When it comes to Father, I’d learned that all I had to do was wait and even the oddest circumstances would be shown to have a rational explanation.

It had been a week since Grandmother O’Toole caned me in the kitchen, and the small hammer next to Father’s plate at supper was definitely an odd circumstance. I’d be like the tallest tree in heaven and patiently wait to find out why it was there. Grandmother O’Toole eyed it suspiciously as well. But both of us held our tongues.

We finished eating and I cleared the table. Father winked at me, then slid a blue-ribboned Hirsh Jewelers box across the table to Grandmother O’Toole.

“Chester Stockard, what in the heavens is this?”

“Something to show a little appreciation for all you do around here, Mother O’Toole. I know it’s not easy looking after Alvin and me, and I know at times it may seem we take you for granted, but nothing’s further from the truth. Both of us appreciate you from the cockles of our hearts.”

I was glad Father didn’t ask me to agree with that statement. The cockles of my heart agreed with me; Grandmother O’Toole needed to go to an asylum.

“Oh, Chester laddie, ye shouldn’t’ve. What have I done to deserve a gift? Spending me every waking hour watching over this lazy chowderhead of a grandson is me duty, and though it fills me with dread each morn when I awake, and even though it’s cutting years off me very life, ye’ve never heard me complain, have ye? Aye, Chester, ’tis me duty to my poor dear departed daughter Mary, not the sort of thing to be given such a grand present for.” She turned the small box over and over. “From Hirsh Jewelers no less? How did ye afford this, son?”

Father smiled. “I saw it in their window and knew, regardless of the price, it had been made for my beloved Mother O’Toole and I had to have it. Go ahead, open the box.”

Her trembling hands took the blue bow off, then opened the blue clamshell box. She gasped and pulled a large postage-stamp-sized silver bell from the blue felt inside. There was a four-leaf clover and the word ERIN fancily engraved on one side of the bell.

“Oh, Chester! ’Tis far too grand for such a poor old woman as I! ’Tis beautiful! And mercy, do me eyes deceive me? ’Tis really Irish?”

“That’s what it says. I’m glad you like it, Mother O’Toole.”

“But what is it?”

She turned it over and over, studying the bell with great curiosity. “I’m not one to complain, but there’s no loop to thread a necklace through. And alas, though ’tis as fine a bell as I’ve ever beheld, I’ve never seen any jewelry with a nail at the end where ye’d be expecting to see a loop.”

She looked at Father and asked, “ ’Tis some new fashion one of these wretched Canadians has started?”

Father said, “No. Word is it’s from the north of Ireland, Mother O’Toole. They call it a cane bell. They say every time it rings, another sin is washed clean away from the soul of a poor Irishman.”

“No! And you say in the north ’tis known as a cane bell?”

“Truly.”

Father took her cane and picked up the small hammer he’d brought to the table. After a few taps, the bell dangled from the end of the cane’s handle.

Father shook the cane, and the light tinkling sound assured us that a whole gaggle of Irishmen had gotten away with something.

Grandmother O’Toole hugged the cane with its new bell to her chest.

“ ’Tis is the most glorious gift I’ve ever been given, son. Thank ye from the bottom of me heart. Every time it rings, ’twill remind me of what a grand decision me Mary made in choosing ye for her spouse.”

She looked at me and snarled, “Do ye see how a true gentleman behaves, ye little redhead hooligan? Do ye?”

I smiled and looked at my father.

“Yes, Grandmother O’Toole, I do see. And I’ll be praying every night that someday I can be as grand a gent as he.”