u send him up to my
mother's? We got a swell little house up at 225th Street, lots of room,
a big yard where he could play, and ma would be tickled to death to have
him. She is dippy on kids, and since me and Jack growed up, she says her
hands have been empty." I nearly fainted, a thinking of Billy in the
home of a cop, cause that is the last place on earth they would think of
looking for him, and then I got suspicious again. You know, Kate, I have
got an awful bad suspicious disposition. I am looking everywhere for a
plant, but I studied it all over, and I couldn't see none in this, and I
was so tickled that I couldn't say even "thank you." Tom said to me,
"Now, you put his little duds in a bundle, and when I go off duty at
four o'clock, I will come and get you, and we will go up on the subway."
Then I got a thinking after he went away that some of Jim's friends
might be watching the house, so I went down to Cassidy's beat, and told
him I would meet him at the Grand Central, where there wouldn't be so
much danger of us being piped off.

Talk about a grand little home, Kate. Tom Cassidy has sure got it, and
his mother is the nicest little Irish woman that ever lived! And
_Irish_! You could cut her brogue with a knife. But she just laughs all
the time, and her face breaks up in the funniest little wrinkles that
make you laugh with her. She came to the door herself, wiping her hands
on her kitchen apron, and when she saw Tom and me and Billy, she looked
at us funny for a minit and then she said, "Say, Tom, ye ain't been
married all these years, and just now a bringing your family to your old
mother?" Tom laughed and said, "No such luck, mother, but I've adopted a
family. I think the house is lonely without kids." She took Billy and me
up to a little bed room, and she helped take off his hat and coat,
talking all the time, Billy talking back, not a bit scared of her. Then
we went down to the kitchen to finish getting supper. Another son came
in named Jack who is studying farming and he is crazy about it. Tom
introduced him to me by saying, "This is John Cassidy, farmer, greatest
onion expert in the world." The kid, who is about nineteen, said, "Ah,
cut it out, Tom," and Tom's mother said, "Now, don't plague the bye."
Then we sat down and had the dandiest dinner. We ate in the kitchen, and
then I had to go to work. Billy was all right, didn't seem to feel a bit
bad about me going. Jack had him in the back yard, building some