y arm, I was not over
punctilious in details of the moral law. Anna pointed out the
opportunities of such a journey. It was a chance to try my mettle with
the arch tempter. It was a mental gymnasium in which moral muscle got
strength. There wasn't in all Ireland a mile of highway so well paved
with good intentions. I used to start out, well keyed up morally and
humming over and over the order of the day. When, on the home stretch, I
had made a dent in Sam's architecture, I would lay the loaf down on the
table, good side toward my mother. While I was doing that she had read
the story of the fall on my face. I could feel her penetrating gaze.

"So he got ye, did he?"

"Aye," I would say in a voice too low to be heard by my father.

The order at Sam's was usually a sixpenny loaf, three ha'pence worth of
tea and sugar and half an ounce of tobacco.

There were times when Barney had no work for my father, and on such
occasions I came home empty-handed. Then Jamie would go out to find work
as a day laborer. Periods like these were glossed over by Anna's humor
and wit. As they sat around the table, eating "stir-about" without milk,
or bread without tea, Jamie would grunt and complain.

"Aye, faith," Anna would say, "it's purty bad, but it's worse where
there's none at all!"

When the wolf lingered long at the door I went foraging--foraging as
forages a hungry dog and in the same places. Around the hovels of the
poor where dogs have clean teeth a boy has little chance. One day,
having exhausted the ordinary channels of relief without success, I
betook myself to the old swimming-hole on the mill race. The boys had a
custom of taking a "shiverin' bite" when they went bathing. It was on a
Sunday afternoon in July and quite a crowd sat around the hole. I
neither needed nor wanted a bath--I wanted a bite. No one offered a
share of his crust. A big boy named Healy was telling of his prowess as
a fighter.

"I'll fight ye fur a penny!" said I.

"Where's yer penny?" said Healy.

"I'll get it th' morra."

A man seeing the difficulty and willing to invest in a scrap advanced
the wager. I was utterly outclassed and beaten. Peeling my clothes off I
went into the race for a swim and to wash the blood off. When I came out
Healy had hidden my trousers. I searched for hours in vain. The man who
paid the wager gave me an extra penny and I went home holding my jacket
in front of my legs. The penny saved me from a "warming," but Anna,