Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER VI THE TWO OLD MAIDS

“He's the mean­est man I ev­er saw,” thought Andy. “Does he think I work on noth­ing a year, and find my­self? Div­il a bit of work will I do for him agin, if I know it.” But bet­ter luck was in store for Andy. Quar­ter of a mile far­ther on, in a two-​sto­ry house, old-​fash­ioned but neat, lived two maid­en ladies of very un­cer­tain age, Miss­es Priscil­la and Sophia Grant. I am not aware that any re­la­tion­ship ex­ist­ed be­tween them and our dis­tin­guished ex-​Pres­ident. Nev­er­the­less, they were of very re­spectable fam­ily and con­nec­tions, and of in­de­pen­dent prop­er­ty, own­ing bank stock which brought them in an an­nu­al in­come of about twelve hun­dred dol­lars, in ad­di­tion to the house they oc­cu­pied, and half a dozen acres of land there­un­to per­tain­ing. Now, this was not a colos­sal for­tune, but in a coun­try place like Cramp­ton it made them ladies of large prop­er­ty.

Priscil­la was the el­der of the two, and gen­er­al man­ag­er. Sophia con­tent­ed her­self with be­ing the echo of her stronger-​mind­ed sis­ter, and was very apt to as­sent to her re­marks, ei­ther by re­peat­ing them, or by say­ing: “Just so.” She was a mild, in­of­fen­sive crea­ture, but very char­ita­ble and ami­able, and so lit­tle giv­en to op­po­si­tion that there was al­ways the great­est har­mo­ny be­tween them. They kept a gar­den­er and out-​of-​door ser­vant of all work, who cul­ti­vat­ed the land, sawed and split their wood, ran of er­rands, and made him­self gen­er­al­ly use­ful. He had one draw­back, un­for­tu­nate­ly. He would oc­ca­sion­al­ly in­dulge to ex­cess in cer­tain fiery al­co­holic com­pounds sold at the vil­lage tav­ern, and, as nat­ural con­se­quence, get drunk. He had usu­al­ly the good sense to keep out of the way while un­der the in­flu­ence of liquor, and hith­er­to the good ladies had borne with and re­tained him in their em­ploy.

But a cri­sis had ar­rived. That morn­ing he had come for or­ders while ine­bri­at­ed, and in his drunk­en fol­ly had ac­tu­al­ly gone so far as to call Miss Priscil­la dar­ling and of­fer to kiss her.

Miss Priscil­la was, of course, hor­ri­fied, and so ex­pressed her­self.

“Law, Sophia,” she said, “I came near faint­ing away. The idea of his of­fer­ing to kiss me.”

“Just so,” said Sophia.

“So pre­sum­ing.”

“Just so.”

“Of course, I couldn't think of em­ploy­ing him any longer.”

“Couldn't think of it.”

“He might have asked to kiss me again.”

“Just so.”

“Or you!”

“Just so,” said Sophia, in some ex­cite­ment of man­ner.

“The neigh­bors would talk.”

“Just so.”

“So I told him that I was very sor­ry, but it would be nec­es­sary for him to find work some­where else.”

“But who will do our work?” in­quired Sophia, with a rare, orig­inal sug­ges­tion.

“We must get some­body else.”

“So we must,” ac­qui­esced Sophia, as if she had sud­den­ly re­ceived light on a very dark sub­ject.

“But I don't know who we can get.”

“Just so.”

At that mo­ment there was a knock at the door. Priscil­la an­swered it in per­son. They kept no do­mes­tic ser­vant, on­ly a gar­den­er.

“I've brought the load of wood you or­dered, ma'am,” said the team­ster. “Where shall I put it?”

“In the back­yard. John--no, John has left us. I will show you, my­self.”

She put on a cape-​bon­net and in­di­cat­ed the place in the yard where she want­ed the wood dumped.

Then she re­turned to the house.

“It's very awk­ward that John should have act­ed so,” she said, in a tone of an­noy­ance. “I don't know who is to saw and split that wood.”

“We couldn't do it,” said Sophia, with an­oth­er orig­inal sug­ges­tion.

“Of course not. That would be per­fect­ly ab­surd.”

“Just so.”

“I don't be­lieve there is enough wood sawed and split to last through the day.”

“We must have some split.”

“Of course. But I re­al­ly don't know of any­one in the neigh­bor­hood that we could get.”

“John.”

“John has gone away. You know why.”

“Per­haps he wouldn't kiss us if we told him not to,” sug­gest­ed Sophia.

“I am afraid you are a goose,” said Priscil­la, com­pos­ed­ly.

“Just so,” slipped out of Sophia's mouth from force of habit, but her sis­ter was so used to hear­ing it that she took no par­tic­ular no­tice of it on the present oc­ca­sion.

It was just at this time that Andy, re­leased from his se­vere and un­re­quit­ed la­bor for Dea­con Jones, came by. He saw the wood be­ing un­load­ed in the back yard, and an idea struck him.

“Maybe I can get the chance of saw­in' and split­tin' that wood. I'll try, any­way. I won­der who lives there?”

He im­me­di­ate­ly opened the front gate, and march­ing up to the front door, knocked vig­or­ous­ly.

“There's some­body at the door,” said Sophia.

“Per­haps it's John come back,” said Priscil­la. “I am afraid of go­ing to open it. He might want to kiss me again.”

“I'll go,” said Sophia, ris­ing with un­wont­ed alacrity.

“He might want to kiss you.”

“I'll tell him not to.”

“We'll both go,” said Priscil­la, de­ci­sive­ly.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, the two sis­ters, for mu­tu­al pro­tec­tion, both went to the door, and opened it guard­ed­ly. Their courage re­turned when they saw that it was on­ly a boy.

“What do you want?” asked Priscil­la.

“Just so,” chimed in Sophia.

“You've got a load of wood in the back yard,” com­menced Andy.

“Just so,” said Sophia.

“Do you want it sawed and split?”

“Just so,” an­swered the younger sis­ter, bright­en­ing up.

“Can you do it?” in­quired Priscil­la.

“Try me and see,” an­swered Andy.

“You're not a man.”

“Just so,” chimed in her sis­ter.

“Faith, and I soon will be,” said Andy. “I can saw and split wood as well as any man you ev­er saw.”

“What is your name?”

“Andy Burke.”

“Are you a--Hi­ber­ni­an?” in­quired Priscil­la.

“I don't know what you mane by that same,” said Andy, per­plexed.

“To what na­tion do you be­long?”

“Oh, that's what you want, ma'am. I'm on­ly an Irish boy.”

“And you say your name is Burke?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Are you re­lat­ed to Burke, the great or­ator? He was an Irish­man, I be­lieve.”

“Just so,” said Sophia.

“He was my great-​grand­fa­ther, ma'am,” an­swered Andy, who had nev­er heard of the em­inent or­ator, but thought the claim would im­prove his chances of ob­tain­ing the job of saw­ing and split­ting wood.

“Your great-​grand­fa­ther!” ex­claimed Priscil­la, in as­ton­ish­ment. “Re­al­ly, this is most ex­traor­di­nary. And you are poor?”

“If I wasn't I wouldn't be goin' round saw­in' wood, ma'am.”

“Just so,” said Sophia.

“To think that the grand­son of the great Burke should come to us for em­ploy­ment,” said Priscil­la, who was in some re­spects eas­ily tak­en in. “I think we must hire him, Sophia.”

“Just so.”

“Per­haps he could take John's place al­to­geth­er.”

“Just so.”

“I must find out whether he un­der­stands gar­den­ing.”

“Just so.”

Andy stood by, wait­ing pa­tient­ly for the de­ci­sion, and hop­ing that it might be fa­vor­able. Of course, it was wrong for him to tell a lie, but he thought his en­gage­ment de­pend­ed up­on it, and, al­though a very good boy in the main, he was not al­to­geth­er per­fect, as my read­ers are des­tined to find out.