But, Andy, I'm very sor­ry for the mon­ey I'll lose.”

“How much is it, moth­er?”

“Sev­en­ty-​five cents.”

“I'll make it up, moth­er.”

“I know you will if you can, Andy; but work is hard to get, and the pay is small.”

“You might go back and tell Mrs. Pre­ston that I'm a dirty spalpeen, and maybe she'd take you back, moth­er.”

“I wouldn't slan­der my own boy like that if she'd take me back twen­ty times.”

“That's the way to talk, moth­er,” said Andy, well pleased. “Don't you be afeared--we'll get along some­how. More by to­ken, here's three dol­lars I brought home with me yis­ter­day.”

Andy pulled out from his pock­et six sil­ver half-​dol­lars, and of­fered them to his moth­er.

“Where did you get them, Andy?” she asked, in sur­prise.

“Where did I get them? One way and an­oth­er, by over­work. We won't starve while them last, will we?”

Andy's cheer­ful tone had its ef­fect up­on his moth­er.

“Per­haps you're right, Andy,” she said, smil­ing. “At any rate we won't cry till it's time.”

“To-​mor­row I'll go out and see if I can find work.”

“Sup­pose you don't find it, Andy?” sug­gest­ed his sis­ter.

“Then I'll take in wash­ing,” said Andy, laugh­ing. “It's an ili­gant wash­er I'd make, wouldn't I now?”

“No­body'd hire you more than once, Andy.”

By and by they had sup­per. If they had been alone they would have got along on bread and tea; but “Andy needs meat, for he's a grow­ing boy,” said his moth­er.

And so Mary was dis­patched to the butch­er's for a pound and a half of beef­steak, which made the meal con­sid­er­ably more at­trac­tive. Mrs. Burke felt that it was ex­trav­agant, par­tic­ular­ly just as her in­come was di­min­ished, but she couldn't bear to stint Andy. At first she was not go­ing to eat, her­self, mean­ing to save a part for Andy's break­fast; but our hero found her out, and de­clared he wouldn't eat a bit if his moth­er did not eat, too. So she was forced to take her share, and it did her good, for no one can keep up a de­cent share of strength on bread and tea alone.

The next morn­ing Andy went out in search of work. He had no very def­inite idea where to go, or to whom to ap­ply, but he con­clud­ed to put in an ap­pli­ca­tion any­where he could.

He paused in front of the house of Dea­con Jones, a hard-​fist­ed old farmer, whose rep­uta­tion for par­si­mo­ny was well known through­out the vil­lage, but of this Andy, be­ing a new­com­er, was ig­no­rant.

“Wouldn't you like to hire a good strong boy?” he asked, en­ter­ing the yard.

The dea­con looked up.

“Ev­er worked on a farm?”

“Yes.”

“Can you milk?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you work?”

“In Carv­er.”

“What's your name?”

“Andy Burke.”

“Where do you live?”

“With my moth­er, Mrs. Burke, a lit­tle way down the road.”

“I know--the Wid­der Burke.”

“Have you got any work for me?”

“Wait a minute, I'll see.”

The dea­con brought out an old scythe from the barn, and felt of the edge. There was not much dan­ger in so do­ing, for it was as dull as a hoe.

“This scythe needs sharp­en­ing,” he said. “Come and turn the grind­stone.”

“Well, here's a job, any­how,” thought Andy. “Won­der what he'll give me.”

He sat down and be­gan to turn the grind­stone. The dea­con bore on heav­ily, and this made it hard turn­ing. His arms ached, and the per­spi­ra­tion stood on his brow. It was cer­tain­ly pret­ty hard work, but then he must be pre­pared for that, and af­ter all he was earn­ing mon­ey for his moth­er. Still the time did seem long. The scythe was so in­tol­er­ably dull that it took a long time to make any im­pres­sion up­on it.

“Kinder hard turnin', ain't it?” said the dea­con.

“Yes,” said Andy.

“This scythe ain't been sharp­ened for ev­er so long. It's as dull as a hoe.”

How­ev­er, time and pa­tience work won­ders, and at length the dea­con, af­ter a care­ful in­spec­tion of the blade of the scythe, re­leased Andy from his toil of an hour and a half, with the re­mark:

“I reck­on that'll do.”

He put the scythe in its place and came out.

Andy lin­gered re­spect­ful­ly for the re­mu­ner­ation of his la­bor.

“He ought to give me a quar­ter,” he thought. But the dea­con showed no dis­po­si­tion to pay him, and Andy be­came im­pa­tient.

“I guess I'll be goin',” he said.

“All right. I ain't got any­thing more for you to do,” said the dea­con.

“I'll take my pay now,” said Andy, des­per­ate­ly.

“Pay? What for?” in­quired the dea­con, in­no­cent­ly.

“For turn­ing the grind­stone.”

“You don't mean ter say you ex­pect any­thing for that?” said the dea­con in a tone of sur­prise.

“Yes I do,” said Andy. “I can't work an hour and a half for noth­ing.”

“I didn't ex­pect to pay for such a tri­fle,” said the old man, fum­bling in his pock­et.

Fi­nal­ly he brought out two cents, one of the kind pop­ular­ly known as bung-​towns, which are not gen­er­al­ly rec­og­nized as true cur­ren­cy.

“There,” said he in an in­jured tone. “I'll pay you, though I didn't think you'd charge any­thing for any lit­tle help like that.”

Andy looked at the prof­fered com­pen­sa­tion with min­gled as­ton­ish­ment and dis­gust.

“Nev­er mind,” he said. “You can keep it. You need it more'n I do, I'm thinkin'!”

“Don't you want it?” asked the dea­con, sur­prised.

“No, I don't. I'm a poor boy, but I don't work an hour and a half for two cents, one of 'em bad. I'd rather take no pay at all.”

“That's a cur'us boy,” said the dea­con, slow­ly slid­ing the pen­nies back in­to his pock­et. “I calc'late he ex­pect­ed more just for a lit­tle job like that. Does he think I'm made of mon­ey?”

As Andy went out of the yard, the idea dawned up­on the dea­con that he had saved two cents, and his face was lu­mi­nous with sat­is­fac­tion.