Indeed, the little brown house was overflowing with children.  Peggy, with a baby in her arms, sat in a broken rocking-chair on the porch.  Two little girls were making mud-pies near by.  A tow-headed boy, watched from an up-stairs window by two admiring small boys, was walking around the edge of the porch roof, balancing himself with outstretched arms.  A neat negro woman, emptying an ash-can in the adjoining yard, caught sight of him and shrieked, “Uh, John Edward! is that you on the porch roof? or is it Elmore?  Whichever you be, if you don’t go right in, I’ll tell yo’ ma.  You Bud and tother twin, you stop leanin’ out of that window.  Peg, uh Peg! thar’s a boy on the porch roof and two leanin’ out the window.  They all goin’ to fall and break their necks.”

The boy on the roof stuck out his tongue, and said, “Uh, you tell-tale!” then walked on around the porch and climbed in the window.

“I done it,” he shouted to his twin brother.  “You dared me to and I done it.  Now I double-dare you to climb the chimbley.”

Peggy came out to reprove the reckless climber, and then, seeing the approaching visitors, came forward to greet them.  She invited Miss Margery and Anne into the front room where her mother sat at a sewing-machine that was running like a race-horse.  Mrs. Callahan shook hands and then took a garment from her work-basket and began to make buttonholes.

“My machine makes such a racket,” she explained, “I always keep finger jobs for company work.  There’s so many fact’ries nowadays that Keep-at-it is the only sewin’-woman that makes a livin’.  You’d be s’prised to see how much Peggy helps me.  She can rattle off most as many miles as me on that old machine in a day.”

“Peggy tells me you are in trouble, Mrs. Callahan,” said Miss Margery, coming directly to the cause of her visit.

“Well, not exactly.  Nobody ain’t dead or sick,” Mrs. Callahan answered cheerfully.  “I told Peggy to tell you we could do with a little help.  Pa—­that’s my old man—­he’s the best man that ever lived, ma’am.  He’d never do nothin’ wrong.  It’s just the whiskey that gets in him.  He’s kind and good-tempered and hard-workin’—­long as he can let liquor alone.  It’s made him lose his place.”

“Our books show that you had help from the Charity office last winter,” Miss Margery reminded her.

“Yes’m,” responded Mrs. Callahan, “that was after his Christmas spree.  The man might ‘a’ overlooked that.  But he got mighty mad.  Some bad boys, they see pa couldn’t take care of the dray and they stole some things offn it.  Pa he couldn’t get a job right away and I couldn’t keep up my reg’lar sewin’—­the baby just being come—­and so pa was up before the judge for non-support.  And the judge made him sign the pledge for a year.  Pa tried to keep it, ma’am, but his old gang wouldn’t let him.  They watched for him goin’ to work and they watched for him comin’ from work.  He’d dodge ’em and go and come diff’rent ways.  But they’d lay for him here and there, with schooners of beer in their hands.  Next thing, he was drunk.  The cops didn’t catch him that time.  But the pledge bein’ broke, look like he give up heart.  He kept on with the drink, and lost his job.  Then the policeman nabbed him.”