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Troth, we'll have a bit of a feast over it now," she said to the Twins. "While I'm throwing the cakeen together do you get some potatoes from the bag, Eileen, and put them down in the ashes, and you, Larry, stir up the fire a bit, and keep the kettle full. Sure, 'tis singing away like a bird this instant minute! Put some water in it, avic, and then shut up the hens for me."
Then Larry told them about the cakeen, and the silk hat, and Michael Malone, and the Tinkers, while his Mother said, "The Saints preserve us!" every few words, and Eileen interrupted to tell how brave Larry had been "just like the good son in Grannie Malone's tale, for all the world."
The little cakeen was broken open and buttered, and, "Musha, 'tis fit for the Queen herself," said Larry, when he had taken his first bite. And Eileen said, "Indeed, ma'am, it's a grand cook you are entirely." "Sure, I'd need to be a grand cook with the grand company I have," Grannie answered politely, "and with the fine son I have in America to be sending me a fortune in every letter!
"Sure, Mother is well. And how is yourself, Grannie Malone?" Eileen answered, politely. "Barring the rheumatism and the asthma, and the old age in my bones, I'm doing well, thanks be to God," said Grannie Malone. "Sit down by the fire, now, till I wet a cup of tea and make a cakeen for you! And indeed it's yourselves can read me a letter from my son Michael, that's in America!
And by and by he came to the same spring in the woods where the bad son was before him, and the small, little bird sat again on the side of it. "`Give me a bit of your cakeen for my little ones in the nest, says she.
Sit you down, too, Eileen, while I get the potatoes." She took the tongs and drew out the potatoes, blew off the ashes, and put them on the table. Then she poured the boiling water over the tea-leaves, and set the tea to draw, while she took the cakeen from the kettle. "'Tis not burned so much, after all," she said, as she looked it over. "Sure, we can shut our eyes when we eat it."
By this time the teapot was empty, and every crumb of the cakeen was gone, and as Larry had eaten two potatoes, just as Eileen thought he would, there was little left to clear away. It was late in the afternoon. The room had grown darker, and Grannie Malone went to the little window and looked out.
"Sure, let's ate it together; 'tis a big little cakeen," urged Johnny, breaking the bun and anxiously offering Nora the larger piece. "I can like the taste of anything better by halves, if I 've got company. You ought to have a good supper of tay and a piece of steak and some potaties rather than this! Don't be giving yourself nothing but the saved cakes, an' you working so hard!"
Whist now, till I tell you the story of the Little Cakeen, and you'll see that 'tis a good thing entirely to behave yourselves and grow up fine and respectable, like the lad in the tale. It goes like this now: " And one day she says to him, says she: "`I've given you your living as long as ever I can, and it's you must go out into the wide world and seek your fortune. "`Mother, I will, says he.
"'Tis the cakeen," cried Grannie. She and Eileen flew to the fireplace. Eileen got there first. She knocked the cover off the little kettle with the tongs, and out flew a cloud of smoke. "Och, murder! 'Tis destroyed entirely!" poor Grannie groaned. "I'll turn it quick," said Eileen. She was in such a hurry she didn't wait for a fork or stick or anything!
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