When I asked what was the father's business, Harry grew a bit confused. 'Well, he kept a saloon; but'--Harry hastened to explain--'it was a very nice saloon, never any trouble with the police there; why, Tommy knew every man on the force.
And they keep good liquors, too,' said Harry, earnestly;'throw away all the beer left in the glasses.'
'What else would they do with it?' asked innocent I. 'Why, keep it in a bucket,' said Harry, solemnly, 'and then slip the glass under the counter and half fill out of the bucket, then hold it under the keg LOW, so's the foam will come;that's a trick of the trade, you know. Tommy says his father would SCORN that!' There is a vista opened, isn't there?
I was rather shocked at such associates for Harry, and told his mother. Did she think it a good idea to have such a boy coming to the house? a saloon-keeper's son? She did not laugh, as I half expected, but answered quite seriously that she had been looking up Tommy, that he was very much attached to Harry, and that she did not think he would teach him anything bad.
He has, I find myself, notions of honor, though they are rather the code of the street. And he picks up things quickly.
Once he came to tea. It was amusing to see how he glued his eyes on Harry and kept time with his motions. He used his fork quite properly, only as Harry is a left-handed little fellow, the right-handed Thomas had the more difficulty.
"He is taking such vast pains with his 'oration' that I felt moved to help him. The subject is 'The Triumph of Democracy,'
and Tommy civilly explained that 'democracy' did not mean the Democratic party, but 'just only a government where all the poor folks can get their rights and can vote.'
"The oration was the kind of spread-eagle thing you might expect;I can see that Tommy has formed himself on the orators of his father's respectable saloon. What he said in comment interested me more. 'Sure, I guess it is the best government, ma'am, though, of course, I got to make it out that way, anyhow. But we come from Ireland, and there they got the other kind, and me granny, she starved in the famine time, she did that--with the fever.
Me father walked twenty mile to the Sackville's place, where they gave him some meal, though he wasn't one of their tenants;yes, and the lady told him how he would be cooking it.
I never will forget that lady!'
"I saw a dramatic opportunity: would Tommy be willing to tell that story in his speech? He looked at me with an odd look--or so I imagined it! 'Why not?' says he; 'I'd as soon as not tell it to anyone of them, and why not to them all together?' Well, why not, when you come to think of it? So we have got it into the speech;and I, I myself, Sarah, am drilling young Demos-thenes, and he is so apt a scholar that I find myself rather pleasantly employed."Having read her letter, Mrs. Carriswood hesitated a second and then added Derry's information at the bottom of the page.
"I suppose the lordly ancestor was one of King James's creation--see Macaulay, somewhere in the second volume. I dare say there is a drop or two of good blood in the boy. He has the manners of a gentleman--but I don't know that I ever saw an Irishman, no matter how low in the social scale, who hadn't."Thus it happened that Tommy's valedictory scored a success that is a tradition of the High School, and came to be printed in both the city papers; copies of which journals Tommy's mother has preserved sacredly to this day; and I have no doubt, could one find them, they would be found wrapped around a yellow photograph of the "A Class" of 1870: eight pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and Tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a professional barber for the occasion.
It was the story of the famine that really captured the audience;and Tommy told it well, with the true Irish fire, in a beautiful voice.
In the front seat of the parquette a little old man in a wrinkled black broadcloth, with a bald head and a fringe of whisker under his long chin, and a meek little woman, in a red Paisley shawl, wept and laughed by turns. They had taken the deepest interest in every essay and every speech. The old man clapped his large hands (which were encased in loose, black kid gloves) with unflagging vigor.
He wore a pair of heavy boots, the soles of which made a noble thud on the floor.
"Ain't it wonderful the like of them young craters can talk like that!"he cried; "shure, Molly, that young lady who'd the essay--where is it?"--a huge black forefinger travelled down the page--"'_Music, The Turkish Patrol_,' No--though that's grand, that piece; I'll be spakin' wid Professor Von Keinmitz to bring it when we've the opening. Here 'tis, Molly: '_Tin, Essay.
The Darkest Night Brings Out the Stars, Miss Mamie Odenheimer_.'
Thrue for you, mavourneen! And the sintiments, wasn't they illigant?
and the lan-gwidge was as foine as Pat Ronan's speeches or Father--whist! will ye look at the flowers that shlip of a gyirl's gitting!
Count 'em, will ye?"
"Fourteen bouquets and wan basket," says the little woman, "and Mamie Odenheimer, she got seventeen bouquets and two baskets and a sign. Well," she looked anxious, but smiled, "I know of siven bouquets Tommy will git for sure.
And that's not countin' what Harry Lossing will do for him.
Hiven bless the good heart of him!"
"Well, I kin count four for him on wan seat," says the man, with a nod of his head toward the gay heap in the woman's lap, "barrin' I ain't on-vaygled into flinging some of thim to the young ladies!"Harry Lossing, in the seat behind with his mother and Mrs. Carriswood, giggled at this and whispered in the latter lady's ear, "That's Tommy's father and mother. My, aren't they excited, though! And Tommy's white's a sheet--for fear he'll disappoint them, you know. He has said his piece over twice to me, to-day, he's so scared lest he'll forget.
