Part 4

The shirt being consigned to the soaking process, Bridget next attacked her father. When his ablutions were finished, she pinned a shawl around his shoulders, and moved his chair nearer the fire. With his cheeks glowing from their recent administration of soap and water, Grandad watched the washing and starching of his blue gingham shirt, thinking the while of its stiffness, which would encase him on the morrow, but at the same time regarding it as one of those trials to be borne without complaint.

Mrs. M'Carty hung the shirt close to the fire to dry, while she "scrubbed thot strip in front of the sthove;" then she left the strip, "bekase," as she said in her state of bewilderment and joy, "Oi musht do the shirt whiles the irons is hot, an' it do beat all how fasht thim irons does het oop whin ye ain't waitin' on thim." So, getting up from her knees, and leaving a good-sized puddle for future attention, she proceeded to pound the iron on Grandad's shirt and one neck-cloth, turning now and then to the sweet-tempered old man, who sat smiling at her as she bustled to and fro.

"Ye'll be that fine to-morrow," said Bridget, "that you'll not be after knowing yourself, sure. And your hair will be combed that smooth, you'll look ten years younger. It does be, I mind, it's the hair that adds the years to your life."

Grandad Rafferty, his spirits undepressed by what sufferings the ordeal of starch and comb might have in store for him, tapped his empty pipe on the edge of the stove and responded softly,--

"'Tis ye, Biddy M'Carty, would hearten up a ghost, so ye would."

"It's a quare way ye have of jabberin' all through the night that a body can't get a wink of slape," came the querulous tones of Granny from her pallet in the farther corner of the inner room. "An' it's that cold in here--an' why in the world do ye be burnin' the fire in the night an' wasthin' the wood, an' we'll be sittin' 'round freezin' to-morra with no fire at all,--so we will."

For a moment Bridget's spirits fell, but the next instant they rose again.

"Wait a bit, now, Granny, and I'll be bringing you a warm iron to your feet, and before you know it you'll be dreaming of the smell of fresh peat coming in the door."

"Dhramin' is it, Oi'd be?" growled Granny, and in a moment more her cane was heard thumping vigorously on the floor. Bridget and Grandad had scarcely more than time to exchange a sympathetic glance when Granny appeared with her red flannel petticoat over her nightgown and a black and white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She came hobbling in, sniffing the sudsy moisture and complaining:

"It's more roometiz for me, so it is.--Begorra, but it's piercin' cold in there.--It's you that has the comfortable spot, Misther Rafferty. It do be that draughty when yer comin' through this way," and thus speaking her mind on a few points, Granny made her way slowly to her chair and seated herself in it.

Meantime Bridget was quietly raising geysers of suds in her endeavors to conceal the luckless cap.

"Bridget M'Carty," demanded Granny, "what on earth do ye be workin' at there that ye be puttin' out me eyes fairly, with splashin' soapsuds in them? Is it my cap yer sousin' up and down, now? Indade, then, and it is, an' me just wantin' it. No wonder I'll be gettin' more pain in my bones, with the wind blowin' like a penethratin' blast through the windy, an' me with no cap, an' ye kapin' yerself warm be exercisin'."

"Och, now, Granny," said Bridget, hoping to pacify her, "sure I thought it would be a grand surprise for you when you woke in the morning, to see them tie-ends hanging before your eyes all starched up, that Miss Barney's mother might just be envying you."

"Envyin' me, would she?" replied Granny. "Like enough 'twill not be dry by mornin' at all, an' whin I do put it on, I'll be gettin' that pain in me head agin."

Grandad's conciliatory remark was never heard, for Granny's mutterings continued while her patient daughter-in-law starched and ironed the cap. When it was finished and hung by the fire to air, Bridget, with a weary smile, turned to her father.

"Come now, Daddy," she said, "you'll not be wanting to get up if you don't be getting to your bed soon."

"Well, thin, if ye're meanin' to put the light out in me face, I'll go back to my bed before ye do," snapped Granny, and so she went.

When Grandad had been snugly tucked into his cot in the kitchen, and the pails and mops put out of sight, Bridget lay down to a well-earned sleep and dreamed that the fairies were pelting her with puddings, every third one of which fell into her mouth and was swallowed whole.

_Ninth Episode_

HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT CHRISTMAS DAY

Herr Baumgärtner's first impulse, on finding out what had become of his Christmas puddings, was to send at once to the Widow M'Carty's and have them returned to him. Had it not been for the lateness of the hour, doubtless this is what would have happened.

But the night brings counsel, even in the matter of plum puddings, and by morning the baker had concluded that it was wiser to let the unlucky gifts remain in their misfit quarters. Perhaps Katrina's remark, that his customers would be wroth if they found they had eaten puddings that had been stored for a night, even, in so well-inhabited an abode, influenced his decision.

However that may be, the baker said to Katrina as he sat down to his breakfast:

"Vell, Katrina, if we haf given somedings away in the wrong place, we will not now take it back. But Katrina, dose beautiful puddings, and dose M'Cartys! ach! ach!" and he shook his head sorrowfully at the thought that these culinary triumphs should have fallen to those so incapable of appreciating a wonderful Baumgärtner plum pudding.

In the eyes of the baker, to give twelve Christmas puddings to the M'Cartys was indeed to cast one's pearls before swine.

Herr Baumgärtner could not remain out of sorts for any length of time, and when he found by his plate a gift from his beloved Katrina of a long meerschaum pipe from the Fatherland, he smiled and said:

"Ven I smokes dat pipe den I forget dose plum puddings."

The pipe, indeed, performed a placatory mission, for as the first rings of its smoke curled upward, it became a veritable pipe of peace.

Later the baker and Katrina attended church together, and at the close of the service Herr Baumgärtner left his daughter and wended his way to the bakery.

He tarried in front of the window occupied by the Christmas tree, whose gaily trimmed branches recalled to him so vividly the years when his little Fritz had furnished the joy and merriment of the holiday season. How the wee baby had bounded,--almost out of his mother's arms,--at sight of his first tree! Now the baker had only Katrina to cheer him, while he, in turn, was devoted to his daughter. His present errand to the bakery was to get some of her favorite Marzipan for their Christmas dinner, it having slipped his mind the night before in the distraction of the pudding calamity.

As he unlocked the door and entered the store, almost the first object to claim his attention was the last Christmas pudding "left standing alone; all its nut-brown companions labelled and gone." None of his clerks had dared to risk his position by meddling with that package. Herr Baumgärtner picked up the package, saying with a sigh, as he unwrapped it:

"Oh, well, you might as well go in the window and make a good show. Maybe I can sell you for New Year's day."

While the baker was busy arranging his wares to make room for the pudding, a man came sauntering slowly up the street, pausing as he came to the window. He was clad in a rough suit which here and there showed the want of a prudent feminine stitch. The first glance showed him to be simply an honest Hibernian laborer. Further scrutiny disclosed the fact that he was a man who had passed through unusual experiences, for his bronzed face told of hardship and exposure. At each footfall he looked up imploringly at the passer-by, only to turn away with a sigh of disappointment. As he looked at the good things in the baker's window, he said to himself:

"Ah, my poor Bridget and the little ones are likely fasting, when they ought to be having the fill of the table. And myself looking every place for them till the feet of me is wore off entirely. The cottage is empty, and the priest is a new one, and can't tell me nothing. Mebbe they've gone to the old country, or mebbe they're all--" and here he shuddered and shut his lips tightly, for he would not admit the worst.

"Be jabers," his thoughts taking on a new turn, as he caught sight of a pudding being placed in the window before him, "if I could just find them, wouldn't I make the mouths of them water with that pudding. Like enough Patsy and Maggie and Norah and Katy ain't had a bite to eat of anything decent these six months. Heaven bless the spalpeens, how they would fall on that pudding! And me darling Biddy, bedad, ain't tasted one since she was living with the Church of Ireland minister in Limerick. And here I be, with money enough to buy them everything good, and not one out of them left to be buying for. Oh, well, I've no mind in me to eat myself, but I might as well step in and buy them two buns," and thereupon he entered the store.

The new customer did not look especially promising; still, the baker had known far shabbier individuals to invest a dollar, even, on a holiday, so he advanced with a smile and said:

"Vat can I do for you, my friend?"

Pointing to the large, well-sugared buns, the man began, "Give me two--" when his glance fell upon something white that lay on the counter,--that ubiquitous card that had wrought so much mischief; the card bearing the name and address of Mrs. Michael M'Carty.

"Vat's the matter mit you?" said the baker impatiently, anxious for him to complete his order.

"Oh, my God, what's this?" cried the man, snatching up the card.

"Dot? Vy, dat is one card to go mit one cake to the Widow M'Carty."

"Widdy, widdy, is it?" cried the man, angrily. "Sure the man that calls her that will answer to me for it. Why would she be a widdy, and me working and saving as a respectable husband should for her?"

"Wait awhile,--tell me,--was you Mr. Widow M'Carty?"

"Who would I be then, but Michael M'Carty? It's some of them blathering Barneys that's after calling me Bridget a widdy. Their lying tongues are all the time wagging with some scandal on a woman that hasn't a good strong man to protect her and the childers. But tell me quick, where are they, and are they alive, all alive?"

"I hear my Katrina speak about dem. But vere haf you been this long time? I t'ought you was drownded, already."

"Sure, 'twas meself thought so too, the whole of the night, and I wished I'd never stepped me foot on that old tub of a _Go-Between_, for it was the devil's own. When we got in Lake Superior, a storm came after us sudden, and we all went down together. I was in a hole of a place I had to slape in,--sure a dog couldn't close his eye in that corner,--and in the middle of the night, down they came hustling every one of us out. 'Say yer prayers,' says they, 'for we're a-goin' to the bottom, and the Lord help us. There's not one of yez will see yer darlints again.' The water was terrible boisterous, and grabbed everythin' off the decks. Faith, it wouldn't have been so bad if we'd a place left for the sole of our foot, but she was gone entirely. A board hit me and I hung on to it, and Pat Sweeny came up from down in the water and hung on with me, and the noises of that night I'll never be getting out of me head. When it come daylight we see the pilot-house a-floating, and we got on that, and Pat Sweeny waved his red handkerchief, and I tried to push us along with the board, to the land we see a long way off. In the middle of the morning, we spied a little boat coming to us, and may the blessed Virgin spare them two men in it as long as they live. It was a bare enough place we come to, but 'twas the land, and may I be struck dead if ever I take me two feet off it, for it's not the likes of me will set foot on one of them traps of the devil again."

"Ach, Gott, das war wundervoll, wundervoll," said the baker, "but tell me vy you stayed so long away?"

"And what would the likes of me be doing with everything gone, but to be getting some money to come with? There were some copper mines there, and Pat and me went digging in the mines, and the engineer dying sudden-like with a fall down the shaft, it was me was there to be getting his job. I wrote Bridget as soon as ever I thought she would be looking for me coming home, and told her I wouldn't be there till I could earn some money to come by land, and what with the fine engineer wages I was getting, she needn't be expecting me till the end of the season. When I came home with me pile of money to give them all a grand Christmas, I found 'em lost on me, and I've looked every place these three days, and never a sound of them have I heard till now, and God bless ye for the good words you're giving me this day.--Troth, now that I'm after finding them, I ought to be buying that grand pudding in the windy," and diving into his pocket, he produced a roll of bills.

"Nein, nein," said the baker, waving the money away, "dat pudding was not made to sell, it was made to gif away. You takes dat pudding to Mrs. M'Carty mit the gompliments of Herr Baumgärtner."

With a hearty Merry Christmas, Michael M'Carty hurried away with the pudding in one hand, and the card in the other. Herr Baumgärtner, taking his Marzipan, went home to tell Katrina the news, laughing over his Christmas joke, and chuckling to himself:

"Dat is vere dat pudding seems to belong!"

_Tenth Episode_

WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE CHRISTMAS DAY

Mrs. M'Carty rose early on Christmas morning, her mind bewildered by the fantastic visions of the night.

"Sure, them puddings was all a dream," she said to herself, as she kindled her fire, "and what's the good of such dreams as that, but just to make a body discouraged with the truth of the daytimes? But, any how, I'll look at where I dreamed I put them, and then my mind will be easy for me work."

More skeptical than hopeful, she went to the place where she had hidden them, and lo! to her great joy there they were,--twelve luscious, fruity puddings.

"And they're just bursting with richness, and begging to be ate," she said. "It'll be a grand day for the childer, and they shall have their fill, for it's many a long, hungry day they'll be seeing before another Christmas."

Breakfast was never a protracted function in the M'Carty household, but to Mrs. M'Carty, who was anxious to begin the festive preparations which the puddings had made possible, the scanty meal seemed unusually prolonged. Nothing but action could keep her from syndicating her secret before the proper moment, so while the repast was in progress, she hurried about doing, undoing, and doing over again, various household tasks. Finally Granny M'Carty, who had noticed Bridget's restlessness, exclaimed:

"Are ye crazy, then, Bridget M'Carty? It's the third time this day ye've spread me bed, and ye'll not lave a whole fither in me pillow with yer senseless beatin's."

"Well," said Mrs. M'Carty, ceasing from her labor, "if you're done with your breakfast, listen to me. Praise to the good Saint Antony, I found a ten-cent piece yesterday, I'd been saving that long I forgot I had it entirely, and with the help of Grandad's two lucky pennies he was never intending to spend,--may the saints spare him long to us,--I've a stick of candy apiece for the whole of you."

"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.