"'A STICK OF CANDY APIECE'"

"Hoorooh!" shouted all the little McCartys in chorus.

"Blessin's on the good Saint Antony!" said Grandad Rafferty, beaming on the excited children.

"Stop yer sphakin' with such a noise!" cried Granny. "Them racketin's would deafen the saints themselves, so they would."

"Then would them saints be getting ear-trumpets like Tim Barney's grandmother?" queried little Norah, climbing on the back of Granny's chair and peering over her shoulder.

"Go along with yez, an' don't be askin' such irriverent questions, an' kape yerself from the back of me chair, a-shakin' me roometiz all over me."

Bridget thumped on the table for quiet and proceeded to distribute the sticks of candy, each wrapped in a separate piece of paper. Grandad unrolled the paper and eyed his stick of candy lovingly.

"Troth, it's peppermint," he said, "an' there's nothin' like peppermint to comfort a body's stomick. It's that long since I tasted it, I'd clane forgot how it looked, bedad."

"Well, Bridget M'Carty," said Granny M'Carty, "It's ye that might have minded me health an' remembered that lemin with roometiz is like pourin' ile on fire. Ye must know, if ye have any sense,—which I misdoubt,—that roometiz hates lemin as bad as the devil hates holy wather," and she sniffed contemptuously.

"Never mind that, Granny," said Grandad. "Bridget rolled up them candy and never took note of the kinds, so there'd be no strivin' with the childers. I'll take yer lemin an' ye're welcome to me peppermint. 'Twill warm yer stomick an' yer feelin's, an' acushla machree, it's not so hard on the teeth ayther," and he surrendered his candy with a charming smile.

"Me teeth are as good as yours any day," retorted Granny, but she did not hesitate to make the exchange. However, she inspected the candy carefully and wiped it on the corner of her shawl before applying it to her mouth.

"Now, then," said Mrs. M'Carty, after the candy had disappeared, "listen while I do be telling you the order of the day. You boys, Denny and Terence, slip across to the pile of lumber handy on the tow-path, and bring me back three wide boards. We'll borry them for a table, and take them back when we're done. My family is all going to sit down to once to their Christmas dinner, the same as them rich folks do on the avenue. And there'll be a place for me poor Michael, that was and isn't. Run along now, boys, and pick clean ones, and you, Katy and Norah, wash the dishes, and when the table is fixed you can all go on the avenue and look in the windys, but mind you're home when the bells are ringing for twelve."

Their tasks were quickly finished, and eight little M'Cartys set off for their outing, two-year-old Patsy being bestowed in a box nailed on an old sled, and drawn by the others in turn. Grandad Rafferty watched them until they were out of sight and sound.

"It's a fine time they'll be afther havin'," he said as he took little Ellen on his knee and settled himself comfortably in his chair,—or as comfortably as the unwonted stiffness of shirt and neckcloth would permit. Then he whispered a wonderful story to the baby, and though she could not understand a word, it served its purpose, for presently the little head nodded and the big blue eyes closed in slumber.

Granny M'Carty, who from the inner room had herself been observing the departure of her grandchildren toward the habitations of affluence, now returned to her seat by the fire.

"'Tis I would never let them childer go wanderin' off like that, with a chance of their never comin' home agin," she commented, "but annyhow it'll be sthill for a bit."

The children safely out of the way, Mrs. M'Carty began at once her arrangements for the feature of the day,—the Christmas dinner so bountifully provided with dessert.

She took from her chest her one linen table cloth, woven in a most elaborate design of shamrocks. Her husband had seen and admired the pattern, displayed in a shop window, one St. Patrick's Day, and it being in the first year of his marriage, when there was but Bridget to share his purse, he had bought the cloth and given it to her for a present. The occasions which had been deemed worthy so beautiful a table-cover, had been few and far removed, so the linen was "every bit as good as new."

"You're fine enough for the queen's use," said Mrs. M'Carty, apostrophizing the cloth as she spread it carefully on her improvised dining-table and smoothed its snowy folds. "Sure, you're a trifle small for me big table, so I'll be putting you in the middle, and piecing you out at the two ends with me red and white Sunday table-cloths that ain't seen the daylight since we came to this sorry hole of a place, for it's not oilcloth that the M'Cartys shall be eating their dinner on this day."

The linen cloth being spread in the centre of the table and supplemented at either end with a "red Sunday table-cloth" of more prosperous days, Mrs. M'Carty took from the top shelf in the cupboard her "set of flowered dishes"—another early marital gift. Though cheap in quality, and the plates, cups, etc., in half-dozens instead of dozens, these dishes had been Mrs. M'Carty's special pride ever since Michael had proudly bestowed them upon her.

"Look, Biddy, me darlint," he had said. "I've brought you as grand a lot of dishes as ever I saw, and do you mind them posies they have? They're like the roses growing forninst Father Kelly's wall, where I used to meet you when you were Biddy Rafferty."

"Go along wid yer foolishness, Michael M'Carty," was Bridget's reply, but she had cherished the gift above all her other possessions, and like the table-cloth, the dishes were used but seldom.

"Bridget M'Carty!" cried Granny, when she saw Bridget setting out the dishes, "are ye usin' them dishes me poor b'y bought with his hard earnin's? I'd think ye'd more respect for Michael than to set out them fine plates to be broken by them careless haythins."

But Bridget assured Granny she would keep watch over the precious ware, and went on with her preparations as zealously as though she were preparing a banquet for noble folk. She had a small package of tea which had been given her by one of the conductors for whom she washed. He was an Irish boy lately come from the old country, and Mrs. M'Carty's sympathy for his homesickness had won from him this Christmas remembrance. The tea was a most welcome gift, for her finances had not permitted her to buy this beverage for many days. She had not mentioned it, for she wished to have as many surprises as possible, for, thought she, "Surprises is about all they'll be getting."

Granny had followed her daughter-in-law's movements with a lofty, scornful look, but when she saw her take down the old brown teapot and give it a washing, she could not refrain from a question.

"Is it tay ye're afther havin'?" she asked, almost forgetting herself at the thought and speaking in an amiable tone.

"Yes, Granny, but I was intending it for a surprise."

"Wan time is as good as another for a surprise," said Granny. "If it's a good one it gives a body somethin' pleasant to be thinkin' about, an' if it's a bad one, then the sooner ye're told the sooner ye do be gettin' over it."

The animated look in Granny's eyes showed that, in her opinion, this surprise was a good one, and Grandad Rafferty opened his eyes in astonishment when he heard her crooning a bit of the "Low-backed Car."

"It's the peppermint did it," said he to himself, "an' may the saints kape it lastin' till bedtime."

By noon the banqueting-hall of the M'Cartys presented a most festal appearance. The flowered dishes were displayed to the best advantage, and the red cotton table-cloths served the purpose of a color scheme. The baked apples adorned the centre of the table, flanked at either side by plates of bread. The oven door stood ajar, disclosing two dishes of steaming potatoes waiting to be transferred to the table, and later to the plates and stomachs of the juvenile M'Cartys.

When the twelve o'clock bells began to ring, Bridget poured the water over the tea and set the teapot over the fire, where the beverage immediately began boiling with a vigor that would have appalled an epicurean taste. Granny M'Carty was moved up to the centre of the table on one side, and Grandad Rafferty was installed opposite. Little Ellen, in the charge of her grandfather, immediately preËmpted a spoon, and in her enjoyment of the new plaything brought it down with a smart rap on one of the plates.

"I told yez ye'd be afther havin' ev'ry last one of them dishes broke," scolded Granny. "Ye're that extravagant with yer things, Bridget M'Carty, it's no wonder ye went an' lost yer husband. An' where's them childers that was to be comin' home at twilve? Sure they never do as they're bid unless the devil's afther them, an' if they're not here soon the tay will be sphoiled entirely," and she sniffed the air anxiously.

At this critical moment the door, true to its habit, sprung open, and the eight laughing, panting, ruddy M'Carty heirs and heiresses filled the little room to overflowing. Their wraps were thrown aside and they were about to make a grand rush for the table when Mrs. M'Carty interposed.

"Never in me life have I see worse manners since me eyes had the misfortune to rest on them Dooleys down the tow-path. You're patterns in manners when you're asleep, but where do you keep your decency daytimes? Go to the shed and show yourselves to the water and soap, and don't be keeping me dinner waiting long, either."

Bang, thump, splash, grunt, gurgle, constituted the sign audible of the little M'Cartys' cleansing. The hands and faces were polished, the comb hastily passed round, and in they trooped, this time more quietly, as if they had scrubbed off some of their boisterous spirits.

Norah had found a bit of holly, with which she adorned the dish of baked apples, while Terence, with much effort, pulled from his pocket a package wrapped in pink paper and laid it with an important air on Granny's plate.

"Merry Christmas, with a present for you, Granny," he said.

"What's that you've been buying?" said Mrs. M'Carty, "and you with no money to buy nothing with."

"I didn't buy it," said Terence.

"I'll not have anythin' to do with stholen stuff, ye wicked craytur," exclaimed Granny, pushing the offending package away from her.

"I didn't steal it, neither," said Terence, proudly. "I leave such works for them Dooleys," and he held his head aloft and went over by his mother.

"I believe you, Terence, my boy," said Mrs. M'Carty. "But wherever did you get it?"

"He axed for it," interposed Katy. "We were that cold, and when we came to a drug-store, Terence, says he, 'Let's slip in and get warm and smell all them perfoomery and things.' And the drug-store man says, 'What does we be wanting,' and Terence says, 'We just came in to get warm, but we'd buy something if we had the money.' 'What would you buy?' said the man, and Terence says, 'Perfoomery for my mother, and stuff to cure Granny's roometiz.' 'Is that all ye want?' says the man; 'then get your fingers warm and take these to your mother and Granny, with a merry Christmas.'"

"And here's your perfoomery," cried Terence, handing a smaller pink package to his mother, who exclaimed over it with delight.

"Sure, it's better than flowers, and far more lasting," she said, "and it's glad I am you brought it."

"I can't read this writin' at all, at all. The sphellin' is too small for me eyes," said Granny, once more becoming the centre of interest.

Mrs. M'Carty took the bottle and read aloud the directions.

"And you're to take a teaspoonful after each meal," she concluded.

"Humph!" snorted Granny. "An' does that drug-store man lay out to furnish me with the meals? I'd like to be told that now. Me that hasn't had a decint bit since ye let me poor Michael go off and get drownded in the cold wather."

The clatter attendant on the seating of the children at the table prevented the latter part of Granny's speech from being heard. The smaller M'Cartys were placed either side of Grandad, the older ones being seated by Granny. The potatoes were transferred to the board, and Mrs. M'Carty, taking the little Ellen, sat down at the nominal foot of the table, opposite the empty place set in memory of her husband. For awhile naught was spoken save only the few occasional words necessary in asking for more food. Bridget sipped a little tea, but the sight of the vacant chair quite destroyed her appetite. She looked thin and care-worn, and very unlike the brave wife who with cheery words had sped her husband on his unlucky voyage.

When the children's appetites were somewhat appeased, their tongues began to fly as they recounted the morning adventures,—the sights, the sounds, and all the little incidents which had gone to make up a happy morning.

Finally Bridget rapped on the table for silence.

"Whist again every last one of you while I make a request. Terence, me lad, slip over to the wood-box and bring whatever you find there. It's for your Grandad."

Terence quickly obeyed, while the others looked on in eager expectance. He returned with a round package wrapped in tissue and lace-trimmed paper and set it before Grandad, who undid it with surprising alacrity.

"May the saints presarve us!" he exclaimed. "If it isn't as fine a puddin' as my old eyes ever see in me life."

"Me, me!" cried little Patsy, "me wants a puddin'."

"Yes, me little Patsy," said Grandad, "ye shall have a bite as soon as my knife can cut it. There now, sit down, all of yez, till I have a chance at it,"—for the children were crowding about the old man to get a glimpse of the beautiful pudding. But before his knife had so much as touched it, Bridget interposed.

"Hold a bit," she said. "Katy, darling, run to the shed and look under the wash-tub and bring the contents to Granny."