he rapacious demands of
those terrible English people, with their taxes and interest and legal
exactions, which Rosenblatt, with meritorious meekness, sought to satisfy.
So engrossed, indeed, was that excellent gentleman in this service that
he could hardly find time to give suitable over-sight to his own building
operations, in which, by the erection of shack after shack, he sought to
meet the ever growing demands of the foreign colony.

Before a year had gone it caused Rosenblatt no small annoyance that
while he was thus struggling to keep pace with the demands upon his
time and energy, Paulina, with lamentable lack of consideration,
should find it necessary to pause in her scrubbing, washing, and
baking, long enough to give birth to a fine healthy boy. Paulina's
need brought her help and a friend in the person of Mrs. Fitzpatrick,
who lived a few doors away in the only house that had been able to
resist the Galician invasion. It had not escaped Mrs. Fitzpatrick's
eye nor her kindly heart, as Paulina moved in and out about her duties,
that she would ere long pass into that mysterious valley of life and
death where a woman needs a woman's help; and so when the hour came,
Mrs. Fitzpatrick, with fine contempt of "haythen" skill and efficiency,
came upon the scene and took command. It took her only a few moments
to clear from the house the men who with stolid indifference to the
sacred rights of privacy due to the event were lounging about. Swinging
the broom which she had brought with her, she almost literally swept them
forth, flinging their belongings out into the snow. Not even Rosenblatt,
who lingered about, did she suffer to remain.

"Y're wife will not be nadin' ye, I'm thinkin', for a while.
Ye can just wait till I can bring ye wurrd av y're babby,"
she said, pushing him, not unkindly, from the room.

Rosenblatt, whose knowledge of English was sufficient to
enable him to catch her meaning, began a vigorous protest:

"Eet ees not my woman," he exclaimed.

"Eat, is it!" replied Mrs. Fitzpatrick, taking him up sharply.
"Indade ye can eat where ye can get it. Faith, it's a man ye are,
sure enough, that can niver forget y're stomach! An' y're wife
comin' till her sorrow!"

"Eet ees not my--" stormily began Rosenblatt.

"Out wid ye," cried Mrs. Fitzpatrick, impatiently waving her
big red hands before his face. "Howly Mother! It's the wurrld's
wonder how a dacent woman cud put up wid ye!"

And leaving him in sp