“Does he be talking to children av such things?” Judy was horrified. “It’s telling him me opinion av that I’ll be. Don’t ye be hading him, Cuddles. We’ve niver hild wid infidelity at Silver Bush and if Moses did be making a mistake or two it’s me considered opinion that he knew more about things in gineral than Josiah Tillytuck and ould Roger Madison put together.”

“You’re just a bit peeved with Tillytuck because he tried to cap your stories,” suggested Cuddles slyly. For there had been quite a scene in the kitchen two evenings previously when Judy had told a tale of some lady on the south side who put rat poison by mistake for baking powder in the family pancakes and Tillytuck had said he had eaten one of them.

“It isn’t a chanct I do be having wid Tillytuck,” said Judy passionately. “I stick to the truth but he do be making things up as he goes along.”

“But you made candy for him afterwards, Judy.”

“Oh, oh, so I did,” admitted Judy with a deprecating grin. “He gets round a body somehow wid his palaver. There do be times whin he cud wheedle the legs off an iron pot. Niver be laughing at an ould woman, Cuddles dear. Tillytuck and I do be understanding each other rale well, for all av our tiffs. If he likes to think I’m dying about him he’s welcome to it. He hasn’t minny pleasures. And now we’ve finished the chamber so we’ll…”

“The pigs are in the graveyard, Judy,” cried Cuddles.

“I’ll pig thim,” ejaculated Judy viciously as she whirled down the granary stairs in horror. But after all cud ye be blaming the poor pigs? They had niver been thimsilves since they et the Jerusalem cherry.

In the afternoon they tackled the garret. Pat always loved cleaning in general and the garret in particular. It was delightful to make Silver Bush as clean and sweet as the spring…a new curtain here…a new wallpaper there…a spot of paint where it would do most good. Little changes that didn’t hurt…much. Though Pat was always sorry for the old wallpapers and missed them.

When you came to the garret you always found so many things you had almost forgotten and all the family ghosts got a good rummaging.

“Sure, houseclaning and diggin’ a well do be the only two things I know av that ye begin at the top and work down wid,” said Judy. “Well, the garret do be done and that do be making the fortieth time I’ve been at the claning av it. Forty-one years this very May, Patsy dear, since I tuk up wid Silver Bush, hoping to put the summer in if Long Alec’s mother was suited wid me…and here I do be still.”