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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rich Little Poor Boy, by Eleanor Gates
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rich Little Poor Boy
+
+Author: Eleanor Gates
+
+Release Date: February 21, 2008 [EBook #24663]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net and
+and the Booksmiths at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
+
+ELEANOR GATES
+
+[Illustration: WHAT HE SAW THERE HELD HIM SPELLBOUND IN HIS CHAIR]
+
+
+
+
+        THE RICH
+        LITTLE POOR BOY
+
+        BY
+
+        ELEANOR GATES
+
+        AUTHOR OF "THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL,"
+        "THE PLOW-WOMAN," "THE BIOGRAPHY OF A
+        PRAIRIE GIRL," "ALEC LLOYD, COW-PUNCHER,"
+        "PIGGIE," ETC.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+        NEW YORK :: MCMXXII :: LONDON
+
+        COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
+        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+        PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+TO
+
+F. F. M.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                    PAGE
+        I. THE WICKED GIANT                    1
+
+       II. PRIDE AND PENALTY                  10
+
+      III. A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION           17
+
+       IV. THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES              24
+
+        V. NEW FRIENDS                        36
+
+       VI. THE DEAREST WISH                   52
+
+      VII. A SERIOUS STEP                     60
+
+     VIII. MORE TREASURES                     68
+
+       IX. ONE-EYE                            79
+
+        X. THE SURPRISE                       93
+
+       XI. THE DISCOVERY                     108
+
+      XII. A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP              117
+
+     XIII. CHANGES                           122
+
+      XIV. THE HEAVEN THAT NEARLY HAPPENED   138
+
+       XV. SCOUTS                            144
+
+      XVI. HOPE DEFERRED                     153
+
+     XVII. MR. PERKINS                       160
+
+    XVIII. THE ROOF                          172
+
+      XIX. A DIFFERENT CIS                   183
+
+       XX. THE HANDBOOK                      190
+
+      XXI. THE MEETING                       201
+
+     XXII. CIS TELLS A SECRET                212
+
+    XXIII. ROSES THAT TATTLED                219
+
+     XXIV. FATHER PAT                        233
+
+      XXV. AN ALLY CROSSES A SWORD           241
+
+     XXVI. THE END OF A LONG DAY             247
+
+    XXVII. ANOTHER GIFT                      255
+
+   XXVIII. ANOTHER STORY                     275
+
+     XXIX. REVOLT                            290
+
+      XXX. DISASTER                          300
+
+     XXXI. THE VISION                        318
+
+    XXXII. HELP                              330
+
+   XXXIII. ONE-EYE FIGHTS                    345
+
+    XXXIV. SIR ALGERNON                      357
+
+     XXXV. GOOD-BYS                          363
+
+    XXXVI. LEFT BEHIND                       373
+
+   XXXVII. UPS AND DOWNS                     379
+
+  XXXVIII. ANOTHER GOOD-BY                   391
+
+    XXXIX. THE LETTER                        400
+
+       XL. "THE TRUE WAY"                    407
+
+
+
+
+THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
+
+ELEANOR GATES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WICKED GIANT
+
+
+HE was ten. But his clothes were forty. And it was this difference in
+the matter of age, and, consequently, in the matter of size, that
+explained why, at first sight, he did not show how thin-bodied he was,
+but seemed, instead, to be rather a stout little boy. For his faded, old
+shirt, with its wide sleeves lopped off just above his elbows, and his
+patched trousers, shortened by the scissors to knee length, were both
+many times too large for him, so that they lay upon him, front, back and
+sides, in great, overlapping pleats that were, in turn, bunched into
+heavy tucks; and his kitchen apron, worn with the waistband about his
+neck, the strings being tied at the back, also lent him--if viewed from
+the front--an appearance both of width and weight.
+
+But he was not stout. His frame was not even fairly well covered. From
+the apron hem in front, the two legs that led down to the floor were
+scarcely larger than lead piping. From the raveling ends of his short
+sleeves were thrust out arms that matched the legs--bony, skinny arms,
+pallid as to color, and with hardly any more shape to them than there
+was to the poker of the cookstove. But while the lead-pipe legs ended in
+the sort of hard, splinter-defying boy's feet that could be met with on
+any stretch of pavement outside the tenement, the bony arms did not end
+in boyish hands. The hands that hung, fingertips touching halfway to the
+knee, were far too big for a boy of ten. They were red, too, as if all
+the blood of his thin shoulders had run down his arms and through his
+wrists, and stayed there. And besides being red, fingers, palms and
+backs were lined and crinkled. They looked like the hands of a
+hard-working, grown girl. That was because they knew dish washing and
+sweeping, bed making and cooking, scrubbing and laundering.
+
+But his head was all that a boy's head should be, showing plenty of
+brain room above his ears. While it was still actually--and
+naturally--large for his body, it looked much too large; not only
+because the body that did its bidding was undersized, but because his
+hair, bright and abundant, added to his head a striking circumference.
+
+He hated his hair, chiefly because it had a hint of wave in it, but also
+because its color was yellow, with even a touch of green! He had been
+taunted about it--by boys. But what was worse, women and girls had
+admired it, and laid hands upon it--or wanted to. And small wonder; for
+in thick undulations it stood away from forehead and temples as if blown
+by the wind. A part it had not, nor any sort of neat arrangement. He saw
+strictly to that. Whenever his left hand was not busy, which was less
+often than he could wish, he tugged at his locks, so that they reared
+themselves on end, especially at the very top, where they leaned in
+various directions and displayed what appeared to be several cowlicks.
+At every quarter that shining mop was uneven, because badly cut by Big
+Tom Barber, his foster father, whose name belied his tonsorial ability.
+
+Below that wild shock of colorful hair was a face that, when clean,
+could claim attention on its own account. It was a square-jawed little
+face over which the red was quick to come, though, unhappily, it did not
+stay. Its center was a nose that seemed a trifle small in proportion to
+its surroundings. But the top line of it was straight, and the nostrils
+were well carved, and had a way of lifting and swelling whenever his
+interest was caught.
+
+Under them was a mouth that was wide yet noticeably beautiful--not with
+the soft beauty of a baby's mouth, or a girl's, and not because it could
+boast even a touch of scarlet. It had been cut as carefully as his nose,
+the lips full yet firm, their lines drawn delicately, but with strength.
+It was sensitive, with a little quirk at each corner which betrayed its
+humor. Above all things, its expression was sweet.
+
+Colorless as were his cheeks and lips, nevertheless he did not seem a
+pale boy, this because his brows were a misty yellow-white, and his
+thick lashes flaxen; while his eyes were an indescribable mixture of
+glowing gray and blue plentifully flecked with yellow. Perfectly
+adjusted were these straight-looking eyes, and set far apart. By turns
+they were quick, and bold, and open, and full of eager inquiry; or they
+were thoughtfully half covered by their heavy lids, very still, and far
+sighted. And when he laughed, what with the shine of his hair and brows
+and light lashes, and the flash of his eyes and his teeth, the effect
+was as if sunlight were upon his face--though the sun so seldom shone
+upon him that he had not one boyish freckle.
+
+Such was Johnnie Smith.
+
+Just now he was looking smaller and less sunlit than usual. This was
+because Big Tom bulked in front of him, delivering the final orders for
+the day before going down the three flights of stairs, out into the
+brick-paved area, thence through a dank, ground-floor hall which bored
+its way from end to end of another tenement, and into the crowded East
+Side street, and so to his work on the docks.
+
+Barber was a huge-shouldered, long-armed slouch of a man, with a
+close-cropped head (flat at the back) upon which great hairy ears stood
+out like growths. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging, the left with an
+elusive cast in it that showed only now and then, when it testified to
+the kink in his brain. His nose, uneven in its downward trend, was so
+fat and wide and heavy that it fairly sprawled upon his face; and its
+cavernous, black nostrils made it seem to possess something that, to
+Johnnie, was like a personality--as if it were a queer sort of snakish
+thing, carefully watched over by the bulging, bloodshot eyes.
+
+For Barber's nose had the power of moving itself as Johnnie had seen no
+other nose move. Slowly and steadily it went up and down whenever Barber
+ate or talked--as even Johnnie's small, straight nose would often do.
+But whenever Big Tom laughed--sneeringly or boastfully or in ugly
+triumph--the nose would make a sudden, sidewise twist.
+
+But something besides its power to move made it seem a live and separate
+thing: the longshoreman troubled himself to shave only of a Sunday
+morning, when, with all the stiff, dark growth cleared away to right and
+left--for Barber's beard grew almost to his eyes--his nose, though bent
+and purplish, was fairly like a nose. But with Monday, again the nose
+took on that personality; and seemed to be crouching and writhing at the
+center of its mat of stubble.
+
+But Barber's mouth was his worst feature, with its great, pushed-out
+underlip, which showed his complete satisfaction in himself. So big was
+that lip that it seemed to have acquired its size through the robbing of
+the chin just beneath--for Big Tom had little enough chin.
+
+But his neck was massive, and an angry red, sprinkled with long, wiry
+hairs. It fastened his flat-backed head to a body that was like a
+gorilla's, thick and wide and humped. And his arms gave an added touch
+of the animal, for they were so long that his great palms reached to his
+knees; and so sprung out at the shoulder, and so curved in at the wrist,
+that when they met at the fingers they formed a pair of mammoth,
+muscled tongs--tongs that gave Barber his boasted value in and out of
+ships.
+
+His legs were big, too. As he stood over Johnnie now, it was plain to
+see where the boy's shaggy trousers had come from (the grotesquely big
+shirt as well). Each of those legs was almost as big as Johnnie's
+skimped little body. And they turned up at the bottom in great broganned
+feet that Barber was fond of using as instruments of punishment. More
+than once Johnnie had felt those feet. And if he could ever have decided
+how pain was to be inflicted upon him, he would always have chosen the
+long, thick, pliant strap that belted in, and held together, his baggy
+clothes. For the strap left colorful tracks that stung only in the
+making; but the mark of one of those feet went black, and ached to the
+bone.
+
+Johnnie hated Big Tom worse than he hated his own yellow hair. But he
+feared him, too. And now listened attentively as the longshoreman, his
+cutty pipe smoking in one knotted fist, his dinner pail in the other,
+his cargo hook slung to his burly neck, glowered down upon him.
+
+"Git your dishes done," admonished Barber. "Don't let the mush dry on
+'em, and draw the flies."
+
+There being no question to answer, Johnnie said nothing. Final orders of
+a morning were the usual thing. If he was careful not to reply, if he
+waited, taking care where he looked, the longshoreman would have his say
+out and go--pressed by time. So the boy, almost holding his breath,
+fastened his eyes upon a patch of wall where the smudged plaster was
+broken and some laths showed. And not a muscle of him moved, except one
+big toe, which he curled and uncurled across a crack in the rough, worn
+kitchen floor.
+
+"Git everything else done, too," went on Big Tom. "You don't scrub till
+to-morrow, so the day's clear for stringin' beads, or makin' vi'lets.
+And don't let me come home t'night and find no hot supper. _You_ hear
+me." He chewed once or twice--on nothing.
+
+Johnnie continued silent, counting the laths--from the top down, from
+the bottom up. But his toe moved a shade faster. For there was a note of
+rising irritation in that _You_ hear me.
+
+"I say, you _hear_ me!" repeated Big Tom (replies always angered him:
+this time silence had). He thrust the whole of the short stem of his
+"nose-warmer" into his mouth. Then, with the free hand, he seized
+Johnnie by one thin shoulder and gave him a rough, forward jerk.
+
+"Yes," acknowledged the boy, realizing too late that this was one
+occasion when speech would have been safest. He still concentrated on
+the laths, hoping that matters would go no further.
+
+But that single jerk, far from satisfying Barber's rancor, only added to
+it--precisely as if he had tasted something which had whetted his
+appetite for more. He gripped Johnnie's shoulder again, this time
+driving him back a step. "Now, no sass!" he warned.
+
+The blood came rushing to Johnnie's face, darkening it so that the misty
+yellow-white brows stood out grotesquely. And his chest began to heave.
+He loathed the touch of Barber's hand. He despised the daily orders that
+only turned him against his work. But most of all he shrank from the
+indignity of being jerked when it was wholly undeserved.
+
+Big Tom marked the boy's rising color. And the sight spurred his
+ill-humor. "What do you do for your keep?" he demanded. "_Stop_ pullin'
+your hair!" He struck Johnnie's hand down with a sweaty palm that
+touched the boy's forehead. "Pullin' and hawlin' _all_ the time, but
+don't earn the grub y' swallow!"
+
+Just as one jerk always led to another, so one blow was usually the
+prelude to a thrashing. Johnnie saw that he must stop the thing right
+there; must have instant help in diverting Barber. Taking a quick, deep
+breath, he sounded his call for aid--a loud, croupy cough.
+
+It was instantly answered. The door beside the cookstove swung wide, and
+Cis came hurrying in from the tiny, windowless closet--this her "own
+room"--where she had been listening anxiously. "Oh, Mr. Barber," she
+began, trying to keep her young voice from trembling, "this week can I
+have enough out of my wages for some more shoe-whitening?"
+
+There were several ways in which to take Big Tom's mind from any
+subject. The surest of these was to bring up a question of spending. And
+now, answering to his stepdaughter's subterfuge as promptly as if he
+were a mechanism that had been worked by a key, he turned from glowering
+down upon Johnnie to scowl at her.
+
+"_More?_" he demanded harshly.
+
+Her blue eyes met his look timidly. Out of the wisdom of her
+sixteen-year-old policy, she habitually avoided him, slipping away of a
+morning to her work at the pasteboard-box factory without a word;
+slipping back as quietly in the late afternoon; keeping out of his sight
+and hearing whenever that was possible; and speaking to him seldom.
+
+Cis looked at every one timidly. She avoided Big Tom not only because it
+was wise to do so but because she was naturally shy and retiring, and
+avoided people in general. She had a quaint face (framed by straight,
+light-brown hair) that ended in a pointed, pink chin. Habitually she
+wore that expression of mingled understanding and responsibility common
+to all children who have brought up other children. So that she seemed
+older than she was. But her figure was that of a child--slim, frail, and
+still lacking a woman's shapeliness, notwithstanding the fact that it
+had long carried the burdens of a grown-up.
+
+Facing her stepfather now, she did not falter. "Yes, please," she
+answered. "The last, I got a month ago."
+
+His pipe was in his fist again, and he was chewing wrathfully. "I'll
+see," he growled. And waved her to go.
+
+From the hall door, she glanced back at Johnnie. Not only had she and he
+a system of communication by means of coughs, humming, whistles, taps
+and other audible sounds; and a second system (just as good) that
+depended upon wall marks, soap-inscribed hieroglyphics on the bit of
+mirror in Cis's room, or the arrangement of dishes on the kitchen table,
+and pots and pans on the stove, but they had a well-worked-out silent
+system--by means of brow-raisings, eye and lip movements, head tippings
+and swift finger pointings--that was as perfect and satisfactory as the
+dumb conversation of two colts. Such a system was necessary; for
+whenever the great figure of Barber came wedging itself through the hall
+door, and his presence, like a blighting shadow, darkened the already
+dark little flat, then the two young voices had to fall instantly
+silent, since Barber would brook no noise--least of all whispering.
+
+Now by the quick, sidewise tip of her small, black-hatted head, Cis
+inquired of Johnnie whether she should stay or go. And Johnnie, with
+what amounted to an upward fling of his eyelids, answered that she need
+not stay. With Barber's cutty once more in his right fist, and with his
+mind veered to a fresh subject, Johnnie knew the crisis was past.
+
+With a swift glance of affection and sympathy, not unmixed with triumph
+over the success of her interruption, Cis fluttered out--leaving the
+door open at Barber's back.
+
+The longshoreman turned heavily as if to follow her, but came about with
+a final caution, lowering his voice to cheat any busy ear in the other
+flat on the same floor. "Don't you neglect the old man," he charged.
+"Face--hair--fix him up--_you_ know."
+
+At the stove, an untidy heap of threadbare, brown blanket, in a wheel
+chair suddenly stirred. In several ways old Grandpa was like a big baby,
+but particularly in this habit of waking promptly whenever he was
+mentioned. "Is that you, Mother?" he asked in his thin, old voice. (He
+meant Big Tom's mother, dead now these many years.)
+
+A swift change came over Barber's face. His great underlip drew in, what
+chin he had was thrust out with something like concern, and his eyes
+rolled away from Johnnie to the whimpering old man. "It's all right,
+Pa," he said soothingly. "It's all right. Jus' you sleep." Then he
+turned, tiptoed through the door, and shut it after him softly.
+
+Johnnie did not move--except to shift his look from the laths to the
+door knob, and take up his toeing of the crack at his feet. The door
+itself moved, and rattled gently, as the area door three flights below
+was opened by Cis, and a gust from the narrow court was sent up the
+stairs of the tenement, as a bubble forces its way surfaceward through
+water, to suck at the Barber door.
+
+But Big Tom was not yet gone. And a moment later, the boy was looking at
+the outer knob, now in the clutch of several great, grimy, calloused
+fingers.
+
+"Let your hair _alone_!" ordered the longshoreman. Then the door closed
+finally, and the stairs complained with loud creakings as Barber
+descended them.
+
+Johnnie waited till the door in front of him moved and rattled again,
+then--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PRIDE AND PENALTY
+
+
+HIS toe stopped working across the crack in the floor. His left hand
+forsook his tousled hair and fell to his side. His eyes narrowed, and
+his chin came up. Then his lips began to move, noiselessly. "I'll pay
+him up for that!" he promised. "I'll make him wish he didn't shove me!
+This time, I'll think a' _awful_ bad think about him! I'll think the
+worst think I _can_! I'll--I'll----"
+
+He paused to decide. He had many "thinks" for the punishing of Big Tom,
+each of them ending in the desertion of that gentleman, who was always
+left helplessly groveling and pleading while Johnnie made a joyous,
+triumphant departure. Which of all those revenges would he select this
+morning? Would he go, after handing the longshoreman over to the
+harshest patrolman in New York? or would it be a doctor who would remain
+behind in the flat with the tyrant, assuring Johnnie, as the latter
+sauntered out of the kitchen for the very last time, that no skill on
+earth could entirely mend the hurts which he had so bravely inflicted
+upon his groaning foster father? or would he set sail grandly from the
+Battery for some port at least a million miles away, his last view of
+the metropolis including in its foreground, along with a brass band and
+many dignitaries of the city, the kneeling shape of a wretched
+dock-worker who had repented of his meanness too late?
+
+Suddenly Johnnie caught his breath, his eyes dilated, his fingers began
+to play against his palms. He had decided. And in that same instant, a
+change came over him--complete, satisfactory, astonishing.
+
+Now, instead of the ragged, little boy upon whom Big Tom had glowered
+down--a meek boy, subdued, even crestfallen, whose eyes were lowered,
+and whose lashes blinked fearsomely, he was quite a good deal taller,
+boldly erect, proud in his poise, light on his neatly shod feet,
+confident and easy in his manner, with a charming smile to right and
+left as ringing cheers went up for him while he awaited the lessening of
+the pleasant tribute, his composure really quite splendid, his hands
+stuffed into the pocket of his absolutely new, light-gray suit, which
+had knee pants.
+
+A change had also taken place in the Barber kitchen. Now the walls were
+freshly papered in a regal green-and-gold pattern which, at the floor
+line, met a thick, red carpet. Red velvet curtains hung at either side
+of the window. Splendid, fat chairs were set carelessly here and there;
+and a marble-topped table behind Johnnie was piled with a variety of
+delectable dishes, including several pies oozing juice.
+
+And the crowd that pressed up to the hall door! It was worthy of his
+pride, for it was a notable gathering. In it was no tenant of the
+building, no neighbor from other, near-by flats, and not a single member
+of that certain rough gang which haunted the area, the dark halls
+leading into it, and all the blocks round about.
+
+Indeed, no! Even in his "thinks" Johnnie was most careful regarding the
+selection of his companions, his social trend being ever upward. And he
+was never small about any crowd of his, but always had everybody he
+could remember who was anybody--a riot of famous people. On this
+occasion he was reaching into truly exclusive circles. Naturally, then,
+this was a well-dressed assemblage, strikingly equipped with silk hats
+(there were no ladies present) and gold-headed canes; and every
+gentleman in the gathering wore patent-leather shoes, and a vest that
+did not match his coat. All were smart and shaven and wealthy. In their
+lead, uniformed in khaki, and wearing the friendliest look possible to a
+young man who is cheering, was His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales.
+
+Like all the others in that wildly enthusiastic gathering, the young
+heir apparent was turned toward Johnnie as toward a hero. And small
+wonder. For there, between the distinguished crowd and the boy, lying
+prone upon the red carpet, in his oldest clothes, and unshaven, was none
+other than Big Tom Barber, felled by the single, overwhelming blow that
+Johnnie had just given him, his nose bleeding (not too much, however)
+and the breath clean knocked out of him.
+
+Now the shouting died away, and Johnnie addressed the admiring throng.
+But his lips moved without even a whisper. "I made up my mind a long
+time ago," he began, "to give Tom Barber a good thrashin'. So this
+morning, I done it."
+
+Despite his ungrammatical conclusion, the speech called forth the
+resounding hurrahs of the Prince and his gentlemen, and once more
+Johnnie had to wait, striving to appear properly modest, and twirling a
+gold watch chain all of heavy links. But he could not keep his nostrils
+from swelling, or his eyes from flashing. And his chest heaved.
+
+It was now that he made Cis one of his audience, dressing her in a
+becoming pink gown (her favorite color). Old Grandpa was standing beside
+her, no longer feeble and chair bound, but handsomely overcoated and
+hatted, and looking as formidable as any policeman. These two, naturally
+enough, had only proud glances for the young champion of the hour.
+
+But Johnnie's task of subduing Barber was not finished. The brave boy
+could see that the big longshoreman was making as if to rise. Johnnie
+could still feel the touch of Big Tom's perspiring hand on his forehead,
+and the pinch of those cruel fingers on his shoulder. Taking a forward
+step, he gave Barber's shoulder a wrenching jerk, then thrust the
+longshoreman backward by a spanking blow of the open palm full upon that
+big, ugly, bristling face.
+
+Again Barber fell prostrate. He was purple with mortification, and
+leered up at Johnnie murderously.
+
+"Ha! ha! Y' got enough?" Johnnie inquired. He was all of a glow now, and
+his face fairly shone. But he was not done with the tyrant. A sense of
+long-outraged justice made him hand Barber the big, black, three-legged,
+iron kettle that belonged on the back of the cookstove. There was some
+cold oatmeal in the bottom of the kettle, and Johnnie also handed the
+longshoreman a spoon--with a glance toward the Prince, who seemed awed
+by Johnnie's complete mastery of the enemy. "Here!" the boy directed,
+giving the pot a light kick with a new shoe (which was brown). "Go ahead
+and eat. Eat ev'ry bite of it. _It's got kerosene in it!_"
+
+Now Barber got to his knees imploringly. "Oh, don't make me eat it!" he
+begged. "Oh, don't, Johnnie! Please!"
+
+"Y' made _me_ eat it once," said Johnnie quietly. "And y' need a lesson,
+Tom Barber, and I'm givin' y' one."
+
+Barber choked down the bad-tasting food. But there was no taunting of
+him. Johnnie kept a dignified silence--as did also the Prince and the
+gentlemen. But when the last spoonful was swallowed, and Barber was
+cowering beside the empty kettle, the boy felt called upon to go still
+further, and make away finally with that strap which was the symbol of
+all he hated--that held up and together the too-large clothes which had
+so long mortified his pride; that stood for the physical pain dealt out
+to him by Big Tom if he so much as slighted a bit of his girl's work.
+
+The strap was around him now, even over that new suit. It circled him
+like a snake. He took it off, his lips working in another splendid
+speech. "And I don't wear it ever again," he declared, looking down at
+Barber. "Do y' understand that?" He flicked a big arm with the leather,
+though not hard enough to give pain.
+
+"Yes," faltered the longshoreman, shrinking.
+
+"Well, I'm glad y' understand it," returned Johnnie. "And now you just
+watch me for _on-n-ne_ second! You won't never lay this strap across
+_me_ again!"
+
+He whipped out a long, sharp, silver-handled bread-knife. Then turning
+to the table, he laid the strap upon the beautiful marble; and, in sight
+of all, cut it away to the very buckle--inch by inch!
+
+"Now!" he cried, as he scattered the pieces upon the carpet.
+
+The punishment was complete; his triumph nothing less than perfect. And
+it occurred to him now that there was particular gratification in having
+present this morning His Royal Highness. "Mister Prince," he said, "I'm
+awful tickled you was here!"
+
+The Prince expressed himself as being equally pleased. "Mister Smith,"
+he returned, "I don't know as I ever seen a boy that could hit like you!
+Why, Mister Smith, it's _wonderful_! How do y' do it?" He shook
+Johnnie's hand warmly.
+
+"Well, I guess I'm like David, Mister Prince," Johnnie explained
+modestly. "O' course you know David--and his friend, Mister
+Goli'th?--Oh, y' _don't_? Y' mean y' ain't never met neither _one_? Oh,
+gee! I'm surprised! But that's 'cause y' don't know Mrs. Kukor,
+upstairs. They're both friends of hers. Well, I'll ask 'em down."
+
+An upturned face and a beckoning arm accomplished the invitation,
+whereupon there entered at once the champion Philistine and that youth
+who was ruddy and of a fair countenance. And after a deal of
+hand-shaking all around, Johnnie told the tale of that certain
+celebrated fight--told it as one who had witnessed the whole affair. He
+turned his face from side to side as he talked, gesticulating with easy
+grace.
+
+"And now I guess we're ready t' start, ain't we?" he observed as he
+concluded. "David, would you and your friend like t' come along?--Only
+Big Tom, he's got t' stay behind, 'cause----"
+
+At the stove, the untidy heap of brown blanket in the wheel chair
+stirred again. Out of the faded folds a small head, blanched and
+bewhiskered, reared itself weakly. "Johnnie," quavered old Grandpa.
+"Johnnie! Milk!"
+
+The boy's lips ceased to frame words. His right arm fell to his side;
+the left went up again to resume that tugging at his hair. He swayed
+slightly, shifting his weight, and his big toe began once more to curl
+and uncurl. Then, as fancy was displaced by reality, as dreaming gave
+place to fact, Barber disappeared from the floor. The silk-hatted
+gentlemen with the gold canes went, too--along with the gallant young
+English Prince, that other Prince who was of Israel, and a tall person
+with a sore, red bump on his forehead. The gold-and-green walls faded;
+so did the carpet, the curtains, and that light-gray suit (which was
+precisely like the one Johnnie had worn when he first came to the Barber
+flat--except, of course, that it was larger). The marble-topped table
+and the fat chairs folded themselves up out of sight. And all those
+delicious fruit pies dissolved into thin air.
+
+But one thing did not go: A sense of satisfaction. Having met his enemy
+before the world, and conquered him; having spent his own anger and
+loathing, and revenged the other's hated touch, his gray eyes held a
+pleased, proud look. Once more in the soiled big shirt and trousers,
+with the strap coiled about his middle, he could put Barber aside for
+the day--not brood about him, harboring ill-will, nor sulk and fret.
+
+Now he was ready for "thinks" of a different sort--adventures that were
+wholly delightful.
+
+A feeling of joy surged through him. Ahead lay fully nine unhampered
+hours. He pivoted like a top. His arms tossed. Then, like a spring from
+which a weight has been lifted, like a cork flying out of a charged
+bottle, he did a high, leaping hop-skip straight into the air.
+
+"Wow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" he sang out full-throatedly. "Rr-r-r-r!
+ree-ee-ee!"--and explosively, "Brt! brt! brt! _bing!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION
+
+
+NINE free hours!--or, to be exact, eight, since the best part of one
+would have to be devoted to the flat in order to avoid trouble. However,
+Johnnie never did his work any sooner than he actually had to; and that
+hour of labor should be, as always, the last of the nine, this for the
+sake of obeying Big Tom at the latest possible time, of circumventing
+his wishes, and thwarting and outwitting him, just to the degree that
+safety permitted.
+
+So! For eight hours Johnnie would live his dreams. And, oh, the things
+he could do! the things!
+
+But before he could begin the real business of the day, he had to put
+Grandpa to sleep again. This was best accomplished through tiring the
+little old man with a long, exciting train trip. "Oo, Grandpa!" cried
+Johnnie. "Who wants to go ride-ride on the cars?"
+
+"Cars! cars! cars!" shrilled Grandpa, his white-lashed, milky-blue eyes
+dancing. At once, impatiently, he fell to tapping on the floor with his
+cane, while, using his other hand, he swung the wheel chair in a circle.
+Across his shrunken chest, from one side of the chair to the other, was
+a strand of rope that kept him from tumbling out of his seat. To hasten
+the promised departure, he began to throw his weight alternately against
+the rope and the back of the chair, like an excited baby.
+
+"Wait now!" admonished Johnnie. He took off his apron and wadded it into
+a ball. Then with force and fervor he sent the ball whizzing under the
+sink. "Where'll we go?" he cried. The bottoms of his trouser legs hung
+about his knees in a fringe. Now as he did another hop-skip into the
+air, not so much because of animal spirits as through sheer mental
+relief, all that fringe whipped and snapped. "Pick out a place,
+Grandpa!" he bade. "Where do y' want t' go?"
+
+"Go! go! go!" chanted the old man. Not so long ago he had been able to
+call up a score of destinations--most of them names that had to do with
+the Civil War campaigns which, in the end, had impaired his brain and
+cost him the use of his legs.
+
+Johnnie proceeded to prompt. "Gettysburg?" he asked; "Shiloh?
+Chick'mauga? City of Washingt'n? Niaggery Falls?"
+
+"Niaggery Falls!" cried Grandpa, catching, as he always did, at whatever
+point was named last. "Where's my hat? Where's my hat?"
+
+He never remembered how to find his hat, though it always hung
+conveniently on the back of the wheel chair. It was the dark,
+broad-brimmed, cord-encircled head covering of the Grand Army man. As he
+turned his head in a worried search for it, Johnnie set the hat atop the
+white hair.
+
+Johnnie had named Niagara last because he liked best to visit that
+Wonder of Nature. He did not know why--except that the name seemed
+curiously familiar to him. It was familiar to Grandpa, too, in a dim
+way, for he had visited "the Falls" on his wedding trip. And every
+repetition of the imaginary journey thrilled him.
+
+"Chug! chug! chug!" he began, the moment he felt the hat. His imitation
+of a starting engine was so genuine that it shook his spare frame from
+his head to his slippered feet. "Chug! chug! chug!"
+
+But Johnnie was not ready to set off. The little, old soldier had not
+yet eaten his breakfast, and if he did not eat he would not go to sleep
+promptly at the conclusion of the trip, nor stay asleep.
+
+"Oh, Grandpa," began the boy coaxingly, as he hastily dished up a saucer
+of oatmeal, another saucer of prunes, and poured a glass of milk,
+"before we start we got t' eat our grand banquet! It's a long way to
+Niaggery, y' know. So here we both are at the Grand Central Station!"
+(The Station was situated on or about the center of the kitchen.)
+
+"Station!" echoed Grandpa. "Chug! chug! chug!"
+
+"No, Grandpa,"--Johnnie's manner of handling the old man was comically
+mature, almost motherly; his tone, while soothing, was quietly firm, as
+if he were speaking to a younger child. "See! Here's the fine table!"
+
+Up to this table, still strewn with unwashed dishes and whatever
+remained of breakfast, the pair of travelers drew. Then Johnnie, with
+the air and the lavishness of a millionaire, ordered an elaborate and
+tasty breakfast from a waiter the like of whom was not to be found
+anywhere save in his own imagination.
+
+This waiter's name was Buckle, and he had served Johnnie faithfully for
+the past several years. In all ways he was an extraordinary person of
+his kind, being able to furnish anything that Grandpa and Johnnie might
+call for, whether meat, vegetable or fruit, at any time of the year,
+this without regard to such small matters as seasons, the difficulties
+of importing, adverse hunting laws, and the like. Which meant that
+Grandpa could always have his venison, and Johnnie his choice of
+fruits--all from the deft hand of a man quick and soft-footed, and full
+of low bows, who wore a suit of red velvet fairly loaded with gold bands
+and brass buttons.
+
+"Mister Buckle," began Johnnie (for such an august creature in red
+velvet could not be addressed save with a courteous title), "a turkey,
+please, an' some lemon pie, an' some strawberry ice cream an' fifteen
+pounds of your best candy."
+
+"Candy! candy! candy!" clamored Grandpa, impatiently beating on the
+table with his spoon like a baby.
+
+Buckle was wonderful. As Johnnie's orders swept him hither and thither,
+how he transformed the place, laying down the articles called for upon a
+crisp red tablecloth that was a glorious full brother to one that
+belonged to the little Jewish lady who lived upstairs. But Grandpa took
+little interest in Buckle, though he picked eagerly enough at the viands
+which Johnnie urged upon him.
+
+"Here's your turkey," pointed out the boy, giving the old man his first
+spoonful of cereal. "My goodness, did y' ever _see_ such a drumstick!
+Now another!--'cause, gee! you'll be starved 'fore ever we git t'
+Niaggery! Mm! but ain't that turkey fine?"
+
+"Mm! Mm!" agreed the veteran.
+
+"Mister Buckle, I'll take some soda and some popcorn," went on Johnnie,
+spooning out his own saucer of oatmeal. "And some apples and oranges,
+and bananas and cherries and grapes."
+
+Fruit was what he always ordered. How almost terribly at times he
+yearned for it! For the only fruit that ever Barber brought home was
+prunes. Johnnie washed them and put them over the fire to boil with a
+regularity due to his fear of the strap. But he hated them. (Likewise he
+pitied them--because they seemed such little, old creatures, and grew in
+that shriveled way which reminded him somehow of Grandpa.) What he
+longed for was fresh fruit, which he got only at long intervals, this
+when Cis carried home to him a few cherries in the bottom of a paper
+bag, or part of an apple which was generously specked, and so well on
+its way to ruin, or shared the half of a lemon, which the two sucked,
+turn about, all such being the gifts of a certain old gentleman with a
+wooden leg who carried on a thriving trade in the vicinity of the
+nearest public school. But the periods between the contributions were so
+long, and the amount of fruit consumed was so small, that Johnnie was
+never even a quarter satisfied--except at one of his Barmecide feasts.
+
+Grandpa's oatmeal and milk finished, Johnnie urged the prunes upon him.
+"Oo, lookee at the watermelon!" he cried. "The dandy, big
+watermelon!--_on ice_!"
+
+The mere word "watermelon" always stirred a memory in old Grandpa's
+brain, as if he could almost recall when he, a young soldier of the
+North, had taken his fill of sweet, black-seeded, carnation-tinted pulp
+at some plantation in the harried South. And now he ate greedily till
+the last prune was gone, when Johnnie had Buckle throw all of the green
+rinds into the sink. (It was this attention to detail which invested his
+games with reality.) Then, the repast finished, Grandpa fretted to be
+away, whirling his chair and whimpering.
+
+Johnnie had eaten through a perfect menu only as an unfillable boy can.
+So he dismissed Buckle with a thousand-dollar bill, and the two
+travelers were off, Johnnie making a great deal of jolly noise as he
+fulfilled the duties of engineer, engine and conductor, Grandpa having
+nothing to do but be an appreciative passenger.
+
+To the old man the dish cupboard, which was Carthage, in "York State,"
+never lost its interest, he having lived in that town long years ago,
+before he marched out of it with a company of men who were bound for the
+War. But the morris chair with its greasy cushions, which was the
+capital, Albany, and the cookstove, which was very properly Pittsburgh
+(though the surface of the earth had to be wrenched about in order to
+put Pittsburgh after Albany on the way to "the Falls"), both of these
+estimable cities also won their share of attention, the special train
+bearing the pair making a stop at each, though the passengers, boy and
+man, longed quite naturally for a sight of the Marvel of Waters which
+awaited them at the end of the line.
+
+But Pittsburgh left behind, and Buffalo (the woodbox) all but grinding
+under their wheels, neither Grandpa nor Johnnie could withstand longer
+the temptation to push forward to wonderful Niagara itself. With loud
+hissings, toot-toots, and guttural announcements on the part of the
+conductor, the wheel chair drew up with a twisting flourish--at the
+sink.
+
+And now came the most exciting moment of all. For here imagination had
+to be called upon least. This Niagara was liquid. And held back its vast
+flood--or poured it--just as Johnnie chose. He proceeded to have it
+pour. With Grandpa's cane, he rapped peremptorily twice--then once--on
+the big lead pipe which, leading through the ceiling as a vent to Mrs.
+Kukor's sink, debouched in turn into the Barber sink.
+
+A moment's wait. Then some one began to cross the floor overhead with an
+astonishing sound of rocking yet with little advance--in the way that a
+walking doll goes forward. This was Mrs. Kukor herself, who was
+motherhood incarnate to Johnnie; motherhood boiled down into an
+unalloyed lump; the pure essence of it in a fat, round package. The
+little Jewish lady never objected to this regular morning interruption
+of her work. And so the next moment, the miracle happened. Lake Erie
+began to empty itself; and with splashes, gurgles and spurts, the
+cataract descended upon the pots and pans heaped in the Barber sink.
+
+The downpour was greeted by a treble chorus of delight from the
+tourists. "Oh, Grandpa!" cried Johnnie, jumping up and down. "Ain't it
+fine! Ain't it fine!" And "Fine!" chimed in the old man, swaying himself
+against his breast rope. "Fine! Fine!"
+
+One long half-minute Niagara poured--before the admiring gaze of the two
+in the special. Then the great stream became dammed, the rush of its
+waters ceased, except for a weak trickle, and the ceiling gave down the
+sound of a rocking step bound away, followed by the squeaking of a
+chair. Mrs. Kukor was back at work.
+
+The train returned silently to Pittsburgh, the Grand Army hat was taken
+off and hung in its place, the blanket was pulled up about Grandpa's
+shoulders, and this one of the pair of travelers was left to take his
+rest. Comfortable and swift as the whole journey was, nevertheless the
+feeble, old soldier was tired. His pale blue eyes were roving wearily;
+the chair at a standstill, down came their lids, and his head tipped
+sidewise.
+
+He looked as much like a small, gray monkey as his strapping son
+resembled a gorilla. As Johnnie tucked the blanket about the thin old
+neck, Grandpa was already breathing regularly, the while he made the
+facial grimaces of a new-born child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES
+
+
+JOHNNIE always started his own daily program with a taste of fresh air.
+He cared less for this way of spending his first fifteen free minutes
+than for many another. But as Cis, with her riper wisdom, had pointed
+out, a short airing was necessary to a boy who had no red in his cheeks,
+and too much blue at his temples--not to mention a pinched look about
+the nose. Johnnie regularly took a quarter of an hour out of doors.
+
+He took it from the sill of the kitchen window--which was the only
+window in the Barber flat.
+
+This sill was breast-high from the kitchen floor, Johnnie not being tall
+for his age. But having shoved up the lower sash with the aid of the
+broom handle, he did not climb to seat himself upon the ledge. For there
+was no iron fire escape outside; the nearest one came down the wall of
+the building to the kitchen window of the Gamboni family, to the left.
+And so Johnnie denied himself a perch on his sill--a dangerous position,
+as both Mrs. Kukor and Cis pointed out to him.
+
+Their warnings were unnecessary. He could easily realize what a slip of
+the hand might mean: a plunge through space to the brick paving far
+below; and there an instant and horrible end. His picture of it was
+enough to guard him against accident. He contented himself with laying
+his body across the sill, with the longer and heavier portion of his
+small anatomy balanced securely against a shorter and lighter upper
+portion.
+
+He achieved this position and held it untiringly by the aid of the old
+rope coil. This coil was a relic of those distant times when there was
+no fire escape even outside the kitchen window of the Gambonis, and the
+landlord provided every tenant with this cruder means of flying the
+building. The rope hung on a large hook just under the Barber window,
+and was like a hard, smudged wheel, so completely had the years and the
+climate of the kitchen colored and stiffened it. And Johnnie's weight
+was not enough to elongate its set curves.
+
+It was a handy affair. Using it as a stepping-place, and pulling himself
+up by his hands, he brought the lower end of his breastbone into contact
+with the sill. Resting thus, upon his midriff, he was thoroughly
+comfortable, due to the fact that Big Tom's shirt and trousers
+thoroughly padded his ribby front. Then he swelled his nostrils with his
+intaking of air, and his back heaved and fell, so that he was for all
+the world like some sort of a giant lizard, sunning itself on a rock.
+
+Against the dingy black-red of the old wall, his yellow head stood forth
+as gaudily as a flower. The flower nodded, too, as if moved by the
+breeze that was wreathing the smoke over all the roofs. For Johnnie was
+taking a general survey of the scenery.
+
+The Barber window looked north, and in front of it were the rear windows
+of tenements that faced on a street. There was a fire escape at every
+other one of these windows--the usual spidery affair of black-painted
+iron, clinging vinelike to the bricks. And over each escape were draped
+garments of every hue and kind, some freshly washed, and drying; others
+airing. Mingling with the apparel were blankets, quilts, mattresses,
+pillows and babies.
+
+Somehow Johnnie did not like the view. He glanced down into the gloomy
+area, where a lean and untidy cat was prowling, and where there
+sounded, echoing, the undistinguishable harangue of the fretful Italian
+janitress.
+
+Now Johnnie's general survey was done. He always made it short, wasting
+less than one minute in looking down or around. It was beauty that drew
+him--beauty and whatever else could start up in his mind the experiences
+he most liked. His face upturned, one hand flung across his brows to
+shield his eyes, for the light outside the sill seemed dazzling after
+the semidark of the flat, he scanned first the opposite roof edges, a
+whole story higher than he, where sparrows were alighting, and where
+smoke plumes curled like veils of gossamer; next he scanned the sky.
+
+Above the roofline of the tenements was a great, changing patch which he
+called his own, and which he found fascinating. And not only for what it
+actually showed him, which was splendid enough, but for the eternal
+promise of it. At any moment, what might not come slipping into sight!
+
+What he longed most to catch sight of was--a stork. Those babies across
+on the fire escapes, storks had brought them (which was the main reason
+why all the families kept bedclothes out on the barred shelves; a quilt
+or a pillow made a soft place on which to leave a new baby). A stork had
+brought Cis--she had had her own mother's word for it many times before
+that mother died. A stork had brought Johnnie, too--and Grandpa, Mrs.
+Kukor, the Prince of Wales, the janitress; in fact, every one.
+
+"I wonder what kind of a stork was it that fetched _Big Tom_!" Johnnie
+once had exclaimed, straightway visioning a black and forbidding bird.
+
+Storks, according to Cis, were as bashful as they were clever, and did
+not come into sight if any one was watching. They were big enough to be
+seen easily, however, as proven by this: frequently one of them came
+floating down with twins!
+
+"Down from where?" Johnnie had wanted to know, liking to have his
+knowledge definite.
+
+"From their nests, silly," Cis had returned. But had been forced to
+confess that she did not know where storks built their nests. "In
+Central Park, I guess," she had added. (Central Park was as good a place
+as any.)
+
+"Oh, you guess!" Johnnie had returned, disgusted.
+
+He had never given up his watching, nor his hope of some day seeing a
+big baby-bringer. He searched his sky patch now. But could see only the
+darting sparrows and, farther away, some larger birds that wheeled
+gracefully above the city. Many of these were seagulls. The others were
+pigeons, and Cis had told him that people ate them. This fact hurt him,
+and he tried not to think about it, but only of their flight. He envied
+them their freedom in the vast milkiness, their power to penetrate it.
+Beyond the large birds, and surely as far away as the sun ever was, some
+great, puffy clouds of a blinding white were shouldering one another as
+they sailed northward.
+
+Out of the wisdom possessed by one of her advanced age, Cis had told him
+several astonishing things about this field of sky. What Barber
+considered a troublesome, meddlesome, wasteful school law was, at
+bottom, responsible for her knowing much that was true and considerable
+which Johnnie held was not. And one of her unbelievable statements (this
+from his standpoint) was to the effect that his sky patch was constantly
+changing,--yes, as frequently as every minute--because the earth was
+steadily moving. And she had added the horrifying declaration that this
+movement was in the nature of _a spin_, so that, at night, the whole of
+New York City, including skyscrapers, bridges, water, streets, vehicles
+and population, _was upside down in the air_!
+
+"Aw, it ain't so!" he cried, though Cis reminded him (and rather
+sternly, for her) that in doing so he was questioning a teacher who drew
+a magnificent salary for spreading just such statements. "And if they
+pay her all that money, they're crazy! Don't y' know that if we was t'
+come upside down, the chimnies'd fall off all the buildin's? and East
+River'd _spill_?"
+
+Cis countered with a demonstration. She filled Big Tom's lunch pail with
+water and whirled it, losing not a drop.
+
+But he went further, and proved her wrong--that is so far as the
+upside-down of it was concerned. He did this by staying awake the whole
+of the following night and noting that the city stayed right-side up
+throughout the long hours. Cis, poor girl, had been pitifully
+misinformed.
+
+But the changing of the sky he believed. He believed it because at night
+there was the kind of sky overhead that had stars in it; also,
+sometimes, a moon. But by dawn, the starred sky was gone--been left
+behind, or got slipped to one side; in its place was a plain,
+unpatterned stretch of Heaven which, in due time, was once more
+succeeded by a firmament adorned and a-twinkle.
+
+When Cis returned home one evening and declared that the forewoman at
+the factory had asserted that there were stars everywhere in the sky by
+day as well as by night, and no plain spots at all anywhere; and,
+further, that if anybody were at the bottom of a deep well he--or
+she--could see stars in the sky in the daytime, Johnnie had fairly
+hooted at the tale. And had finally won Cis over to his side.
+
+Her last doubt fled when, having gone down into a dark corner of the
+area the Sunday following, she found, as did he, that no stars were to
+be seen anywhere. After that she believed in his theory of starless
+sky-spots; starless, but not plain. For in addition to the sun, many
+other things lent interest to that field of blue--clouds, rain, sleet,
+snow, and fog, all in their time or season. Also, besides the birds, he
+occasionally glimpsed whole sheets of newspapers as they ambitiously
+voyaged above the house tops. And how he longed for them to blow against
+his own window, so that he might read them through and through!
+
+Sometimes he saw a flying machine. The first one that had floated across
+his sky had very nearly been the death of him. Because, forgetting
+danger in his rapturous excitement, he had leaned out dangerously, and
+might have fallen if he had not suddenly thought of Grandpa, and thrown
+himself backward into the kitchen to fetch the wheel chair. The little
+old soldier had only been mildly diverted by the sight. Johnnie,
+however, had viewed the passing of the biplane in amaze, though later on
+he came to accept the conquest of the air as just one more marvel in a
+world of marvels.
+
+But his wonder in the sky itself never lessened. About its width he did
+not ponder, never having seen more than a narrow portion of it since he
+was big enough to do much thinking. But, oh, the depth of it! He could
+see no sign of a limit to that, and Mrs. Kukor declared there was none,
+but that it reached on and on and on and on! To what? Just to more of
+the on and on. It never stopped.
+
+One night Cis and he, bent over the lip of the window, she upholstered
+on a certain excelsior-filled pillow which was very dear to her, and he
+padded by Big Tom's cast-offs, had attempted to realize what Mrs. Kukor
+had said. "On--and on--and on--and on," they had murmured. Until finally
+just the trying to comprehend it had become overpowering, terrible. Cis
+declared that if they kept at it she would certainly become dizzy and
+fall out. And so they had stopped.
+
+But Johnnie was not afraid to think about it, awful as it was. It was
+at night, mostly, that he did his thinking. At night the birds he loved
+were all asleep. But so was Barber; and Johnnie, with no fear of
+interruption, could separate himself from the world, could mentally kick
+it away from under him, and lightly project his thin little body up to
+the stars.
+
+Whenever fog or clouds screened the sky patch, hiding the stars, a
+radiance was thrown upon the heavens by the combined lights of the
+city--a radiance which, Johnnie thought, came from above; and he was
+always half expecting a strange moon to come pushing through the cloud
+screen, or a new sun, or a premature dawn!
+
+Now looking up into the deep blue he murmured, "On--and--on--and on," to
+himself. And he wondered if the gulls or the pigeons ever went so far
+into the blue that they lost their way, and never came back--but just
+flew, and flew, and flew, till weariness overcame them, when they
+dropped, and dropped, and dropped, and dropped!
+
+A window went up in front of him, across the area, and a voice began to
+call at him mockingly: "Girl's hair! Girl's hair! All he's got is girl's
+hair! All he's got is girl's hair!"
+
+He started back as if from a blow. Then reaching a quick hand to the
+sash, he closed the window and stepped down.
+
+The voice belonged to a boy who had once charged Mrs. Kukor with going
+to church on a Saturday. But even as Johnnie left the sill he felt no
+anger toward the boy save on Mrs. Kukor's account. Because he knew that
+his hair _was_ like a girl's. If the boy criticized it, that was no more
+than Johnnie constantly did himself.
+
+The second his feet touched the splintery floor he made toward the
+table, caught up the teapot, went to lean his head over the sink, and
+poured upon his offending locks the whole remaining contents of the
+pot--leaves and all. For Cis (that mine of wisdom) had told him that
+tea was darkening in its effect, not only upon the lining of the tummy,
+which was an interesting thought, but upon hair. And while he did not
+care what color he was inside, darker hair he longed to possess. So, his
+bright tangles a-drip, he set the teapot in among the unwashed pans and
+fell to rubbing the tea into his scalp.
+
+And now at last he was ready to begin the really important matters of
+the day.
+
+But just which of many should he choose for his start? He stood still
+for a moment, considering, and a look came into his face that was all
+pure radiance.
+
+High in the old crumbling building, as cut off from the world about him
+as if he were stranded with Grandpa on some mountain top, he did not
+fret about being shut in and away; he was glad of it. He was spared the
+taunts of boys who did not like his hair or his clothes; but also he had
+the whole flat to himself. Day after day there was no one to make him do
+this, or stop his doing that. He could handle what he liked, dig around
+in any corner or box, eat when he wished. Most important of all, he
+could think what he pleased!
+
+He never dwelt for any length of time upon unhappy pictures--those which
+had in them hate or revenge. His brain busied itself usually with places
+and people and events which brought him happiness.
+
+For instance, how he could travel! And all for nothing! His calloused
+feet tucked round the legs of the kitchen chair, his body relaxed, his
+expression as rapt as any Buddhist priest's, his big hands locked about
+his knees, and his eyes fastened upon a spot on the wall, he could
+forsake the Barber flat, could go forth, as if out of his own body, to
+visit any number of wonderful lands which lay so near that he could
+cross their borders in a moment. He could sail vast East Rivers in
+marvelous tugs. He could fly superbly over great cities in his own
+aeroplane.
+
+And all this travel brought him into contact with just the sort of men
+and women he wanted to know, so politely kind, so interesting. They
+never tired of him, nor he of them. He was with them when he wanted to
+be--instantly. Or they came to the flat in the friendliest way. And when
+its unpleasant duties claimed him--the Monday wash, the Tuesday ironing,
+the Saturday scrubbing, or the regular everyday jobs such as dishes,
+beds, cooking, bead-stringing, and violet-making--frequently they helped
+him, lightening his work with their charming companionship, stimulating
+him with their example and praise.
+
+Oh, they were just perfect!
+
+And how quiet, every one of them! So often when the longshoreman
+returned of an evening, his bloodshot eyes roving suspiciously, a crowd
+of handsomely dressed people filled the kitchen, and he threaded that
+crowd, yet never guessed! When Big Tom spoke, the room usually cleared;
+but later on Johnnie could again summon all with no trouble whatever,
+whether they were great soldiers or presidents, kings or millionaires.
+
+Of the latter he was especially fond; in particular, of a certain four.
+And as he paused now to decide upon his program, he thought of that
+quartet. Why not give them a call on the telephone this morning?
+
+He headed for the morris chair. Under its soiled seat-cushion was a
+ragged copy of the New York telephone directory, which just nicely
+filled in the sag between the cushion and the bottom of the chair. He
+took the directory out--as carefully as if it were some volume not
+possible of duplication.
+
+It was his only book. Once, while Cis was still attending school, he had
+shared her speller and her arithmetic, and made them forever his own
+(though he did not realize it yet) by the simple method of photographing
+each on his brain--page by page. And it was lucky that he did; for when
+Cis's brief schooldays came to an end, Big Tom took the two textbooks
+out with him one morning and sold them.
+
+The directory was the prized gift of Mrs. Kukor's daughter, Mrs.
+Reisenberger, who was married to a pawnbroker, very rich, and who
+occupied an apartment (not a flat)--very fine, very expensive--in a
+great Lexington Avenue building that had an elevator, and a uniformed
+black elevator man, very stylish. The directory meant more to Johnnie
+than ever had Cis's books. He knew its small-typed pages from end to
+end. Among the splendid things it advertised, front, back, and at the
+bottom of its pages, were many he admired. And he owned these whenever
+he felt like it, whether automobiles or animals, cash registers or
+eyeglasses. But such possessions, fine as they were, took second place
+in his interest. What thrilled him was the list of subscribers--the
+living, breathing thousands that waited his call at the other end of a
+wire! And what people they were!--the world-celebrated, the fabulously
+wealthy, the famously beautiful (as Cis herself declared), and the
+socially elect!
+
+Of course there was still others who were prominent, such as
+storekeepers, prize fighters, hotel owners and the like (again it was
+Cis who furnished the data). But Johnnie, as has been seen, aimed high
+always; and he was particular in the matter of his telephonic
+associations. Except when shopping, he made a strict rule to ring up
+only the most superior.
+
+There was a clothesline strung down the whole length of the kitchen.
+This Johnnie lowered on a washday to his own easy reach. At other times
+it was raised out of the way of Big Tom's head.
+
+He let the line down. Then pushing the kitchen chair to that end of the
+rope which was farthest from the stove and the sleeping old man, he
+stood upon it; and having considered a moment whether he would first
+call up Mr. Astor, or Mr. Vanderbilt, or Mr. Carnegie, or Mr.
+Rockefeller, decided upon Mr. Astor, and gave a number to a priceless
+Central who was promptness itself, who never rang the wrong bell, or
+reported a busy wire, or cut him off in the midst of an engrossing
+conversation.
+
+This morning, as usual, he got his number at once. "Good-mornin', Mister
+Astor!" he hailed breezily. "This is Johnnie Smith.--'Oh, good-mornin',
+Mister Smith! How are y'?'--I'm fine!--'That's fine!'--How are you,
+Mister Astor?--'Oh, I'm fine.'--That's fine!--'I was just wonderin',
+Mister Smith, if you would like to go out ridin' with me.'--Yes, I
+would, Mister Astor. I think it'd be fine!--'Y' would? Well, that's
+fine! And, Mister Smith, I'll come by for y' in about ten minutes. And
+if ye'd like to take a friend along----'"
+
+There now followed, despite the appointment set for so early a moment, a
+long and confidential exchange of views on a variety of subjects. When
+this was finished, Johnnie rang, in turn, Messrs. Vanderbilt, Carnegie
+and Rockefeller, sparing these gentlemen all the time in the world.
+(When any one of them did indeed call for him, fulfilling an
+appointment, what a gorgeous blue plush hat the millionaire wore! and
+what a royally fur-collared coat!)
+
+Now Johnnie put aside the important engagement he had made with Mr.
+Astor, and, being careful first to find the right numbers in the book,
+got in touch with numerous large concerns, and ordered jewelry,
+bicycles, limousines, steam boilers and paper drinking cups with
+magnificent lavishness.
+
+He had finished ordering his tenth automobile, which was to be done up
+in red velvet to match the faithful Buckle, when there fell upon his
+quick ear the sound of a step. In the next instant he let go of the
+clothesline, sent the telephone book slipping from the chair at his
+feet, and plunged like a swimmer toward that loose ball of gingham under
+the sink.
+
+And not a moment too soon; for scarcely had he tossed the tied strings
+over his tea-leaf-sprinkled hair, when the door opened, and there, coat
+on arm, great chest heaving from his climb, bulgy eyes darting to mark
+the condition of the flat, stood--Barber!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NEW FRIENDS
+
+
+IT WAS an awful moment.
+
+During that moment there was dead silence. Johnnie's heart stopped
+beating, his ears sang, his throat knotted as if paralyzed, and the skin
+on the back of his head crinkled; while in all those uneven thickets of
+his tawny, tea-stained hair, small, dreadful winds stirred, and he
+seemed to lift--horribly--away from the floor.
+
+Also, a sickish, sinking feeling at the lower end of his breastbone made
+him certain that he was about to break in two; and a sudden wobbling of
+the knees threatened to bring him down upon them.
+
+Barber closed the hall door at his back--gently, so as not to waken his
+father. His eyes were still roving the kitchen appraisingly. It was
+plain that the full sink and the littered table were having their effect
+upon him; for he had begun that chewing on nothing which betokened a
+rising temper.
+
+Johnnie saw, but he was too stunned and scared to think of any way out
+of his difficulty. He might have caught up the big cooking spoon and
+rapped on that lead pipe--five times in rapid succession, as if he were
+trying to clear the spoon of the cereal clinging to its bowl. The five
+raps was a signal that he had not used for a long time. It belonged to
+that dreadful era to which Cis and he referred as "before the saloons
+shut up." Preceding the miracle that had brought the closing of these,
+Barber, returning home from his day's work, had needed no excuse for
+using the strap or his boot upon either of the children. And once he had
+struck helpless old Grandpa--a happening remembered by Cis and Johnnie
+with awesome horror, so that they spoke of it as they spoke of the Great
+War, or of a murder in the next block.
+
+It had not been possible in those days for Big Tom to overlook the
+temptation of drink. To arrive at his own door from any direction he had
+to pass saloons. At both of the nearest street crossings northward,
+three of the four corners had been occupied by drinking places. There
+were two at each of the street crossings to the south. In those now
+distant times, the signal, and Mrs. Kukor's prompt answering of it, had
+often saved Cis and Johnnie from drunken beatings.
+
+But now the boy sent no signal. Those big-girl's hands were shaking in
+spite of all effort to control. His upturned face was a ghastly sallow.
+The gray eyes were set.
+
+Barber's survey of the room finished, he stepped across the sagging
+telephone line, placed the cargo hook and his lunch pail on the untidy
+table, and squared round upon Johnnie.
+
+"Now, say!"
+
+"Yes?" It was a whisper.
+
+"What y' done in here since I left two hours ago?"
+
+Johnnie drew a quick breath. He was not given to falsehood, but he did
+at times depend upon evasion--at such times as this. And not
+unnaturally. For he was in the absolute power of a bully five times his
+own size--a bully who was none the less cruel because he argued that he
+was disciplining the boy properly, bringing him up "right." Discipline
+or not, Big Tom did not know the meaning of mercy; and to Johnnie the
+blow of one of those great gorillalike fists was like some cataclysm of
+nature.
+
+"What y' done?" persisted Barber, but speaking low, so as not to
+disturb the sleeper in the wheel chair. He leaned down toward Johnnie,
+and thrust out that lower lip.
+
+The boy's own lips began to move, stiffly. But he spoke as if he were
+out of breath. "Grandpa f-f-fretted," he stammered. "He--he wanted to be
+run up and down--with his hat on. And--and so I filled the
+m-m-mush-kettle t' soak it, and then we--we----"
+
+His lips went on moving; but his words became inaudible. A smile was
+twisting Barber's mouth, and carrying that crooked, cavernous nose
+sidewise. Johnnie understood the smile. The fringe about his thin arms
+and legs began to tremble. He raised both hands toward the longshoreman,
+the palms outward, in a gesture that was like a silent prayer.
+
+With a muttered curse, Barber straightened, turned on his heel, strode
+to the door of his bedroom, threw it wide, noted the unmade beds, and
+came about, pushing at the sleeve of his right arm. "Come here," he
+bade, and the quiet of his tone was more terrible to the boy than if he
+had shouted.
+
+Johnnie did not obey. He could not. His legs would not move. His feet
+were rooted. "Oh, Mister Barber," he pleaded. "Oh, don't lick me! I
+won't never do it again! Oh, don't! Oh, don't! Oh, don't!"
+
+"Come here." The great arm was bared now. The voice was lower than
+before. In one bulging, bloodshot eye that cast showed and went, then
+showed again. "Do what I say--come here."
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" Again Johnnie was gasping.
+
+Barber burst out at him like some fierce storm. "Don't y' try t' fool
+_me_!" he cried. He came on. When he was within reach, that great,
+naked, iron arm shot out, seized the boy at his middle, swept him up
+from the floor with a violence that sent the tea leaves flying from the
+yellow hair, held him for a second in mid-air, the small body slouched
+in the big clothes as in the bottom of a sack, then shook him till he
+fairly rattled, like a pea in a pod.
+
+In a terror that was uncontrollable, Johnnie began to thrash about and
+scream. And as Barber half dropped, half flung him to the floor, old
+Grandpa roused, and came round in his chair, tap-tapping with the cane.
+"Captain!" he shrilled. "The right's falling back! They're giving us
+grape and canister!--Oh, our boys! Our poor boys!" Frightened by any
+trouble, his mind always reverted to old scenes of battle, when his
+broken sentences were like a halting, squeaky record in some talking
+machine that is out of order and running down.
+
+As Grandpa rolled near to Johnnie, the latter caught at a wheel, seeking
+help, in his extremity, of the helpless, and thrust his hands through
+the spokes to lock them. So that as Barber once more bent and dragged at
+him, the chair and the old man followed about the kitchen.
+
+"Let go!" commanded the longshoreman. He tried to shake Johnnie free of
+the wheel.
+
+But Johnnie held on, and his cries redoubled. The kitchen was in a
+tumult now, for old Grandpa was also weeping--not only in fear for
+Johnnie, but in terror lest he himself be overturned. And Big Tom was
+alternately cursing and ordering.
+
+The trouble was heard elsewhere. To right and left there was movement,
+and the sound of windows being raised. Voices called out questioningly.
+Some one pounded on a wall in protest. And overhead Mrs. Kukor left her
+chair and went rocking across her floor.
+
+Muttering a savage exclamation, Big Tom let go of the boy and flung
+himself into the morris chair, not wanting to go so far with his
+punishment as to invite the complaints of his neighbors and the
+interference of the police. "Git up out of that!" he commanded, giving
+Johnnie a rough nudge with a foot; then to quiet his father, "Now, Pa!
+That'll do. Sh! sh! It's all right. The battle's over, and the Yanks've
+beat."
+
+But Johnnie was still prone, with the wheel in his embrace, and the old
+veteran was sobbing, his wrinkled face glistening with tears, when Mrs.
+Kukor opened the door and came doll-walking in.
+
+She was a short little lady, with a compact, inflexible figure that was,
+so to speak, square, with rounded-off corners--square, and solid, and
+heavy. She had eyes that were as black and round and bright as a
+sparrow's, a full, red mouth, and graying hair, abundant and crinkly,
+which stood out around her countenance as if charged with electricity.
+It escaped the hairpins. Even a knitted brown cap of some weight did not
+adequately confine it. Every hair seemed vividly alive.
+
+Her olive face was a trifle pale now. Her birdlike eyes darted from one
+to another of the trio, quickly taking in the situation. Too concerned
+to make any apology for her unannounced entrance, she teetered hastily
+to Big Tom's side.
+
+"Oy! oy!" she breathed anxiously. "Vot iss?"
+
+"Tommie home," faltered old Grandpa. "Tommie home. And the color
+sergeant's dead!" He reached his arms out to her like a frightened child
+who welcomes company.
+
+Like her eyes, Mrs. Kukor's lips never rested, going even when she
+listened, for she had the habit of silently repeating whatever was said.
+Thus, with lips and eyes busy, head alternately wagging and nodding
+eloquently, and both hands waving, she was constantly in motion. Now,
+"The color sergeant's dead!" her mouth framed, and she gave a swift
+glance around almost as if she expected to see a fallen flag bearer.
+
+"It's this lazy little rascal again," declared Barber, working his jaws
+in baffled wrath.
+
+"So-o-o-o!" She stooped and laid a gentle hand on Johnnie's shoulder.
+"Come," she said. "Better Chonnie, he goes in a liddle by Cis's room.
+No?" And as the boy, still trembling, got to his knees beside the chair,
+she helped him to rise, and half led, half carried him past the stove.
+
+Barber began his defense. "I go out o' here of a mornin'," he
+complained, "to do a hard day's work, so's I can pay rent and the
+grocer. I leave that kid t' do a few little things 'round the place. And
+the minute my back's turned, what does he do? Nothin'! I come back, and
+look!"
+
+Mrs. Kukor, having seen Johnnie out of the room, turned about. Then,
+smoothing her checked apron with her plump hands, she glanced at Barber
+with a deprecating smile. "I haf look," she answered. "Und I know.
+But--he wass yust a poy, und you know poys."
+
+"I know boys have t' work," came back Barber, righteously. "If they
+don't, they grow up into no-account men. When his Aunt Sophie died, I
+promised her I'd raise him right. The work here don't amount to
+nothin',--anyhow not if you compare it with what I done when _I_ was a
+boy. Why, on my father's farm, up-state, I was out of my bed before
+sunup, winter and summer, doin' chores, milkin', waterin' the stock,
+hoein', and so on. What's a few dishes to _that_? What's a bed or two?
+and a little sweepin'? And look! He ain't even washed the old man yet!
+And I like to see my father clean and neat. That's what makes me so
+red-hot, Mrs. Kukor--the way he neglects my father."
+
+"Chonnie wass shut up so much," argued Mrs. Kukor.
+
+That cast whitened Big Tom's eye anxiously. He did not want Johnnie to
+hear any talk about going out. He hastened to reply, and his tone was
+more righteous than ever. "No kid out of this flat is goin' to run the
+streets," he declared, "and learn all kinds of bad, and bring it home to
+that nice, little stepdaughter o' mine! No, Mrs. Kukor, her mother'd
+haunt me if I didn't bring her up nice, and you can bet I'll do that.
+That kid, long's he stays under my roof, is goin' t' be fit t' stay. And
+he wouldn't be if he gadded the streets with the gangs in this part of
+town." While this excuse for keeping Johnnie indoors was anything but
+the correct one, Big Tom was able to make his voice fervent.
+
+"But Chonnie wass tired mit always seeink the kitchen," persisted the
+little Jewish lady. "He did-ent go out now for a lo-ong times. I got
+surprises he ain't crazy!"
+
+"That's just what he _is_!" cried Big Tom, triumphantly. "He's crazy! Of
+all the foolishness in the world, he can think it up! And the things he
+does!--but nothin' that'll ever git him anywheres, or do him any good!
+And lazy? Anything t' kill time--t' git out of honest work! Now what
+d'y' suppose he was doin' with this clothes line down? and talkin' out
+loud to himself?"
+
+"Niaggery! Niaggery!" piped old Grandpa, smiling through his tears, and
+swaying against the rope that crossed his chest. "Niaggery! Niaggery!
+Chug! chug! chug!"
+
+Mrs. Kukor spread out both hands in a comprehensive gesture. "See?" she
+asked. "Oh, I haf listen. The chair goes roundt and roundt, und much
+water wass runnink in the sink. It wass for Grandpa, und--it takes
+time."
+
+Barber's dark face relaxed a little. It could not truthfully be said of
+him that he was a bad son; and any excuse that offered his father as its
+reason invariably softened him. He pulled himself to his feet and picked
+up the lunch pail and the cargo hook. "Well--all right," he conceded.
+"But I said t' myself, 'I'll bet that kid ain't workin'.' So havin' a'
+hour, I come home t' see. And how'd he git on yesterday, makin' vi'lets
+for y'?"
+
+"Ach!"--this, an exclamation of impatience, was aimed at herself. "I
+wass forgettink!" Under her apron hung a long, slender, black bag. Out
+of it she took a twenty-five-cent piece and offered the coin to Barber.
+"For yesttady," she added.
+
+"Thank y'." He took the quarter. "Glad the kid done his work."
+
+"Oh, sure he do!" protested Mrs. Kukor. "Pos-i-tiv-vle!" (Mrs. Kukor
+could also be guilty of self-deception.)
+
+Now, Barber raised his voice a little: "Johnnie, let's see how quick you
+can straighten this place up."
+
+At that, Mrs. Kukor waved both hands in eloquent signals, urging Big Tom
+to go; tapped her chest, winked, and made little clicking noises with
+her tongue--all to denote the fact that she would see everything
+straightened up to perfection, but that for old Grandpa's sake further
+conversation with Johnnie might be a mistake, since weeping all around
+would surely break out again. So Barber, muttering something about
+leaving her a clear coast, scuffed his way out.
+
+As the hall door closed, Johnnie buried his small nose in Cis's pillow.
+He was wounded in pride rather than in body. He hated to be found on the
+floor at the toe of Big Tom's boot. He had listened to the conversation
+while lying face downward on Cis's bed but with his head raised like a
+turtle's. However, it seemed best, somehow, not to be found in that
+position by Mrs. Kukor. He must not take his ill-treatment lightly, nor
+recover from his hurts too quick. He decided to be prone and prostrated.
+When the little Jewish lady came swaying in to him, therefore, he was
+stretched flat, his yellow head motionless.
+
+The sight smote Mrs. Kukor. In all the five years he had lived at the
+Barber flat, she had continually watched over him, plying him with
+medicine, pulling his baby teeth, mending his ragged clothes, teaching
+him to cook and do housework, feeding him kosher dainties, and--for
+reasons better hinted at than made plain--keeping a sharp lookout in the
+matter of his bright hair.
+
+In the beginning, when trouble had assailed him, her lap had received
+him like the mother's lap he could not remember; her arms had cradled
+him tenderly, her kisses had comforted, and he had often wept out his
+rage and mortification on her bosom.
+
+However, long since he had felt himself too big to be held or kissed.
+And as for his hair, she understood what a delicate subject it had come
+to be with him. She would have liked to stroke it now; but she contented
+herself with patting gently one thin arm. Behind her was old Grandpa,
+peering into the dim closet.
+
+"Oy! oy! oy!" mourned Mrs. Kukor, wagging her round head. "Ev'rytink
+goes bat if some peoples lives by oder peoples w'ich did-ent belonk mit.
+Und how to do? I can't to say, except yust live alonk, und see if
+sometink nice happens maype."
+
+Johnnie moved, with a long, dry sob, and very tenderly she leaned down
+to turn his face toward her. "Ach, poor Chonnie!" she cried. "Come! We
+will wash him, und makes him all fresh und clean. Und next--how do you
+t'ink? Mrs. Kukor hass for you a big surprises!"
+
+He sat up then, wearily, but forbore to seem curious, and she coaxed him
+into the kitchen, to bathe the dust and tears from his countenance, and
+stitch up some rents in the big shirt, where Big Tom had torn it. All
+the while she talked to him comfortingly. "Ach, mine heart it bleets
+over you!" she declared. "But nefer mind. Because, _oh_, such swell
+surprises!"
+
+Now Johnnie felt he could properly show interest in things outside the
+morning's trouble. "What, Mrs. Kukor?" he wanted to know. "Is it--is it
+noodle soup?"
+
+And now both burst out laughing, for it was always a great joke between
+them, his liking for her noodle soup. Old Grandpa laughed loudest of
+all, circling them, and pounding the floor with his cane. "What say?" he
+demanded. "What say?" Altogether the restoration to the flat of peace
+and happiness was made so evident that, to right, left, and below,
+windows now began to go down with a bang, as, the Barber row over, the
+neighbors went back to their own affairs.
+
+"It wass not noodle soup," declared Mrs. Kukor. "It wass sometink a
+t'ousand times so goot. But not for eatink. No. _Much_ better as. Und!
+Sooner your work wass finished, make a signals to me alonk of the sink,
+und see how it happens!"
+
+More she would not say, but rocked out and up.
+
+Johnnie went at his dishes hard. The table cleared, the sink empty, and
+the cupboard full, he tied the clothesline out of the way, then with
+broom and dustpan invaded Big Tom's bedroom, which Grandpa shared with
+his hulking son. Here were two narrow, iron bedsteads. Between them was
+barely room for the wheel chair when it rolled the little old man in to
+his night's rest. To right and left of the door, high up, several nails
+supported a few dusty garments. That was all.
+
+If Johnnie stooped in the doorway of this room, he could see every
+square foot of its floor, and every article in it. Yet from the very
+first he had feared the place, into which no light and air came direct.
+Whenever he swept it and made the beds, his heart beat fast, and he felt
+nervous concerning his ankles, as if Something were on the point of
+seizing them! For this reason he always put off his bedroom work as long
+as he could; then finished it up quickly, keeping the door wide while he
+worked. At other times, he kept it tight shut. Often when old Grandpa
+was asleep by the stove, Johnnie would tiptoe to that door, lean
+against the jamb of it, and listen. And he told Cis that he could
+plainly hear _creakings_!
+
+But this morning he felt none of his usual nervousness, so taken up was
+his mind with Mrs. Kukor's mystery. Swiftly but carefully he made the
+two beds. As a rule, he contented himself with straightening each out,
+but so artfully that Barber would think the sheets had been turned.
+Sometimes Barber threw a bit of paper or a sock into one bed or the
+other, in order to trap Johnnie, who found it wise always to search for
+evidence.
+
+Now he pulled each bed apart, turned the old mattresses with the loudest
+thumps, snapped the sheets professionally (Cis had taught him that!),
+whacked the pillows with might and main, and tucked in the worn blankets
+like a trained nurse. Then with puffs and grunts he swept under as well
+as around the beds, searching out the deep cracks with the cornstraw,
+and raising a prodigious cloud.
+
+When he came out of the bedroom it was to empty his garnerings into the
+stove and repeat the dust-gathering process in Cis's room, that
+cubby-hole, four-by-seven, which had no window, and doubtless had been
+intended for a storage place, or a bathroom free from draughts. It held
+no furniture at all--only a long, low shelf and a dry-goods box. Cis
+slept on a narrow mattress which upholstered the shelf, and used the box
+both as a dressing-table and a wardrobe. Johnnie was not expected to
+make up the shelf; and was strictly forbidden to touch the box. He
+scratched the floor successfully, not having attended to it for some
+days.
+
+By the time he was ready to do the kitchen, his face was streaked again,
+and glistening with perspiration. And he could not help but wish, as he
+planted the wheel chair at the open window, that Barber, if he intended
+to make another unexpected return, would come at such a time as this,
+when things that he liked were happening.
+
+The kitchen floor lay in great splintering hummocks and hollows. Its
+wide cracks were solid with the accumulations of time, while lint and
+frayings, and bits of cloth and string, were fairly woven into its rough
+surface everywhere, and tenaciously held. It was lastingly greasy in the
+neighborhood of the table, as steadily wet in the region of the sink,
+and sooty in an ever-widening circle about the stove.
+
+Sprinkling it thoroughly, he swept even the two squares on which were
+set the fuel boxes; gave the stove what amounted to a feverish rubbing,
+then turned his attention to old Grandpa.
+
+The morning routine of caring for the aged veteran included the bathing
+of the wizened face and hands and the brushing of the thin, straggling
+hair. Johnnie hastened to collect the wash basin, the bar of soap (it
+was of the laundry variety), and a square of once-white cloth, which it
+must be confessed was used variously about the flat, serving at one time
+to polish the lamp chimney, and again for any particular dusting.
+
+Grandpa had all of a small boy's dislike for water. The moment he spied
+Johnnie's preparations, he began to protest. "No! no!" he objected.
+"It's cold! It's cold!" He whirled his chair in an attempt to escape.
+
+But Johnnie had a fine device for just this problem. "Oh, Grandpa!" he
+reminded coaxingly as he filled the wash basin with warm water out of
+the teakettle, "don't you remember that you jus' was in a big battle?
+And there's _mud_ on your face!"
+
+Grandpa capitulated at once, and allowed himself to be washed and
+combed. The old man clean, Johnnie gave him a glass of warm milk,
+wheeled him as far away from the window as possible, then trundled him
+gently back and forth, as if he were a baby in a carriage. And all the
+while the boy sang softly, improvising a lullaby:
+
+        "Oh, Grandpa, now go to s'eepy-s'eep,
+         'Cause you're awful tired.
+         And Johnnie wants t' see what Mrs. Kukor
+         Is goin' to s'prise him about----"
+
+Grandpa dozing, Johnnie did not pause to eat the cold potato and bread
+spread with the grease of bacon trimmings which made his usual noon
+meal. Curiosity dulled his hunger. Gently he tapped upon that convenient
+pipe--once, then twice, then once again.
+
+As he leaned at the window to wait, his small nose curled in a grin.
+There was no movement up above. He half suspected a joke. But he had got
+off easy with Big Tom. Also, the housework was done, and in fine style.
+Except for a little violet-making--not too much--more than a whole
+half-day still lay ahead of him. And what an automobile trip he could
+take with Mr. Astor! Idly he followed the changing contours of a cloud
+in an otherwise empty sky.
+
+Then of a sudden something came dropping between him and the cloud. He
+started back. It was a shallow basket, suspended from each of its four
+corners by a string. As it lowered inch by inch, he stood up in the rope
+coils; and what he saw in it fairly took his breath. For there on the
+bottom of the basket was--a book!
+
+"Gee!" he gasped.
+
+He brought the basket to a safe landing. Then, forgetting that some one
+was at the other end of the four strings, he slipped to the floor,
+turned on the water in the sink, and, like a Moslem holy man who is
+about to touch his Koran, washed both grimy hands.
+
+To look at, it was not much of a book. In the first place, it had not
+the length, width or thickness of the telephone directory, while its
+corners were fully as dog-eared. Yet he took it from the basket with
+something like reverence. It had one cloth cover--the back. This was
+wine-red, and shiny. The front one had been torn out of its binding.
+However, this seemed to him no flaw. Also, there were several
+pictures--in colors! And as he looked the volume over still more
+closely, he made a wonderful discovery: on the front page was written a
+name--_J. J. Hunter_.
+
+It was a man's book!
+
+"Oh, my goodness!" he whispered. "Oh, Mrs. Kukor!"
+
+The basket danced inquiringly, tipped, and began to heave upward. A
+voice began to whisper to him, coming down along those four strings: "I
+finds him by a secont-hant store-mans. I gets him almost for notink. He
+wass olt, und very fine. Haf you open him? Reat, Chonnie!"
+
+He opened the book at the first page; and knew how different this one
+was from the directory, with its solid lines of names; from the speller,
+printed in columns of words, or the arithmetic, which was all
+hit-or-miss. Here was a page divided into paragraphs, as in the
+newspapers which Cis sometimes smuggled in. Before and after many of the
+paragraphs were those strange little marks, larger at one end than at
+the other, which showed that some one was speaking.
+
+"It's a story!" he whispered back.
+
+Indeed, as he read that first page, it so informed him. Across its top,
+in capital letters, ran those words: _THE STORY OF ALADDIN; OR, THE
+WONDERFUL LAMP_. All his life he had had to make up his own stories, get
+acquainted with the people in them, dress them, and even give them
+speech. But here was a story belonging to some one else--a story as
+important as that one about his friends David and Goliath, this proven
+by the fact that it had been written down, letter for letter.
+
+He began it: _In the capital of one of the large and rich provinces of
+the Kingdom of China, the name of which I do not recollect, there lived
+a tailor, named Mustapha, who was so poor, that he could hardly, by his
+daily labor, maintain himself and his family, which consisted of a wife
+and son._
+
+_His son, who was called Aladdin_----
+
+Something came into Johnnie's throat when he got that far. He gulped.
+And he could not read any further just then because something had come
+into his eyes. He laid the book against his breast, and crossed both
+arms upon it. He did not know how to pray. Mrs. Kukor had never dared
+teach him, fearing the wrath of Big Tom. As for Cis, she knew how from
+her mother; but she had all of a child's natural shyness regarding
+sacred subjects.
+
+To Johnnie, Sunday was not a day set apart for sacred matters. It was a
+day to be dreaded. And not only because on that day Barber was likely to
+be about at any hour, but because for Johnnie it meant uninterrupted
+work. The noon meal had to be put on the table instead of into lunch
+pails. And when dinner was cleared away there was always bead-stringing
+or violet-making to do--Cis helping when she returned from church. On
+account of his clothes, Johnnie never went to church himself. What he
+knew about churches, therefore, was only what Cis told him; and of her
+information the most striking bit was this: red carpets led into them
+under gay awnings whenever people were getting married.
+
+But as he stood with the book clasped to his breast, what he felt was
+thanksgiving--to his very toes. "Aladdin,"--he spoke aloud to that other
+boy, who was so poor; "you're goin' t' be a dandy friend of mine! Yes,
+and your Pa and Ma, too! And I'll introduce you to Buckle, and Mr.
+Rockefeller, and a lot of nice folks!"
+
+Presently he brought the book up to where, by lowering his head, he
+could lay a thin cheek against that front page. Then, "Oh, Mister J. J.
+Hunter," he added huskily, "I hope you ain't never goin' to want this
+back!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE DEAREST WISH
+
+
+HE read--and the shining Orient burst upon him!
+
+It was as if the most delicate of gossamer curtains had been brushed
+aside so that he could look at a new world. What he saw there rooted him
+to his chair, holding him spellbound. Yet not so much because it
+contrasted sharply with his own little world, this bare flat of Barber's
+in the lower East Side, as that it seemed to fit in perfectly with his
+own experiences.
+
+Aladdin was a boy like himself, who was scolded, and cuffed on the ears.
+The African magician was just another as wicked and cruel as the
+longshoreman. As for that Slave of the Ring, Johnnie considered him no
+more wonderful than Buckle. In fact, there was nothing impossible, or
+even improbable, about the story. It held him by its sheer reality. Its
+drama enthralled him, too. And he gloried in all its beauty of golden
+dishes, gorgeous dress, fountain-fed gardens, jewel-fruited trees and
+prancing steeds.
+
+He read carefully, one forefinger traveling to and fro across the wide
+pages, while his lips moved silently, and he dragged at his hair.
+Sometimes he came to words he did not understand--_chastisement_,
+_incorrigible_, _physiognomist_, _handicraft_, _equipped_, _mosques_,
+_liberality_. He went over them and pressed on, just as he might have
+climbed one wall after the other if these barred his way. He could come
+back to the hard words later--and he would. But first he must know how
+things fared with this other boy.
+
+When Grandpa wakened, Johnnie fairly wrenched his look from beautiful
+Cathay to face the demands which the Borough of Manhattan made upon him.
+Tucking his book under the wide neckband of the big shirt, he let it
+slip down to rest at his belt. The old soldier was hungry. He was
+supplied with milk toast so speedily that it was the next thing to
+magic. Then Johnnie discovered a hollow feeling which centered in his
+own anatomy, whereupon he ate several, cold boiled potatoes well spiced
+with mustard.
+
+Their late lunch over, Grandpa was strong in his appeals for a journey
+as far south as Island Number 10. But now Johnnie had no heart for any
+trip into distant country. The realm of China was about him. He wheeled
+the chair up and down, but he sang to soothe Grandpa to sleep. And this
+time his song was all of his great new happiness:
+
+       "Oh, I got a book! I got a book! I got a book!
+        Oh, Mrs. Kukor, she give it t' me!
+        And it's awful grand!
+        Once it was a man's, and his name was Hunter--
+        I wonder if he lost it, or maybe somebody sold it on him.
+        I'm goin' t' read it till I know ev'ry word!
+        I'm goin' t' read it ev'ry day--ev'ry day!
+        Go t' sleep, 'cause I want t' read some more!
+        Go t' sleep! Go t' sleep! Go t' sleep!"
+
+On and on he caroled, like a bird on a branch. At last Grandpa, after
+some mild protesting, was lulled by the rhapsody, and dozed once more;
+when Johnnie adroitly tapered off his song, brought the chair to a
+cautious stop, drew the book from its warm hiding place, sank into the
+morris chair, and again there swept into the kitchen, as on the crest
+of a stream, the glorious, the enchanting East.
+
+He saw the dull, old lamp rubbed for the first time, and the genie come.
+And he rejoiced with Aladdin as the poor Chinese boy attained the
+knowledge of the lamp's peculiar virtue. Only once did he emerge from
+the thralldom of the tale by his own will. That was when he read of the
+wonderful Buddir al Buddoor: "_The princess was the most beautiful
+brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her
+looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a
+fault, her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red and charmingly
+agreeable symmetry_----"
+
+Here he paused, lifting farseeing, shining eyes. Many a time he had
+spied a slim little girl who came out upon one of the fire escapes
+opposite. The little girl's hair was black and wavy, and the wind tossed
+it upon her shoulders as she looked around. She seldom glanced over at
+Johnnie, and to gain her attention he had to Hoo-hoo to her. Once he had
+shown her that pillow so cherished by Cis, which was covered with bright
+cretonne. He had seen the little girl's white teeth flash then, and knew
+that she was smiling.
+
+She was like the Princess Buddir al Buddoor, dark, and red-lipped. And
+how kind she was! For she had never seemed to notice anything wrong with
+either his hair or his clothes. He could understand how Aladdin felt
+about the sultan's daughter, who was so lovely--all but her name!
+
+He was deep in the story again when a plump hand interrupted by covering
+his page. So shut were his ears against every sound, inside and out,
+that he had not heard Mrs. Kukor enter. Now she held up something before
+his face. It was the alarm clock.
+
+Next after Big Tom and his own hair he hated the clock most. It was
+forever rousing him of a morning when he longed to sleep. Also, the
+clock acted as a sort of vicar to Barber. Its round, flat, bald face
+stared hard at Johnnie as its rasping staccato warned him boldly. More
+than once he had gone up to the noisy timepiece, taken it from its place
+on the cupboard shelf, and given it a good shaking.
+
+"So!" exclaimed Mrs. Kukor. She set the clock down and reached for the
+book. "I keeps him by me. To-morrow, sooner you wass finish mit your
+work, he comes down again by the basket."
+
+"Oh, but I can hide it!" urged Johnnie, illustrating his argument at the
+same time. "And, oh, gee, Mrs. Kukor! I'm the luckiest kid in N'York!"
+
+"Supper," pronounced Mrs. Kukor, seeing that the book was indeed well
+hidden and would bring no fresh troubles upon that yellow head that day.
+
+And it did not. For at suppertime, when Barber loomed in the doorway
+once more, the teakettle was on the stove, and waddling from side to
+side very much in the manner of Mrs. Kukor, the kitchen was filled with
+the fruity aroma of stewing prunes, and Johnnie, with several saucers of
+bright-hued beads before him, was busy at his stringing--a task which,
+being mechanical, could be performed without conscious effort. And he
+was so engrossed over his saucers that Barber had to speak to him twice
+before the boy started up from his chair, letting the beads impaled on
+his long needle slip off and patter upon the floor like so much
+gay-colored sleet.
+
+Barber gave a satisfied look around. "All right--set your table," he
+commanded.
+
+Johnnie obeyed. But this was a task which was not mechanical. And with
+his thoughts still on the high hopes and plans of that other boy, he put
+two knives at one plate, two forks at another. But it was all done with
+such promptness, with such a quick, light step and eager, smiling eye,
+that Barber, remarking the swiftness and the spirit Johnnie showed, for
+once omitted to harangue him for his mistakes.
+
+Cis was more discerning than her stepfather. When she came slipping in,
+the boy's rapt expression told her that his thoughts were on something
+outside the flat. She was not curious, being used to seeing him look so
+detached. However, supper done with, and Barber out of the kitchen,
+putting his father to bed, she gleaned that something unusual had
+happened. For as they were washing and setting away the dishes, he
+leaned close to ask her the strangest question.
+
+"Cis," he whispered, "what's p-h-y-s-i-o-g-n-o-m-i-s-t?"
+
+She turned her head to stare; and knit her young brows, wondering and
+puzzled, not at the question itself, but at what lay behind it. The
+bedroom door was open. She dared not venture a counter question. "Start
+it again," she whispered back.
+
+He named the letters through a second time. "It's a long word," he
+conceded. "It takes all of my fingers, and then one thumb and two
+fingers over. What does it spell?"
+
+Cis's lips were pressed tight. They twitched a bit, to keep back with
+some effort what she had on her mind. When they parted at last, she
+nodded wisely. "You never got that word out of my speller," she
+declared; "nor off of any paper bag from the grocer's." Which was to say
+that she did not know what all those letters spelled, but that she was
+fully aware he had a good deal to tell her.
+
+Johnnie had already made up his mind that he would not share his
+precious secret with her. He feared to. Barber had never allowed Cis to
+bring home books, regarding all printed matter as a waste of time. And
+Cis had a way of obeying Barber strictly; also she often pleaded
+conscience and duty in matters of this kind. And to Johnnie any
+consideration for Barber's wishes or opinions, except the little that
+was forced by fear of the strap, was silly, girlish, and terribly
+trying.
+
+He admired Mrs. Kukor's stand. Backed by her, he meant to keep the book
+and read it every minute he could. So with Big Tom once more in the
+kitchen, having an after-supper pipe in the morris chair, Johnnie
+ignored Cis's silent invitation to join her in the window, and brought
+his bedding from her room, spreading it out ostentatiously beside the
+stove. Then having filled the teakettle and stirred the breakfast cereal
+into the big, black pot, he flung himself down upon his mattress with a
+weary grunt.
+
+Barber smiled. The boy was tired. For once some real work had been done
+around the place. "You better git t' bed early, too," he remarked to
+Cis. As advice from him always amounted to a command, she disappeared at
+once. Presently Big Tom got up, stretched his gorilla arms, yawned with
+a descending scale of Oh's, and went lumbering to bed.
+
+A wait--which to Johnnie seemed interminable, while dusk thickened to
+darkness; then snores. The snoring continued all the while he was
+counting up to four hundred. Also it achieved a regularity and loudness
+that guaranteed it to be genuine. Still Johnnie did not open his eyes.
+There were little movements in Cis's room, and he felt sure she was not
+asleep. Soon he had proof of it. For peering up carefully from under
+lowered lids, he saw her door slowly open; next, she came to stand in
+it, dimly outlined in her faded cotton kimono.
+
+She had something white in one hand. This she waved up and down in a
+noiseless signal. He did not stir. She stole forward, bent down, and
+touched him. He went on breathing deep and steadily. She tiptoed back to
+her bed.
+
+As patiently as possible he waited till the sound of her regular
+breathing could be heard between Barber's rasping snores. Then he sat
+up. So long as he had been able to read, he had thought of nothing but
+reading. But with the book put away there had come to him a wonderful
+plan--a plan that made his bony little spine gooseflesh: _He would rub
+Barber's old kitchen lamp!_
+
+Seldom used, it stood on a cupboard shelf beside the clock. Fairly
+holding his breath, he got to his feet and crept across the floor. Inch
+by inch, cautiously, his hand felt its way to the right shelf, found the
+lamp, grasped the glass standard. But the table was the only proper
+place for the experiment. He carried the lamp there and set it down, his
+heart beating hard under the pleats of his shirt.
+
+Then he considered what his course of action should be. If Big Tom's old
+lamp chanced to possess even a scrap of that power peculiar to the lamp
+of Aladdin: if, when he rubbed the none too clean glass base, some genie
+were to appear, asking for orders--what should he command?
+
+It came to him then that what he wanted most in all the world was not
+bags of money, not dishes of massy gold, or rich robes, or slaves, but
+only freedom. He wanted to get away from the flat; to leave behind him
+forever the hated longshoreman.
+
+"If the great big feller comes when I rub," he told himself, "I'll say
+t' him, 'Take Grandpa and Cis and me as far away as--as Central Park'"
+(this a region of delight into which he had peeped when he was three or
+four years old, under escort of his Aunt Sophie). "'And leave us in a
+flat as good as this one.'"
+
+With Big Tom out of his life, oh, how he would work!--violet-making,
+bead-stringing, and, yes, boarders! He could fetch Grandpa's bed out
+into the new kitchen, and put three roomers into the little bedroom,
+just as several tenants in this building did. And what he could earn,
+added to Cis's wages at some factory, and Grandpa's pension (this a
+princely income which was now regularly drawn and spent by Big Tom)
+would take care of the three splendidly.
+
+Having settled upon the supreme wish, and fairly holding his breath, he
+reached out in the darkness and rubbed the lamp.
+
+Nothing happened.
+
+He waited a little. In this lamp business perhaps time figured
+prominently; though his own friends--Buckle, the four millionaires,
+David, Goliath, the Prince, and any number of others always appeared in
+the kitchen promptly.
+
+But no genie of the lamp arrived. To make sure that his test was fair,
+he rubbed the lamp a second time, all the way around. Still no huge,
+hideous, helpful figure loomed out of the dark.
+
+He grinned sheepishly, tugged at his hair a few times, then went back to
+his mattress and sat down. He was not disappointed, for though he had
+been hopeful, he had not been over-sure. And, anyhow, he had his book.
+He lifted it out, placed it upon his knees, and rested his forehead upon
+it. And the next moment, as if whisked to him by a genie all his own,
+Cathay was about him; and he was with the boy, Aladdin, plunging down a
+flight of steps on his way to a garden that yielded fruit which was all
+diamonds and rubies and pearls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A SERIOUS STEP
+
+
+HE awoke with such a feeling of happiness--a fluttery feeling, which was
+in his throat, and also just at the lower end of his breastbone, where
+he seemed to have so many kinds of sensations. For a moment he did not
+remember what made him so happy. But as he moved, something hard pressed
+against his ribs, whereupon the fluttery feeling suddenly spread over
+the whole of him, so that the calves of those lead-pipe legs got creepy,
+and his shoulder-blades tingled. Then he knew it was all because of the
+book.
+
+The process of getting up of a morning was always a simple one. As he
+slept in his big clothes, all he had to do was scramble to his feet,
+roll up his bedding, splash a little water upon the central portion of
+his countenance, dry it away with the apron, and put the apron on.
+
+As a rule he never so much as stirred till Barber or the alarm clock
+sounded an order. But on this happy morning he did not wait for orders,
+but rose promptly, though it still wanted more than half an hour to
+getting-up time. He did yet another unusual thing; noiselessly, so as
+not to wake any one, he set his bedding roll on end just outside the
+door of Cis's room, then returned to the table, drew out the drawer,
+chose a saucer of rose-colored beads, and fell to threading them
+swiftly. He had two ideas in mind: first, after yesterday's unpleasant
+experience, he was anxious to make a good impression upon Big Tom;
+second, and principally, he was stringing now, when he dared not read,
+in order that, later on, he might be free to enjoy his book.
+
+He held the long needle in his right hand. He poked the beads to the
+needle's tip with the forefinger of his left. He used his tongue, too,
+after a fashion, for if a bead was obstinate his tongue tip sometimes
+helped--by curling itself noseward over his upper lip. Before now he had
+always thought of rose-colored beads as future rose-colored roses in the
+beautiful purses that Mrs. Kukor made. But now the beads reminded him of
+nothing less than that strange garden laying under the horizontal stone
+in China.
+
+He took out all of his saucers--the pink, the green, the brown, the
+gold, the blue, the burgundy, the white, the black, the yellow--and
+found that they gave him a new pleasure. They were the fruit of
+Aladdin's garden, and he planned to offer them in a yellow bowl to that
+certain dark-haired little girl. "'What wouldst thou have?'" he quoted.
+"'I am ready to obey thee as thy slave,'"--a statement that he
+considered highly appropriate. His whispering was accompanied by
+gesticulations that bore no relation to bead-stringing, and by tossings
+of his yellow head.
+
+"_Now_ what y' mumblin' about?" demanded Big Tom. He was watching from
+the bedroom door, and his look denied that Johnnie, though at work, was
+making anything like a good impression; quite the contrary--for Barber's
+bloodshot eyes were full of suspicion. Should a boy who always had to be
+watched and driven suddenly show a desire to keep busy? "Breakfast on?"
+he asked.
+
+Johnnie sprang up. "I didn't want to make no noise," he explained. The
+next moment lids were rattling and coal was tumbling upon some blazing
+kindling as he started the morning fire.
+
+"A-a-a-ah! What y' got this _lamp_ down for?"--it was the next question,
+and there was triumph in Big Tom's voice. "Been wastin' oil, have y'?
+Come! When did y' light it? Answer up!"
+
+"I didn't light it," replied Johnnie, calmly glancing round, his chin on
+his shoulders.
+
+"No? Then what _did_ y' do? Hey? What?"
+
+"Just took it down 'n' rubbed it."
+
+"M-m-m!--Well, y' made a poor job of your rubbin'. I'll say that!"
+
+"I'll rub it again," said Johnnie. He caught up the dish towel with
+which he had dried his own face and set to work on the lamp. There was a
+faint smile on his lips as he worked. There was a smile in his eyes,
+too, but he kept his lids discreetly lowered.
+
+His whole manner irritated Barber, who sauntered to the table, took a
+careful survey of it, drew out the drawer, looked it over, then dropped
+into the morris chair to pull on his socks. Now he sensed, as had Cis
+the day before, that the air of the flat was charged with
+something--something that was strange to it. He did not guess it was
+happiness. But as Johnnie moved quickly between sink and stove, between
+cupboard and table, Big Tom watched him, and thrust out that lower lip.
+
+While the business of breakfast was on, instead of standing up to the
+table for his bowl of oats, Johnnie made sandwiches for the two lunches.
+Hot tea, well sugared, went into Barber's pail. Another tin compartment
+Johnnie packed with the cooked prunes. A third held slabs of corned-beef
+between bread. Sour pickles were added to these when he filled Cis's
+lunchbox, which closely resembled a camera. And now the wide-open, fixed
+look of his eyes, the uplift at the corners of his mouth, his swelled
+nostrils and his buoyant step told Cis that he was engaged in some
+adventure, high and stirring.
+
+But Barber, still watching the boy sharply, made up his mind that the
+punishment of the day before had done a lot of good. In fact, it seemed
+to have brought about a complete transformation. For during the two or
+three minutes that Big Tom allowed himself after eating for the filling
+of his pipe, Johnnie swept the table clear, washed, dried and put away
+the dishes, and was so far along with his morning's work that he was
+wiping off the stove.
+
+Leaving, Barber omitted his usual warnings and directions; and did not
+even wait outside the door for a final look back, but went promptly
+down, as the creaking stairs testified, and out, as told by the sucking
+move and gentle rattle of the hall door.
+
+It was Cis who lingered. When the flat was clear of her stepfather, she
+fairly burst from her tiny room, and halted face to face with Johnnie,
+from whose strong right hand the stove rag was even then falling. Her
+eyes both questioned and challenged him. And the sudden breaking of his
+countenance into a radiant grin, at one and at the same time, answered
+her--and confessed.
+
+"Johnnie!" she whispered.
+
+He stretched up to her pink ear to answer, for Grandpa was at the table,
+still busy over his bowl. "A book," he whispered back, his air that of
+one who has seen the dream of a lifetime realized.
+
+"_What?_ What kind of a book? And where'd you get it? Show it to me."
+
+He went into the little closet. When he came out, she went in. And
+presently, as she sauntered into the kitchen once more, he plunged past
+her and the tiny room received him a second time--all of which was
+according to a method they had worked out long ago. He was up-headed,
+and his eyes sparkled as he unpinned a towel from under Grandpa's chin
+and trundled the wheel chair back from the table. His look said that he
+defied all criticism.
+
+She reached for the camera-box. Her manner wholly lacked enthusiasm. "I
+guess it's a good story," she conceded kindly. "I heard about it lots
+when I was in school. But, my! It's so raggy!"
+
+"Raggy!" scoffed Johnnie. "Huh! I don't care what it _looks_ like!"
+
+When she, too, was gone, he omitted his usual taking of the air at the
+window. He even denied himself the pleasure of calling up his four
+millionaires and telling them of his good fortune. The main business of
+the day was the book. Would Aladdin's order for a palace, complete, be
+carried out? Would that ambitious Celestial marry the Princess of his
+choice? Johnnie could scarcely wait to know.
+
+Following a course that he had found good these several years past, he
+wound the alarm clock a few times and set it to ring sharp at four in
+the afternoon--which would give him more than a full hour in which to
+wash Grandpa, make the beds and sweep before Big Tom's return. This
+done, he opened the book on the table, dug a hand into his tousled mop,
+and began to read--to read as he might have drunk if thirst were
+torturing him, and a cool, deep cup were at his lips. For the book was
+to him really a draught which quenched a longing akin to thirst; it was
+a potion that gave him new life.
+
+As the story of stories unfolded itself, step by step, the ragged street
+urchin whose father had been a poor tailor, attained to great
+heights--to wealth and success and power. Johnnie gloried in it all,
+seeing such results as future possibilities of his own, and not
+forgetting to remark how kind, through all the upward trending of
+fortune, Aladdin had been to his mother (though he, himself, did not
+pause in his enjoyment of the tale to take the regular train trip with
+Grandpa).
+
+Twice during the morning the old soldier, by whimpering insistently,
+brought himself to Johnnie's attention. But the moment Grandpa was
+waited upon, back Johnnie went to his book, and page was turned upon
+page as the black magic of the hateful African wafted that most perfect
+of palaces many a league from its original site, and separated for his
+own wicked purposes the loving Aladdin and his devoted Buddir al
+Buddoor.
+
+And then--all of a sudden--and for no reason that Johnnie could name,
+but as if some good genie of his own were watching over him, and had
+whispered a warning, he cast off the enthrallment of Asia, stopped
+dragging at his hair, started to his feet, slid the book under his
+collar-band, and took stock of the time.
+
+It was twelve. Indeed, the noon whistles were just beginning to blow.
+But they and the clock did not reassure him. He had been dimly aware,
+the past hour or so, of a strange state of quiet overhead. That
+awareness now resolved itself into a horrible fear--the fear that, in
+spite of lunches put up and a clock wound to clang at four in the
+afternoon, the day was--Saturday!
+
+"Gee!" breathed Johnnie, and paled to a sickly white.
+
+His first thought was to make sure one way or another. Scurrying to the
+window, he pushed it up, hung out of it toward the Gamboni casement, and
+called to a sleek head that at this time of the day was almost certain
+to be bobbing in sight. There it was, and "What day is this, Mrs.
+Gamboni?" he demanded. "Quick! Is it Saturday?"
+
+"_Si!_"
+
+Saturday! A half-day! _Barber!_
+
+He threw himself backward, then stood for a moment, panic-stricken. Of
+course it was Saturday. Which explained why Mrs. Kukor was out. Oh, why
+had she not stopped by on her way to church? Oh, why had he left any of
+his work undone? Oh, for some genie to finish it all up in a second!
+Oh, for some Slave of a Ring or a Lamp!
+
+"Gee!" he breathed again. "This was the shortest Saturday mornin' in the
+world!"
+
+There now came to the fore the practical side of his nature. He knew he
+must do one of two things: stay, and take the whipping that Big Tom
+would surely give him, or--go.
+
+What had heretofore kept him from going was the fact that he had no
+clothes. By the end of his first year in the flat, the little suit he
+had been wearing when he came was in utter rags. Big Tom had bought him
+no new suit, declaring that he could not afford it. So Johnnie had had
+to decide between putting on some of Cis's old garments or Barber's
+mammoth cast-offs. He chose the latter, which Mrs. Kukor offered to
+alter, but Barber refused her help. And she knew at once what Johnnie
+did not guess: the longshoreman wanted the boy to appear ridiculous.
+
+The plan worked. The first time Johnnie had ventured into the area
+wearing his baggy breeches and a voluminous shirt, the boys who had from
+the first called "Girl's hair!" at him changed their taunt to "Old
+clothes!" It had sent him scurrying back into the flat, and it had kept
+him there, so that Big Tom had some one to look after Grandpa steadily,
+and bring in a small wage besides.
+
+But now not even the likelihood of being mocked for his ragged misfits
+could keep Johnnie back. Darting into the hall, he crouched in the dark
+passage a moment to listen, his heart pounding so hard that he could
+hear it; then certain that the way was yet clear, he straddled the
+banisters and, with his two strong hands to steady him and act as a
+brake to his speed, took the three flights to the ground floor.
+
+As Big Tom usually entered the area by the tunnel-like hall that led in
+from the main street to the south, Johnnie headed north, first taking
+care to glance out into the area before he charged across it, blinded by
+its glare after the semidark of the Barber rooms. He was hatless. His
+hair and his fringe flew. His feet flew, too, as if the longshoreman
+were at their horny little heels.
+
+The north tunnel gained, he scampered along it. As he dodged out of it,
+and westward, again the glare of the outdoors blinded him, so that he
+did not see a crowd that was ahead of him--a crowd made up wholly of
+boys.
+
+He plunged among the lot. Instantly a joyous wrangle of cries went up:
+"Girl's hair! Girl's hair! Old clothes! Old clothes!" A water-pistol
+discharged a chill stream into his face. Hands seized him, tearing at
+his rags.
+
+Savagely he battled at the center of the mob, hitting, kicking, biting.
+His sight cleared, and he made the blows of his big hands tell. "Leave
+me alone!" he screamed. "Leave me alone!"
+
+The crowd doubled as men and women rushed up to see what the excitement
+was all about. Then hands laid hold of Johnnie's tormentors, hauling
+them back, and suddenly he found himself free. Once more he took to his
+heels, and panting, dripping, scarlet and more ragged than before, he
+fled ignominiously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MORE TREASURES
+
+
+WHEN he had put half a dozen blocks behind him, he slackened his pace,
+took a quick look into several doorways, chose one that promised
+seclusion, dove into it, got his breath back, made sure that the
+precious book was safe, and then indulged himself in a grin that was all
+relief.
+
+The grin narrowed as he remembered that Grandpa was alone in the flat.
+"Oh, but Big Tom or Mrs. Kukor'll be home soon," he reflected; and
+comforted his conscience further by vowing that, given good luck, he
+would in no time be in a position to return for the purpose of enticing
+away both Cis and the old soldier (men are men, and in the stress of the
+moment he did not give a thought to that slim, little, dark-haired
+girl). He could not help but feel hopeful regarding his plans. Had not
+just such adventuring as this accomplished wonderful results for his new
+friend, Aladdin, a boy as poor as himself?
+
+He did not stay long in the doorway. He felt sure that the moment Barber
+returned a search of the neighborhood would be made, during which people
+would be questioned. Discretion urged that more blocks be put between
+the flat and that small back which so dreaded the strap. So off he went
+once more--at a lively trot.
+
+Though during the last five years he had not once been so far away from
+the area as this, he was not frightened. A city-bred boy, he felt as
+much at ease, scuttling along, as a fish in its native waters, or a
+rabbit in its own warren. He had taken a westward direction because he
+knew that the other way East River lay close, shutting off flight. Now
+he began to read the street signs. Cis had often talked of a great
+thoroughfare which cut the city into two unequal parts--a one-time road,
+she said it was, and so long that it ran through other cities. This was
+the street Johnnie wanted--being the one he had heard most about. It was
+a street called Broadway.
+
+As he traveled, he passed other dirty, ragged, little boys. His head was
+the yellowest of them all, his clothes were the poorest. But he was
+scarcely noticed. The occasional patrolman did not more than glance at
+him. And he was fully as indifferent. At his Aunt Sophie's, a
+policeman--by name Mike Callaghan--had been a frequent visitor, when he
+was wont to lay off not only his cap but his coat as well, and sit
+around bareheaded in his shirt-sleeves, smoking. This glimpse of an
+officer of the law, shorn, as it were, of his dignity, had made Johnnie
+realize, even as a babe, that policemen are but mortals after all, as
+ready to be pleased with a wedge of pie as any youngster, and given to
+the wearing of ordinary striped percale shirts under their majestic
+blue. So Johnnie was neither in awe of, nor feared, them.
+
+What he did keep a fearsome eye out for was any man who might be an
+African magician. That he would know such a man he felt sure, having a
+fair idea from a picture in his book of the robe, headdress, sandals and
+beard proper to magicians in general. But though he was alert enough as
+he traveled, the only unusual-looking person he met up with was a man
+with a peg leg and a tray of shoelaces.
+
+That peg leg frightened him. For a moment he was inclined to take to his
+heels, certain that this was the same wooden-legged man who gave Cis
+fruit. Then the tray reassured him. Shoelaces were one thing; fruit was
+another. And even if this one-legged man were full brother to the
+one-legged man of the fruitstand (Johnnie took for granted a whole
+one-legged family), he himself would be far away before any member of
+that family could get in touch with Barber.
+
+It was while he was boldly inspecting the shoe-lace man's peg leg that
+he discovered he was in Broadway, this by reading the name of the street
+on the front of a passing car. "Gee!" he exclaimed, taking a good look
+up and down the thoroughfare.
+
+Now he began really to enjoy himself. He pattered leisurely along,
+stopping at this window and that, or leaned against a convenient water
+plug to watch the traffic stream by.
+
+He was resting, and gazing about him, when the wagon driver came up. The
+driver was a colored youth in a khaki shirt and an overseas cap, and his
+wagon was a horseless affair, huge and covered. The colored man, halting
+his truck to let a cross current of vehicles pass, dazzled Johnnie with
+a good-natured smile.
+
+Johnnie grinned back. "You goin' up Broadway?" he asked, with a jerk of
+his head toward the north.
+
+"All the way up t' Haa'lem," answered the black man, cordially. "Climb
+aboa'd!"
+
+There was a loop of chain hanging down from the end-board of the truck.
+Johnnie guided a foot through it stirrup-wise and reared himself into an
+empty wagonbed. Then as the wheels began to turn, he faced round, knelt
+comfortably, and let Broadway swiftly drop behind.
+
+He could not see all the new and engrossing sights that offered
+themselves in the wake of the truck and to both sides. His ears were
+packed with strange noises. Yet entertained as he was, from time to time
+he took note of the cross streets--Eighth, then Tenth, next, busy
+Fourteenth.
+
+From time to time the colored man took note of him. "You-all thay yit?"
+he would sing out over a shoulder; or, "Have Ah done los' you, kid?"
+Upon being reassured, he would return to his problem of nosing a way
+along with other vehicles, large and small, and Johnnie would once more
+be left to his fascinating survey.
+
+At Twentieth, he very nearly fell out on that shining head, this at
+catching sight of a mounted patrolman. No figure in his beloved book
+seemed more splendid to him than this one, so noble and martial and
+proud. Here was a guardian of the peace who was obviously no common
+mortal. Then and there, as the mounted dropped gradually into the
+background, Johnnie determined that should he ever be rich enough, or if
+hard work and study could accomplish it, he would be a mounted
+policeman.
+
+At Twenty-third Street, Broadway suddenly took a sharp turn--toward the
+right. Also, it got wider, and noticeably cleaner. More: suddenly
+confronted with the gigantic, three-cornered building standing there, a
+structure with something of the height and beauty of his own dream
+edifices, he realized that he was now entering the true New York. This
+was more like it! Here was space and wealth and grandeur. Oh, how
+different was this famous street from either of those which gave to the
+building in the area!
+
+Then he discovered that he was not traveling a street at all! He was
+skimming along an avenue. And it was none other than Fifth Avenue, for
+the signs at corners plainly said so. Fifth Avenue! The wonderful,
+stylish boulevard which Cis mentioned almost reverently. And he was in
+it!
+
+The next moment he was truly in it. For at sight of a window which the
+truck was passing, and without even stopping to call to the driver,
+Johnnie dropped himself over the end-board to the smooth concrete. The
+window was no larger than many a one he had glimpsed during the long
+drive northward. What drew him toward it, as if it were a powerful
+magnet, was the fact that _it was full of books_.
+
+"My!" he whispered as he gained the sidewalk in front of the window.
+There were books standing on end in curving rows. There were others in
+great piles. A few lay flat. It had never occurred to him, shut up so
+long in a flat without any book save the telephone directory, that there
+could be so many books in the whole of New York. And all were so new!
+and had such fresh, untorn covers!
+
+He had stood before the window quite some time, his eyes going from book
+to book thoughtfully, while one hand tugged at his hair, and the other,
+thrust into his shirt front, caressed his own dear volume, when he
+became conscious of the near presence of two people, a man and a woman.
+The woman was the nearer of the two. On glancing up at her, he found her
+looking down. That embarrassed him, and he stopped pulling at his hair.
+
+She smiled. "Do you like books, little boy?" she asked.
+
+He nodded. "More'n _anything_!" he declared fervently.
+
+A pause; then, "Would you like to have a book?" she asked next.
+
+At that, pride and covetousness struggled for first place in him. Pride
+won. He straddled both feet a bit wider and thrust a thumb into his
+belt. "I've got a book," he answered.
+
+So far as he was concerned, he thought his remark commonplace,
+ordinary--certainly not at all amusing. But there was never any telling
+how this thing or that would strike a grown-up. The man's mouth popped
+open and he exploded a loud laugh, followed by a second and louder.
+
+"Sh! sh!" admonished the woman, glancing at Johnnie.
+
+"It's old, but it's always good," protested the man, half
+apologetically.
+
+Along with his boasting, Johnnie had drawn Aladdin forward to the
+opening in his shirt. Evidently the man had caught a glimpse of that
+torn cover. Now the boy hastily poked the book to a place under one arm.
+"It _is_ old," he conceded. "But that don't hurt it--_I_ don't mind."
+
+"Of course, you don't!" chimed in the woman, heartily. "A book's a book
+as long as it holds together. Besides some books are more valuable as
+they get older."
+
+"Sure!" agreed Johnnie.
+
+She left them and went inside. And Johnnie found himself being stared at
+by the man.
+
+The man was a millionaire. Johnnie noted this with a start. He had a way
+of recognizing millionaires. When he lived with his Aunt Sophie, his
+Uncle Albert was the chauffeur of one. On the two occasions when that
+wealthy gentleman showed himself at his red-brick garage in Fifty-fifth
+Street, he wore a plush hat, dark blue in color, and an overcoat with a
+fur collar. This short, stout stranger before the window wore the same.
+
+But he was as friendly as possible, for he continued the conversation.
+"Nice looking lot of books," he observed. "Don't you think so?"
+
+Johnnie nodded again. "What kind of a place would y' call this?" he
+inquired.
+
+"A store," informed the other. Now he stared harder than ever, so that
+Johnnie grew uneasy under the scrutiny, and began to consider rounding
+the nearest corner to get away. "Never seen a bookstore before, eh?"
+
+Johnnie shook his head. "Don't have 'em where I live," he explained.
+
+"No? And where do you live?"
+
+Johnnie felt more uneasy than ever. He determined to be vague. "Me? Oh,
+just over that way," he answered, with a swing of the arm that took in a
+full quarter of the horizon--including all territory from Beekman Place
+to the Aquarium.
+
+The woman rejoined them. In one hand she carried a book. It was a blue
+book, not quite so large as the story of Aladdin, but in every way
+handsomer. She held it out to Johnnie. "Here's another book for you,"
+she said. "You'll love it. All boys do. It's called _Robinson Crusoe_."
+
+Afterwards he liked to remember that he had said "Thank you" when she
+placed the book in his hands. He was too overcome to look up at her,
+however, or smile, or exclaim over the gift. He stood there, thrilled
+and gaping, and holding his breath, while the ends of his red fingers
+went white with holding the new book so tight, and his pale face turned
+red with emotions of several kinds, all of them pleasant. At last, when
+he raised his eyes from the book to her face, that face was gone. The
+millionaire was gone, too.
+
+Johnnie opened the book. It did not open easily, being so new. But how
+good it smelled! And, oh, what a lot of it there was, even though it was
+smaller than the other! For the letters were tiny, and set close
+together on every page. Twenty to thirty pages Johnnie turned at a time,
+and found that there were six hundred in all. Also, there was one
+picture--of a man wearing a curious, peaked cap, funny shoes that tied,
+and knee trousers that seemed to be made of skins.
+
+It was while he was turning the pages for a second time that he chanced
+upon the dollar bill. It was between two pages toward the back of the
+book, and he thought for a moment that it was not there, really, but
+that he was just thinking so. But it was there, and looked as crisply
+new as the book. He ran to the corner and stared in every direction,
+searching for the millionaire and the woman.
+
+Then he felt sure that she had not known the money was in the book.
+Instead, it belonged to the store, and had somehow got tucked between
+the leaves by mistake. A revolving door gave to the bookshop. He entered
+one section of it and half circled his way in.
+
+Never in his boldest imaginings had he thought of such a place as he saw
+now. It was lofty and long, with glistening counters of glass to one
+side. But elsewhere there were just books! books! books!--great
+partitions of them, walls solidly faced with them, the floor piled with
+them man-high. He forgot why he had come in, forgot his big clothes, his
+bare feet, his girl's hair, the new blue book, and the dollar.
+
+"Yes? Well? What d' you want?"
+
+It was a man speaking, and rather sharply. He was a red-headed man, and
+he wore spectacles. He came to stand in front of Johnnie, as if to keep
+the latter from going farther into the shop.
+
+Johnnie held up the new book. "A lady bought me this," he explained;
+"and when I opened it I found all this money." Now he held out the
+dollar.
+
+There were many people in the store. Some of them had on their hats,
+others were bareheaded, as if they belonged there. A number quietly
+gathered about Johnnie and the red-haired man, looking and listening.
+Johnnie gave each a swift examination. They were all so well-dressed, so
+different from the tenants in the area building.
+
+"The lady slipped the dollar into the book for you," declared the
+red-headed man. "Wasn't that mighty nice of her?"
+
+Johnnie silently agreed. A dozen pairs of eyes were watching him, and so
+many strange people were embarrassing. He began slowly to back toward
+the revolving door.
+
+"What're you going to buy with your dollar, little boy?" asked a man in
+the group--a tall man whose smile disclosed a large, gold tooth.
+
+The question halted Johnnie. Such a wonderful idea occurred to him. The
+dollar was his own, to do with as he liked. And what he wanted most----
+
+"I'm goin' to buy some more books with it," he answered. And turned
+aside to one of the great piles.
+
+There was more laughter at that, and a burst of low conversation.
+Johnnie paid no attention to it, but appealed to the red-headed man.
+"What's the best book y' got?" he inquired, with quite the air of a
+seasoned shopper.
+
+Again there was laughter. But it seemed to be not only kind but
+complimentary--as if once more he had said something clever or amusing.
+However, Johnnie kept his attention on the red-headed man.
+
+"Well, I'm afraid no two people would ever agree as to which is our best
+book," said the latter. "But if you'll tell me what you like, I'll do my
+best to find something that'll suit you."
+
+Johnnie, glancing about, reflected that, without question, Cis's speller
+had come from this very room! The arithmetic, too!
+
+"Got any spellers to-day?" he inquired casually--just to show them all
+that he knew a thing or two about books.
+
+"In several languages," returned the man, quite calmly.
+
+"I like Aladdin better," announced Johnnie. Then trying not to sound too
+proud, "I got it here with me right now." Whereupon he reached into the
+baggy shirt and drew forth Mrs. Kukor's gift.
+
+"Bless his heart!" cried a woman. "He _does_ love them!"
+
+To Johnnie this seemed a foolish remark. Love them? Who did not? "If
+you got another as good as this one," he went on, "I'd like t' buy it."
+
+The red-headed man took _Aladdin_. Then he shook his head. The group was
+moving away now, and he and Johnnie were to themselves. "I'm afraid this
+book would be hard to equal," he said earnestly. "They aren't writing
+any more just like it--which is a pity. But you stay here and I'll see
+what I can find." He gave _Aladdin_ back, and hurried off.
+
+There was a chair behind Johnnie. He sat down, his two precious books
+and the dollar on his knees. Then once more he looked up and around,
+marveling.
+
+He was aware that several of those who had been in the group were now
+talking together at a little distance. They seemed a trifle excited. The
+red-headed man joined them for a moment, listened to what they had to
+say, and took some money from each of them (Johnnie concluded that all
+were bookbuyers like himself) before hurrying on between two high walls
+of books. In anticipation of more literary possessions, Johnnie now
+slipped his two volumes inside the shirt, one to the right, one to the
+left, so that they would not meet and mar each other.
+
+When the red-headed man came back, he brought three books, all new and
+handsome. "I think you'll like these," he declared. "See--this one's
+called _The Legends of King Arthur and his Knights_, and this one is
+_The Last of the Mohicans_, and here's _Treasure Island_."
+
+"Much obliged," said Johnnie, heartily. His eyes shone as he gathered
+the books to him. His one thought now was to get away and read, read,
+read. Quickly he proffered the dollar bill.
+
+"Oh, you keep the money," said the red-headed man "You'll need it for
+something else. Take the books--compliments of the house!"
+
+"No!" Johnnie was aghast. He was used to paying for what he got--his
+food, his bed, his rent. "Oh, gee! I want to pay, Mister. I want 'em to
+be all mine.--But is there any change comin' back t' me?"
+
+Once more he heard laughter--from behind the pile of books nearest him;
+then that woman's voice again: "Oh, the darling! The darling!" Even as
+she spoke, she moved into sight.
+
+Johnnie had heard ladies speak about him in just that way before. He
+knew that if they came near to him it was to lay hands on his yellow
+mop. He wanted none of that sort of thing here, in this glorious house
+full of books, before all these men.
+
+"Your books came out just a dollar even," replied the red-headed man.
+
+"Thank y', Mister!" Johnnie, his new purchases clasped tight, sidled
+quickly toward the street.
+
+"Sha'n't I wrap 'em up for you?" called the other.
+
+Johnnie was already revolving in his quarter-section of the remarkable
+door. He shook his head. Going sidewise, he could see that quite a few
+of those inside were still watching him. He flashed at them one of his
+radiant smiles. Then the door disgorged him upon a step, the great
+Avenue received him, and he trotted off, dropping his books into his
+shirt, one by one, as he went, precisely as Aladdin had stuffed his
+clothes with amethysts, sapphires and rubies.
+
+Before he reached the next block he was fairly belted with books; he was
+armored with them, and looked as if he were wearing a life preserver
+under his folds and pleats.
+
+The sun was still high, the air warm enough for him--if not for a
+fur-collared millionaire. And Johnnie did not feel too hungry. His one
+wish was to absorb those five books. He began to keep an eye out for a
+vacant building.
+
+"My goodness!" he exclaimed. "Think of me runnin' into the place where
+all the books come from!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ONE-EYE
+
+
+HE left the Avenue, turning east. Now all plans concerning Broadway were
+given up; also, he felt no anxiety about getting lost. For he went at
+random.
+
+Yet he was businesslike, and walked rapidly. No window, however
+beautiful, lured him to pause. He did not waste a single minute. And
+soon he was gazing up at a really imposing and colossal structure which,
+big as it looked (for it seemed to occupy a whole block), was plainly
+not in use. At one corner the building mounted to a peak. On going all
+the way around it, he discovered smaller peaks at each of the other
+corners. There were any number of entrances, too; and, of course, fire
+escapes.
+
+It suited him finely. On one side of this old palace--for he was sure it
+could be nothing short of a palace--was a flight of steps which led up
+to a small door. This entrance was an inconspicuous one, which could not
+be said of the several porticoed entrances. Beside the steps, in the
+angle made by the meeting of the wall with them, was conveniently set a
+small, pine box. Johnnie had hunted a vacant building with the intention
+of entering it. But now he decided to read first, and steal into the
+palace later, under cover of the dark. Down he sat upon the box, out of
+the way of a breeze that was wafting a trifle too freshly through the
+street.
+
+One by one he took out the three books he had just bought, this in
+order to give them a closer scrutiny than the store had afforded him;
+and to start with he met that "glorious company, the flower of men," who
+made up the Table Round, and who, if the colored pictures of them were
+to be believed, made his mounted policeman of an hour before seem a
+sorry figure. And their names were as splendid as their
+photographs--Launcelot, and Gawain, Gareth and Tristram and Galahad.
+Remembering that he was called Johnnie, he felt quite sick.
+
+When, after poring over the half-dozen illustrations, he was forced to
+the conclusion that nothing could surpass the knights of King Arthur, he
+opened _The Last of the Mohicans_ and found himself captured, heart and
+soul, by the even more enticing Uncas and his fellows, superb bronze
+creatures, painted and feathered, and waving tomahawks that far outshone
+any blunt lance.
+
+He had to change his mind again. For bringing himself to tuck away his
+Indians and fetch forth _Treasure Island_, he was rewarded by the sight
+of a piratical crew who easily surpassed even the redmen. The fiercest
+of these pirates, a gentleman by the name of Long John Silver, was
+without question the pick of the lot. To begin with, Mr. Silver
+undoubtedly belonged to the New York family of peg legs, which, of
+course, brought him nearer than his brother pirates. However, what
+especially recommended him was a pistol-filled belt.
+
+"Gee! I'm glad I got mine!" Johnnie declared, since the chief-pirate's
+belt was strikingly like the one binding in Big Tom's cast-off clothes;
+and he willingly forgot what the strap of leather had done to him in the
+past in realizing its wonderful possibilities for the future.
+
+Finally he was ready to begin reading. He was loyal to his friend
+Aladdin then, whom he had left, on the fatal stroke of twelve, in rather
+dire straits. The Oriental wonder book on his knees, he resumed the
+enthralling story, his lips and fingers moving, and--in the excitement
+of it all--his misty eyebrows twisting like two caterpillars.
+
+Pedestrians hurried past him, motor vehicles and surface-cars sped
+by--for Fourth Avenue lay in front; but what he saw was Aladdin in
+chains; Aladdin before the executioner; Aladdin pardoned, yet aghast
+over the loss of his palace and the beloved Buddir al Buddoor, and ready
+to take his own life.
+
+The afternoon went swiftly. Evening came. But the nearest street lamp
+was lighted in advance of the dark. Engrossed by the awful drama
+transpiring in Africa, where Aladdin and his Princess were plotting to
+rid themselves of the magician, Johnnie did not know when lamplight took
+the place of daylight.
+
+_The Princess, who began to be tired with this impertinent declaration
+of the African magician, interrupted him and said, "Let us drink first,
+and then say what you will afterwards;" at the same time she set the cup
+to her lips, while the African magician, who was eager to get his wine
+off first, drank up the very last drop. In finishing it, he had reclined
+his head back to show his eagerness, and remained some time in that
+state. The Princess kept the cup at her lips, till she saw his eyes turn
+in his head----_
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Johnnie, relieved at this fortunate end of the crisis,
+for his very hair was damp with anxiety. "His eyes've turned in his
+head!"
+
+"Wal, by the Great Horn Spoon!"
+
+This strange exclamation, drawled in a nasal tone, came from the steps
+at his back. He started up, jerking sidewise to get out of reach of the
+hands that belonged to the voice, and clutching his book to him. But as
+he faced the speaker, who was peering down at him from the top of the
+steps, wonder took the place of apprehension.
+
+For to his astonished and enraptured gaze was vouchsafed a most
+interesting man--a man far and beyond and above anybody he had ever
+before beheld in the flesh. This person was tall and slender, and wore a
+blue shirt, a plaid vest hanging open but kept together with a leather
+watchchain, a wide, high, gray hat, and--most wonderful of all--a pair
+of breeches which, all down the front, were as hairy as any dog!
+
+It was the breeches that gave the stranger his startling and admirable
+appearance--the breeches and his face. For directly under the hat, which
+was worn askew, was one round, greenish eye, set at the upper end of a
+nose that was like a triangle of leather. The eye held the geographical
+center of the whole countenance, this because its owner kept his head
+tipped, precisely as if he had a stiff neck. Under the leathery nose,
+which seemed to have been cut from the same welt as the watchchain, was
+a drooping, palish mustache, hiding a mouth that had lost too many
+teeth. As for the other eye, it was brushed aside under the band of the
+hat.
+
+"Gee!" breathed Johnnie. Wearing fur trousers instead of a fur collar,
+here, without doubt, was a new kind of millionaire!
+
+The latter took a cigar out of an upper vest pocket and worried one end
+of it with a tooth. "It's half-pas' seven, sonny," he said.
+
+Johnnie backed another step. Half-past seven gave him a swift vision of
+the flat--Grandpa asleep, Barber pacing the splintery floor in a rage,
+Cis weeping at the window, Mrs. Kukor waddling about, talking with
+tongue and hands. He had no mind to be made a part of that picture. He
+resolved to answer no questions, while with a dexterous movement he
+slipped Aladdin into his shirt and got ready to run.
+
+The other now sat down, scratched a match nonchalantly on a step, and
+let the light shine into that single green eye as he set an end of the
+cigar afire; after which he proceeded to blow smoke through his nose in
+a masterly fashion, following up that feat with a series of perfect
+smoke rings.
+
+Still on his guard, Johnnie studied the smoker. The big gray hat came to
+a peak--like the highest corner of the empty palace. Below the hairy
+trousers the lower parts of a pair of black boots shone so brightly that
+they carried reflections even at that late hour. The boots were tapered
+off by spurs.
+
+What was there about this man that made him seem somehow familiar?
+Johnnie puzzled over it. And decided at last, correctly enough, as it
+turned out, that the explanation lay in those shaggy trousers.
+
+He was not afraid to make an inquiry. "Mister," he began politely,
+"where did y' buy your pants?"
+
+The effect of this question was startling. The man pushed back his hat,
+threw up his head, rescued the burning cigar, then emitted an almost
+catlike yowl. For some minutes several people had been watching him from
+a respectful distance. Now, hearing the yowl, these onlookers drew near.
+He rose then, instantly sober, set the hat forward, descended the steps,
+and held out a friendly left hand to Johnnie.
+
+"Come on, sonny," he coaxed. "Ain't it eatin' time? Let's go and
+pur-_chase_ some grub."
+
+Johnnie, for all that he had been practically a recluse these past
+several years, had, nevertheless, the metropolite's inborn indifference
+to the passerby. He had scarcely noticed the steadily increasing group
+before the steps. Now he ignored them all. He was hungry. That
+invitation to partake of food was welcome.
+
+He advanced and held out a hand. The one-eyed man grasped it, descended
+the last step or two, pushed his way through the crowd without looking
+to right or left, and led Johnnie down the street at such a pace that
+the bare feet were put to the trot--which was not too fast, seeing that
+supper lay somewhere ahead.
+
+Johnnie felt proud and flattered. He made up his mind to be seen talking
+to his tall companion as they fared along. "Guess you're not a
+longshoreman," he said, to begin the conversation.
+
+"Me?" drawled the other; then, mysteriously, "Wal, sonny, I'll tell y':
+if I am, I ain't never yet found it out!"
+
+Then silence for half a block. Johnnie studied his next remark. The
+direct way was the most natural to him. He tried another query.
+"And--and what do y' do?" he asked.
+
+"Do?"--this stranger seemed to have Grandpa's habit of repeating the
+last word. "Oh, I val-lay a hoss."
+
+Johnnie was no wiser than before, but he felt it good manners to appear
+enlightened. "You--you do that back there?" he ventured next.
+
+"Yeppie. In the Garden."
+
+Now Johnnie was hopelessly lost. Val-lay meant nothing, hoss even less;
+as for a garden, he vaguely understood what that was: a place where
+beans grew, and potatoes; yes, and wizen-faced prunes. But though he had
+circled about the neighborhood considerably since leaving the bookstore,
+he had caught no glimpse of any garden--except that one belonging to
+Aladdin. Ah, that was it! This strange man's garden was down a flight of
+steps!
+
+"Do you grow cabbages in your garden?" he asked, "or--or diamonds?"
+
+"How's that?" demanded the other; then as if he had recovered from a
+momentary surprise, "Oh, a little of both."
+
+"Both!"
+
+"But--but this ain't what you'd call a good year for diamonds. Nope. Too
+many cutworms."
+
+Johnnie wanted to ask if all gardeners wore hairy trousers. Then
+thought of a subject even more interesting. "Mister,"--he put a note of
+genuine sympathy into his voice--"how'd you come t' lose your eye?"
+
+"My eye?"--Grandpa's habit again. "Wal, this is how"-- He frowned with
+the eye he had left, and pursed his lips till his mustache stood out
+fearsomely.
+
+"Yes?" encouraged Johnnie, whose mind was picturing all sorts of
+exciting events in which the tall man, as the hero, fought and was
+injured, yet conquered his enemies.
+
+"Sonny," the other went on sadly, "I jes' natu'lly got my eye pinched in
+the door."
+
+Pinched in the door! Johnnie stared. _Pinched in the door?_ How could
+that happen? What might a man be doing that such an accident should come
+to pass? He put his free hand to one of his own eyes, fingering it
+inquiringly.
+
+Before he could come to any conclusion, the one-eyed man had halted
+before the blazing, glassed-in front of a restaurant that fairly dazzled
+the sight. It was, as Johnnie saw, such a place as only millionaires
+could afford to frequent. In the very front of it, behind that plate
+window, stood men in white, wearing spotless caps, who were cooking
+things in plain view of the street. And inside--for the one-eyed man now
+boldly opened a door and entered, drawing Johnnie after him--were more
+men in white, and women similarly garbed. The high walls of the great
+room were white too, like the hall of a sultan's palace. And seated at
+long tables were splendidly attired men and women, enjoying their supper
+as calmly as if all this magnificence were nothing to them--nothing,
+though the tables were of marble!
+
+However, every man and woman in the wonderful place showed marked
+excitement on the appearance of Johnnie and his escort. They stopped
+eating. And how they stared! They bent to all sides, whispering. For a
+moment, Johnnie felt sure that, ragged as he was, the palace did not
+want him, and that he was about to be ordered out. He hung back, wishing
+with all his heart that he had done his hanging back earlier, outside
+the door, for instance.
+
+Then, relief; for he recognized that all the interest was kindly. One of
+the ladies in white--a beautiful, stately person--showed them grandly to
+chairs at either side of a table; a second lady brought them each a
+glass of ice water, and condescended to listen to their wants in the
+supper line. About them people smiled cordially.
+
+The one-eyed man was now bareheaded. And Johnnie, just as he was leaning
+back, prepared to enjoy himself to the full, suddenly noted, and with a
+pang, that his host, shorn of his headgear, was far less attractive in
+appearance than when covered; did not seem the strange, rakish,
+picturesque, almost wild figure of a moment before, but civilized,
+slick, and mild.
+
+For one thing, that shut eye was in full view, which subtracted from the
+brigandish look of his countenance; for another, the shaggy trousers
+were--naturally--in total eclipse. Then he had mouse-colored hair which
+matched his mustache, whereas it should have been black--or bright red.
+To make matters worse, the hair had recently been wet-combed. It was
+also fine and thin, especially over the top of the head, from where it
+had been brought straight down upon the forehead in a long, smooth,
+shining bang which (and this not a quarter-inch too soon) turned to
+sweep left. Contrasting with the oily appearance of the bang were some
+hairs at the very crown of the head. These--a few--leaned this way and
+that, making a wild tuft.
+
+Johnnie wished with his whole heart that the stranger would again put on
+his hat.
+
+Another feature thrust itself upon Johnnie's notice. Out from the front
+of his host's throat, to the ruination of such scant good looks as he
+had, protruded an Adam's apple that was as large and tanned and
+tough-looking as his nose. On that brown prominence a number of long
+pale hairs had their roots. These traveled now high, now low, as the
+one-eyed man drank deep of the ice water. And Johnnie felt that he
+understood the sad quiet of this queer, tall person. In his case the
+stork had been indeed cruel.
+
+The hat was swinging from a near-by hook--one of a double line of hooks
+down the long room. Under the hat was a sign. Johnnie read it; then
+centered his stare on the hat. At any moment he expected to witness
+something extraordinary. That was because across the placard, in neat,
+black letters, were the words: _Watch your Hat and Coat_.
+
+He reached to touch the one-eyed man. "Say, Mister!" he whispered, "Y'
+see what it says? Well, what'll happen if we watch?"
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated the other, slewing that one green eye round to glance
+upward. "That's jes' it! If y' watch, _nuthin'll_ happen!"
+
+It was a good thing to know at the moment. For the second lady was back,
+bringing supper with her--a smoking dish of mingled meat and vegetables,
+another of pork and beans, a cup of coffee, a glass of milk, an orange,
+and bread and butter.
+
+Butter! Johnnie could scarcely believe his eyes. He almost thought this
+was one of Buckle's meals, and that the butter would melt, figuratively
+speaking, before his longing look. But it stayed, a bright pat, as
+yellow as his own hair, on a doll's dish of a plate. And as Johnnie had
+not tasted butter for a very long time, he proceeded now, after the
+manner of the male, to clear that cunning little dish by eating the
+choicest thing first.
+
+As for the one-eyed man, his knife, held in his left hand, was going up
+and down between the dish of beans and his mouth with mechanical
+regularity. At the bean dish, he covered the long blade with a ruddy
+heap. Then balancing it all nicely, he swung it ceiling-ward, met it
+half-way by a quick duck of the mouse-covered head, and swept it clean
+with a dextrous, all-enveloping movement.
+
+Johnnie was hungry too. The butter gone, along with its complement of
+bread, he attacked his share of the meat and vegetables, using, however
+(which was to Cis's credit), a fork. The dish was delicious. He forgot
+even the placard.
+
+So far the one-eyed man had proven to be anything but a talkative
+person. Under the circumstances this was just as well. Johnnie could not
+have shared just then in a conservation. Twice during the meal he
+reached down and let out the strap a hole or two. And for the first time
+in his life he was grateful for the roominess of Barber's old clothes.
+
+Half an hour, and Johnnie was, as he himself expressed it, "stuffed like
+a sausage." The orange, he dropped into his shirt-band to find a place
+with the books, there being no space for it internally.
+
+"Full up, eh?" demanded the one-eyed man, mopping at his mustache so
+hard with a paper napkin that Johnnie expected to see the hairy growth
+come away from its moorings under the leathery nose.
+
+"It was a feast!" pronounced Johnnie, borrowing from the language of his
+friend Aladdin. A moment later he gasped as he saw his host carelessly
+ring a fifty-cent piece upon the gorgeous marble of the table top. Then
+the meal had cost so much as that! As he trotted doorward in the wake of
+the spurred heels, his boy's conscience faintly smote him. He almost
+felt that he had eaten too much.
+
+"My goodness!" he murmured, his glance missing the variegated mosaic of
+the floor.
+
+But still another moment, and the one-eyed man had halted at a desk
+which stood close to the front door, and was throwing down a one-dollar
+bill, together with some silver.
+
+Johnnie knew something was wrong. His host was forgetful, absent-minded.
+He realized that he must interfere. "You jus' paid the lady!" he warned
+in a hasty whisper.
+
+The other nodded sadly as he settled the big hat. "Yeppie," he returned.
+"But y' see, sonny, it's this-away: if you got jes' one eye, w'y, they
+make y' pay twicet!"
+
+Another gasp. It was so grossly unfair!
+
+However it had all proved to him beyond a doubt that here was a man of
+unlimited wealth. On several occasions Uncle Albert's millionaire had
+treated Johnnie to candy and apples. But now the riches of that person
+seemed pitifully trivial.
+
+They fared forth and away in the same order as they had come.
+
+But not so silently. Food, it seemed, was what could rouse the one-eyed
+man to continued speech. He began to ask questions, all of them to the
+point, most of them embarrassing.
+
+"Say, what in the name o' Sam Hill y' got cached inside that
+shirt?"--this was the first one.
+
+"Books," returned Johnnie, promptly, "and the orange."
+
+"Y' kinda cotton t' books, eh?" the other next observed.
+
+"Not cotton," replied Johnnie, politely. "They're made of paper."
+
+"Y' don't tell me?--And what y' want me t' call y'?"
+
+"My--my--my," began Johnnie, trying to think and speak at the same time,
+with small success in either direction. Then feeling himself pressed
+for time, and helpless, he fell back upon the best course, which was the
+simple truth. "My name's Johnnie Smith," he added.
+
+The truth was too simple to be believed, "Aw, git out!" laughed the
+one-eyed man, with a comical lift of the mustache. "And I s'pose y' live
+with the Vanderbilt fambly, eh?"
+
+Johnnie's eyes sparkled. There was in the question a certain
+something--an ignoring of bare facts--which made him believe that this
+man and he were kindred souls.
+
+"No, I don't live with 'em," he hastened to say. "But I talk to Mister
+Vanderbilt ev'ry day on the tel'phone."
+
+The stranger seemed neither doubtful nor amazed. Johnnie liked him
+better and better. Taking a fresh hold of the other's horny hand, he
+chattered on: "I talked to Mister Astor yesterday. He asked me t' go
+ridin' with him, but I had t' take a trip t' Niagarry."
+
+"Hope y' didn't hurt his feelin's none,"--the tone was grave: that one
+green eye looked anxious.
+
+Johnnie only shook his head. He did not care to go further with the
+discussion of the Astor-Smith friendship.
+
+However, the one-eyed man himself turned the conversation, "Goin' back
+home t'night?" he wanted to know.
+
+Johnnie raised startled eyes. "N-n-no," he returned. "I-i-if I was to,
+I'd have to take a terrible lickin'."
+
+"Mm." The one-eyed man seemed to understand; then, presently, "Your
+paw?--or your maw?"
+
+"No relation at _all_," protested Johnnie. "Just the man where I live."
+
+"He feeds y' O. K.," put in the other. "I was noticin' back yonder in
+the chuck-house how plump y' are."
+
+Johnnie said nothing. There were things he could tell, if he wanted to,
+which had to do with comparisons between Aunt Sophie's table and Big
+Tom's. But these things would contradict the one-eyed man; and Johnnie
+knew from experience that grown-ups do not like to be contradicted.
+
+Just ahead was that great palace, lifting dark towers against the
+glowing night sky. If the one-eyed man lived there, if the palace
+actually contained a garden (and it seemed large enough to contain any
+number of gardens), Johnnie wanted, if possible, to spend some time
+under that vast roof. So it was wise not to say anything that might
+bring him into disfavor; especially when what he wanted most now was
+shelter and a reading light.
+
+He grasped the other's hand firmly and flashed up what was intended for
+a beguiling smile. "He don't ever feed me like _you_ do," he declared,
+with dazzling diplomacy.
+
+The compliment was grandly passed over. "But he shore dresses y'
+tiptop!" was the next assertion.
+
+At that, some inkling of the other's real meaning came to Johnnie. He
+tried, but in vain, to catch that single eye. But even in the half light
+it was busy taking in every detail of Big Tom's shirt and trousers.
+"Y'--y' think so?" Johnnie ventured, ready to laugh.
+
+"Think so!" cried the one-eyed man, spiritedly. "W'y, he must jes' about
+go broke at it! Lookee! Twicet as much shirt as y' need, and at least
+five times as much pants!"
+
+Certainly there was no denying the statement. However, there was another
+side to Barber's generosity that Johnnie longed to discuss. Yet once
+more he decided to invite no argument. "It'll be worse if I had t' wear
+girl's clothes," was what he returned, philosophically.
+
+The street was dark just there. He was not able to mark the facial
+expression which now accompanied a curious sound from the region of the
+Adam's apple. But when the light at the palace corner was reached, a
+quick glance showed a stern visage, with mouth set hard and that green
+eye burning. And Johnnie's heart went out of him, for now he doubted
+again.
+
+They paused at the foot of those steps. "Do y' go t' school?" asked the
+one-eyed man.
+
+Johnnie shook his head. "He don't let me," he declared. But he was as
+careful as ever to speak with no bitterness. Without question, in this
+tall stranger Big Tom had an ally.
+
+"He don't let y'," drawled the other. "Don't let y' go t' school.
+Hm!--Say, y' know, I think I'd like that feller!"
+
+He must get away! Suddenly throwing all the weight of himself and his
+books into the effort, Johnnie tried to pull free of his companion,
+using both hands.
+
+The one-eyed man held on. His grasp was like steel--yes, even like Big
+Tom's grasp. "Aw, sonny!" he cried, as if suddenly repentent. Then
+seizing Johnnie under both arms, he swung him to the top of those steps.
+
+That same moment wide doors opened before them, and a vast, dim place
+was disclosed to the boy's astonished view. "Why--! What--! Oh--!" he
+marveled.
+
+The one-eyed man shut the doors by retreating and giving them a push
+with his back. Then he thrust Johnnie toward a second flight of steps.
+These led down to a basement only partly lighted, full of voices,
+tramplings, and strange smells. Frightened, Johnnie made out the
+upraised heads of horses--lines of them! He could see a group of men
+too, each as big-hatted and shaggy-trousered as this one who still had
+him about his middle.
+
+A great cry went up from that group--"Yip! yip! yip! yip!
+_yee-e-e-e-eow!_ One-Eye!"
+
+"Oh, Mister," breathed Johnnie, "is it the circus?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SURPRISE
+
+
+"GIT on t' the size of it! . . . . Oh, my Aunt Sally! . . . . Lookee
+what the cat brung in! . . . . Boys, ketch me whilst I faint! . . . . Am
+I seein' it, or ain't I--w'ich? . . . . Say! they's more down cellar in
+a teacup!"
+
+Johnnie understood that it was all about himself, and even guessed that
+he looked a little queer to these men who appeared so strange to him.
+They were gathered around in a boisterous circle, exclaiming and
+laughing. He revolved slowly, examining each. Some were stocky and some
+spindling. Two or three were almost boyish; the others, as old as
+One-Eye. But in the matter of dress, one was exactly like every other
+one--at least so far as could be judged by a small boy in a moment so
+charged with excitement.
+
+He felt no resentment at their banter, sensing that it was kindly. He
+liked them. He liked the great, mysterious basement. He felt precisely
+like another Aladdin. No magical smoke had gone up, and no stone had
+been lifted. Yet here he was in a new and entrancing world!
+
+He would have liked to stay right there at the foot of the stairs for a
+long time, in order to give adequate study to every one of the shaggy
+men. But One-Eye suddenly grasped him by the hand again and led him
+away--down a long, curving alley that took them past a score of horses.
+Each horse was in a stall of its own, and under each was straw as
+yellow as Johnnie's own hair. Electric bulbs lit the whole place
+grandly, disclosing saddles and straps and other horse gear, hung at
+intervals along the alley.
+
+In one of his swift visions, he now saw himself as a member of this
+fascinating crew, wearing, like them, long, hairy breeches, a wide hat,
+spurs, and a neckerchief, and setting gaily forth in a cavalcade to be
+admired by a marveling city!
+
+Far along, where the alley swerved sharply, One-Eye halted him. Here was
+a vacant stall, except that it was half-filled with straw. A coat hung
+in it, and in the iron feed box in one corner nested a pair of boots.
+Plainly this was a camping place, and Johnnie thrilled as they turned
+into it, and he stood almost waist deep in clean bedding.
+
+"Have a chair," insisted One-Eye, with a gentle shoulder pat.
+
+Johnnie sat. Even as he went down he felt that he really was coming to
+understand this new friend better. Of course there was no chair. It was
+just the other's way of saying things--an odd, funny way. His back
+braced against a stall side, he grinned across at One-Eye, now squatted
+opposite him, and smoking, this in splendid disregard of a sign which
+read plainly: _No Smoking_.
+
+Johnnie did not speak. His experience with Big Tom had taught him at
+least one valuable lesson: to be sparing with his tongue. So he waited
+the pleasure of his companion, sunk in a trough of the straw, ringed
+round with books, his thumbs in his palms and his fingers shut tight
+upon the thumbs through sheer emotion, which also showed in two red
+spots on his cheeks.
+
+"Reckon y' don't want t' go out no more t'night," observed One-Eye,
+after a moment.
+
+"No." Johnnie held his breath, hoping for an invitation.
+
+It came. "Thought y' wouldn't. So camp right here, and to-morra we'll
+powwow."
+
+"All right." Johnnie's voice shook with relief and delight; with pride,
+too, at being thus honored. He rolled up the coat for a pillow when
+One-Eye rose and threw it down to him; and being offered a horse
+blanket, pulled it up to his brows and lay back obediently, to the peril
+of the orange, which was under him, and so to his own discomfort.
+
+"So long, sonny." The single green eye gleamed down at him almost
+affectionately from under the wide brim.
+
+"Thank y'," returned Johnnie.
+
+For a long time he lay without moving, this for fear One-Eye might come
+back. When he took his books out of his shirt, he did not read, though
+the stall was brightly lighted, only watched a pair of nervous brown
+ears that kept showing above the stall-side in front of him. Something
+was troubling him very much. It seemed to be something in his forehead;
+but it was in his throat most of all; though that spot at the end of his
+breastbone felt none too well.
+
+Whatever it was, it had a great deal to do with Cis (the mere thought of
+her made his eyes smart) and with Grandpa. Freedom and new friends he
+had; more books, too, than he could read in a year--or so it seemed to
+him as he measured the pile under the orange. Then why, having the best
+bed he had known since the one with the blue knobs at Aunt Sophie's, why
+could he not go to sleep? or, if he was not sleepy, why did he not want
+to read? or summon to him Aladdin, or David with Goliath, or Mr.
+Rockefeller?
+
+He pulled hard at his hair.
+
+The truth was, he was learning something about himself. He was finding
+out that to get away from danger was only part of his problem: the other
+part was to get away from his own thoughts, his feelings--in short, his
+conscience. For try as he might, as he lay there, he could not keep the
+wheel chair out of his sight!
+
+It stood before him in the yellow bedding, and the little old man seated
+in it kept holding out trembling hands. The thin, bearded face was
+distorted pathetically, and tears streamed from the faded eyes. If
+Johnnie turned his head away from the chair, he met other eyes--eyes
+young and blue and gentle. Poor Cis, so shy always, and silent; so
+loving and good!
+
+Down into One-Eye's coat went Johnnie's small nose, and so hard that to
+this unfreckled feature was instantly transferred the pain in his
+forehead and throat and breast; and his hurt was for a moment changed
+into the physical, which was easier to bear. Yes, they were left behind
+alone, those two who were so dear to him.
+
+Even with the horse blanket over both ears he could hear the wheel chair
+going from the stove to the window, from the window to the hall door,
+while the old soldier whimpered and called. He could hear Cis call,
+too--his name. But it was Grandpa who hurt him the most. Cis was quite
+grown-up, and had girl friends, and her work, and the freedom to go to
+and from it. But Grandpa!--his old heart was wrapped up in his Johnnie.
+So childish that he was virtually a little boy, he had for Johnnie the
+respect and affection that a little boy gives to a bigger one.
+
+Next, bright, shining, birdlike eyes were smiling at him--Mrs. Kukor!
+The horse blanket shook. At either side of Johnnie's nose a damp spot
+came on One-Eye's coat.
+
+But fortunately the trembling and the tears were seen by no human eyes,
+only by a brown pair that belonged to those brown ears. And presently,
+when the nearest lights went out, leaving Johnnie's retreat in gloom,
+the pictures that smote him changed to those of a sleeping dream, and he
+wandered on and on through a vast white garden that grew hats and
+coats--in a double row.
+
+When he wakened, the lights were on again. As he rose he made up his
+mind to win One-Eye's consent to his remaining in this big palace--which
+had turned out to be a horse palace. "'Cause I dassn't go back!" he
+decided. The enormity of what he had done in leaving the flat and
+staying away a whole night, he now realized. A creepy feeling traveled
+up and down his spine at the thought of it, and he shook to his
+calloused heels.
+
+Then with a grin, he remembered that no one knew where he belonged.
+Furthermore, as One-Eye did not believe that Johnnie Smith was his real
+name, he had only to hint that he was somebody else, which would throw
+his new friend completely off the track.
+
+He leaned against the stall and pulled at his hair, considering that
+problem of staying on. To his way of thinking, there was only one good
+scheme by which to win the approbation of anybody, and that scheme was
+work. So when he had tugged at his hair till the last straw was out of
+it, he pattered off down the runway, determined to find some task that
+needed to be done.
+
+The great place appeared strangely deserted as to men. So he came across
+no one whom he could help. As for the occupants of the giant circle of
+stalls, he did not know what service he could offer them. He felt fairly
+sure that horses' faces were not washed of a morning. And they had all
+been fed. But why not comb their hair? Searching up and down for a
+possible comb, he spied a bucket. Then he knew what he could do.
+
+The job was not without its drawbacks. For one thing, the horses were
+afraid of him. They wrenched at their hitching-chains when he came close
+to their heels, or blew noisily, or bunched themselves into the forward
+ends of their stalls, turning on him startled, white-rimmed eyes. He
+offered the dripping bucket only to the more quiet ones.
+
+He worked his way down the long line that stood nearest the spigot, now
+staggering and splashing as he lugged a full pail, now scampering back
+happily with an empty one. And he was beside a stairway, and on the
+point of taking in a drink to the horse stalled closest to the entrance,
+when he heard several voices, the creak of doors, and footsteps. So he
+paused, the bucket swinging from both hands, until half a dozen pairs of
+shaggy legs appeared just above him. Then as the big hats were bobbing
+into view, so that he knew his labors could be seen and appreciated, he
+faced round with the pail and entered the stall.
+
+The next moment there sounded a dull bang, followed by the loud ring of
+tin, a breathless cry, and the swish of flying water--as Johnnie came
+hurtling headlong out of the stall, the bucket preceding him, a shod
+hoof in his immediate wake, and the contents of the pail showering in
+all directions. There was a second bang also dull, as he landed against
+the bottom step of the stairs at the very feet of the horrified men.
+
+A chorus of cries went up. But Johnnie's voice was not a part of it.
+Hurt, winded, and thoroughly scared, he lay in a little ragged heap, a
+book thrusting up the big shirt here and there, so that he looked to
+have broken not a few bones.
+
+"That flea-bit mare!" charged One-Eye, dropping Johnnie's breakfast and
+picking up the boy.
+
+"Pore kid! . . . . And he was workin'! . . . . Is he hurt bad? . . . .
+That ongrateful bronc'! . . . . Totin' the blamed thing water,
+too!"--thus they sympathized with him as he swayed against One-Eye, who
+was steadying him on his feet.
+
+Breath and tears came at the same moment--the latter in spite of him.
+But he wept in anger, in disappointment and chagrin and resentment,
+rather than in pain. The books having now fallen into place in the pouch
+of the shirt, it was evident there were no fractures.
+
+"Shore of it," pronounced One-Eye. "I've felt him all over."
+
+Furthermore, a book had undoubtedly received the full force of the
+implanted hoof; and save for a darkening patch on Johnnie's left arm, he
+was as good as ever, though slightly damp as to both spirits and
+clothing. For it was his feelings that were the more injured. His
+proffer of a drink had been repaid by an ignominious kick that had
+landed upon him under the very eyes of those whom he most wanted to
+impress.
+
+"Now what'd Mister Vanderbilt say if he knowed!" mourned One-Eye; "or
+Mister Astor! They'd be plumb sore on me!--My! my! my!"
+
+These remarks shifted Johnnie's inner vision to other scenes, and having
+already guessed that he was not broken in two, he considered One-Eye's
+plaint with something of a twinkle in his eyes, and fell once more to
+dragging at his hair.
+
+Willing hands now refilled the battered bucket and washed his tear-wet
+face. After which One-Eye recovered the breakfast--an egg sandwich and a
+banana--and proceeded to lay down the law.
+
+"With that hurt arm o' your'n, sonny," he began, "it's back to home,
+sweet home. And if that feller, Tom, licks y', w'y, I'll jes' nat'ally
+lick him."
+
+"You couldn't lick him," informed Johnnie, turning his sandwich about in
+search for a location thin enough to admit of a first bite. "He's the
+strongest longshoreman in N'York. He can carry five sacks of flour on
+his back, and one under both arms."
+
+Disdainfully One-Eye lifted his lone brow, and he passed over the
+remark. "The point is," he continued, "that if y' ever figger t' go
+back, now's the time."
+
+Johnnie saw the argument. And to his own surprise he found himself
+willing to go. "Prob'ly Big Tom'll only pull my ear," he said
+philosophically. "And he won't do that much, even, if--if _you_'ll go
+along."
+
+"Will I!" cried One-Eye. "Wal, it'd take a twenty-mule team t' holt me
+back!"
+
+"Honest?" For this fellow was a wag, and there was no telling what he
+really meant to do.
+
+"If I don't, I'll eat my shaps!" promised One-Eye.
+
+"Then I guess you better tie up my arm," went on Johnnie, which bit of
+inspired diplomacy sent the whole sympathizing group into whoops of
+laughter.
+
+"Ain't he the ticket?" demanded one man.
+
+One-Eye 'lowed that he was.
+
+The tying was done. First the purplish spot was swathed in white; and as
+the injury was below the raveling edge of the sleeve, the bandage was in
+plain sight, and carried conviction with it. Next a sling was made out
+of a blue-patterned handkerchief of One-Eye's. Proudly Johnnie
+contemplated the dressing. Here was not only insurance against a
+whipping, but that which lent him a peculiar and desirable distinction.
+
+"You'll go all the way up with me?" he asked One-Eye. (Now was the time
+to make sure of the future.) "Y' see it's Sunday. He'll be home."
+
+"Up and in," vowed the latter. "Come along!"
+
+There were hearty good-bys to be said, and Johnnie had his well arm
+thoroughly shaken before One-Eye helped him climb the stairs. He would
+gladly have prolonged his leave-taking. For one thing, he had not half
+inspected that mammoth basement--not to mention the huge, dim place
+overhead. And the horse that had kicked him merited a second look. But
+"Let's go whilst the goin's good," counseled One-Eye. So Johnnie fell in
+beside him, holding well to the front that interesting bandage.
+
+"Y' live far?" One-Eye wanted to know. This was when they were out by
+that lamp post which had lighted Johnnie's reading.
+
+"Clear 'way down to the other end of Broadway almost," boasted Johnnie.
+"'N' then you go over towards the Manhattan Bridge."
+
+"That so! Clear way down!--And how'd y' git up this far?" That green eye
+was as keen as a blade.
+
+"Rode up--in a' automobile." Johnnie did not like to spoil the picture
+by explaining that the automobile was a truck, and that he had found it
+strewn with chicken-feathers.
+
+"All right," returned One-Eye. "Then we'll ride _down_." Inserting a
+knuckle into his mouth between two widely separated teeth that were like
+lone sentinels, he blew a high, piercing summons. At the same time, he
+swung his arm at a passing taxicab, stopping it almost electrically. And
+the thing was done.
+
+As the taxicab rolled to the curb, Johnnie turned his back upon it for a
+last look at the palace. How huge it was! "And I'll bet the Afercan
+magician couldn't even move it," he decided. He promised himself that
+one day he would come back to it, and climb to its several towers.
+
+"A-a-a-a-all aboard!" One-Eye lit a large, magnificently banded cigar.
+He handed a second, fully as thick and splendid, to the staring, but
+respectful, individual who was to drive them--a young, dark man, very
+dirty, and in his shirt-sleeves (he was seated upon his coat), who
+seemed so impressed by the elder of his passengers as to be beyond
+speech. "Over t' Broadway, and down," instructed One-Eye. "We'll tell y'
+when t' whoa."
+
+Calmly Johnnie climbed into the taxicab, and carelessly he took his
+seat. Then the car plunged westward before a reeking cloud of its own
+smoke. Under way, he elevated that small nose of his and drank deep of
+the--to him--good smell of gasoline. Had not his Aunt Sophie often
+pronounced it clean and healthy?
+
+However, despite this upward tilting, he did not appear to be at all
+proud of the fact that he was riding; and One-Eye fell to watching him,
+that green eye round with wonder. For here was this little ragamuffin
+seated high and dry in a first class taxi, and speeding through the city
+in style, yet with the supreme indifference of a young millionaire!
+
+"City younguns shore take the bak'ry!" One-Eye observed admiringly,
+aiming the remark at his driver, who sat somewhat screwed about on his
+seat in such a way that he could, from block to block, as some other car
+slowed his machine, regale his astonished eyes with those fur-fronted
+breeches.
+
+"Oh, this banana'll be enough," politely returned Johnnie, having caught
+the word bakery but missed the real meaning of the statement. Calmly as
+ever, he divested the fruit of its skin and cast the long peelings upon
+the floor of the cab. In his time he had sat for hours at a stretch in
+the regal limousines of Uncle Albert's rich man; and he regarded a
+taxicab without awe.
+
+One-Eye chuckled.
+
+Presently Johnnie was dragging at his mop as he ate. Which was proof
+that he was meditating. Indeed he was thinking so hard that he failed to
+note the large amount of attention which he and his companion were
+attracting. So far he had not mentioned Grandpa to this friendly
+stranger--this for fear of harming his own case, of hastening his return
+home. Now the omission somehow appeared to be almost a denial of the
+truth. Nor had he spoken of Cis. All this called for correction before
+the flat was reached.
+
+By way of clearing up the whole matter, he began with an introduction of
+Cis. "There's a girl lives where I do," he announced casually.
+
+"Y' don't say! Sister? Cousin? She must 'a' missed y'."
+
+"No relation at all. But she's awful nice--I like her. She's sixteen,
+goin' on seventeen, and I'm goin' t' steal her away soon's ever I grow
+up."
+
+"I git y'.--Say, Mister, go slow with this gasoline bronc' of your'n! Y'
+know I'd like t' see little old Cheyenne oncet more before I check
+in,"--this to the chauffeur, as the taxicab shaved the flank of a street
+car going at high speed, then caromed to rub axles with a brother
+machine.
+
+"You'll meet her," promised Johnnie, who did not think they were going
+too fast, and who had completely forgotten it was Sunday, which meant
+that Cis would be at home without fail; "'cause once before, when I
+burnt my hand, she stayed away from work two whole days. Big Tom never
+lets Grandpa be alone." (He thought that rather a neat way to bring in
+the old man.)
+
+With a sidewise tipping of the big hat, One-Eye directed a searching
+look to the bare head at his elbow. "Other days, _you_ take care of said
+ole man," he returned.
+
+Johnnie nodded. "I like him."
+
+The silence that followed was embarrassing. He knew One-Eye was watching
+him. But not liking to glance up, he was unable to judge of his
+companion's attitude. So he began again, changing the subject. "Cis is
+awful pretty," he confided. "Once she was a May Queen in Central Park
+for her class at school, only it wasn't in May, and she had all the ice
+cream she could eat. Mrs. Kukor made her a white dress for that time,
+and I made some art'ficial vi'lets for 'round her hair. Oh, she looked
+fine! And she saw the Prince of Wales when he was in N'York and ever
+since she's liked just him."
+
+One-Eye took the cigar from his mouth. "It'd be a grand match for her,"
+he conceded. His tone implied that the alliance with Royalty was by no
+means a remote possibility.
+
+"A-a-a-aw!" scoffed Johnnie, flashing up at One-Eye a wise smile. "All
+the girls at Cis's fac'try seen him, too, and they all like him just the
+same as she does. But the Prince, he's got t' marry a Princess."
+
+One-Eye agreed. "Pretty tough," he observed sympathetically, and went
+back to his cigar.
+
+"So Cis'll have t' marry a movin'-picture actor," concluded Johnnie;
+"--or a cowboy."
+
+At that the cigar fairly popped from One-Eye's countenance. "A cowboy!"
+he cried, the green eye dancing. "W'y, that'd be better'n a Prince!"
+
+"It would?" Johnnie considered the idea.
+
+"Certainly would--t' _my_ way of thinkin'." In their brief acquaintance
+One-Eye had never before shown such interest, such animation.
+
+"How d' you mean?"
+
+"I mean," answered One-Eye, stoutly, "that cowboys is _noble_ fellers!"
+
+Before Johnnie could argue the matter further, or ask any one of the
+thousand questions that he would have liked to get explained regarding
+cowboys, the driver interrupted to demand how much farther southward he
+was expected to go; and as Chambers Street was even then just ahead, the
+eastern turn was made at once, which set Johnnie off along a new line of
+thought--his coming ordeal.
+
+And this ordeal was not the meeting with Big Tom, which he dreaded
+enough, but which he believed would not have to be endured for at least
+some hours; it was the having to face, in company with this rich and
+important acquaintance, that gang of boys who so delighted to taunt him.
+
+Anxiously his gray eyes searched ahead of the taxicab, which was now
+picking its way too swiftly through streets crowded with children. This
+ability to invest the present with all the reality of the future, how
+wonderful it could be!--but how terrible! For he was suffering greatly
+in advance, and writhing on the leather-covered seat, and all but
+pulling out his yellow hair.
+
+"Arm ache y'?" One-Eye wanted to know.
+
+"Guess so," faltered Johnnie. Then his face turned a sickly pale, and he
+shouldered a bit closer to his escort. A feeling of suffocation meant
+that his breath had stopped. And upon his untanned forehead oozed the
+perspiration of dismay. Also, his cheeks mottled. For just before them
+were two of those boys whom he feared!--as if they had sprung from a
+seam in the sidewalk! They were staring at the taxicab. They were
+looking at Johnnie (who stole a nervous look back). Now they were
+following on!
+
+Johnnie's jaw set; his teeth clenched. He steeled himself to bear public
+insult.
+
+Too many children had now brought the taxicab down to a crawling gait.
+Slowly it rolled on through shouting, Sunday-garbed youngsters. And fast
+grew the crowd which kept pace with it. But it was a silent crowd, as
+Johnnie's ears told him, for his chin was on his breast and his eyes
+were fixed upon the meter--in agony, as if he, and not One-Eye, would
+have to pay a charge which had already mounted high in three figures.
+_Why_ was that crowd silent? And what were those boys preparing to
+do--two were now several--who held all things in scorn? who made even
+the life of the patrolman on the beat a thing to be dreaded?
+
+The uncertainty was crushing.
+
+"Home in a jiffy," soothed One-Eye, who felt sure the ride had been too
+much of a strain.
+
+"Stop here," whispered Johnnie, catching sight, after a turn or two, of
+one of those entrances which gave to the area.
+
+The taxicab stopped. In a hush that actually hurt, One-Eye rose and
+descended, flipping a five-dollar bill to the driver. "But don't you
+go," he directed. "I'll want y' t' tote me back uptown."
+
+Johnnie rose then--feebly. Once more he held that bandaged arm to the
+front. His faltering eyes said that the injury was a plea--a plea for
+courteous treatment before this distinguished stranger. Oh, he knew he
+was a girlish-headed ragbag, but if they would only spare him this once!
+
+One-Eye took his hand. "Step careful, sonny," he advised, almost
+tenderly. Then to those pressing round, "Back up, won't y'? Give this
+boy room? Don't y' see he's hurt?"
+
+This was what so emboldened Johnnie that he decided, even as a bare foot
+sought the running-board of the machine, to take one good look around.
+He paused, therefore, lifted his head, and let his glance deliberately
+sweep the crowd.
+
+What he saw fairly took his breath; brought a flush to his sober little
+face, and strengthened him, body and soul--but especially spine. For
+before him was a staring, admiring, respectful, yes, and fascinated,
+even awe-struck, assemblage. There were grown people in it. There were
+more above, to both sides, leaning out of windows. And every mouth was
+wide!
+
+Was it One-Eye in his startling garb? or the professional touch to his
+own appearance, in the shape of that dramatic, handkerchief-slung arm?
+or was it both?
+
+No matter. Instantly reacting to this solemn reception, Johnnie managed
+a pale smile. "Much obliged!"--this he said gaily as his feet touched
+the concrete. He was experiencing such pride as had been his before only
+in his "thinks."
+
+This was a moment never to be forgotten!
+
+"Now maybe I better lead--ha?" What satisfaction there was in addressing
+One-Eye thus familiarly in the teeth of the enemy!
+
+"Break trail!" said One-Eye. Then, "Gangway!" he sang out to the crowd.
+Next, with a swift circular fling of an arm, he scattered a handful of
+small coins to right and left upon the street.
+
+The crowd swayed, split, and scattered like the money. A path cleared.
+One-Eye at his side, Johnnie stepped forward.
+
+Now he would have liked to hang back, to loiter a bit, delaying their
+disappearance, and enjoying the situation. But One-Eye, ignoring every
+one, as if crowds bored him, was headed for the hall like a fox to its
+hole, taking long, impressive, shaggy-legged strides.
+
+Behind, the boys Johnnie had feared scrambled without shame for
+One-Eye's small silver. While he, the "Old clothes," the "Girl's hair,"
+the mocked and despised, was walking, as man with man, beside the
+wonderful One-Eye before whom those same boys had not dared to utter a
+single slur!
+
+His satisfaction was complete!
+
+"Home again!" he cried, feeling ready to do a hop-skip except that it
+would take away from the effect they had made.
+
+Oh, he could stand a whipping in the privacy of the flat if a whipping
+was waiting for him at the top of those three flights--now that this
+public part of the return had gone so magnificently!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DISCOVERY
+
+
+AND yet, after all, there was no sense in taking a strapping if it could
+just as well be avoided.
+
+In the area he halted One-Eye, and they talked the matter over. The
+latter had no trouble at all in seeing Johnnie's attitude. "Was a boy
+myself oncet," he declared. "Used t' git the end of a rope ev'ry little
+while--yeppie, the _knot_-end, and that's how----"
+
+But here Johnnie interrupted the story which seemed to be under way in
+order to urge some plan of action. However, it did not take long to fix
+upon one, this while One-Eye was finishing his cigar, the last inch of
+which, he asserted, was the best part, since in the process of smoking
+he had drawn into it all "the good" of the whole outward-extending
+portion. And while One-Eye smoked, Johnnie, who felt much better, went
+over their plan in detail, talking gaily between giggles.
+
+"But, say! You be solemn!" warned One-Eye.
+
+"We don't want t' make 'em all feel _too_ bad, though," argued Johnnie.
+
+"Sonny," counseled the other, "we'll savvy how we oughta behave _after_
+we see how the hull proposition strikes the bunch."
+
+Johnnie agreed. But he already knew just how their entrance (which was
+nothing short of inspired) would "strike" the flat. He foresaw it all:
+first, glad cries of "Johnnie!" from Cis and Grandpa, and a frightened
+exclamation from Big Tom, whose anger would instantly melt; next, tears
+would flow as those two who were dearest hastened to the prodigal, and
+there would be anxious questions, and words of sweet consolation. On the
+strength of the return perhaps Barber would even buy pop!
+
+After that, what an affecting picture!--the patient on his bed of
+pain--the maiden with cooling cloth and wash basin--the loving and
+much-troubled old man who did not dare wheel about for fear of jarring
+the hurt arm--a certain square-built lady, rocking this way and that (on
+her toes), her face all motherly solicitude--the stranger, with the
+gravest possible bedside manner--and, lastly, hovering somewhere in the
+offing, the outstanding figure of the whole composition, the humbled
+bully.
+
+When Johnnie asked for his bed (which was part of the plan, for those
+books must be concealed under the quilt till dark), how they would all
+jump to fetch it; and when he asked for tea what an eager bustling,
+Barber rattling the stove lids, and--for once!--getting his huge fingers
+smudged, and Cis filling the kettle at the Falls of Niagara. The tea
+brewed, and Johnnie propped to drink it, with Mrs. Kukor to hold the cup
+to his lips, he would smile across at One-Eye as he sipped--but smile
+only faintly, as befits the very ill.
+
+And then! One-Eye, urged by all the others, would tell his tale of the
+boy, weary and hungry, whom he chanced upon wandering some street (he
+had promised not to say which one!), and escorted to supper, and
+afterward to the great horse palace. He would relate how he had insisted
+that Johnnie sleep in the palace that night, though--no doubt of
+it!--the latter had fretted to return home. "But I jes' couldn't leave
+him do it, no matter how much he begged," One-Eye was to declare; "he
+was that tuckered. And this mornin', here he was, workin'! Say, but
+he's a A-1 worker!"
+
+What a chorus would interrupt him!--a chorus of agreement. Then would
+follow a description of that terrible flea-bitten mare, and of Johnnie's
+bravery; of the fierce kick, and the boy's quiet bearing of his agony,
+all closing with a word about the wound and its seriousness.
+
+Next, it would be Big Tom's turn. And he would tell of a home bereft, of
+an old man's pitiful grief (oh, dear, loving Grandpa!), and of two
+broken-hearted ladies. Doubtless the longshoreman would touch also upon
+the fact that he was considerably out of pocket, but Johnnie would not
+mind that.
+
+Cis, likely, would have nothing to say, but would look all she felt; and
+Grandpa would sandwich a few words in between other people's. But Mrs.
+Kukor! Hers would be the story worth hearing! Oh, that volume of
+broken-English! Johnnie counted upon it.
+
+With such pleasing thoughts he occupied himself as he and One-Eye stole
+up the stairs. But when they were just outside the door of the flat, the
+chimes of Trinity began to ring, sounding above the grinding of the
+nearest Elevated Railroad. Those clanging summons reminded Johnnie that
+Big Tom would surely be at home, and he suffered a sudden qualm of
+apprehension. He looked longingly over a shoulder, wishing he might turn
+back. He had a "gone" feeling under his belt, and a tickling in his
+throat (it was very dry), as if his heart had traveled up there and got
+wedged, and was now going like Uncle Albert's watch.
+
+But of course there could be no turning back--not now. They must go in.
+And quickly, for a few of the curious had followed them up from the area
+and were making too much noise in the halls. So One-Eye bent and scooped
+Johnnie up in his arms, holding him in a horizontal position--yellow
+head hanging down to one side, both feet ditto to the other, body limp,
+the bandaged arm well forward, the eyes closed, all toes still,
+and--most important--an expression of bravely endured pain.
+
+"Look as pale as ever y' can!" whispered One-Eye.
+
+All this preparation was the work of a moment. Then One-Eye gave the
+door a vigorous and imperative kick. At the same time he began to talk
+to Johnnie, anxiously, soothingly: "It's all right, sonny! It's all
+right! Keep a stiff upper lip! 'Cause y're home now. Pore kid! My! That
+was a lucky 'scape!"
+
+This last was spoken into the kitchen, for Cis had sped to answer the
+kick, and swung the door wide.
+
+And now Johnnie, eyes tight closed, but with ears cocked, waited for
+that expected burst of greeting--that mingling of glad cries and so
+forth. But--there was dead silence.
+
+In astonishment up went the flaxen lashes. And Johnnie saw that while
+Cis was looking with all her might, it was not at him! And Grandpa,
+mouse-still, was not looking at him either! Nor was Big Tom, putting
+down his pipe at the table.
+
+Furthermore there were no tears from any quarter, and no pitying
+glances, and not a sign of relief! The trio before him, in what seemed
+to be amazed fascination, were staring at One-Eye!
+
+It was Big Tom who spoke first. His face, after its Sunday shave,
+wrinkled into a really bright smile. "Well, by thunder!" he cried.
+
+"Oh, my!"--this was Cis, whose hands were clasped in what to Johnnie
+seemed a very silly way. And she was wearing her exalted,
+Prince-of-Wales expression.
+
+He was irritated, and resentful, and stung to the quick. What was the
+matter with them? Oh, none of them cared! They were acting precisely
+like that crowd around the taxi! And, oh, there would be no pop! And,
+oh, what--_what_ would One-Eye think.
+
+Johnnie burst into tears.
+
+One-Eye was already thinking. With Johnnie held tight in his arms, he
+had been staring at each of the trio in turn, that single eye getting
+harder and harder, till it looked as if it were made of glass; till it
+resembled a green marble; and his mustache, as he puckered up his mouth
+in astonishment, had been lifting and falling, lifting and falling.
+
+But as Johnnie's sobs came, One-Eye half turned, as if to go, then spied
+the kitchen chair, and sat heavily, in sheer disgust. "Wal, I'll be
+jig-_sawed_!" he vowed. "The kid's right? And I might 'a' knowed it!"
+
+But things got better. For now there swelled forth a high, thin wail
+from old Grandpa, whose pale eyes had been roving in search for the one
+who was weeping, had discovered Johnnie, and was echoing his grief.
+
+"Oh, shut up, Pa!" ordered Barber harshly; while Cis, for fear the
+neighbors would hear, unwittingly shut the hall door in the face of Mrs.
+Kukor, who had come out of her own place at One-Eye's kick to see what
+was happening.
+
+"I'll be stop-watched and high-kaflummoxed!" continued One-Eye. Round
+and round rolled that green marble, gathering fire with each revolution.
+In fact it looked to be more fiercely glowing than any two eyes--as
+single eyes have the habit of looking.
+
+Big Tom was beaming at the stranger again, unaware of One-Eye's temper.
+"Say, I never had a' idear of meetin' one of you," he declared heartily,
+"But I'm glad to, I'll say that. Yes, sir, I'm glad to! By thunder!" His
+look traveled up and down One-Eye, not missing a detail.
+
+"Look-a-here!" returned One-Eye with insulting coldness. "This boy's
+hurt! Hurt _bad_! Y' savvy? Weak, too--weak's a cat! And sick! Done up!
+Sore! Wore _out_!" He paused, glaring.
+
+"Boo-hoo!"--Johnnie's heart was wrung by the pitiful description.
+
+It was now that something of the effect Johnnie had pleasantly imagined
+was finally gained. With a distressful "Oh!" Cis came to him, while
+Grandpa began to shrill "Johnnie! Johnnie!" and tried to get away from
+Big Tom, who held back the chair by a wheel as he, too, gave a thought
+to the patient.
+
+"What happened to the kid?" he wanted to know.
+
+One-Eye aimed his one orb at Big Tom as if it were a bullet. "What?" he
+repeated. "Y' ask, do y'? Wal, it was a hoss. It was a kick." Then to
+Johnnie, "Could y' shift weight, sonny?" (One of the five books was
+stabbing One-Eye in the side.)
+
+"I want t' know!" marveled Big Tom. "Any bones broke?" He leaned to feel
+of the unwrapped part of Johnnie's hurt arm.
+
+The indifferent tone, the hated, ungentle touch, and the nearness of the
+longshoreman, all worked to unman Johnnie, who gave way again. He did
+not fear a whipping any longer. It was, as Mrs. Kukor might have put it,
+"somethink yet again." Over him had swept the realization that soon this
+kind, free-handed, lovable One-Eye would be taking his leave, and with
+him would go--well, about everything!
+
+Oh, his dear millionaire! His soul of generosity! The giver of the best
+supper ever! A man who could command such respect that he had struck the
+whole of the East Side dumb! The source of one boy's sweet glory!
+
+And how Johnnie hated the thought of being left behind! He blamed
+himself for returning. "O-o-o-o-oh!" he moaned miserably. How mean and
+greedy and cruel and awful Big Tom seemed now, measured alongside this
+superb stranger!
+
+Yet what Johnnie did not guess was that Barber was overjoyed at his
+return; was more relieved at having an excuse for not whipping than
+Johnnie was over not being whipped, since punishment might decide the
+latter, on some future occasion, to stay away. Indeed, Big Tom had had a
+scare.
+
+"Not a bone!" answered One-Eye, almost proudly. "Neat a kick as ever I
+seen. Reckon the bucket took up most of it. But it's bad enough. Yas,
+ma'am. And it'll be a week afore he oughta use it."
+
+"I want my bed!" quavered Johnnie, remembering that part of the plan.
+
+Cis brought the bedding, and her own snowy pillow, fragrant with orris
+root. As she straightened out the clothes and plumped the pillow, Big
+Tom stayed in front of the visitor, staring as hard as ever, his great
+underlip hanging down, and that big nose taking a sidewise dart every
+now and then.
+
+"Well! well! I'm glad y' happened t' bring the kid home," he began
+again. "Must be grand country out where you come from. How far West d'
+y' live, anyhow? And I'd like your name."
+
+"This is Mister One-Eye," introduced Johnnie, his well arm twined
+proudly about the stranger's leathery neck. It was plain that the
+longshoreman was powerfully impressed. And Johnnie realized better than
+ever that he had brought home a real personage.
+
+"Yep, call me One-Eye and I'll come," declared the personage. "But now
+the bed's ready, sonny." He rose and gently deposited Johnnie upon the
+pallet. "Now keep quiet," he advised kindly, "so's t' git back some
+strength." And to Cis, "Reckon we better give him a swaller o' tea."
+
+Mrs. Kukor, who had been waiting all the while in the hall, and could
+stand it no longer, now came rocking in, her olive face picked out with
+dimples, it was working so hard, and all her crinkly hair standing
+bushily up.
+
+"Is that you, Mother?" cried old Grandpa. "Is that you?"--which misled
+One-Eye into the belief that here was another member of the family, one
+whom Johnnie had omitted to mention. So the green eye focused upon the
+mattress in sorrowful reproof.
+
+But the next instant a burst of dialect set Johnnie right in his new
+friend's eye. "Ach, Chonnie!" cried the little Jewish lady. "Vot iss?
+Vot iss?"
+
+Her concern pleased One-Eye. He sat down, crossed his knees, and swung a
+spur.
+
+Mrs. Kukor had not yet seen him. She had stationed herself at the foot
+of Johnnie's bed, from where she looked down, her birdlike eyes
+glistening with pity, her head wagging, her hands now waving, now
+resting upon a heart that was greatly affected by the sight of Johnnie
+in pain.
+
+But Johnnie, looking up at her, knew that his hurt arm was not the whole
+of her grief; knew that she was thinking how much to blame she was
+herself for all that had happened. Guilt was on her round face, and
+remorse in her wagging. That book! That _Alattin_! Ach, that she had
+never given him that present. Oy! oy! oy!
+
+Big Tom was making conversation. "Guess all of you work pretty hard out
+where you live," he declared, "--even if you do jus' set on a horse. But
+you bet you'd find my job harder. I tell y', I do my share when it comes
+to the heavy work." His tongue pushed out one cheek, then the other, a
+habit of his when boasting. "Why, there ain't a man workin' with me that
+can do more'n two-thirds what I do! They all know it, too. 'Barber's the
+guy with the cargo-hook,' is what they say. And Furman admits himself
+that I'm the only man's that's really earnin' that last raise. Yes,
+sir! 'Tom Barber's steel-constructed,' is what he tells the boys."
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Kukor, still unaware of a strange presence, had been
+whispering excitedly with Cis, from whom she had got the facts
+concerning the wound. But even as she had listened, she had been aware
+that Barber was talking, quietly, politely, good-naturedly. Surprised,
+she came half-about ("goin' exac'ly like a spud with tooth-pick laigs,"
+as One-Eye said afterwards, though not unkindly), and took a look in the
+longshoreman's direction. And--saw the visitor.
+
+Her hands dropped, her eyes fixed themselves upon those fur-faced
+breeches, her bosom stopped heaving as she held her breath. Then, "Ach!"
+she cried. "Could I believe it if so I did-ent saw it?--Mister Barber,
+how comes here a cowpoy?"
+
+_A cowboy?_
+
+Then it was Johnnie who experienced sensations:
+Surprise--bewilderment--doubt--staggering belief--awe--joy--more
+joy--pride--triumph!
+
+He sat up.
+
+Now he understood why the shaggy breeches had struck him as somehow
+familiar. Of course! He had seen just such a pair pictured on the
+billboard across from the millionaire's garage. Now he realized how he
+had seared the sight of his enemies as he and the Great One arrived side
+by side in a taxicab!--Yet no one must ever know that he had been in the
+dark! "Why, yes, Mrs. Kukor!" he cried. "My goodness! This is a reg'lar
+one!" (At which One-Eye colored, blending his bronze with a bashful
+purple.)
+
+"A cowpoy!" whispered Mrs. Kukor, as if in a daze. "Pos-i-tivvle! Mit
+furs on hiss pants, und everythink!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP
+
+
+LEANING on his well elbow, Johnnie related to Mrs. Kukor and Cis and
+Grandpa the whole story of what had happened to him; and they paid such
+rapt attention to him that at the most they did not interrupt him more
+than fifteen or twenty times. "And, oh, didn't everything turn out just
+fine?" he cried in ending. "T' be found by a cowboy and fetched home in
+a' auto! and--all?"
+
+Mrs. Kukor vowed that she dass-ent to deny how everytink about it wass
+both stylish und grand!
+
+Next, he had to hear what had transpired after his departure; how every
+one had taken his going, especially Big Tom--now gone out to escort
+One-Eye to the taxi.
+
+"I tells to him, 'Sure does Chonnie go for sometink'," declared Mrs.
+Kukor. But Barber had known better, and contradicted her violently. "Und
+so I tells to him over that, 'Goot! Goot! if he runs away! In dis house
+so much, it ain't healthy for him!' Und I shakes my fingers be-front of
+hiss big nose!"
+
+Mrs. Kukor had to go then, remembering with a start that she had a
+filled fish cooking. She rushed out at a thumping gallop. Then the whole
+adventure was told a second time, Johnnie sitting up with Grandpa's hat
+cocked over one eye, and drawling in fine imitation of their late guest.
+
+When Barber came back, he was not able to let matters pass without a
+brief scolding for Johnnie, and a threat. "Y' go and git yourself laid
+up," he complained, coming to stand over the pallet on the floor; "so's
+you can't do your work, and earn your keep. Well, a good kick was the
+right pay for runnin' away. And now let me tell y' this, and I mean it:
+if y' ever run away again, y' won't git took _back_. Hear me?"
+
+"Yes," answered Johnnie, almost carelessly.
+
+Barber said no more, realizing that if Johnnie could run away once he
+could again. Even without grumbling the longshoreman helped Cis to put
+the wash to soak in the round, galvanized tub that stood on its side
+under the dish cupboard--a Sunday night duty that was Johnnie's, and was
+in preparation for the hated laundry work which he always did so badly
+of a Monday.
+
+Late that night, in the closet-room, with the door shut and a stub of
+candle lighted, Johnnie heard Cis's story of what had happened in the
+flat following her return from the factory, her lunch still in its neat
+camera-box.
+
+"I--I just couldn't believe it was so!" she whispered, ready to weep at
+the mere recollection of her shock and grief. "And, oh, promise me you
+won't ever go away again!" she begged, brown head on one side and tears
+in her eyes; "and I'll promise never to leave _you_--never, never,
+never, _never_!"
+
+Johnnie would not promise. "I'm goin' to be a cowboy," he declared
+calmly; "but after I go, why, I'll come back soon's as I can and take
+you. And maybe, after the Prince is married, you'll forget him, and like
+a cowboy."
+
+Cis shook her head. Hers was an affection not lightly bestowed nor
+easily withdrawn from its dear object. "I saw HIM go into the
+Waldorf-Astoria by the floor on the Thirty-third Street side," she
+recalled tenderly. Recollection brought a sweet, far-away look into
+those violet-blue eyes.
+
+Johnnie took this moment to fish from his shirt his five books, laying
+them one by one on the bed-shelf at Cis's feet, from where she caught up
+the new ones, marveling over them.
+
+"I _thought_ there was something funny about your looks," she declared.
+"I kept still, though.--Oh, Johnnie Smith, have you been robbing
+somebody?"
+
+When he had enjoyed her excitement and anxiety to the full, she was told
+all about the book shop and the millionaire, and the lady, and the book
+with the dollar bill, after which he again showed those books which he
+had purchased with the money.
+
+"Oh, you silly!" she cried. "You didn't do anything of the kind! They
+bought 'em for you--all those nice people!"
+
+It was hard to convince him, but at last she did, this by pointing out
+to him the price marked in each book, a sum that took his breath away.
+Three dollars and a half apiece they were! More than ten altogether!
+("Und in kesh-money!" Mrs. Kukor marveled afterward, when she knew.)
+_His_ eyes got a far-away expression as he thought about the generosity
+of those strangers. Oh, how good strangers were to a person! It almost
+seemed that the less you knew somebody-- But, no, that was not true,
+because Mrs. Kukor----
+
+"Tell me more about Mr. One-Eye," whispered Cis. "But what a name for a
+_man_! He _can't_ be called just that! How could you write him a letter?
+Don't you know the rest of it, Johnnie? It's One-eye What?"
+
+"Just One-Eye," returned Johnnie. "That's what they all called him.
+Maybe cowboys don't have two names like common men. What's the good of
+two names, anyhow?"
+
+Cis was shocked. "Everybody has to have two names," she told him,
+severely. "The first is yours, and is your mother's fav'rite, and the
+other shows who your father is. Or maybe, if you're a second child, your
+mother allows your father to name you. But it's civilized to have two
+names, and not a bit nice if you don't--unless you're a dog or a horse."
+
+Johnnie lifted an inspired finger, pointing straight at her.
+"Everybody?" he asked. "Well, what about the Prince of Wales? _His_ name
+is Eddie. Eddie _What_?"
+
+"Why--why--" She was confused.
+
+"Horse or dog!" scoffed Johnnie. "Don't you b'lieve it? You mean Princes
+and cowboys!"
+
+Cis had to admit herself wrong.
+
+"When I heard One-Eye speak, that first time," he informed her, "I was
+afraid he was J. J. Hunter, come for _Aladdin_."
+
+They laughed at that, fairly rocking. After which they returned to the
+more personal aspects of One-Eye. "What makes him keep his hat on?" she
+wanted to know. "That isn't good manners at _all_. I just know the
+Prince wouldn't do it. Why, every time I saw the Prince he kept taking
+his hat off. My!"
+
+"Cowboys always keep their hats on," Johnnie asserted stoutly. "Maybe if
+they didn't, their horses wouldn't know 'em. Anyhow, they all do. Don't
+I know? I saw dozens!"
+
+Well, if they did, then Cis thought them a strange lot. "And do all of
+them chew tobacco?" she persisted. "Because I'm sure _he_ does."
+
+Johnnie was insulted. He denied anything of the kind. He grew heated,
+resenting this criticism of one who held that cowboys were noble.
+One-Eye smoked--even when signs said he might not. And could any man
+smoke and chew at the same time? He did not believe it, though he was
+willing to admit that if any man _could_ perform these two feats
+simultaneously, that man was certainly the incomparable One-Eye.
+
+"Anyhow, he's awful homely," continued Cis, who could be as irritating
+as most girls at times.
+
+Johnnie rose then, cold and proud. "Honest, Cis, you make me sick!" he
+told her. "Homely! Huh!" He would have liked to cast an aspersion upon a
+certain Royal countenance, just to get even, but feared Cis might refuse
+to hide his books for him. However, he decided that he would never again
+be as nice as formerly to King George's son. He left the tiny room, nose
+in air.
+
+She did not follow him with apologies. And presently he stole back to
+her door and moved the knob softly. "Cis!" he whispered. "What's a
+vallay?"
+
+She peeped out. "What's a _what_?"
+
+"A v-a-l-l-a-y?"
+
+"Oh!--A valley's a scoopy place between two hills."
+
+A scoopy place between two hills! How like a girl's was the answer! Her
+candle was out, her tone sleepy. He did not argue. Flat upon his pallet
+once more, with both hands under his yellow head, he smiled into the
+black of the kitchen, telling himself that he would not change places
+with any boy in the whole of the great sleeping city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHANGES
+
+
+IT was a blue Monday. In fact, it was the bluest Monday that Johnnie had
+ever spent in the flat. The urge of unrest was upon him. He had been out
+once, and far into the great world. And, oh, _how_ he yearned to go out
+again! And just wander up Broadway to Fifth Avenue, the morning sun on
+his back, and the wind in his hair, while he gave more strangers an
+opportunity to do those pleasant and generous things which it seemed the
+privilege of strangers to do. A second trip, and there was no telling
+but that he might come back to the flat fairly bowed under a load of
+things!
+
+He took a peep at his books; but he could not settle down to read. And
+he was able to get through with a hasty trip to Chickamauga by forcing
+himself to be patient with Grandpa. Also, that morning was a bad one for
+millionaires. He called up none of the four. If a millionaire had
+chanced by and offered to adopt him, Johnnie would have said a flat No.
+Cowboys! Rivals, these were, of the famous quartette. And the moment
+Grandpa was asleep, Johnnie got on the telephone, called up one of the
+larger stores, and ordered a complete cowboy outfit--from hat to spurs.
+And having received his order with lightning rapidity, he put it on at
+once, and began to stride to and fro, gesturing and talking bad grammar
+in his best possible imitation of One-Eye. He ended this fascinating
+game by trying to pinch his eye in the door.
+
+Naturally the door led to the idea of taking a walk.
+
+And the walk made him think of the dog. He had seen a handsome dog while
+he was riding in the truck--a black dog with a brown spot over each eye.
+At once he determined to have one like it. "Here! Boof! Boof!" he
+called. And the dog came to him across the kitchen, wagging a bushy
+tail, and was warmly greeted, and fed. A fine, shining dog collar was
+then ordered and presented, after which Johnnie made a hasty toilet by
+splashing his face with his well hand and drying it on the cup towel,
+and the two started off.
+
+There was no fire in the stove, and Johnnie told himself that there was
+nothing to worry about in leaving Grandpa behind for a little while.
+Without haste, this time, and without even a thought of Big Tom, Johnnie
+sallied forth, the dog at his side.
+
+He had no misgivings as to the treatment he would receive from the boys
+of the neighborhood. The question of his social standing had been
+settled. He even got ready to whistle a tune, so that if any boy's back
+was turned, and there was danger of Johnnie's not being seen, he could
+call attention to himself--he, the intimate friend of a real cowboy.
+
+But every one saw him. That was because he took his time. On the other
+hand, he saw no one; but paid the closest attention to signs, and
+windows, to carts, and the contents of shops, and he halted to pet an
+occasional horse, or to shy a bit of brick at a water plug. Thus he
+traveled the four sides of his block. Whenever he met boys, they were
+too impressed to be saucy. He sauntered past them, his hands in his big
+pockets, his chin in the air.
+
+"Well, y' see how it is," he observed to Boof as they turned homeward.
+And he swaggered.
+
+Back in his area, he found a small gathering--several children, a few
+women, and one old man. He blushed out of sheer happiness, believing
+them to be drawn up to see the Friend of a Cowboy pass in. And he
+climbed the stairs, whistling as he went, and smiling to himself in the
+dusk of the poorly lighted halls.
+
+Entering the flat, he found One-Eye. At first he could not trust his
+eyes, for his new dog had followed in, and was wagging a black tail, and
+he could see the dog as plainly as he could see his friend. But noting
+that Grandpa was playing with a red apple, he knew that the cowboy was
+really there.
+
+So that was why there had been a crowd in the area!
+
+But he did not rush to One-Eye. For some reason or other his feet were
+stone, and he felt shame--and guilt. He said a low-spoken Hello!
+
+There was no warmth in One-Eye's greeting, either. "Knocked," informed
+the Westerner. "Got no answer. Then I heard the ole gent kinda whinin',
+and so I come in." While he talked, that single green eye was peering
+out of the kitchen window. The tanned face wore a curious, stern look.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Johnnie, swallowing. "He always is like that if I go
+out t' walk a little." His heart was sorer than ever. He felt helpless,
+and forlorn. A wall had risen between himself and his wonderful friend.
+And he wished that One-Eye would burst out at him as Barber would have
+done, and give him a piece of his mind--oh, anything but this manner so
+polite yet so full of cool displeasure!
+
+However, One-Eye had a second apple, which he presented to Johnnie, and
+this helped to clear the air. And the latter, hoping to win back
+One-Eye's good opinion, wiped off a table knife, halved the apple, and
+scraped it, giving the juicy scrapings to the toothless old soldier.
+
+At once One-Eye became less absent-minded. "Wal, how's the arm?" he
+asked. "The boys tole me t' shore find out."
+
+"Oh, it hurts a little," declared Johnnie, "but I don't mind. Say, how's
+the cross horse?" One half of the apple scraped, Johnnie ate the red
+shell of it. "And have y' been to the rest'rant again? And I s'pose all
+them white-dressed men and ladies, they can eat all they want to of
+ev'ry kind of de-_licious_ things!"
+
+One-Eye 'lowed they could. That lone orb of his was roving about the
+flat as if he was looking for some one. And presently, clearing his
+throat, "The young lady, she don't seem t' be at home," he observed,
+with studied carelessness.
+
+"Not till six," reminded Johnnie. "She works."
+
+It was then that One-Eye drew from a pocket under those furry trousers a
+third, and a mammoth, apple. "Wal, when she comes," he suggested, "y'
+might jes' give her this."
+
+"Oh, gee!" cried Johnnie. It was the largest apple he had ever seen.
+"She'll like it. And she thinks you're grand!"
+
+This proved to be such a master stroke of diplomacy as Johnnie had not
+imagined. One-Eye glowed under the compliment, and went various shades
+of red, and blew smoke from his cigar furiously. Now the last trace of
+hardness went from the weathered countenance, the drooping mustache
+lifted to show toothy gaps, and even the marble of that eye softened.
+"Now, say!" exclaimed the cowboy. "Y' ain't stringin' me, are y'? She
+said that? Wal, this world is a shore funny place! Right funny! Jes'
+recent I paid a lady here in town six-bits t' read the trails in my
+hands. And she tole me, 'Y're going t' meet a high-toned gal.' And
+now----!"
+
+He said no more after that, only smoked, and stared at Johnnie's sky
+patch, and twiddled a spurred boot. The cigar finished, he rose and
+shook hands solemnly, first with Grandpa, who giggled like a delighted
+child; then with a somewhat subdued Johnnie.
+
+"My!" breathed the latter as the clump, clump of the spurred boots died
+away on the stairs. He felt more regret and sorrow over being found
+lacking by One-Eye than ever he had felt over a similar discovery made
+by Big Tom. He realized that he would do more to win just the smile of
+the one than he would to miss the punishment of the other. And there was
+a sting in his little interior, as if some one had thrust a needle into
+him, and left a sore spot; or as if he had swallowed a crust or a
+codfish bone, and it had lodged somewhere.
+
+He gave over thinking about wearing a cattleman's outfit, and began once
+more to turn his thoughts inward upon the flat. He sought out _Aladdin_
+from the precious pile of books and opened it at the page he had been
+reading when One-Eye's voice had fallen for the first time upon his
+ears. And at once he was again living with the Chinese boy that story of
+stories.
+
+The day sped. Whenever Grandpa interrupted him, Johnnie would go to look
+at Cis's apple. He would take it up, and turn it, and smell it. He
+looked at it affectionately, remembering who had bought it, had had it
+in his hands, and carried it. It brought that dear one close.
+
+"Good One-Eye!" murmured Johnnie, and first making certain that even
+Grandpa was not watching, he laid the apple against one of his pale
+cheeks. Somehow it comforted him. He pictured Cis's surprise and joy
+when, having been told to shut her eyes and put out her hands, she would
+see the crimson-skinned gift.
+
+About this he received a cruel shock. For when Cis came slipping in,
+with an anxious look around, as if she feared Johnnie might not be
+there, and had gone through the--to her--annoying preliminary of shut
+eyes and outstretched palms, there was plain disappointment on her face
+as she saw what Johnnie had to give her. And when he told her whose gift
+it was, far from changing her attitude, and showing the pride he
+expected, what she did was to burst into peals of laughter!
+
+It was like a slap in the face. He stared at her, not able to comprehend
+how she could belittle a present from such a source. And all at once he
+felt himself more in sympathy with Big Tom than he did with her, for Big
+Tom at least held One-Eye in high honor, and considered his visit to the
+flat a compliment.
+
+Now she added insult to injury. "What a funny thing to give a girl!" she
+cried. Then daintily taking a whiff of the fruit, "But then it'll scent
+up my box fine." She went to tuck it among her belongings.
+
+Not a word of gratitude! And she was crossness itself when, her dress
+changed, she sallied forth to set to work on the wash. That this task
+had something to do with her lack of sweet temper never occurred to
+Johnnie, whose opinion of girls had received another setback. As he
+watched her drag forward the tub and fall to rubbing, he half-way made
+up his mind to wait his chance, take the apple out of that old box, and
+eat it! He sat at the window, counting the stars as they came into his
+rectangle of faded blue, and was glad that he now had a dog. A girl
+around the house was so unsatisfactory!
+
+Next day, with Cis's wash swinging overhead in a long, white line, he
+finished _Aladdin_ and took up _Robinson Crusoe_. And with the new book
+there opened to him still another life. Swiftly the palaces of Cathay
+melted away. And Johnnie, in company with several fighting men, was
+pacing the deck of a storm-tossed ship, with a savage-infested shore to
+lee. Gun in hand, he peered across the waves to a spit of sand upon
+which black devils danced.
+
+By nightfall, what with fast reading, and by skipping many a paragraph
+which was pure description, the oilcloth table was a lonely island
+inhabited by no human being, the morris chair was the good ship
+stranded, with all on board lost except Crusoe and Johnnie, who, while
+the seas dashed over them, roaring, breathlessly salvaged for their
+future use (Johnnie's hurt arm was out of its sling all this time) the
+mixed contents of the kitchen cupboard.
+
+Big Tom interrupted this saving of provender. And Crusoe's friend was
+curtly ordered to wash some potatoes for supper, and lay the plates, and
+not leave everything for Cis to do. The order was accompanied by that
+warning flash of white in Barber's left eye. It brought to an end
+Johnnie's period of convalescence.
+
+That night he did more pondering as he lay on his mattress beside the
+cookstove, his eyes looking far away to the three stars framed by the
+window sash, and the dog asleep at his side. He had always done much
+thinking, being compelled to it by loneliness. Now he took stock of
+himself, and came to the conclusion that he was not like other boys.
+
+Being the only blond-haired boy in the area building had something to do
+with it. Having to do housework had more. Then he had none of the
+possessions which the other boys of his own age treasured--bats, and
+balls, "scooters," roller skates, yes, even water pistols.
+
+Being different from other boys, he could not, he decided, do as they
+did. They had freedom: he was shut in. Once he had thought that this
+shut-in condition was due to the strange views of Big Tom. But now, all
+at once, he realized that One-Eye agreed with the longshoreman. So did
+the Chinese tailor, Mustapha!
+
+He made up his mind that hereafter he would stay close to home.
+
+He spent nearly the whole of the next day most contentedly with Robinson
+Crusoe. It was ironing day, but when he had finished the small pieces,
+Mrs. Kukor took the rest upstairs. Then Johnnie, dressed from head to
+toe in peltry, moored at his elbow that lonely isle. And for him the
+wrecked ship gave up the last of its stores, cannibals danced, beacons
+were lighted, stockades built, and there swept in upon that East Side
+kitchen a breeze that was off the Southern Seas.
+
+Shortly after the evening meal a night or two later, One-Eye knocked,
+finding Johnnie up to his elbows in the dishpan, while Barber smoked and
+Cis dried the supper plates. The cowboy seemed much embarrassed just at
+first, and avoided Cis's smiling look as she thanked him for the apple.
+Her little speech over, however, he soon warmed into quite a jovial
+mood.
+
+"Jes' had t' see sonny, here, t'night," he declared. "Y' know it's so
+seldom a feller meets up with a kid that's worth botherin' about. Now
+this one strikes me as a first-class boy"--praise that instantly and
+completely wiped out that hurt somewhere in Johnnie's interior.
+
+One-Eye had not come empty-handed. He had cigars for Big Tom, a paper
+bag of pears for every one, and a carefully wrapped box tied with
+glistening string which turned out to be candy. As a chorus of delight
+greeted all these gifts, he became by turns the leathery saffron which,
+for him, was paleness, and the dark reddish-purple that made onlookers
+always believe that he was holding his breath. "Aw, shucks!" he cried to
+the thanks. "It ain't nuthin'. Don't mention it. It's all right. _Eat!_"
+
+Then happened the almost unbelievable: Big Tom, who never made visitors
+welcome, and never wasted kerosene, actually lifted down the lamp and
+lighted it, and would not hear of One-Eye's taking an early departure.
+The cowboy's importance was making him welcome; also, his gifts. For
+greed was the keynote of Barber's character. The latter haw-hawed at
+everything One-Eye said. And Johnnie gazed in amazement at the unusual
+spectacle of Big Tom's face wrinkled by laughter.
+
+He talked about himself. He had been moving barrels all day; doing
+prodigious things. Furman had all but fallen dead when he surveyed what
+that one pair of hands had accomplished. "And he bet me I couldn't take
+up two barrels at a time," he boasted. Then pushing out his cheeks, "But
+say! It was duck-soup!"
+
+"Barrels of duck-soup?" One-Eye wanted to know. And the kitchen
+resounded with such unwonted laughter that a window or two went up
+outside, to right or left, some neighbor thinking a row was under way.
+
+Hearing the noise, Barber stalked to his own window, flung it high,
+leaned out, and glared about. The other windows went down then, and Big
+Tom slammed his own shut, begrudging any family in the building the
+sound of One-Eye's voice. "That Gamboni!" he growled. "Can't mind his
+business t' save his life! But you bet he didn't open his mouth when he
+seen me lookin'! No, sir! They all shut up their sass when they spy
+yours truly! Ha-ha-a-a-a! I could break 'em in two!"
+
+Johnnie felt a chill travel down his spine. He compared One-Eye to his
+foster father again. Oh, what would have happened if these two had not
+met on friendly terms? had on his account come to blows? How would it
+have fared with the cowboy in the grasp of those hands which were
+steel-constructed?
+
+"Y' look consider'ble strong," admitted One-Eye, rolling the green
+marble the length of Barber appraisingly. "But I ain't such a slouch
+myself. Can throw my steer yet, slick as that!" Which was going far for
+One-Eye in the boasting line.
+
+He came to the flat often after that--and never again found Johnnie
+away, though occasionally Big Tom was. He always brought cigars for the
+longshoreman, and fruit or candy, or both, for the others. He never had
+a great deal to say, but being something more than a common man, he
+would dry dishes if there were dishes to dry, or help split kindling for
+the morning fire; and once he scrubbed the sink.
+
+If he said little, nevertheless he inspired others to talk. For some
+reason he was anxious to get from Johnnie the story of the boy's past
+life, which was not so complete as One-Eye would have liked, since
+Johnnie had forgotten the surname of his Aunt Sophie. He remembered her
+as a tall woman with big teeth and too much chin who wore plaid-gingham
+wrappers and pinched his nose when she applied a handkerchief to him.
+
+He remembered Aunt Sophie's living rooms above the rich man's
+garage--rooms warm, clean, and brightly lighted, with pictures, and
+crisp curtains, and a thick, rose-patterned rug in the parlor. In her
+kitchen was a great cookstove called "The Black Diamond," which seemed
+like some live thing, for it had four claw-shaped feet, and seven
+isinglass eyes ranged in a blazing row upon a flat face. Under the eyes
+were toothlike bars forming a grate. These seemed always to be grinning
+hotly. Often when the stove was fed with the ebony lumps that Aunt
+Sophie said it loved, its burning breath was delicious. Then Johnnie's
+aunt, half doubled above it, drew out of it rich, brown roasts, and pies
+that oozed nectar; or ladled up fragrant soups and golden doughnuts.
+
+Johnnie described how grandly he had lived at Aunt Sophie's. He had
+slept in soft, white night clothes. Always, when he waked, Aunt Sophie
+had pulled him out of these and dropped him into a big tub of warm
+water, then rubbed him pink with a large, shaggy towel. Sometimes Uncle
+Albert took him for a run in one of the millionaire's huge, glistening
+cars.
+
+His last memory of the garage had to do with the clanging ambulance
+that took Aunt Sophie to the hospital. Johnnie never saw her again, for
+she died there; and it was after her death that Tom Barber clambered up
+the straight, steep flight of stairs that led from the street door. When
+he went down it, Johnnie was with him, clinging to one of Big Tom's
+thumbs.
+
+"Then I reckon Mister Barber's a relative," said One-Eye.
+
+"Only by marriage," declared Cis. She was certain of that.
+
+"But why'd he bother takin' a kid that is no relation?" persisted the
+Westerner.
+
+Cis smiled wisely. "Work," she answered laconically.
+
+One-Eye understood. "And who was the rich gent?" he asked.
+
+Johnnie could not remember the name. "But once," he told proudly, "he
+left a' orange for me, and I used it like a ball till the skin busted."
+
+"Y' know what street that was on, don't y'?" inquired the cowboy.
+
+Yes, Johnnie knew that. The street was West Fifty-fifth.
+
+"And what about your mother?" One-Eye wanted to know.
+
+"Well, I had one--once," declared Johnnie. "I'm sure of that. And she's
+dead." Also at one time he had possessed a father, who was dead, too.
+"My father and my mother," he informed the cowboy, "died the same day."
+
+That single eye opened wide at this news. "The same day?" One-Eye
+demanded.
+
+"Drownded," said Johnnie. Though how and where he could not tell, and
+did not even know his father's name, which Cis felt sure was not Smith.
+
+"I thought as much!" remarked their visitor, wisely. "And what about
+_your_ Paw and Maw?" he inquired of Cis, who knew names and dates and
+facts about her parents, but was completely in the dark as to the
+whereabouts of any living kinspeople. She had lived in a flat in the
+next block till her father died. When her mother married Tom Barber, she
+had moved out of her birthplace and into the area building. And that was
+all there was to tell, except that her own full name was Narcissa Amy
+Way.
+
+"Cute!" declared One-Eye, going a beet-red.
+
+"Have _you_ got a mother?" asked Cis.
+
+"Both dead," answered One-Eye, knowing that the two would understand
+what he meant.
+
+"Three orphans," returned Cis. The blue eyes misted, and the pointed,
+pink chin quivered. And the others knew what _she_ meant.
+
+Indeed, at the sight of her brimming eyes One-Eye felt so keenly that,
+without warning, he put his head back in a most surprising fashion,
+opened his mouth, shut that one eye, and broke into a strange plaint.
+The others concluded that One-Eye was making a curious, hoarse noise
+ceilingward for some reason. Presently, however, Cis made out that the
+noise was a tune: a tune weird but soul-stirring. Music, as Cis could
+see, was One-Eye's medium of expressing his emotions. And then and there
+it became her firm conviction that he was bearing a great and secret
+sorrow.
+
+It was Johnnie who first learned the words of the tune. And when he
+could repeat them to Cis, both realized how appropriate they had been
+under the circumstances, for they ran:
+
+        "Oh, blame me not for weepin',
+         Oh, blame me not, I say!
+         For I have a' angel mother,
+         Ten thousand miles away!"
+
+Having got to the end of a verse, One-Eye sat up, smiled feebly, darted
+a bashful glance at Cis, and went on with his questions. "What was Uncle
+Albert's name?" he wanted to know.
+
+But as Johnnie could not remember Aunt Sophie's name, naturally enough
+he could not remember his Uncle Albert's, both names being one and the
+same. His Uncle was a figure that this small nephew had greatly
+admired--straight, be-capped like a soldier, and soldierly, too, in his
+smart, dark livery.
+
+"They's somethin' mysterious about the hull proposition!" pronounced
+One-Eye.
+
+That night when One-Eye was about to leave, he asked Cis what he might
+buy her for Christmas. Cis was shy about answering, and declared that he
+need not buy her anything: he had bought her so much candy, and that was
+enough--more than enough. But One-Eye pressed the question. "Aw, name
+somethin'!" he pleaded. "Can't y' think of a pritty that y'd like
+awful?"
+
+Cis thought. And having taken some time to turn the suggestion over,
+while One-Eye watched her, and Johnnie mentally made up a long list of
+possible gifts, "I'd like very much," she faltered, "if I could have a
+nice doll."
+
+What was there about the request that seemed to stagger One-Eye? Looking
+at him, Johnnie saw that big Adam's-apple move convulsively, while the
+green eye swam, and the lantern jaw fell. "A--a doll?" the cowboy
+repeated feebly.
+
+Cis knew that somehow she had said the wrong thing, and hastened to ease
+the situation. "Oh, just a teeny, weeny one," she compromised. "You see,
+Mr. One-Eye, I've never had but one, and I thought before I got _too_
+big--because I've seen small dolls that were so sweet!--and I--and
+I----"
+
+But there she stopped, blushing painfully. To cover her embarrassment,
+she dashed into her closet room and brought out Letitia, ragged dress
+and all, as if the sight of the poor beloved would speak for her more
+eloquently than she could for herself.
+
+Which proved to be the case. For One-Eye stared at Letitia till that
+single eye fairly bored through her sawdust frame. Next he took her up
+and turned her about, his lips shut tight. His mustache stood up, he
+gulped, and his hand trembled.
+
+Then suddenly he rose. "Got t' go," he announced.
+
+He went. He forgot to shake hands. He pulled the big hat far down across
+his forehead. He stubbed his toe on the doorsill.
+
+Cis and Johnnie hung out of the window a long time after, talking low
+together, so as not to be overheard by the Gambonis, for the early
+December night was surprisingly warm, and the building had all its
+windows up. They speculated upon One-Eye's conduct. Johnnie was
+distressed--and on two scores: first, that One-Eye should have gone so
+abruptly; second, that Cis, when given a chance to ask for something,
+had not named a gift worth having, such as another book.
+
+"But you've got more books now than you've had time to read!" she
+protested. "And anyhow One-Eye is sure to give you a Christmas present."
+She was not cast down, but smiled at the sky, and talked of the new
+doll, which she intended to name--Edwarda.
+
+"Should think you'd name her after One-Eye," went on Johnnie; "long's
+he's givin' her to you."
+
+"_How_ could I name her after him?" she retorted. "What would I call
+her?--Two-Eyes? I'm not going to spoil her by giving her a crazy name."
+Eager to have her dreams to herself, she forsook the window for her own
+room, and shut the door.
+
+The next morning, while Johnnie and Grandpa were returning from the
+field of Gettysburg, here, ascending from the area came the shrill
+voice of the Italian janitress: "Johnnie Smith! Johnnie Smith!"
+
+That meant the postman. And the postman was an event, for he came not
+oftener than once in three months, this to fetch a long, official
+envelope that had to do with Grandpa's pension. But the pension was not
+due again for several weeks. So what did the postman have to leave?
+
+Bursting with curiosity, excitement and importance, Johnnie very nearly
+broke his neck between his own door and the brick pave. And here was a
+letter addressed to himself: Johnnie Smith, in Mr. Thos. Barber's flat.
+Then the street and the number, the whole having been written on a
+typewriter.
+
+"Why--! Why--! Who can it be from?" Johnnie muttered, turning the letter
+over and over, while heads popped out of windows, and sundry small fry
+gathered about Johnnie and the postman.
+
+"Maybe you'd find out if you opened it," suggested the latter, who was
+curious himself.
+
+Johnnie opened; and drew forth a single large page, white and neat, when
+it was unfolded. Upon it was written a short, polite note which read:
+
+"_Dear Johnnie, I'm going away for a few days. Cannot tell just when I
+shall be back. Take care of yourself. Yours very respectfully,--_" Here
+One-Eye had signed his name.
+
+The signature was hard to make out. Not only because it was badly
+written but because there was something the matter with Johnnie's eyes.
+"One-Eye's goin' away," he told the postman, not ashamed of the tears he
+wiped on the back of a hand. "Oh, my goodness!" He climbed the stairs
+with his square little chin on his breast.
+
+Cis made him feel worse when she came home. Because instead of being
+equally cast down, she was full of criticism. "My! One-Eye never wrote
+that!" she declared. "A stenographer fixed that all up for him. Sure as
+you live."
+
+This was too much. Johnnie jerked the letter out of her hand. He caught
+up Letitia by one dwindling arm and cast her headforemost into Cis's
+room. And there is no telling what else might not have happened if, at
+that moment, the janitress had not begun to call again, though this time
+it was Cis she wanted. And what she had for Cis was a heavy pasteboard
+box that was nearly as long as the table. In the box, wearing a truly
+gorgeous dress and hat and shoes, was--Edwarda.
+
+"A Princess of a doll!" cried Cis, dancing with happiness.
+
+Later on, when she had put Edwarda to bed for at least the tenth time,
+she came to comfort Johnnie. "Never mind," she said, "he'll be back. And
+while he's gone, you can play he's here." Then with a far-away look in
+her blue eyes, "What would _I_ do if I didn't pretend _HE_ was here!"
+
+Johnnie groaned. The idea of her bringing up the Prince in the face of
+such grief as his! It made him sick. He pinned the letter inside his
+shirt. He dragged out the mattress and flung himself down. He would not
+let her light the lamp. He yearned for the dark, where he could hide his
+tears.
+
+Oh, everything was swept away! Everything!
+
+And even the dog, crowding close against him comfortingly, could not
+lessen his pain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE HEAVEN THAT NEARLY HAPPENED
+
+
+JANUARY came in furiously, peppering with sleet, bombarding with hail,
+storming with snow-laden winds. Day after day the sun refused to show
+himself, and the kitchen was so dark that, whenever work had to be done,
+the lamp was lighted.
+
+In such weather Johnnie was cut off from the outside world; was almost
+like another Crusoe. Having no shoes and no overcoat, he would not
+venture out for a walk with his dog. Fuel was so costly that he could
+not even open the window to take his taste of the outdoors. His feet
+were wrapped up in bits of blanket, and his thin arms were covered by
+footless, old stockings of Cis's, which he drew on of a morning, keeping
+them up by pinning them to the stubby sleeves of the big shirt.
+
+Many a day Big Tom stayed at home, dozing away the time on his bed. Such
+days were trying ones for Johnnie. Seated at the kitchen table, his
+large hands blue with the cold, hour upon hour he twisted cotton petals
+on wire stems to make violets--virtually acres of them, which he
+fashioned in skillful imitation, though he had never seen a violet grow.
+Violet-making tired him, and often he had a stabbing pain between his
+shoulder blades.
+
+But when Barber was away, the gloomiest hours passed happily enough. He
+would finish his housework early, if none too well, scatter the oilcloth
+with petals and stems, as if this task were going forward, then pull the
+table drawer part way out, lay his open book in it, and read. It was
+_The Last of the Mohicans_ which claimed all of his interest during the
+first month of that year. And what the weather was outside mattered not
+a jot to him. He was threading the woods of spring with Cora and Alice,
+Uncas and Heyward.
+
+It was later on, during February, when _The Legends of King Arthur_ were
+uppermost in Johnnie's mind, that the flat had a mysterious caller, this
+a bald-headed, stocky man wearing a hard black hat, a gray woolly storm
+coat, and overshoes. "You Johnnie Smith?" he asked when the door was
+opened to his knock.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The man came in, sat without waiting to be asked, and looked around him
+with a severe eye. Johnnie was delighted at this unusual interruption.
+But Grandpa was scared, and got behind Johnnie. "Is that the General?"
+he wanted to know, whispering. "Is that the General?"
+
+"Is your father home?" asked the strange man finally.
+
+"My father's dead," replied Johnnie.
+
+"Ah. Then Mr. Barber's your uncle, eh?"
+
+"He ain't no relation," declared Johnnie, proudly.
+
+The clock alarm announced the hour of five. Johnnie fed the fire and put
+the supper over. Still the man stayed. Once he got up and walked about,
+stared into the blackness of Big Tom's bedroom, and held the lamp so
+that he might have a look at Cis's closet. He grumbled to himself when
+he put the lamp down.
+
+All this made Johnnie uneasy. He could think of only one reason for such
+strange and suspicious conduct. The books! Could _this_ by any chance be
+Mr. J. J. Hunter?
+
+When Barber came in, it was plain to Johnnie that the longshoreman knew
+instantly why the man had come. At least he showed no surprise at seeing
+him there. Also, he was indifferent--even amused. After nodding to the
+visitor, and flashing at him that dangerous white spot, he sat and
+pushed at first one cheek and then the other with his tongue.
+
+"My name's Maloney," began the man, using a severe tone. "I'm here about
+this boy."
+
+Johnnie started. The man's visit concerned himself! He felt sure now
+that it was about the book. He wondered if there would be a search.
+
+Barber thrust out his lip. "You're a long time gittin' here," he
+returned impudently. And laughed.
+
+At that the man seemed less sure of himself. "Don't know how I've missed
+him," he declared, as if troubled.
+
+"Seein' he's been right here in this flat for five years," said the
+other, sneeringly.
+
+Maloney rose, and Johnnie saw that he was angry. "You know the law!" he
+asserted. "This boy ought to be in school!"
+
+School! Johnnie caught his breath. Mr. Maloney was here to help him! Had
+not Cis declared over and over that some day Big Tom would be arrested
+for keeping Johnnie home from public school? Mrs. Kukor had agreed. And
+now this was going to happen! And, oh, school would be Heaven!
+
+"Sure," assented Big Tom, smoothly. "But who's goin' t' send him? 'Cause
+I don't have t' do _anything_ for him."
+
+"You'll have to appear before a magistrate," declared the other. "For
+I'm going to enter a complaint."
+
+Barber began to swell. With a curse, he rose and faced Maloney. "Look
+here!" he said roughly. "This kid is nothin' t' me. I fetched him here
+when his aunt died. I didn't have t'. But if I hadn't, he'd 've starved,
+and slept in the streets, or been a cost t' the city. Well, he's been a
+cost t' me--git that, Mister Maloney? T' _me_! A poor man! I've fed him,
+and give him a place t' sleep--instead of takin' in roomers, like the
+rest of the guys do in this buildin'."
+
+Again the man looked about him. "Roomers?" he repeated. "Why, there's no
+ventilation here, and you get no sun. This flat is unfit to live in!"
+
+"You tell that t' the landlord!" cried Big Tom, his chest heaving. "He
+makes me pay good rent for it, even if it _ain't_ fit t' live in!"
+
+Maloney shook his head.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all about your city rules," went on the longshoreman.
+"But the Dagoes in this tenement pack their flats full. I don't. Jus'
+the boy sleeps in this kitchen. And if it wasn't for me, where'd he be
+right now? Out in the snow?"
+
+Maloney shrugged, sat down, and leaned back, thinking. And in the pause
+Johnnie thought of several matters. For one thing, now he had a new way
+of considering his being in the flat. Sure enough, if Barber had not fed
+and housed him where would he have been? With Uncle Albert? But Uncle
+Albert had never come down to see him; had not--as Big Tom had often
+taken the pains to point out--even written Johnnie a postcard. Now the
+boy suddenly found himself grateful to Barber.
+
+Mr. Maloney's manner had lost much of its assurance. "But the boy must
+be taught something," he declared. "He's ignorant!"
+
+Ignorant! Johnnie rose, scarcely able to keep back a protest.
+
+Barber whirled round upon him. "Ignorant!" he cried. "Y' hear that,
+Johnnie? This gent thinks you don't know nothin'!--That's where you're
+off, Maloney!--Johnnie, suppose you read for him. Ha? Just show him how
+ignorant y' are!"
+
+Johnnie made an involuntary start toward the drawer of the table,
+remembered, and stopped. "What--what'll I read?" he asked.
+
+The man looked around. "Exactly!" he exclaimed. "What'll he read? What
+have you got in this flat _for_ him to read? Where's your books? or
+papers? or magazines? You haven't a scrap of printed matter, as far as I
+can see."
+
+"Give us that paper out of your overcoat," suggested Big Tom, ignoring
+what the other had said. "Let the kid read from it."
+
+As Johnnie took the paper, he was almost as put out at the man as was
+Barber. "I've read ever since I was a baby," he declared. "Aunt Sophie,
+she used to give me lessons." Then he read, easily, smoothly, pausing at
+commas, stopping at periods, pronouncing even the biggest words
+correctly.
+
+"All right," interrupted Maloney, after a few paragraphs. "That'll do.
+You read first rate--first rate."
+
+"And I know dec'mals," boasted Johnnie; "and fractions. And I can spell
+ev'ry word that was in Cis's spellin' book." Yes, and he knew much more
+that he dared not confess in the hearing of Barber. He longed to
+discourse about his five books, and all the wonderful people in them,
+and to say something about the "thinks" he could do.
+
+"There y' are!" exclaimed the longshoreman, triumphant. "There y' are!
+D' y' call that ignorant? for a ten-year-old boy?"
+
+Maloney looked across at Johnnie and smiled. "He's a _mighty_ smart
+lad!" he admitted warmly.
+
+"Knows twice as much as most boys of his age," went on Barber. (He had
+come to this conclusion, however, in the past five minutes.) "And all he
+knows is good. He behaves himself pretty fair, too, and I don't have
+much trouble with him t' speak of. So he's welcome t' stay on far's
+_he's_ concerned. But"--his voice hardened, his nose darted sidewise
+menacingly--"if _you_ stick your finger in this pie, and drag me up in
+front of a Court, I'm goin' t' tell y' what'll come of it, and I mean
+just what I say: I'll set the kid outside that door,"--indicating the
+one leading to the hall, "and the city can board and bed him. Jus' put
+_that_ in your pipe and smoke it!"
+
+Evidently Mr. Maloney did not smoke, for though Johnnie watched the
+visitor closely, the latter drew out no pipe. "Wouldn't know where I
+could send him," he confessed, but as if to himself rather than to Big
+Tom; "not just now, anyhow. But"--suddenly brightening--"what about
+night school?"
+
+"Have him chasin' out o' _nights_?" cried Barber, scandalized. "Comin'
+in all hours off the _street_? I guess _not_! So if you and your Court
+want this kid t' go t' night school, out he gits from _here_. And that's
+my last word." He sat down.
+
+Mr. Maloney got up, a worried expression on his face. "I'll have to let
+the matter stand as it is for a while," he admitted quietly. "This year
+the city's got more public charges than it knows what to do with--so
+many men out of work, and so much sickness these last months. And as you
+say, the boy isn't ignorant."
+
+When he went, he left the paper behind; and that evening Johnnie read it
+from the first page to the last, advertisements and all. Big Tom saw him
+poring over it, but said nothing (the boy's reading on the sly had
+proved a good thing for the longshoreman). Johnnie, realizing that he
+was seen, but that his foster father did not roar an objection, or jerk
+the paper from his hands, or blow out the light, was grateful, and felt
+suddenly less independent.
+
+But what he did not realize was that, by reading as well as he had, he
+had hurt his own chances of being sent to public school.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SCOUTS
+
+
+WHEN, toward the latter part of March, the days were so warm that
+Johnnie was able once more to take short, daily walks, he never went
+without bringing home a box to split up for kindling. The box was an
+excuse. And he wanted the excuse, not to ease his conscience about
+leaving Grandpa alone, but to save himself should Big Tom happen home
+and find him gone.
+
+So far as Grandpa was concerned, the feeble veteran scarcely seemed to
+know any more whether he was alone or not, there being small difference
+between the flat without Johnnie and the flat with Johnnie if Johnnie
+had a book. But also Grandpa always had some one else with him now--some
+one who comforted his old heart greatly. This was Letitia.
+
+Grandpa had always shown much fondness for the old doll. And one
+day--soon after Cis received the new one--when Johnnie chanced to give
+Letitia into the hands of the old man, the latter was so happy that
+Johnnie had not taken Letitia away, and Cis had not. Instead, she gave
+the old doll to Grandpa. And so it came about that Letitia shared the
+wheel chair, where she lay in the crook of Grandpa's left arm like a
+limp infant (she was shedding sawdust at a dreadful rate, what with the
+neglect she was suffering of late), while her poor eyes fixed themselves
+on distance.
+
+"She don't look like she's happy," Johnnie had declared to Cis more
+than once. "She looks like she's just standin' it."
+
+"Why, Johnnie!" Cis had reproved, "And here you've always said that _I_
+was silly about her!"
+
+"Who's silly?" Johnnie had demanded, defensive, and blushing furiously.
+
+"Grandpa's tickled to have her," Cis had continued.
+
+There the matter was dropped. Nevertheless, Johnnie had then formed a
+certain firm conviction, which he continued to hold. It was that Cis was
+lacking in loyalty to the old doll (forgetting that only recently he had
+hurled Letitia headfirst into the tiny room).
+
+By the end of March Johnnie had begun to fret about One-Eye. He missed
+the cowboy sadly; and what made the latter's absence seem all the harder
+to bear was the belief that his friend was back in New York again, yet
+was not visiting the flat because he was, for some reason, displeased.
+With Cis?--about that new doll--or what?
+
+"He's mad about somethin',"--Johnnie vowed it over and over. "He said
+he'd be gone a few days. But that was _months_ ago."
+
+Cis denied that she had anything to do with One-Eye's staying away. She
+missed him, too; or, rather, she felt the loss of those almost nightly
+gifts of fruit and sweets. As for Barber, he had no more good cigars to
+smoke before his fellow longshoremen. And his lunch pail lacked oranges
+and bananas at noontime, and had to be filled with prunes. Altogether,
+the cowboy's failure to return worked a general hardship.
+
+"Oh, why don't he write me again?" mourned Johnnie. These days he
+secretly enjoyed any glimpse of Edwarda, and would even steal into Cis's
+room sometimes to peep at her. She made him feel sure that One-Eye had
+really once been there with them--as did also the letter and the blue
+handkerchief.
+
+Johnnie lightened his heart with all this testimony. For it was often
+difficult for him to feel any more certain about the cowboy than he did
+about his four millionaires, or Sir Galahad, say, or Uncas, or Goliath,
+or Crusoe. He could revel gloriously in make-believe, yes; but perhaps
+for this very reason he found himself terribly prone to doubt facts! And
+as each day went by, he came to wonder more and more about the reality
+of One-Eye, though the passing time as steadily added romantic touches
+to the figure of the Westerner.
+
+Often at night Johnnie held long conversations with him, confessing how
+much he missed him, thanking him for past favors, begging him to return.
+"Oh, One-Eye, _are_ y' mad at me?" he would implore. And if there were
+stars framed by the window, they would dance as the gray eyes swam.
+
+Whenever he roved hither and thither, hunting for boxes, he was really
+hunting his friend. He kept close watch of the men who passed him,
+always hoping earnestly that one day he might catch sight of One-Eye.
+
+He brought home only one box at a time. At first if some grocer gave him
+a large one, so that he had more wood than was needed to start the
+morning fire, he burned his surplus, so that he would have to go out
+again the following day. Later on he gave the extra sticks to Mrs.
+Kukor, tying them into a Robinson Crusoe bundle, like fagots, and
+sending them up to the little Jewish lady via the kitchen window when
+she let down a string. The two had a special signal for all this; they
+called it the "wood sign."
+
+One morning as Johnnie was strolling along New Bowery, alert as ever for
+the sight of a pair of fur-faced breeches, his heart suddenly came at a
+jump into his throat, and his head swam. For just ahead of him, going in
+the same direction, was a tall man wearing a One-Eye hat!
+
+Without a doubt in his mind that here was some one who knew his dear
+friend, Johnnie let fall a small box he was carrying under one arm and
+rushed forward, planting himself, breathless, in the man's way. "Oh,
+Mister!" he cried. "Oh, where's One-Eye? Would y' tell him for me that I
+want t' see him?--_awful_ bad! I'm Johnnie--Johnnie Smith!"
+
+The man had long hair that covered his collar like Grandpa's. Also he
+plainly had a temper much like Big Tom's. For after staring down at the
+boy for a moment, he kicked out at him. "_On_ your way!" he ordered
+angrily. "Ske-daddle!--you little rat!"
+
+Johnnie obeyed. He was stunned--that any man having on a One-Eye hat
+could act so bad. His pride was hurt, too, at being kicked at in public,
+and called a rat--he, the intimate of the famous Westerner. And his
+sense of justice was outraged; he had done nothing to deserve attack and
+insult.
+
+This was not a matter for one of those "think" revenges. He might never
+see the man again, and whatever he did must be as plain to all passersby
+as had been the other's performance. So when Johnnie was well out of
+reach of the long-haired man, he halted to call back at him. "_You_
+ain't no real cowboy!" he declared. "Girl's hair! Girl's hair!"
+
+But a pleasant experience came treading on the very heels of the
+unpleasant. This was under the Elevated Railroad in Second Avenue. At
+the moment, Johnnie chanced to be a great, champing war horse, grandly
+drawing, by a harness made all of the finest silk, a casket (that small
+box) filled with coins and bars of gold from Treasure Island. Being a
+war horse of Camelot, and, therefore, unused to New York and train
+tracks on stilts, he was prancing and rearing under his gay trappings in
+wild style when----
+
+Up the stone-paved avenue they came, two and two, two and two, two and
+two, and behind those twos still others, all boys of Johnnie's own age,
+all dressed just alike, wearing clean khaki uniforms, new flat-brimmed
+hats of olive-drab, leggings, and polished brown shoes. What they were
+he did not know, though he guessed them to be rich, noting how proud was
+their carriage--chins up, backs straight. Beside them walked their
+leader, a grown young man, slender, and with a tanned face plentifully
+touched with red.
+
+The war horse shrank into his rags. He would have darted out of sight so
+as not to be seen; would have hid behind a pillar of the Elevated,
+dreading looks of scorn, and laughter, and cat calls, but the sight of
+that marching column thrilled and held him. Once before he had seen a
+number of boys whom he had envied. They had had on sweaters and caps,
+the caps being lettered. They had carried baseball masks, and bats. But
+were such--a noisy, clamorous crew--worthy to be compared with _these_
+young gods?
+
+Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!--they passed him, their look high. But the
+eyes of all were kind and friendly as they caught sight of Johnnie.
+Yet--could they know who he was? of his friendship with the great
+cowboy? Hardly. And still the column did not mock at him. There was not
+a taunt, not a hoot!
+
+When they were gone, he stood staring after them, so entranced that he
+was in danger of being run down by a surface car, or an automobile.
+Presently, however, on being ordered off the rails by an irate truck
+driver, he made on homeward slowly, his yellow head lowered
+thoughtfully, the box scraping along behind him at the end of a piece of
+rope.
+
+"Guess they're some kind of soldiers," he told himself, and reflected
+that they were small to have been sent to war.
+
+A hand touched his shoulder, stopping him. He glanced up. And could
+scarcely believe his eyes. For here, as surprising as lightning out of a
+sunny sky, was that leader, that grown young man. "Say, boy!" he panted,
+breathing hard from a run. "I saw you just now as we went by. Would you
+like to be a scout?"
+
+"A--a scout?" faltered Johnnie, and did not know whether or not he could
+trust his ears; because only recently he had come to know all about
+scouts, regarded them as far beyond even the most distinguished among
+men (always barring cowboys), and had decided that, next after being one
+of One-Eye's company, he would like to be a scout. And here----
+
+"Yes. Would you?" What had brought the leader back was the look of
+heartrending yearning in the gray eyes of a tattered little boy. He
+smiled, seeing that look swiftly change to one of joy, of awe.
+
+"A scout!" repeated Johnnie. Suddenly beside him there was standing a
+figure that was strange to Second Avenue. The figure was that of a
+sunburned, lanky individual wearing a hunting shirt of forest-green,
+fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been
+shorn of their fur. Under the smock-frock were leggings laced at the
+sides, and gartered above the knees. On his feet were moccasins. There
+was a knife in his girdle, and in his hands a long rifle. This was one
+of Johnnie's new friends, that slayer of bad Indians, that crack shot,
+the brave scout of _The Last of the Mohicans_. "And y' say I can be one?
+One just like Hawkeye?"
+
+"Hawkeye?"--the young man was puzzled.
+
+Johnnie was disappointed. "Oh, y' don't know him," he said. "But he's a
+scout."
+
+"I mean a boy scout," explained the other, kindly. "Like my troop
+there"--with a jerk of the head toward the khaki-clad column, now halted
+a block away on the edge of the sidewalk.
+
+Now that radiant, sunlit look--the glowing eyes and the flashing teeth
+adding to the shine of hair and brows and lashes. "_Boy_ scout!" cried
+Johnnie. Hawkeye was gone. Another vision stood in his place. It was
+Johnnie himself, gloriously transformed. "Oh, gee! Oh, my goodness! Oh,
+Mister! Oh, _could_ I? I'm crazy to! _Crazy!_"
+
+The usual crowd of the curious--boys mostly--was now pressing about the
+leader and Johnnie, the two or three grown people in it peeping over the
+heads of the younger ones. But the young man seemed not to mind; and as
+for Johnnie, if honors were coming his way on the open street, what
+could be better than to have a few onlookers?
+
+"Of course you'll be one," declared the leader, heartily. He produced a
+pencil and a businesslike notebook. There was a pair of glasses hanging
+against his coat on a round, black cord. These he adjusted. "Name and
+address?" he asked; "--then I'll drop in to see you, and we'll talk it
+all over with your father."
+
+Johnnie gave the information. "Only I ain't got a father," he corrected,
+as the pencil traveled. "But y' can tell the boy scouts, if y' want t',
+that I got a cowboy friend named One-Eye, and he lives in a garden
+that's down in a terrible big cellar, and wears fur all up his pants in
+front, and a bigger hat'n yours, and spurs. And I got five
+books--_Aladdin_, and _The Mohicans_, and _Treasure Island_, and _King
+Arthur_ and _Crusoe_!"
+
+The crowd listened, ready to laugh if the young man did, which was what
+the young man did not. On the contrary, what Johnnie had said seemed to
+have wrought the considerable effect Johnnie had desired. For the young
+man opened his eyes so big at Johnnie that the glasses fell off, and
+hit a button of his tunic with a clear ring. "You--you read?" he
+inquired.
+
+"I should say so!" returned Johnnie, cheeks going red with pride. "Most
+all the time! But I'm goin' t' write a lot next--goin' t' copy all my
+books out, 'cause Cis says that's the way I can learn t' spell the big
+words. And lookee!--the handkerchief One-Eye give me!"
+
+"Did you say One-Eye or Hawkeye?" asked the young man, feeling of the
+handkerchief with evident respect for its appearance and quality.
+
+"Oh, One-Eye!" declared Johnnie. "'Cause that's all the eyes he's got.
+But he owns miles and miles of land, and hunderds of cattle, and he's so
+rich that he rides ev'rywheres he goes in the city in a taxi, all the
+time!"
+
+"Well! well!" exclaimed the leader. There was just the flicker of a
+smile in his eyes now (Johnnie noted that those eyes were exactly the
+color of ground coffee).
+
+"I've got a dog, too,"--talking as fast as possible in order to get a
+great deal said. "But I jus' think him, like I do Mister Buckle, and
+Mister Astor, and Mister Rockefeller, and Mister Carnegie, and the
+Prince of Wales, and Mister Van----"
+
+At that the leader laughed, but he patted Johnnie on the shoulder. "Tell
+me all about 'em when I come," he said. "I must go now. But I'll see you
+soon. Good-by!" As he backed, his hand went to the brim of his hat--in a
+salute!
+
+"Goo-good-by!" Johnnie faltered. His own right hand moved uncertainly,
+for he would have liked to make the salute in return, only he did not
+know how.
+
+The other started off at a run, following the rails up the Avenue, while
+some of that crowd turned away, scattering. What remained of the group
+began to aim questions at Johnnie, rooted to the pavement beside his
+box. "Who's 'at, kid? What's he want? What y' goin' t' do?"
+
+To answer, Johnnie had to lower himself down from the skies, to which he
+had been lifted by that salute. "You kids don't know One-Eye," he said,
+a trifle loftily. "Well, do y' know Aladdin? or Long John Silver? or--or
+Jim Hawkins? or Uncas? or King Arthur?"
+
+The last name proved to be an error in selection. Instantly the
+half-dozen boys about Johnnie set up a derisive shout: "He knows a King!
+Aw, kids! He knows a King! Whee!"
+
+A faint smile, betokening pity, curved Johnnie's lips. Oh, but they
+_were_ ignorant! and had no stylish friends! "That gent, he come back t'
+ask me t' be a scout," he explained calmly. "Didn't y' hear what he
+said? And maybe I'll be one--that is till I go out West t' be a cowboy."
+
+The shouting and the laughter broke forth again, redoubling. "And he's
+goin' t' be a cowboy!" they yelled. "Look at 'im! Old rags! Yaw!"
+
+Johnnie put the rope over a shoulder and again started for home. He
+scarcely heard the screeching urchins. And he did not heed them. He was
+in khaki and leggings now, and had on a wide hat held in place by a
+thong which came just short of his chin. A haversack was on his back,
+hanging from lanyards that creased a smart coat. He was also equipped
+with a number of other things the names of which, as yet, he did not
+know.
+
+Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!--he was as military as a major-general.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HOPE DEFERRED
+
+
+"BOY SCOUTS," explained Mrs. Kukor, "wass awful stylish. Say you wass a
+scout, so you go in beautiful gangs for makink picnic und seeink birds,
+mit eatinks from goot foods, und such comes healthy for you."
+
+Cis added to that when she arrived home that evening. "Boy scouts help
+the police sometimes," she declared, "and march in parades, and hunt
+babies that get lost, and don't let bad boys hurt cats, or girls, and
+they do nice things for grown people--just the way Sir Gawain did, and
+Sir Kay. And I shouldn't wonder, at the Table Round, when King Arthur's
+knights were little, if they weren't _all_ boy scouts. But, oh, Johnnie,
+what would _he_ say if you told him when he gets in that you want to be
+a scout?"
+
+Johnnie laughed. "He'd have a fit!" he declared, the thought of Barber's
+consternation and anger amusing him far more than it made him fearful.
+
+He was still in this happy state of mind when Cis chanced to remark that
+there were girl scouts as well as boy scouts. At once he was shocked,
+and wrathy, and quite disgusted. For it spoiled the whole boy scout idea
+for him if girls could be scouts.
+
+"Aw!" he cried, getting red with annoyance, "I don't believe it! How
+could _girls_ be _scouts_? If knights was scouts when they was little,
+well, anyhow girls never could be knights!"
+
+Cis did not know how it was, only that it was so; and she reminded him,
+with appeal in the violet-blue eyes, that she was not a particle to
+blame for it. "Girls can march," she said; "and they can be kind to cats
+and people a lot better than boys can."
+
+"One thing sure," Johnnie went on, firmly, "girls can't be cowboys." He
+determined to think twice before he became a scout since, apparently,
+the organization was not so exclusive as he had thought.
+
+"Oh, but girls can be cowgirls," went on Cis. "I've seen pictures of
+cowgirls _lots_ of times. They wear divided skirts."
+
+At that, Johnnie turned pale. "Well, I bet girls can't be
+pirate-killers," he retorted angrily, "like Jim Hawkins. Or a p'liceman
+on horseback, or a millionaire, or own islands all by theirselves, or
+ride el'phants like Aladdin, or poke other girls off horses with
+spears!"
+
+As Big Tom now came scuffing into the kitchen, nothing more could be
+said on the subject. But later on Johnnie again complained to Cis about
+the intrusion of girls into ranks where they could not fail to be both
+unwelcome and unsuited. "They don't belong," he urged, "and they ought
+t' keep out! They spoil _ev'ry_thing!"
+
+"Well, men do the same things," she argued. "Just to-day I saw a man
+running a _sewing machine_."
+
+"But he's got t' do it for some reason," Johnnie declared, "like I have
+t' make vi'lets--and cook."
+
+"But if all the boy scouts don't care because girls are girl scouts, why
+should _you_ care?" she wanted to know, hurt at his attitude toward her
+sex. "You know you don't belong yet. And if that young man thinks it's
+all right, why it must be, and he'll think you're funny if you scold
+about it."
+
+The next morning Johnnie had but one thought: The promised call of the
+leader. Naturally he did not take his usual trip to search for One-Eye
+and bring home a box. Instead he made elaborate preparations looking
+toward the arrival of his visitor. With One-Eye, somehow it had not
+mattered how the flat appeared. Hero though he was, style counted little
+with the cowboy, who dwelt in a cellar along with horses. And anyhow
+One-Eye thought the flat was all right "far's it goes." Those had been
+his very words.
+
+But with that leader, Johnnie felt it was different. He proceeded at
+once, mentally, to establish the gallant young stranger in a most
+luxurious apartment, with big windows, lace curtains, a figured carpet
+and shining morris chairs. And though across this attractive bachelor
+habitation he stretched a clothesline for the drying of expensive
+laundry, he was careful to think this line as a brand new one which was
+never used as a telephone, since right at hand was the genuine
+instrument.
+
+How Johnnie went to work! When all of the duties of the flat were done,
+he pulled off the apron and hid it in the wash boiler. He did not want
+that leader to catch him wearing any garment that belonged to a woman.
+Neither did he want his newest friend even to guess that he (Johnnie)
+did any sort of girl's work--in particular any cooking.
+
+"My goodness!" he exclaimed to himself. "If he was t' know what I
+do--well, maybe he wouldn't ask me t' be one of his scouts!"
+
+Now he went at himself. He washed his face so that it glistened. He
+scrubbed his neck and ears till they were scarlet. And still using the
+soap liberally, even contrived to get rid of a coal smudge of long
+standing, situated down along his thin left calf.
+
+But the morning passed, and the afternoon went by, and--no one came.
+
+No one, that is, but Mrs. Kukor, who looked in toward five o'clock. In
+amazement she noted the neatness of the kitchen and the cleanliness of
+his face. "Ach, Levi!" she exclaimed. "How you gits a runnink jump mit
+yourselluf!"
+
+"Prob'ly that gentleman, he's been awful busy to-day," said Johnnie,
+"and so he'll be here first thing in the mornin'."
+
+"Pos-i-tivvle!" comforted Mrs. Kukor.
+
+But late that night, when the whole flat was abed, he admitted to
+himself not only his disappointment but his keen chagrin. And he said to
+himself, independent now, that perhaps, after all, he did not care to be
+a scout!--there were so many other wonderful things he could be.
+
+This is how it came about that, lying in the dark, he thought a most
+curious thing--one that had to do with the years ahead--the future that
+would find him grown-up.
+
+The thing was this: he held himself away from himself to look at
+himself--precisely as he might have looked at Cis, or Big Tom, or
+Grandpa. But this was not all. For he did not look at himself as he was,
+in the big, old clothes; and he did not look at himself _singly_. He
+looked at _six himselves_, all ranged in a wonderful row!
+
+Remembering what Cis had said about girl scouts and cowgirls, there was
+no Johnnie Smith either in khaki or in fur-trimmed breeches. The first
+Johnnie Smith of the row was a policeman (mounted!); the second, a
+millionaire, wearing his fur on his collar; then there was a Johnnie
+Smith dressed like Jim Hawkins, and he had two pistols in his belt;
+beside this pirate-slaying Johnnie was a Johnnie who inhabited a lonely
+island with a gentleman who owned a parrot and had a man Friday; and not
+too close to the Johnnie who was Crusoe's friend was a Johnnie who rode
+about with Aladdin on a great fighting elephant covered with blankets of
+steel which could turn the arrows of all enemies; last of the six, and
+perhaps the most glorious, too, was Sir Johnnie Smith, helmeted, and in
+knightly dress, sitting a curveting gray, lance and shield in hand.
+
+Which of them all would he be?
+
+There was plenty of time to decide. A thin cheek cupped in a too-large
+hand, he slept, dreaming that the leader was at the hall door, knocking,
+knocking, knocking, but that for the life of him, Johnnie could not move
+to answer the knock, being fixed to the floor, and helpless. He called
+to the young man, though, with his whole might, which woke Big Tom and
+Cis, and Cis woke Johnnie, by telling him to turn over, for he was
+having a nightmare.
+
+Next morning, hope buoyed Johnnie up from the moment he opened his eyes.
+He rose joyously; and by nine o'clock everything was in readiness for
+the coming of the leader, and Johnnie was waiting eagerly, ears cocked.
+
+But when, shortly before noon, he realized that a stranger was climbing
+the tenement stairs, not his ears but his small nose gave him the
+information. Charging the air from the hall was perfume so strong and
+delightful that, sniffing it in surprise and pleasure, he hastened to
+open the door and glance up and around in the gloom for what he felt
+sure would be like a smoke.
+
+He saw nothing; but heard lively breathing, and a _swish, swish, swish_;
+next, a weak, mewlike cry. Then here was Mrs. Kukor herself, dropping
+down volubly, step by step, from her floor, aided by the banisters.
+"Eva?" she cried as she came; "wass it mine Eva?"
+
+Now, coming up the stairs to Johnnie's level, appeared a young lady with
+red cheeks on a marvelously white face. She had on a silk dress (it was
+the silk which was doing the swishing), a great deal of jewelry, and a
+heavy fur coat fairly adrip around its whole lower edge with dozens of
+little tails.
+
+But this was not all. Slung under one arm, she carried a fat baby!--and
+what a rosy, what a spotlessly clean, baby!
+
+The baby was Mrs. Kukor's grandson, the lady was Mrs. Kukor's daughter,
+for "Mama!" cried the young mother; and as they met just in front of
+Johnnie there was an explosive outburst of talk in a strange tongue, and
+much of what Johnnie afterwards described to Cis as "double kissin',"
+that is, a kissing on both cheeks, the baby coming in for his share and
+weeping over it forlornly.
+
+Greeting done, Mrs. Kukor introduced Johnnie. "Eva," she beamed, "from
+long you have hear Mama speakink over Chonnie Schmitt. Und--here wass!"
+
+Fortunately Johnnie's right hand was clean. So was his smiling face.
+"Oh, Mrs. Reisenberger, I thank you for the tel'phone-d'rect'ry," he
+began gratefully, as the two shook hands.
+
+Mrs. Reisenberger was staring at his rags. Also, she was now holding the
+baby well up and back. "Oh, I don't like it that my Mama should live
+down here," she declared. "She can live swell in the Bronx with Jake and
+me."
+
+Now Johnnie stared--miserably. For her words were like a sickening blow.
+What if Mrs. Kukor were to leave? What would he do without her?
+
+"I like I should live always by mine own place," asserted Mrs. Kukor.
+And to Johnnie, as she plucked a bit of Mrs. Reisenberger's skirt
+between a thumb and finger, "Look, Chonnie! All from silks!"
+
+Then she led the way higher, while heads popped out of doors all up and
+down the house; and Mrs. Reisenberger puffed after her, like some sort
+of a sweet-smelling, red-and-white engine. "Oh, Mama," expostulated the
+other between breaths as she toiled to that last floor, "how I wish you
+should come to live with Jake and me!"
+
+Mrs. Reisenberger was excitement enough for one day. But on the day
+following nothing happened, nor on the day after that. And gradually
+Johnnie's hope began to lessen, his faith to ooze.
+
+By the end of a week, the young man with the eyeglasses scarcely seemed
+real, so that when Cis gently suggested that Johnnie had never met any
+leader, he was hardly able to protest that he had. By the end of a
+fortnight, his newest friend merged with that unsubstantial company made
+up of David, Aladdin, Uncas and all the rest. Then Johnnie took to
+telephoning him over the clothesline. Also, when Cis was home, the scout
+leader had a part in all those elaborate social functions she enjoyed,
+such as dances, and calling, and shopping.
+
+These days, Johnnie again wore the apron, and neglected the soap and the
+comb and the brushing. Ah, it had all been too good to come true!
+
+Two or three times, with a nubbin of chalk, he tried to draw the face of
+the young man on that handy bit of kitchen wall where the smooth plaster
+showed. But what unpracticed hand could trace such a splendid
+countenance? and what bit of white crayon could give any idea of a cheek
+all tan and red? It was one thing, and easy, to suggest Big Tom, with
+his bulging eyes, his huge, twisted nose, his sloping chin and his
+Saturday night bristles. But regular features were quite another matter.
+
+Then one morning as he stood writing the big word "landscape" on the
+plaster, this word being out of _The Last of the Mohicans_, which he
+held in his left hand, his attention was caught by a sound in the hall.
+Some one seemed to be walking about aimlessly, as if uncertain where to
+knock.
+
+Johnnie dropped his book into the big shirt, reached the door in a few
+long jumps, jerked it wide, and--looked straight into a smiling, ruddy
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MR. PERKINS
+
+
+HE was real! He had come! In a uniform, too, and boots, and a
+hat!--looking, in fact, even more wonderful than he had under the
+Elevated.
+
+"Oh!" breathed Johnnie, so glad and proud all at once that he forgot the
+apron and his hair, or that the table was still strewn with the
+breakfast dishes. He fell back a step. "Oh, Mister Leader!"
+
+The young man entered, lifting his hat from his head as he came, and
+displaying short, smooth, dark hair that glistened even in that poorly
+lighted room. "How are you, Johnnie!" he said heartily. They shook
+hands.
+
+"I'm fine!" answered Johnnie, smiling his sunniest.
+
+"Good!" The other gave a swift glance round. And certainly he was
+neither shocked nor delighted with the kitchen, for he acted as if he
+was seeing the sort of place he had expected to see--until he spied the
+wheel chair. Then he seemed surprised, and greatly interested. He laid
+his hat among the breakfast cups and crossed the room softly to look
+down at the little old man crumpled, sleeping, in the folds of the
+moth-eaten coat, the doll on one arm.
+
+"Grandpa Barber," explained Johnnie, speaking low. "I took him on a long
+trip down the Miss'sippi this mornin', and he's awful tired."
+
+The young man nodded. A curious wrinkle had come between his brows, as
+if some thought were troubling him. Also, even his forehead was red
+now. Suddenly he took out a handkerchief, turned, and walked to the
+window, where he used the handkerchief rather noisily, shaking his head.
+When he came about once more, and emerged from behind the square of
+white linen, not only did he look as if he were blushing violently, but
+even his eyes were a little red.
+
+"Are you going to ask me to sit down?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I am! I do! Oh, what's the matter with me t'day! I forgit
+ev'rything!"
+
+The young man chose the morris chair.
+
+It was then that Johnnie realized how untidy the kitchen was, remembered
+that he had not washed the old soldier's face, or his own, or got rid of
+that apron. With fumbling fingers and mounting color, he slipped the
+apron strings over his tangled hair. "How'd I come t' have _this_ thing
+on!" he exclaimed, and looked at the apron as if he had never seen it
+before.
+
+The young man seemed not to notice either Johnnie's confusion or the
+soiled badge of girlish service. "You can call me Mr. Perkins, if you
+like," he said pleasantly. "And tell me--what've you been doing with
+yourself since I saw you?"
+
+Again sunlight focused upon Johnnie's face. "Well, mostly," he replied,
+"--mostly, I been jus' waitin' for you." He seated himself on the
+kitchen chair.
+
+"Now, you don't mean it!" cried Mr. Perkins, blushing again. "Well,
+bless your heart, old fellow! Waiting for me! I wish I could've come
+sooner. But I've been, pretty busy--up to my ears!"
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Johnnie assured him. "'Cause I filled in the
+wait good 'nough. I jus' kept thinkin' you here, and ev'ry mornin'
+Grandpa and me'd have you 'long with us when we went t' Niaggery, or
+anywheres else; and ev'ry night, Cis'd take you with us, callin' on the
+Queen, or buyin' at the stores, or goin' t' grand balls."
+
+After that, Mr. Perkins did not have anything to say for as much as a
+whole minute, but sat looking earnestly at his small host, and blinking
+a good deal. Then, "I see," he said finally. "That's nice. Mighty nice.
+I'm glad. And--and I hope I conducted myself all right."
+
+"Oh, you was fine! Always!" declared Johnnie, his voice breaking, he was
+so emphatic. "Cis never could dance with One-Eye, and not jus' 'cause he
+wears spurs, neither. No, she thinks One-Eye's too homely to dance, or
+go callin', or take t' Wanamaker's. But, oh, she says you're jus' fine!
+Maybe not as grand as the Prince of Wales, she says, but then she's
+awful silly about him."
+
+More steady looking; more blinking. "Well,--er--what did you say the
+little girl's name is?"
+
+"Her full name's Narcissa Amy Way," answered Johnnie. "It's pretty long,
+ain't it? And if Grandpa and me called her that, Big Tom'd think we was
+wastin' time, or tryin' t' be stylish, and he hates ev'rything that's
+stylish--I don't know why. So round the flat, for ev'ry day, we call her
+Cis--C-i-s."
+
+"Well, Miss Narcissa is right about me," said Mr. Perkins. "I'm _not_ as
+grand as the Prince of Wales--not by a good deal! But now suppose you
+tell me all about yourself, and--and the others who live here."
+
+Johnnie did so. And since he spoke low, and evenly, Grandpa did not
+wake, to interrupt. At the end of an hour, Mr. Perkins knew all that
+Johnnie was able to tell--about himself, his parents, his Uncle and
+Aunt, Mike Callaghan, the policeman, and the Fifty-fifth Street
+millionaire; about Cis and her mother, Barber and his father, Mrs.
+Kukor, One-Eye and the other cowboys, Buckle, Boof, David, Goliath
+(mingling the real, the historical, the visionary and the purely
+fictional), young Edward of England, that Prince's numerous silk-hatted
+friends, the four millionaires, the janitress, Mrs. Reisenberger and her
+baby, the flea-bitten mare, the postman, Edwarda (he showed the new
+doll), then, in quick succession, his favorite friends out of his five
+books.
+
+Mr. Perkins listened, sitting on the small of his back, with his elbows
+on the arms of the morris chair, and his fingers touching. And when
+Johnnie came to the end of his story (with King Arthur, and those three
+Queens who kneeled around the king and sorely wept and wailed), all the
+visitor said was, "Good boy! And now tell me more about your reading."
+
+Johnnie's eyes danced. He stood up, fairly quivering with happy
+excitement. Enthusiastically he explained that directly under Mr.
+Perkins was his oldest book, whereat Mr. Perkins got up, lifted the old
+chair cushion, and discovered the telephone directory. However,
+astonishing as it may seem, he had one just like it, so Johnnie did not
+lift the big book out to show its chief points of interest. Instead, he
+brought forth from Cis's closet his other treasures in binding, laying
+them very choicely on the table, and handing them over one by one--the
+best-looking of the lot first.
+
+The books were put away again very soon, Johnnie explaining why. "But y'
+can keep the newspaper out," he declared. "Big Tom's seen it, and didn't
+try even t' tear it up."
+
+"That was nice of him!" asserted Mr. Perkins, as he noted the date on
+the paper. "But what about school?"
+
+"Oh, gee! I forgot all about Mister Maloney!" regretted Johnnie. He
+filled in the gap promptly, including night school, and the matter of
+his not having suitable clothes. "But when Mister Maloney heard how I
+can read," he concluded, "he seen I didn't need t' go t' school the way
+other kids do. Or anyhow"--remarking a curious light in those
+coffee-colored eyes--"that's what Big Tom says. And I can write good.
+Watch me, Mister Perkins! I'll write for you on the plaster--big words,
+too!"
+
+"Oh, I'm sure you write well," Mr. Perkins agreed. "So I'd rather you'd
+talk. Tell me this: what do you eat?"
+
+Johnnie answered, and as correctly as possible, being careful all the
+while not to give so much as a hint of the shameful truth that he,
+himself, did most of the cooking. As he talked, he kept wishing that the
+conversation would swing round to scouts and uniforms. He even tried to
+swing it himself. "Mrs. Kukor says that scouts make picnics," he said,
+"and have awful good things t' eat."
+
+But Mr. Perkins passed that over, hint and all. He wanted to know
+whether or not Johnnie got plenty of milk.
+
+"Oh, the milk we buy is all for Grandpa," Johnnie protested. "A big kid
+like me----"
+
+Mr. Perkins interrupted. "I take a quart a day," he said quietly, "and
+I'm a bigger kid than you are; I'm twenty-one. Milk's got everything in
+it that a man needs from one end of his life to the other. Don't forget
+that."
+
+"No, sir,"--fixing upon his visitor a look that admitted he was wrong.
+"I wish I could drink a lot of milk," he added regretfully.
+
+"And what about exercise? and baths? Out-door exercise, I mean," said
+Mr. Perkins.
+
+"I hang out o' the window 'most ev'ry mornin' that I don't go after
+boxes," answered Johnnie, so glad that he could give a satisfactory
+account of the matter of fresh air. "And bathin', well, I bathed ev'ry
+day when I was at my Aunt Sophie's, but down here----"
+
+"Yes?" Mr. Perkins smiled encouragement.
+
+"We ain't got no tub," said Johnnie, "so my neck's 'bout as far as I
+ever git."
+
+Then the moment for which he had been waiting: "And you think you'd like
+to be a scout?" inquired Mr. Perkins.
+
+"Oh, gee!" sighed Johnnie. He relaxed from sheer excess of feeling. His
+head tipped back against his chair, and he wagged it comically.
+"Wouldn't I jus'! And wear clothes like yours, and--and learn t'
+s'lute!"
+
+Mr. Perkins laughed, but it was a pleasant, promising laugh. "We'll see
+what can be done," he said briskly. "And to begin with, how old are
+you?"
+
+Johnnie opened his mouth--but held his tongue. He guessed that age had
+something to do with being a scout. But what? Was he too old? But the
+boys who had marched past him were as tall as he, if not taller. Then
+was he too young? Taken unaware, he was not able quickly to decide what
+the trouble might be. But he had not lived five years at Tom Barber's
+without learning how to get himself out of a tight corner. This time,
+all he had to do was tell the absolute truth. "I don't 'xac'ly know," he
+answered.
+
+"Mm!" Mr. Perkins thought that over. Presently, adjusting his glasses,
+he looked Johnnie up and down, while anxious swallows undulated
+Johnnie's thin neck, and about his knobs of knees the long fringe of the
+big trousers trembled. "But we can find out how old you are, can't we?"
+Mr. Perkins added, with a sudden smile.
+
+"I guess I'm ten goin' on 'leven," capitulated Johnnie.
+
+"Ten going on eleven! That's splendid! It's the best age to begin
+getting ready to be a scout! The very best!"
+
+"Gee! I'm glad!"
+
+"So am I! You see, it takes some time to be a scout. It'll take every
+spare minute you've got to get ready. It's something that can't be done
+in a hurry. But here you've got more than a year to prepare yourself."
+
+"More'n a--a _year_?"
+
+"All scouts are twelve."
+
+"Oh!" A shadow clouded the gray eyes.
+
+"But a year means that you can get yourself in dandy condition. And
+would you mind showing me how fit you are now?"
+
+Johnnie spread out his hands deprecatingly. "That's the trouble," he
+declared, looking down at his big, old clothes. "They don't fit."
+
+But when he understood just what Mr. Perkins meant, in a twinkling he
+had slipped Barber's shirt over his head and was standing bared to the
+waist, all his little ribs showing pitifully, and--as he faced square
+about--his shoulder blades thrusting themselves almost through a skin
+that was a sickly white. "Ain't I fine?" he wanted to know. "Don't I
+look good'n strong?"
+
+The glasses came tumbling off Mr. Perkins's nose. He coughed, and pulled
+out the white handkerchief again, and fell to polishing the crystal
+discs. "Fair," he said slowly. "But there's room for improvement."
+
+Johnnie sensed a compassionate note in the answer. "Course I ain't fat,"
+he conceded hastily. "But when Mrs. Kukor gives me filled fish I can see
+a big diff'rence right away!"
+
+"Fat isn't what a boy wants," returned Mr. Perkins. "He wants good
+blood, and strong muscles, and a first-class pair of lungs!"
+
+"Oh!" Raising the big shirt on high, Johnnie disappeared into it, fixing
+upon Mr. Perkins as he went a look that was full of anxiety. As he
+emerged, his lip was trembling. "You--you don't think I look all right,
+do you?" he asked. "Maybe you think I can't ever--you mean I--I can't
+be----"
+
+"Oh, nothing of the kind!" laughed Mr. Perkins. "Fact is, Johnnie,
+you're way ahead as far as your mind is concerned. I'm mighty pleased
+about your reading. I certainly am, old fellow! And in no time you can
+get some blood into your cheeks, and cultivate some muscle, and
+straighten out your lungs. Once there was a boy who was in worse shape
+than you are, because he had the asthma, and could hardly breathe. And
+what do you suppose he did?"
+
+"Et lots?" hazarded Johnnie.
+
+"He said he would make over his own body, and he made it over."
+
+"But, Mister Perkins, I'll do it, too! I'll make mine over! Tell me
+how!"
+
+"Fresh air, proper breathing, exercises--day after day, that boy never
+stopped. And when he grew up, he found himself a strong man even among
+very strong men. That was the great American, Theodore Roosevelt."
+
+"Oh, I know about him!" cried Johnnie. "He was President once, and he
+was a soldier. Cis knows a girl, and the girl's father, he worked in a
+big, stylish hotel, and once he carried Mister Roosevelt's trunk on his
+own back! Cis could name the girl, and prove it!"
+
+But Mr. Perkins had no doubt as to the truth of the account. "The motto
+of the Boy Scouts is Be Prepared," he went on. "That means, be ready--in
+mind and body--to meet anything that happens. Now, as I said a bit ago,
+Johnnie, you've got a good brain. And when your body's strong, it'll not
+only be a promise of long life for you, but you can defend yourself;
+better still, you can protect others."
+
+"Yes, sir!" Johnnie was bubbling with eagerness. "Please let me start
+now. Can I? What'll I do first?"
+
+"Bathe," answered Mr. Perkins. "Every day. Scrub yourself from head to
+foot. Give your skin a chance to breathe. You'll eat better and sleep
+better. You'll pick up."
+
+One, two, three, and the dishes were cleared from the table. Then with
+the hall door locked as a precaution, Johnnie spread the oiled
+table-cloth on the floor (though Mr. Perkins demurred a little at this),
+planted the washtub at the center of the cloth, half filled the tub from
+the sink spigot, warmed the water with more from the teakettle, and took
+a long-deferred, much-needed rub down. It was soapy, and thorough. And
+he proved to himself that he really liked water very much--except,
+perhaps, in the region of his neck and ears!
+
+When he was rinsed and rubbed dry, and in his clothes again, Mr. Perkins
+took off his own coat. Under it was a khaki-colored shirt, smart and
+clean and soldierly, that seemed to Johnnie the kind of shirt most to be
+desired among all the shirts of the world. Mr. Perkins pushed up the
+sleeves of it, planted his feet squarely, and fell to shooting his arms
+up and out, and bending his solid figure this way and that. Next, he
+alternately thrust out his legs. And Johnnie followed suit--till both
+were breathless and perspiring.
+
+"To-morrow, exercise first and bathe afterward," instructed Mr. Perkins.
+"To-night, be sure to sleep with that window open. And now I'll give you
+a lesson in saluting."
+
+It was then that Grandpa wakened. And perhaps something about the lesson
+stirred those old memories of his, for he insisted upon saluting too,
+and tossed poor Letitia aside in his excitement, and called Mr. Perkins
+"General."
+
+When the latter was gone, with no pat on the head for Johnnie, but a
+genuine man-to-man hand shake, and a promise of his return soon, the
+boy, for the first time in his short life, took stock of the condition
+of his own body. Slipping out of the big shirt once more, and borrowing
+Cis's mirror, he contrived, by skewing his head around, chinning first
+one shoulder, then the other, to get a meager look at his back. He
+appraised his spindling arms and legs. He thumped his flat chest.
+
+"Gee! Mister Perkins is dead right!" he admitted soberly. "I'm too
+skinny, and too thin through, and my complexion's too good." In the back
+of his head, always, was that dream of leaving the flat some day, never
+to return. "But like I am, why, I couldn't work hard 'nough, or earn
+good," he told himself now, and very earnestly. "So I'll jus' go ahead
+and make my body over the way Mister Roosevelt did."
+
+While he was doing his housework he stopped now and again to shoot out
+an arm or a leg, or to bend himself from the waist. His skin was
+tingling pleasantly. His eyes were bright. A new urge was upon him. A
+fresh interest filled his heart. His hopes were high.
+
+Cis, when she was told that the leader had actually called, not only
+believed the statement but shared Johnnie's enthusiasm. Realizing how
+much his training to be a scout would help him, she even tried to do
+away with that certain objection of his. "Maybe they don't have girl
+scouts any more," she suggested.
+
+"Aw, I don't care a snap 'bout girl scouts!" he answered. "Cis, he
+called me 'old fellow'--I like it! And he's twenty-one. And you just
+ought t' see the shirt he wears!--not with little flowers on it, like
+Mike Callaghan's. And, oh, Cis, he never even s'pected that I cook, or
+wash, or do anything like that! And while he was here I took a bath!"
+
+"No!" Her enthusiasm went. She was horrified. "Oh, Johnnie! Oh, my!" She
+grew pink and pale by turns. "And you so dirty!"
+
+"Well, I did! What's the matter with y'! I wouldn't need t' bathe if I
+wasn't dirty!"
+
+"Oh,"--tears of mortification swam in the violet-blue eyes--"but you
+were extra dirty!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," returned Johnnie, refusing to get panic-stricken.
+
+"I'd like to see your bath water," she persisted. "Where is it?"
+
+"Gone down the sink."
+
+"How did it look! Pretty bad? Dark? Just how?"
+
+"Well, it looked kind of riley if you got under the soap that was
+floatin' on top," Johnnie admitted. "'Cause I give myself a dandy one!
+Oh, a lot of skin come off!"
+
+"Oh, my! And did he see under the soap? And what did you use for a
+towel?"
+
+Johnnie had used a pillowcase. "'Cause what else _could_ I use?" he
+implored.
+
+But Cis did not answer, for she was in tears. And she would not look up
+even to see him salute.
+
+Big Tom had his turn at being appalled--this at the supper table, when
+he observed Johnnie's appetite. "As you git bigger," pointed out Barber,
+"you eat more and more. So, understand me, y' got t' _make_ more--_work_
+more."
+
+"Yes," agreed Johnnie, helping himself to fried mush and coffee for the
+third time, and breaking open his second baked potato. But to Cis, later
+on, he confided his intention to work no harder, yet to "stuff." "I
+can't make myself over jus' on fresh air," he declared.
+
+She warmly upheld his determination. Yet she flatly refused to take Mr.
+Perkins shopping with them, pleading that she felt ashamed.
+
+"About what?" Johnnie asked, irritated. "About your cryin'?"
+
+"About that bath you took," she answered. "Oh, gracious!"
+
+He was not in the least bothered about it. And when the rest of the
+household were asleep, he had a splendid think about himself. He was
+twenty-one, and tall and strong, so that he was able to ignore Big Tom.
+He was well-dressed, too, and did no more girl's work. Instead, he was
+the head and front of some great, famous organization which numbered
+among its members all the millionaires in New York. Just what this
+organization was all about, he did not pause to decide. But he had his
+office in a building as large as the Grand Central Station, and was
+waited upon by a man in a car-conductor's cap.
+
+Cis had once peeped into the huge dining rooms of the Waldorf Astoria,
+this while walking along Fifth Avenue. She had described to Johnnie the
+lofty, ornate ceilings, and the rich, heavy hangings, which description
+thereafter had furnished him with a basis whenever he transformed the
+kitchen for one of his grandest thinks. Upon his new office he lavished,
+now, a silver ceiling, velvet curtains, a marble desk and gold chairs.
+
+The thing finished, he rose, shed his clothes, and, standing on his
+mattress, white and stark against the black of the stove, filled his
+lungs from the open window, wielded his arms, bent his torso, and kicked
+up his heels.
+
+In due time, by faithfully following Mr. Perkins's instructions, he
+would be plump, well-muscled, red-faced, and rounded as to chest. Then
+in a beautiful uniform and a broad hat, with his right hand at salute,
+he would burst, as it were, upon the neighborhood--the perfect scout!
+
+That night the whole world seemed to him khaki-colored. That day marked
+the beginning of a new Johnnie Smith.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE ROOF
+
+
+IN the morning, he was very stiff. When he discovered this, he made up
+his mind that he was ill enough to stay in bed, which (it being
+Saturday) would let him out of having to do the scrubbing. But when, on
+second thought, he consulted Cis, he changed his mind, instantly
+scrambled up, put the scrubbing water on to heat, and started breakfast.
+For he dared not allow Big Tom to know the truth about his condition.
+And the truth was, he gathered, that his stiffness was due to those
+exercises--also to the baleful effects of the bath!
+
+"Maybe I lost _too_ much skin," he suggested. "Y' think I'm any worse
+off for it, with all that skin gone?"
+
+"Oh, you keep it up!" returned Cis. "You won't be stiff as soon as
+you've moved around a little. And, oh, Johnnie, don't ever, ever, _ever_
+wait so long before you bathe again! I'm just _sick_ about what happened
+yesterday! I dreamed about it!--though, of course"--catching at a straw
+of comfort--"it would've been a lot worse if _He_ had been here instead
+of the scout man."
+
+Deep-breathing and exercises regularly punctuated, or, rather, regularly
+interrupted, the morning program of work. And bath water took the place
+of the scrubbing water in the tub directly the floor was mopped up. Then
+Johnnie could not deny himself the pleasure of showing himself to Mrs.
+Kukor while he still bore evidences of his unwonted, and unspotted,
+state. Blowing and excited, and looking yellower than usual, he
+displayed his freshly washed neck, a fringe of wet hair, and a pair of
+soapy ears. "And ain't I shiney as a plate?" he demanded. "It's my
+second in two days!"
+
+She turned him round and round, marveling. "Pos-i-tivvle!" she declared.
+
+For a very long time Johnnie had been making a point of skimping the
+Saturday noon meal, this because Barber came home to eat it.
+Furthermore, as hot biscuits and gravy made a combination dish of which
+the longshoreman was particularly fond, Johnnie had seen to it that hot
+biscuits and gravy did not appear on the table except rarely. But this
+Saturday his inner man was demanding more food than usual. His appetite
+was coming up, exactly as Mr. Perkins had said it would! So Johnnie set
+about preparing a good dinner.
+
+He used a cup of Grandpa's milk for biscuit-dough. And when the
+biscuits--two dozen of them--were browning nicely in the oven, he
+concocted a generous supply of bacon-grease gravy, and set it to boiling
+creamily. There were boiled potatoes, too, and two quarts of strong tea.
+Not only because he was hungry, but also because he dreaded to let Big
+Tom know just how hungry he was, Johnnie ate half of his dinner before
+the others returned. At the regular meal, he ate his ordinary amount.
+
+"Gee! Water and air'll fix me all right!" he boasted to Cis. "Who'd ever
+b'lieve it!" He was too happy even to fret about One-Eye.
+
+"Haven't I advised you lots of times to wash yourself all over?" she
+reminded him. "My! I'd bathe if all I had to bathe in was a teacup! And
+now I've a mind to start in on the exercises!" She was too pleased over
+the change in him to bring up just then the matter of that first bath.
+
+There was no mistake about Johnnie's improving. Mr. Perkins noted it the
+moment he stepped through the door one morning early in the next week.
+He had brought with him a quart-bottle of delicious, fresh milk, and
+Johnnie drank it, slowly, cup by cup, as they talked. What had helped
+most, Mr. Perkins declared, was the open window at night, the fresh air.
+And Johnnie must have even more fresh air.
+
+"But how're we going to manage it?" Mr. Perkins wanted to know. "Because
+you can't very well go out for long walks and leave Grandpa
+alone"--which showed that Mr. Perkins felt as One-Eye did about it. "If
+there was a fire, say, what could the poor, old, helpless man do?"
+
+"I never thought of that!" admitted Johnnie. "But"--with clear
+logic--"when Big Tom's home, and Grandpa's safe's anything, why, even
+then I ain't ever 'lowed to go for a walk. Big Tom and Mustapha, they're
+both against me and Aladdin playin' in the street."
+
+"What about the roof?" asked Mr. Perkins.
+
+Strangely enough, Johnnie had never thought of that, either. "But Aunt
+Sophie wouldn't 'low me to go up on her roof," he remembered. "And I
+don't b'lieve the jan'-tress would on this one."
+
+He was right. Though Mr. Perkins called personally upon that lady, and
+laid before her the question of Johnnie's health, she was adamantine in
+her refusal. Even the sight of a two-dollar bill could not sway her,
+offered, as Mr. Perkins explained, not in the hope of bribing her to do
+anything that was forbidden, but as pay in case Johnnie proved to be any
+trouble; for she had explained, "Kids is fierce for t'rowin' trash
+'round, and I can't swip the roof only once a year."
+
+Mr. Perkins was keenly disappointed. But he tried to make light of their
+set-back, and distracted Johnnie's thoughts from the roof by producing
+two wonderful presents. One was an unframed picture of Colonel Theodore
+Roosevelt, looking splendid and soldierlike in a uniform and a broad
+hat turned up at one side, and a sword that hung from his belt. The
+second gift was a toothbrush.
+
+Johnnie pinned the picture above Cis's dressing-table box in the tiny
+room. The toothbrush (it had a handle of pure ivory!), he slipped inside
+his shirt. Mr. Perkins suggested delicately that, when it came to the
+care of the teeth, there was no time like the present. But Johnnie
+begged for delay. "I want Cis t' see it while it's so nice and new," he
+argued, "--before it's all wet and spoiled."
+
+Cis was fairly enraptured when he showed her the brush. "Oh, I've been
+wanting to own a good one for years!" she cried; "and not just the
+ten-cent-store kind! Oh, Johnnie--!" She tipped her sleek head to one
+side entreatingly.
+
+Johnnie had foreseen all this. He bargained with her. "I'll swop y' the
+brush," he declared.
+
+"Swop for what?--Oh, Johnnie! Oh, isn't it _sweet_!"
+
+Grandpa was in the room. Johnnie raised on his toes to whisper: "For you
+not t' tell Mister Perkins n'r anybody else when I sneak up on the roofs
+of nights."
+
+"You wouldn't lean over the edge, Johnnie, and go all dizzy, and
+fall?"--the brush was a sore temptation.
+
+Johnnie belittled her fears. "Couldn't I jus' as easy fall out of our
+window?" he demanded.
+
+The bargain was struck; the brush changed hands.
+
+In the face of those two gifts, Cis could never again doubt the
+existence of a real Mr. Perkins. "I didn't care awfully whether he was a
+truly person or not," she confided to Johnnie now. "But as long as he
+_is_ alive, I think I'd like to meet him. So the next time he comes, you
+get him to come the time after that between twelve and one, and I'll run
+home. I can eat my lunch while I'm walking."
+
+Johnnie considered the suggestion. "You won't give 'way on me 'bout the
+swop, though."
+
+"Cross my heart!"
+
+After she had used the brush (thoroughly, too), and could not,
+therefore, retreat out of her bargain, he offered an argument which he
+felt sure would clinch her silence. "You wouldn't want Mister Perkins t'
+find out that y' didn't have a good brush of your own," he reminded her,
+"and that y' took mine away."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't!"--fervently. Then, recalling how she had already been
+mortified in the matter of his first bath, and returning, girl-like, to
+that worn-out subject, "Johnnie, are you positive Mr. Perkins didn't see
+you empty the tub that day? and did he see the bottom of it when the
+water was all out? and in the bottom wasn't there a lot of grit?"
+
+He reassured her. "But, my goodness, Cis, you're terrible stuck-up," he
+declared.
+
+Certainly she felt more comfortable. For at once, with a haughty and
+precise air, which was her idea of how the socially elect bear
+themselves, with a set smile on her quaint face, and modulating her
+voice affectedly, she took Mr. Perkins's arm and went for a walk around
+Seward Park (the table), discussing the weather as she strolled, the
+scenery, and other impersonal subjects. And there was much bowing and
+hand shaking to it all, while Johnnie stood by, scarcely knowing whether
+to be pleased or cross.
+
+"When you come home, and Mister Perkins is here, what'll I say?" he
+asked; "--just at first?"
+
+"You introduce us," instructed Cis. "You tell him what my name is, and
+you tell me what his name is."
+
+"But you know his name!" argued Johnnie. "And he knows yours."
+
+"I can't help it," she returned. "It sounds silly, but everybody does it
+that way, and so you must, or he'll think you're funny."
+
+"Well, all right." It was important that Mr. Perkins should not think
+him funny, lest that invitation to become a scout be withdrawn.
+
+That night, so soon as Big Tom was asleep, Johnnie made his first trip
+to the roof; and understood, the moment he emerged from the little house
+which was built over the top of the stairs, why Mr. Perkins had
+recommended it as being more desirable than the street. Of course it
+was! The confinement of the past week or more helped to emphasize its
+good points. Ah, this was a place to breathe! to exercise! Above all,
+what a place from which to see! With the night wind in his hair, and
+swelling the big shirt, Johnnie stood, high and lonely, like Crusoe on
+his island, looking up and around, enchanted.
+
+How much sky there was!--joined to his own square. The clouds, enormous
+and beautiful, had plenty of space in which to drift about, by turns
+hiding and uncovering the stars. Lifted almost into those clouds were
+the spars of ships, the tallest of the city's buildings, the black
+lace-work of two bridges. Oh, how big, how strange--yes, and even how
+far removed--seemed this New York of the night!
+
+When he could say good-by to the flat for the last time, could leave it
+behind him forever, oh, how many sights there would be for him to see in
+this great city! "I'll just go and go!" he promised himself. "In ev'ry
+direction! And look and look and look!" Going had brought him One-Eye's
+friendship, and Mr. Perkins's. Somewhere in all those miles of roofs
+were other friends, just waiting to be found.
+
+The cold in the night wind cut short his reflections. He fell to
+exercising, and drinking in big draughts of the sea air; then hastened
+down on soft foot to his bed. Cis was waiting in her door to see him
+come, and he knew she had been anxious, and thoroughly resented it.
+
+"I didn't hurt the old roof," he whispered. But he felt very happy, in
+spite of his irritation, and genuinely sorry for any boy who did not
+have a roof.
+
+Every morning now he enjoyed his splash in the tub; every night he
+glorified in his taste of the real outdoors. On the following Sunday, he
+combined the two pleasures. Big Tom was in and out all day, making it
+impossible for Johnnie to bathe even in the seclusion of Cis's tiny
+room, which she generously offered to loan him for the ceremony. He did
+not accept her offer. He was as sure as ever that Barber would not only
+put a stop to all baths if he discovered they were being taken (on the
+ground that they used up too much soap), but the longshoreman might go
+further, and administer punishment which would be particularly
+trying--with Johnnie in a clothesless condition.
+
+He waited for nightfall. The day was unseasonably warm. By sundown the
+patch of sky framed by the window was solidly overlaid with clouds,
+among which the thunder was rolling. A shower was brewing, and Johnnie
+had an idea. He took the soap and a wash rag to bed with him.
+
+The others were asleep when the storm broke. But Johnnie was just inside
+the little house on the roof, shedding his clothes under cover. As the
+rain came lashing upon the warm, painted tin, he rushed forth into it,
+letting it whip his bare skin as he soaped and rubbed.
+
+It was glorious! And though he dared not shout, he leaped hither and
+thither in an excess of joy, and did his calisthenics, the lightning
+flashing him into his own sight. And he took in from the rain, through
+tossing arms and legs, the electricity that he lacked--cut off as he had
+been so long from even the touch of a pavement.
+
+Next, naked though he was, he played scout; and as he romped other
+scouts came to romp with him, dropping over the edge of the roof in all
+directions, or popping out from behind the chimney and the little
+house. And all were as naked as he, and as full of joy, and they danced
+in a circle with him, and marched, and went through the exercises.
+
+When at last his yellow hair was streaming, and his breath was spent, he
+dried himself, standing on the stairs, and using the long tails of the
+big shirt; then, trousered once more, he crept down and in, to sleep an
+unbroken, dreamless sleep, wrapped from head to toe in just nothing but
+his quilt. Only his small unfreckled nose showed, drawing in the
+rain-washed breeze that came swirling upon his bed through the open
+window.
+
+"It's my beach!" he told Cis proudly the next morning. "I waded--honest,
+I did! And I pretty near _swimmed_!"
+
+He felt stronger, and consequently did not hate his housework so much.
+As for his appearance, Mr. Perkins was more than ever struck with its
+improvement when he saw Johnnie again; also, the leader was a trifle
+puzzled. But other things than breathing and bathing and exercises were
+helping Johnnie. He had something to look forward to now--a goal.
+Indeed, the greater part of his betterment was the result of that fresh
+interest Mr. Perkins had given him, his pride, and his hope.
+
+"But I'd like t' learn more things 'bout scouts," he told the leader.
+"Is all I have t' do jus' git strong and grow t' be twelve?"
+
+"Steady, old man!" counseled Mr. Perkins.
+
+He failed to see, he said, that Johnnie's teeth looked any whiter. He
+acted almost as if he doubted Johnnie's use of the brush. Luckily
+Johnnie remembered that meeting which Cis had proposed, and this served
+to change the subject. By advice from Cis, later on, he was insured
+against Mr. Perkins's being so disappointed again. Cis gave him some
+powder; and he got fair results from her old brush.
+
+So far as he was concerned, the meeting between Cis and Mr. Perkins
+proved utterly profitless. To begin with, in his pride and excitement,
+he forgot to follow out her instructions regarding the introduction.
+Instead of pronouncing the two names politely, he ran to Cis, and "Here
+he is!" he cried. "This is him! Mister Perkins!"
+
+She stood against the hall door, smiling shyly. Mr. Perkins rose,
+looking more red than brown, and gave her a soldierly bow, though that
+day he was not wearing a uniform, but a gray business suit.
+
+"I'm so glad to meet you," he said. "Johnnie's told me so much about
+you."
+
+"I--I've got to go right back," was what she said. "Two of the girls 're
+waiting for me downstairs."
+
+"Aw, Cis!" pleaded Johnnie. "Wait! Ain't y' goin' t' exercise with us?"
+
+She went. And though she darted a smile at their visitor, to Johnnie she
+seemed all indifference, and he was staggered by it; only to be more
+than gratified by her complete change of attitude when she got home at
+suppertime. "Oh, he's handsome!" she declared. "My! The girls wouldn't
+believe how noble and splendid he is! He just can't be as young as you
+say, Johnnie, because he's been a soldier in the big war! I know it by
+that little button-thing in his coat! Oh, Johnnie, he's nicer than you
+said! Thousands and thousands of times!"
+
+Johnnie swaggered a bit over that. "_All_ my friends is nice," he
+observed. "Only I wish I could have One-Eye and Mr. Perkins here both at
+the same time!"
+
+He had to give a minute account of Mr. Perkins's visit, and not once,
+but as often as he could manage to go over the subject before Big Tom
+came in. After supper, as they hung in the window together, looking up
+at the night sky, he had to review all previous visits, as well as that
+memorable, history-making meeting under the Elevated.
+
+"He's like a young gentleman in a story!" she whispered. "And he's awful
+stylish! Did you notice?--his handkerchief to-day had a teeny brown edge
+to it!"
+
+In the morning, she did an unprecedented thing: rose earlier than usual
+and helped Johnnie set the flat to rights. The dish cupboard came in for
+the most of her attention, a fact which brought loud protests from him,
+for she used up the whole of Mr. Maloney's precious newspapers, this in
+making fancifully cut covers for the shelves.
+
+"Oh, let's look civilized!" she cried.
+
+She came home at noon, her girl friends accompanying her, but waiting,
+as before, in the area. She was not so shy as she had been the first
+day; instead, she was dignified as she viewed the arm- and leg-work,
+praised Johnnie with sweet condescension, and thanked Mr. Perkins for
+all his trouble with quite a grown-up air.
+
+The noon following, she arrived alone (Mr. Perkins had remarked the day
+previous that he would be coming regularly now). As he had appeared
+early, and the exercising was over and done, he and Cis went down the
+stairs together. Johnnie stood outside the door to watch them, and
+marveled as he watched. When had he ever seen Cis smile so much? chatter
+so freely? Now she did not seem afraid of Mr. Perkins at all!
+
+In the hall overhead some one else was watching--Mrs. Kukor. As he
+looked up, she nodded at him. "Ah-ha-a-a-a!" she whispered, and laid one
+finger along her nose mysteriously. Johnnie understood that she was
+thinking of Big Tom. He nodded back, and put a finger to his lips.
+
+All that afternoon he was so proud, just thinking of Cis threading the
+crowds with Mr. Perkins at her side. Yet she herself was evidently not
+impressed by the great compliment the leader had paid her. For the next
+day she did not invite a similar experience by coming home at noon; nor
+the next. In fact, she never again dropped in to see the drill. She had
+lost interest in it, she told Johnnie--which was natural enough, seeing
+that she was a girl.
+
+But! She seemed also to have completely lost all interest in Mr.
+Perkins!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A DIFFERENT CIS
+
+
+BUT for some reason which Johnnie could not fathom, Cis suddenly began
+to show a great deal of interest in the flat. Indeed, she was by way of
+making his life miserable, what with her constant warnings and
+instructions about keeping the rooms neat and clean. And she proved that
+her concern was genuine by continuing to rise early each day in order to
+help him with the housework.
+
+In her own tiny closet she brought about a really magnificent
+improvement. This took place mainly on Decoration Day, a day which, just
+because of its name, Johnnie regarded as particularly suitable for the
+happy task in hand. Cis's ceiling and walls had never been papered (she
+explained this by pointing out that paper would only have made the
+little cubby-hole just that much smaller, and there was not even a mite
+of room to spare). By dint of extra violet-making, she bought a can of
+paint and a brush. Then borrowing a ladder from the janitress, she first
+cleared her bedroom of its contents, and next wiped every inch of
+plaster--sides and top--by means of a rag tied over the end of the
+broom. After that, in her oldest dress, with her head wrapped up, she
+tinted her retreat, the mop-boards included, a delicate blue.
+
+Now, however, she was far from done. The paint dry, she restored her two
+pieces of furniture to their rightful places. The dressing-table box she
+skirted with cheesecloth dipped in blued starch; and covered the top of
+it with a roll of crinkly, flower-sprinkled tissue paper. To the general
+effect, her cretonne-encased pillow gave the final touch. It was
+Johnnie's opinion that the pillow was one of the most beautiful things
+in New York. When it was stood up stiffly against the wall at the end of
+the narrow bed shelf; when the picture of Colonel Roosevelt was again in
+its place of honor beside the bit of mirror, with the handsome Edwarda
+leaned negligently just beneath; and when Cis had lavished upon her bed
+and box the delicious scent of a whole nickel's-worth of orris root,
+Johnnie, wildly enthused, signaled the flat above.
+
+"I'll bet there ain't any room that's nicer'n this in the whole Waldorf
+'Storia!" he vowed to the little Jewish lady when she came rocking down
+to marvel over the transformation, hands uplifted, head wagging. "Don't
+you think it's fine, Mrs. Kukor? and don't it smell 'zac'ly like Mrs.
+Reisenberger?"
+
+"Pos-i-tivvle!" agreed Mrs. Kukor.
+
+Next, in her housewifely zeal, Cis started in to improve the kitchen.
+Keeping the ladder an extra day by special permission she climbed it to
+wash the eight small panes of the window, after which she hung at either
+side of them a strip of the blue-tinted cheesecloth. But when Barber saw
+the curtains, he called them "tomfoolery," and tore them down. So
+nothing happened to the rest of the flat.
+
+That rebuke of Barber's seemed to deflect Cis's interest from the rooms
+to herself. For now upon her own person she wrought improvements. These
+did not escape Johnnie, who accepted them as a part of the general
+upheaval--an upheaval which she informed him was "Spring cleaning." Each
+night before retiring she pressed her one dress, and freshened its
+washable collar; she also brushed her hair a full hundred times,
+conscientiously counting the strokes. As for her teeth, Johnnie warned
+her that she would wear out both them and the ivory-handled brush in no
+time, since, night and morning, she used the brush tirelessly. Also she
+wasted valuable hours (in his opinion) by manicuring her fingernails
+when she might better have been threading a kitchen jungle all
+beast-infested.
+
+Next, another, and the most startling change in her. She came out of her
+blue room one morning looking very tall, and odd. At first Johnnie did
+not see what was wrong, and stared, puzzled and bewildered.
+
+But Barber saw. "What's the idea?" he wanted to know, and none too
+pleasantly.
+
+"I'm almost seventeen," Cis answered.
+
+Almost seventeen! Johnnie looked at her closer, and discovered the thing
+that made her different. It was her hair. Usually she wore it braided,
+and tied at the nape of her neck. But now that shining braid was pinned
+in a coil on the back of her head!
+
+"Y' look foolish!" went on Barber. "And y' can't waste any more money
+'round here, buyin' pins and combs and such stuff. Y' can jus' wear it
+down your back for another year or so."
+
+"All the other girls have their hair up," she argued. "And I've got to
+have mine out of the way."
+
+She did not take that coil down. Yet she was by no means indifferent to
+the attitude of Big Tom. Johnnie, who understood so well her every
+expression, noticed how, when the longshoreman sometimes entered
+unexpectedly, Cis would go whiter than usual, as if frightened; she
+would start at the mere sound of his voice, and drop whatever happened
+to be in her hand.
+
+When Big Tom was out she would walk about aimlessly and restlessly;
+would halt absentmindedly with her face to a wall and not seem to see
+it. She did not want to talk; she preferred to be let completely alone.
+She was irritable, or she sighed a good deal. She took to watching the
+clock, and wishing it were to-morrow morning. And if, giving in to
+Johnnie's entreaties, she consented to take part in a think, all she
+cared to do was bury the unhappy Cora, or watch lovely, and
+love-smitten, Elaine breathe her last.
+
+At other times she laughed as she had never laughed before in all the
+five years or more that Johnnie had lived in the Barber flat; and broke
+out in jolly choruses. If Big Tom came in, she did not stop singing
+until he bade her to, and the moment he was gone, she was at it again,
+with a few dance steps thrown in, the blue eyes sparkling mischievously,
+and dimples showing in cheeks that were pink.
+
+She also had dreamy spells; and if left undisturbed would sit at the
+window by the hour, her eyes on the sky, her slender hands clasped, a
+smile, sweet and gentle, fixing her young mouth. And Johnnie knew by
+that smile that she was thinking thinks--that the kitchen was occupied
+by people whom he did not see. He guessed that one of these was of Royal
+blood; and came to harbor hostile thoughts toward a certain young
+Prince, since never before had Cis failed to share her visions with
+Johnnie. For the first time he found himself shut out.
+
+Once he caught her talking out loud. "I wish," she murmured, "I wish, I
+wish--"
+
+"Who're you talkin' to?" he asked.
+
+She started, and blushed. "Why--why, I'm talking to you," she declared.
+
+"Well, then, what is it y' wish?" he persisted. "Go ahead. I'm
+listenin'."
+
+But it had slipped her mind, she said crossly. Yet the next moment, in
+an excess of regret and affection, "Oh, Johnnie, you're so dear! So
+dear!" she told him, and gave him a good hug.
+
+He worried about her not a little those days; and though from a natural
+delicacy he did not discuss her with Mr. Perkins, he did ask the leader
+an anxious question: "Could a girl be hurt by pinnin' a hot wad of braid
+right against the back of her brain?"
+
+Mr. Perkins looked surprised. "They all do it," he pointed out.
+(Evidently he did not surmise whom Johnnie had in mind.)
+
+"But s'pose a girl ain't used to it," pressed Johnnie.
+
+"They get used to it," assured Mr. Perkins.
+
+But Cis got worse and worse. One day soon after this, Johnnie came upon
+Edwarda, face down on the blue-room floor, and in a harrowing state of
+dishevelment--Edwarda, the costly, the precious, the not-to-be-touched!
+And when, on Cis's return, he tested her affection for the new doll by
+swinging it unceremoniously by one leg in Letitia fashion, "Don't break
+her," Cis cautioned indifferently; "because I'm going to give her away
+one of these days to some poor little girl."
+
+He gasped. She was going to give away _His namesake_!
+
+Then his eyes were opened, and he found out the whole sad truth--this
+one Sunday afternoon. Big Tom was out, and Cis was more restless than
+usual. She would not hunt in goat skins with Johnnie and Crusoe, nor
+capture the drifting _Hispaniola_ along with Jim Hawkins. She had no
+taste even for a lively massacre. And as Johnnie was equally determined
+neither to bury Cora again nor float upon a death barge with the Maid of
+Astolat, they compromised upon Aladdin and the Princess Buddir al
+Buddoor.
+
+The occasion selected was that certain momentous visit to the bath, with
+Aladdin and Johnnie placed behind a door in order to catch a glimpse of
+the royal lady's face as she came by. Cis was in attendance upon the
+Princess, the dismantled blue cotton curtains trailing grandly behind
+her and getting trodden upon by the Grand Vizier (in a wheel chair). A
+great crowd of ladies and slaves surrounded these celebrities as they
+wound through silent streets, between shops filled with silks and jewels
+and luscious fruits. The air was heavy with perfume. David, Goliath and
+Buckle bore aloft palms with which they stirred this scented breeze.
+Going on before, were the four millionaires, likewise a band dispensing
+music----
+
+It happened--even as the Princess lifted the mist of her veil to display
+her sweet, pale beauty. Cis came short unexpectedly. A strange,
+sorrowful, and almost frightened look was in her blue eyes. She held out
+helpless, trembling hands to Johnnie. "Oh, what's the use of my trying
+to pretend?" she cried. "Johnnie, I can't see them any more! I can't see
+them! I can't see them!"
+
+Then, a burst of weeping. Old Grandpa also began to weep. At that Cis
+stumbled toward the door of her room, colliding on the way with the end
+of the cookstove, since one slender arm was across her eyes, and shut
+herself from sight. For some minutes after that the sound of her muffled
+sobbing came from that closet over which she had so recently been
+proudly happy.
+
+Johnnie first quieted the little old soldier by rolling him to and fro
+between Albany and Pittsburgh. Then he went to stand at Cis's door,
+where he listened, his head bent, his heart full of tender concern. Very
+wisely he said nothing, asked no questions. It was not till the sobbing
+ceased that he strove to comfort her by his loving, awkward, boyish
+attentions.
+
+"Cis, can't I fetch y' a cup of nice, sugared cold tea?" he called in.
+"'R a saucer with some hot beans?"
+
+"Oh, no," she quavered.
+
+Now he knew what had brought about all those differences in her; he
+understood what her grief was about. It was indeed the hair. Yet the
+hair was only an outward sign of the hidden tragedy--which was that,
+for good and all, for ever and ever, she was to be shut out from all
+wonderful, living, thrilling thinks.
+
+"She's gittin' grown-up," he told himself sorrowfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE HANDBOOK
+
+
+OUT of a hip-pocket one morning Mr. Perkins produced a book--a small,
+limp, gray-colored volume upon the cover of which were two bare-kneed
+boy scouts, one of whom was waving a pair of flags. Also on that cover,
+near its top, were the words, _Boy Scouts of America_. "I wonder if you
+wouldn't like to look through this," he observed.
+
+"Oh, gee!" Up from the sagging neckband of the big shirt swept the red
+of joy, and out leaped Johnnie's hands. "Does this tell all 'bout 'em,
+Mister Perkins? And, my goodness, don't I wish you could leave it here
+over night!" For some time he had been feeling that there was a lack of
+variety in his long program of preparation to be a scout; but here was
+something more definite than just the taking of a bath or the regular
+working of his muscles.
+
+"I'm giving it to you," explained Mr. Perkins.
+
+"Oh!" Johnnie pinched the gray book hard. "It's my own? Aw, thank y'!
+And ain't I lucky, though! This is seven I got now, countin' the
+d'rect'ry! And I'll learn ev'ry word in this one, Mister Perkins!"
+
+To emphasize this determination to be thorough, before they started to
+look through the handbook he had to know all there was to tell about the
+picture on the front cover. "What's this one kid standin' on?" he asked.
+"And what's the scraggly thing behind him? And what's the other boy
+holdin' against his eyes? And what country do the flags belong t'?"
+
+When at last Mr. Perkins began to turn the pages, he went too fast to
+suit Johnnie, who was anxious not to pass over any scrap of scout
+knowledge, hated to skip even a sentence, and wanted full time on each
+engrossing picture. They touched on the aim of the scout movement, the
+knowledge all scouts should have, their daily good turns (an interesting
+subject!), their characteristics, how troops are formed and led, the
+scout oath, and the laws. This brought them to merit badges, which
+proved so attractive a topic, yet discouraged Johnnie so sadly at the
+first, that they got no farther.
+
+Johnnie was cast down because, on looking into the badge question, he
+believed he could never qualify for merit in any particular line. For
+certainly he knew nothing about Agriculture, or Angling, Archery,
+Architecture, Art, Astronomy, Athletics, Automobiling, or Aviation. "And
+so I don't see how I'll ever be a merit-badger," he told Mr. Perkins
+wistfully, when he had gone through the list of the A's.
+
+Sometimes of late, in Johnnie's opinion, the scout leader had seemed to
+be as absentminded as Cis; and now he was evidently not thinking of the
+matter in hand, for he asked a question which appeared to have nothing
+whatever to do with merit badges. Also, it was a most embarrassing
+question, since it concerned a fact which Johnnie had been careful, all
+these past weeks, to suppress. "Can you cook?" he inquired.
+
+For a moment Johnnie did not answer, being divided in his mind as to
+what to say, but sat, his very breath suspended, searching a way out of
+his dilemma. Then he remembered the laws Mr. Perkins had just read to
+him--in particular he remembered one which deplored the telling of lies.
+He understood that he must live up to that law if he were ever to hold
+any badge he might be able to earn. "I--I help out Cis sometimes," he
+admitted. "Y' see, she goes t' the fac'try awful early. And--and if I
+didn't know how t' cook, why, maybe--if I was t' go 'way from
+here--maybe I'd almost starve t' death."
+
+"At the same time," reminded Mr. Perkins, "you're doing Miss Narcissa a
+daily good turn."
+
+That aspect of the matter had not occurred to Johnnie, who at once felt
+considerably better. "And also I earn my keep," he added proudly.
+
+"Earning your keep comes under the ninth law," pointed out Mr. Perkins.
+"A scout is thrifty. He pays his own way."
+
+Now the leader seemed to be in the proper mood to hear even the worst,
+and this Johnnie decided to admit. "I--I sweep, too," he confessed; "and
+make beds, and--and wash dishes." Then he set his small jaws and waited,
+for the other was again thoughtfully turning the pages of the book. He
+could hear the hard thump-thumping of his own heart. He began to wish
+that he had not been tempted to tell. He saw himself forever barred out
+of those ranks he so yearned to join just because he had been guilty of
+doing girl's work.
+
+Mr. Perkins stopped turning pages and looked up with a smile. "With some
+study, you might be able to get the Personal Health Badge," he said;
+"but I guess, after all, that the easiest one for you will be the merit
+badge for cooking."
+
+_The merit badge for cooking?_ Then without a doubt cooking was
+something which boy scouts deigned to do! And it was not just girl's
+work! Nor did he have to be ashamed because he did it! On the contrary,
+he could be proud of his knowledge! could even win honors with it! Oh,
+what a difference all this made!
+
+Something began to happen to the amazed Johnnie. Relieved at the
+thought that he was neither to be dropped nor despised for his kitchen
+work, happy with the realization that he was not unlike those boys of
+the never-to-be-forgotten marching twos, suddenly he felt a change of
+attitude toward cooking. What he had hated so long now did not seem
+hateful. "I can cook mush," he boasted with satisfaction, "and meat, and
+beans, and potatoes, and cabbage, and biscuits and gravy, and tea and
+coffee, and--and prunes."
+
+"Great!" said Mr. Perkins. "I don't believe one of my scouts can cook as
+well as you can. Why, you're _sure_ to get your badge on that list of
+yours!" And pointing to a small and very black picture at the middle of
+a page, "This is the device," he explained. "When a boy gets it, he's
+allowed to wear it on his blouse."
+
+Johnnie looked. And looked closer. Next, to make certain that he was not
+mistaken, he pinned the picture with a calloused forefinger. "A--a
+kettle?" he asked incredulously. "Scouts wear a pitcher of a--a
+_kettle_?"
+
+"Dandy idea, isn't it?" returned Mr. Perkins; "--the big, black, iron
+kettle that soldiers and miners and hunters have used for hundreds of
+years! Like yours over there!"
+
+Slowly Johnnie faced round. On the back of the stove was the
+bean-kettle, big, black and of iron, heavy to lift, hard to wash, and
+for years--by Cis as well as Johnnie--cordially loathed. "Soldiers and
+miners and hunters," he repeated, as if to himself; "and scout kids wear
+pitchers of 'em." That remarkable change of attitude of his now included
+the kettle. He knew that he would never again hate it. When he turned
+back to the leader, he was his old confident self. "Do boy scouts ever
+wear aprons?" he inquired. "And does anybody laugh at 'em?"
+
+"Laugh?" said Mr. Perkins. "They do not! When a scout's round the house
+like you are, helping his mother, perhaps, he puts on an apron if he's
+smart. Remember that thrifty law? Well, a boy mustn't ruin his clothes.
+Out on the hike, of course, where there aren't any aprons, he generally
+uses a piece of sacking--especially when he's washing dishes." Then,
+opening the little book again, "Here are directions for dish washing,"
+he added.
+
+As before Johnnie stared while he used a forefinger. Directions for dish
+washing? in the scouts' own book? Would wonders never cease? Then
+without a doubt this newest possession of his contained many another
+unsuspected salve to his pride. "My goodness!" he exclaimed happily,
+"what all more is there in here 'bout cookin'?"
+
+"Well, there's a recipe for griddle cakes, and bacon, and salmon on
+toast," said Mr. Perkins; "also roast potatoes, and baked fish, and
+hunter's stew. But eggs and biscuits, of course, you know."
+
+After an hour of that kind, it was quite natural that Johnnie, when he
+found himself alone again, should straightway devise a cooking
+think--and this for the first time in his life. He saw himself in the
+center of a great group of splendidly uniformed scouts, all of whom were
+nearly famished. He was uniformed, too; and he was preparing a meal
+which consisted of everything edible described in the Scouts' book. And
+as he mixed and stirred and tasted, his companions proclaimed him a
+marvel, while proudly upon his breast he displayed that device of the
+kettle.
+
+Till the clock warned him at five that it was time to get ready for Big
+Tom, the Handbook was not out of his hands. To a boy who had made easy
+reading even of _The Last of the Mohicans_, Mr. Perkins's present
+offered few problems. There was not a little in what he read that,
+cooped up as he had been during the last five years, he did not
+understand. But starting at the first page, and eating his way through
+the first chapter, not missing one of the paragraphs skipped during the
+morning, studying each illustration thoroughly, and absorbing both
+pictures and print like a sponge, he got a very real glimmering of what
+it meant to a boy to be a scout; and not only so far as the body, its
+strength and its growth, was concerned, but also in relation to
+character. And just that first chapter made him understand that there
+was, indeed, something more to scouting than looking plump-chested,
+having good blood, and cultivating strong muscles.
+
+That evening supper achieved a dignity and a pleasure. Glad now that he
+knew how to get a meal, he baked potatoes, made biscuits and gravy, and
+boiled coffee. He realized that Big Tom would enjoy such a good supper,
+and this, of course, was a decided drawback. Yet the fact remained that
+if he (Johnnie) was to win a badge by his cooking, the longshoreman must
+profit. It could not be helped. He set about preparing a dessert--an
+unheard-of climax to any previous evening meal. Fashioning small
+containers of some biscuit dough, he first put the pulp of some cooked
+prunes through the tea strainer--then filled the containers with the
+sweetened fruit and baked them. All the while he visioned Cis's surprise
+and delight over the tarts. He even anticipated some complimentary
+remark from Big Tom.
+
+"I'll get a merit badge," he vowed, "even if I have t' do a lot o'
+things I hate!"
+
+Luckily Cis arrived ahead of her stepfather. Having borrowed Grandpa's
+Grand Army hat, Johnnie greeted her, first with a snappy salute; after
+that he bowed and bared his head as if to the Queen or the Princess
+Buddir al Buddoor--all this as per an illustration in his book which
+showed a scout uncovering to an elderly lady in a three-cornered shawl.
+"A scout's always p'lite t' women and children," he explained as he
+offered her the kitchen chair. "And some day Boof is goin' t' go mad,
+and I'm goin' t' protect y' from him! There's a pitcher in my new book
+that shows how t' do it!"
+
+He showed her his new present. However, she gave it only a glance,
+exactly as if she had seen it before. She rarely even mentioned Mr.
+Perkins any more, and now only remarked that to have given Johnnie the
+book "was nice of him," adding that sport socks which showed a boy's
+knees (she was referring to the cover of the Handbook) were "as stylish
+as Fifth Avenue."
+
+With Johnnie bustling hither and thither in a proud and entirely willing
+manner, the longshoreman could not fail to remark a new spirit in the
+flat. But in spite of the well-cooked, tasty meal, Big Tom was not moved
+to speak any appreciation.
+
+After a time, Johnnie decided to invite a comment. "I made y' biscuits
+and gravy again," he pointed out.
+
+"It's about time," returned Barber.
+
+Biscuits and gravy, however, were an established combination. The
+desired effect, then, might better be gotten with something never before
+served. "And I fixed somethin' for y' t' finish up on," he announced.
+Then opening the oven door to display the browning prune tarts, "Lookee!
+Baby pies!"
+
+"Mm!" breathed Big Tom, suspicion flashing whitely in that left eye.
+"You're gittin' too good t' live! What y' been doin' t'-day? Breakin'
+somethin'?" But later he ate four of the little confections with loud
+smacks.
+
+Johnnie, standing at his plate (as he had always stood at it since
+coming to the flat, for there was no chair for him), ate his own small
+pie and cogitated philosophically. Big Tom had not repaid a good turn
+with gratitude. But then at least he had been no uglier than usual; had
+not stormed about wasting biscuit dough and sugar, as he might easily
+have done. He had been just his ordinary self, which was something to be
+thankful for.
+
+"Would y' bring home a can of salmon fish for t'morrow supper when y'
+come in t'night?" Johnnie asked. (He longed to try that scout recipe!)
+
+To that, Barber did not commit himself.
+
+When Johnnie and Cis were left alone, old Grandpa being already abed,
+Johnnie did not try to win her interest in the Handbook, or share with
+her the new and absorbing thinks it inspired. Since that unhappy ending
+to the procession of the bath, with its wailing protest, and its tears,
+with nice consideration he had not again so much as broached a pretend
+to her. She sat at the window in the warm twilight, busy--or so it
+seemed--with her fingernails, which these days consumed a great deal of
+her time. Johnnie took down the clothesline and fell to making Knots
+Every Scout Should Know.
+
+But that night on the roof! What a revel there was of brave scout
+doings, of gentlemanly conduct!--all witnessed by a large, fat moon. He
+wigwagged messages of great portent to phantom scouts who were in dire
+need. He helped blind men across streets that ran down the whole length
+of the roof. He held back pressing crowds while the police were rendered
+speechless with admiration. He swept off his scout headgear to scores of
+motherly ladies in three-cornered shawls; wrapped up the sore paws of
+stray dogs; soothed weeping children; straightened the blankets on
+numbers of storm-blown horses standing humped against the bitter wind
+and rain; and pointed out the right road to many a laden and bewhiskered
+traveler.
+
+But when his bed claimed him, and he was free to do a little quiet
+thinking, it occurred to him that he had not strung a single bead that
+day, nor made one violet. Did this not number him among the breakers of
+that first law?--"by not doing exactly a given task." There was not the
+least doubt of it! "My!" he exclaimed. "I'm 'fraid them laws 're goin'
+t' be a' awful bother!"
+
+Nevertheless, the following day, he did not fail to keep them in mind.
+Though Barber had so ill repaid his efforts to please, though no can of
+salmon had been forthcoming as requested, he did not punish the
+longshoreman that morning. Life seemed very full to him now, what with
+his regular duties and the fresh obligations laid upon him by the
+Handbook.
+
+He skimped nothing. What did the housework amount to, now that he felt a
+sudden liking for it? And he found that he could memorize the laws while
+he was stringing beads. When he paused, either in one line of effort or
+the other, it was to do a good turn: put crumbs on the window sill for
+the sparrows, feed Boof, take Mrs. Kukor up one of the small pies
+(lifting off Grandpa's hat to her at the door), and give the little old
+veteran not one, but several, short railway journeys. And all the while
+he made sure, by the help of Cis's mirror, that his mouth was turned up
+at each end like a true scout's mouth should be.
+
+"I got t' git my lips used to it," he declared, "so's they'll stay put."
+
+And the things he did not do! For example, he discontinued his
+clothesline telephone service; for another, he wasted no minute by
+introducing into the kitchen territory either foreign or domestic. For
+he was experiencing the high joy of being excessively good. Indeed, and
+for the first time in his life, he was being so good that it was almost
+painful.
+
+Finding Johnnie in this truly angelic state of mind when he arrived, Mr.
+Perkins grasped his opportunity, skipped all the chapters of the
+Handbook till he came to that one touching upon chivalry, and sat down
+with Johnnie to review it. And what a joy it proved to the new convert
+to find in those pages his old friends King Arthur and Sir Launcelot,
+together with Galahad, Gareth, Bedivere and all the others! and to make
+the acquaintance of Alfred the Great, the Pilgrim Fathers, the
+pioneers, and Mr. Lincoln!--especially Mr. Lincoln, that boy who had
+traveled from a log cabin to the White House!
+
+"And I'll tell y' what!" he vowed, when Mr. Perkins rose to take his
+leave, "I've made up my mind what I'm goin' t' be when I grow up. I've
+thought 'bout a lot of things, but this time I'm sure! Mister Perkins,
+I'm goin' t' try t' be President of the United States!"
+
+Later on, he made a second vow to himself. "Good turns for Grandpa don't
+'mount t' much," he declared. "He's so handy as a good-turner. So I'm
+goin' t' do one that'll count. I'm goin' t' good-turn Big Tom!"
+
+He took down the bag of dried beans from the cupboard and searched out
+certain nine small buttons. From time to time, in the past, he had, on
+what he felt was just provocation, subtracted these nine buttons from
+Big Tom's shirts. Now with painstaking effort, pricking his fingers many
+times, he sewed the buttons back where they belonged. The task finished,
+he was in nothing short of an exalted state of mind. So that again for
+supper he made biscuits and gravy.
+
+Then came the bombshell. It was Big Tom who cast it, figuratively
+speaking, among the supper plates. He had come scuffing his way in, his
+look roving and suspicious--if not a little apprehensive. But what he
+had to say he had saved, as was his habit, for meal time. "Sa-a-ay!" he
+began, helping himself to a generous portion of his favorite dish;
+"who's that dude that's been hangin' 'round here lately?"
+
+Johnnie's tongue felt numb, and his throat dry. He thought of the laws,
+hoping he might remember one that would help him. He could remember
+nothing. There was a spy in the house--a spy as evil as Magua. And that
+spy deserved to be killed. He resolved that, later on, up on the roof,
+he would have a splendid execution.
+
+Meanwhile Cis had come to the rescue. "You mean Mr. Perkins, the
+scoutmaster?" she asked. She was white, Johnnie noticed, and did not
+look at Barber.
+
+"Scoutmaster!" repeated the longshoreman. "So that's it, is it? I
+guessed you was up to some deviltry!"--this to Johnnie. "And let me tell
+you somethin': none of them crazy idears 'round here! D' y' understand?"
+(This was how much he appreciated biscuits and gravy!)
+
+"Yes, sir," murmured Johnnie. But he thought what a pity it was that
+some one had not made a scout out of Big Tom.
+
+"None o' that foolish business," went on Barber; then to Cis, noticing
+her paleness, perhaps. "What's eatin' _you_?"
+
+"Nothing. I feel tired to-night," she answered weakly.
+
+"Go t' bed."
+
+She went, and as if she was grateful to get away, though the sun was
+still shining on the roofs of the houses opposite. She did not even
+glance at Johnnie, and shut herself in.
+
+"What time t'morrow will that guy come?" the longshoreman wanted to know
+as soon as Cis was gone.
+
+"'Bout 'leven." Johnnie could not help but wonder how he was ever to get
+on if the laws bound him so tight to the truth, and the truth would
+prove the undoing, the wrecking of all his dearest plans.
+
+"'Leven," mused Barber. "Hm!--Well, y' needn't t' put up no lunch for me
+in the mornin'. I'll come home for it. I jus' want t' take a look at
+that scout gent."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+A TERRIBLE dread filled Johnnie's heart--that heart which had always
+known so much dread. It took away his desire to go upon the roof; it
+kept him awake long into the night, tugging at his hair, twisting and
+turning upon his mattress, sighing, even weeping a little out of sheer
+helplessness. Having his normal amount of the reserve, dignity and pride
+that is childhood's, his dread was not that Big Tom, when he returned to
+meet Mr. Perkins, would be rude to the scoutmaster (it did not occur to
+him that the longshoreman would dare to go that far); it was that, in
+the presence of the new friend whose good opinion Johnnie longed to
+keep, Barber would order him around, jerk him by a sleeve, or shove him
+rudely--treat him, in fact, with that lack of respect which was usual,
+and thus mortify him.
+
+The full moon was again lifting above the city and touching all the
+roofs with silver. From where he lay he looked out and up, trying to
+forget his wretchedness, but living the coming encounter again and
+again. His ears grew hot as Barber seized one of them and wrung it, or
+brushed his face with a hard, sweaty hand. Imagining insult upon insult,
+his chest heaved and his wet eyes burned.
+
+"Oh, One-Eye!" he whispered to a dear image that seemed to fill the
+morris chair, "if _you_ was only here! Gee, Big Tom never dast treat me
+bad before you!" It was not that he felt for a moment that the cowboy
+was the better friend of the two whom he revered and loved; they held
+equal places in his affections. But Mr. Perkins was too much of a
+gentleman to be awe-inspiring. The Westerner, in his big hat and his
+hairy breeches, was the man to be feared!
+
+At breakfast he was given no chance to talk matters over with Cis. And
+she neither saw his signals nor heard them, though he arranged both the
+stove and the table to warn her that something had happened, and coughed
+croupily till Barber told him roughly to shut up. He comforted himself
+with reflecting that it would have done him no good had they threshed
+the coming crisis out.
+
+It was a shaken, hollow-eyed, miserable, unbathed little boy that
+greeted Mr. Perkins when the scoutmaster rapped. And the sight of the
+latter only made Johnnie's spirits sink lower. He had hoped with all his
+heart that the leader would come in all the grandeur and pride of his
+uniform; and here was Mr. Perkins in a light suit, a straw hat, and
+white socks. The fact that he had on a lavender tie and was carrying
+brown gloves made things just that much worse. Steadily, during the past
+fortnight, the scoutmaster had been dressing better and better. This
+morning he was finer than ever before. It was awful.
+
+"You'll see," mourned Johnnie, his eyes on the clock as he talked.
+"He'll be awful mean t' me. Here he says I can't listen t' scoutin' no
+more! N'r nothin'! Say, Mister Perkins, if he shoves at me, would y'
+ever give him biscuits and gravy again?"
+
+Mr. Perkins thought it over. "Well, under the same circumstances," he
+said finally, "what do you think Theodore Roosevelt would do?"
+
+Johnnie could not decide. He felt that a look at the picture would help.
+Hunting a match, he disappeared into the blue room, struck a light, and
+gave the likeness a searching look. "I don't 'xac'ly know," he declared
+when he came out; "but, Mister Perkins, I b'lieve maybe he'd just _lick_
+him!"
+
+A queer gleam came into those eyes which were a coffee-brown. "I
+shouldn't be surprised," said Mr. Perkins, "if that isn't precisely what
+the Colonel would do."
+
+The door opened. It was Big Tom. His cargo hook hung round his great
+neck. His hat was pushed back, uncovering a forehead seamed and sweaty.
+To Johnnie he looked bigger and blacker than usual--this in comparison
+with Mr. Perkins, so slim, if he was fully as tall as Barber, and so
+immaculate, even dainty!
+
+The older man had an insolent smile in those prominent eyes of his, and
+a sneer bared his tobacco-stained teeth. Slamming the door, he came
+sauntering toward the scoutmaster, who had risen; he halted without
+speaking, then deliberately, impudently, he stared Mr. Perkins from head
+to foot.
+
+The latter glanced back, and with much interest, not staring, yet seeing
+what sort of looking man the longshoreman was. To judge by the
+expression in the brown eyes he did not like the kind. For suddenly his
+eyelids narrowed, and the lines of his mouth set. "Introduce me,
+Johnnie," he said.
+
+Anxious, alert, and not hopeful, Johnnie had been watching the two, this
+from the farther side of the table, so that he should not be handy in
+case his giant foster father wanted to maul him. "This is Mister
+Barber," he began, speaking the name as politely as he could, but
+forgetting to complete the introduction.
+
+"Tommie's home! Tommie's home!" piped up old Grandpa, suddenly waking
+from his morning nap, and evidently not happy over his discovery.
+
+"My name is Perkins," said the scoutmaster to Barber. He spoke
+courteously, but there was no cringing in his manner.
+
+"Perkins, huh?" returned Barber, grinning. He was so close to the other
+that they all but touched. "And when did the cat bring _you_ in?"
+
+In very horror those lead-pipe legs of Johnnie's almost gave way beneath
+him, so that he clung to the table for support. "Oh!" he breathed.
+
+But Mr. Perkins was smiling. "The cat brought me in just before he
+brought you in," he answered quietly.
+
+The reply wrought an instant and startling change in Big Tom. The smile
+went from the bloodshot eyes, giving place to that white flash of rage.
+The heavy nose gave a quick twist. Every hair in the short beard seemed
+to bristle. "Now there's somebody in this room that's gittin' fresh," he
+observed; "and freshness from a kid is somethin' I can't stand. I don't
+mention no name, but! If it happens _again_"--he paused for
+emphasis--"I'll slap the fancy eyeglasses right off his face!"
+
+There was a tense pause. The two at the center of the room were gazing
+straight at each other; and it seemed to Johnnie, wavering weakly
+against the table, that he would die from fear.
+
+However, Mr. Perkins was not frightened. His hat was in his left hand.
+He let it drop to the floor. But he did not move back an inch, while
+those well-kept hands curled themselves into knots so hard that their
+knuckles were topped with white. "You wanted to see me?" he said.
+
+"Y're wrong!" declared Big Tom. "I didn't want t' see y'. I had t' see
+y'."
+
+"I note the distinction," returned Mr. Perkins.
+
+"Y' do! Well, just listen t' me a second," counseled Barber, "before we
+git started on to what I've got t' say." Now his anger flamed higher. He
+began to shake a big finger. "Don't you put on no fancy airs with me!
+Y' git that? For the good and simple reason that I won't stand for 'em!"
+He chawed on nothing.
+
+"I was not aware that I _was_ putting on any fancy airs," answered Mr.
+Perkins. "Airs are something that I don't--waste."
+
+"Any high-falutin' stuff would be wasted 'round here," went on Barber.
+"We're just plain, hard-workin', decent people.--And now we'll git down
+to brass tacks." He passed in front of Mr. Perkins and settled himself
+heavily in the morris chair.
+
+The scoutmaster faced about, found the kitchen chair, and sat. "I'm
+listening," he said. He was businesslike, even cordial.
+
+"You seem t' hang 'round here about two-thirds of your time," commented
+Big Tom, hunting his pipe.
+
+"No," contradicted Mr. Perkins, easily. "Lately, I've been coming here
+one hour a day."
+
+"And just what's the idear?" The big fingers plucked blindly at the
+strings of a tobacco-bag, for Big Tom did not take his eyes from the
+younger man.
+
+"I've been giving the boy setting-up exercises," explained Mr. Perkins.
+
+"Y' have!"--sarcastically. "Ain't that sweet of y'!" Then with an
+impatient gesture that scattered tobacco upon the floor, "Exercises!"
+Big Tom cried wrathfully. "_Exercises!_ As if he can't git all the
+exercises he needs by doin' his work! I have t' feed that kid, and feed
+costs money. He knows that. And he earns. Because he ain't no grafter."
+
+In sheer amazement, Johnnie's look strayed to Mr. Perkins. He had
+expected mistreatment and insult for himself, and here he was receiving
+praise!
+
+"There's a difference in exercising," said Mr. Perkins. "Johnnie gets
+one kind while he's doing his work. But his work is all inside work,
+out of the fresh air that every boy needs. And certain of his muscles
+are not developed. I've been correcting that undevelopment by giving him
+the regular setting-up that we give all boy scouts."
+
+"Shucks, your boy scouts!" sneered Big Tom. "We got no time for 'em.
+We're poor, and we're busy, and we got a' old, sick man on our hands.
+That's scoutin' enough!"
+
+"Many men who have boys think as you do," acknowledged Mr. Perkins,
+serenely. "That is, at first."
+
+"I think it first and second," returned Big Tom, raising his voice. "And
+also I know it."
+
+"I promise you that it won't hurt Johnnie," urged the scoutmaster.
+
+"Yeh? But I know what _would_ hurt Johnnie, and that's growin' up t'
+look like _you_!"
+
+At that, Mr. Perkins burst out in a laugh. It was both good-natured and
+amused. "Well, my looks suit me," he declared.
+
+"Which is more'n _I_ can say of 'em," retorted Barber. "They don't suit
+me a _little_ bit!"
+
+Mr. Perkins laughed again. "Sorry," he said, but his tone entirely
+contradicted his assertion.
+
+Barber kept on: "Your looks don't suit me, and neither does your talk.
+You're altogether too slick, too pink-and-whity, too eye-glassy, and
+purple-shirty, and cute-socky, and girl-glovy."
+
+"I see."
+
+"T' put it plainer, y' don't look t' me like a real man." Out now came
+the underlip, threatening, aggressive.
+
+"Indeed?" Dire as the insult was, Mr. Perkins was still smiling, was
+even a trifle bored. "And what kind of a chap _do_ you think is a real
+man?"
+
+"Somebody," answered Big Tom, "that's ev'rything you ain't. Why, honest,
+you look too nice t' me t' be out in bad weather. Y' know, one of these
+days you'll melt, 'r git streaked."
+
+"Mm! Perhaps I'm too clean." Those coffee-colored eyes were cool. With
+one swift up and down they examined Big Tom's apparel.
+
+The longshoreman squirmed under the scrutiny. "Y' don't look like y've
+ever done a lick of honest work in your whole life!" he declared hotly.
+"Y' look like your pink face was made o' dough, and the balance of y'
+out o' putty! Y' look as if the calf'd licked y'!"
+
+Again that amused, bored smile. "No," said Mr. Perkins, "that hasn't
+happened yet."
+
+"No? Well, y' never can tell. Y' _might_ git licked by somethin'
+_besides_ a calf."
+
+Another of those pauses which seemed so terribly long to Johnnie, and so
+fraught with direful possibilities. Then, "I might," agreed the
+scoutmaster, carelessly; "but again I--might not."
+
+Now Barber showed that he did not possess the self-control that
+distinguished the younger man. His heavy, hair-rimmed mouth working as
+if with unspoken words, he rose, pocketed the pipe, and took a long step
+toward the table, upon which he planted both his huge hands. As he
+leaned there, it was plain that he longed for trouble. "I might not!" he
+mocked, disgusted. "Sure, y' might! For the reason that you ain't the
+kind that's got a wallop in your fist!"
+
+Mr. Perkins got up, too. But only as if it were the well-bred thing to
+do. The bronze of his face was considerably darker than usual; and his
+eyes were black, and shone like great beads. "Ah!" he exclaimed, as
+amused as ever. "Now I think I know what it is that you respect most in
+men. Brute force. Am I right? Muscle! The power to give a hard blow."
+
+"Dead right!" answered Barber, striking the table with his open hand.
+"I hate a mollycoddle! a cutie! a reg'lar _pill_!"
+
+Mr. Perkins nodded in the friendliest way. "So do I," he declared
+heartily. "And that's just why I want to train Johnnie's muscles, and
+teach him how to use his hands."
+
+Big Tom straightened and went round the table. "I'll train Johnnie's
+muscles," he said; "and I'll teach him what t' do with his hands, too.
+And you keep your nose out of it. Understand?" Then deliberately
+reaching out, with one finger he gave Mr. Perkins a poke in the chest.
+
+That chest swelled under the neatly buttoned light coat. Yet Mr. Perkins
+continued to smile. But he did not move back by so much as an inch. And
+presently, with a low "Bah!" of anger and disgust, the longshoreman
+loafed away. "All right," he drawled, in a tone of dismissal; "and now
+I'll ask for your room."
+
+"My room?" The scoutmaster did not appear to understand.
+
+"Yes! Yes!"--loudly, and facing round. "I'm askin' y' not t' bother us
+any more this mornin' with your ever-lastin' talk!"
+
+"Oh. You wish me to go." Mr. Perkins took up his hat and gloves.
+
+"My, but you're smart!" exclaimed Barber, sarcastically. "You can
+understand plain English!--Yes, _dear_ Mister Perkins, I mean that I
+don't want y' round." With that he continued on to the hall door, and
+opened it. "This way out," he said flippantly. The brown teeth showed
+again.
+
+Mr. Perkins gave Johnnie a cheery smile. "Good-by, old chap," he said.
+He went to the wheel chair and laid a gentle hand on Grandpa's shoulder.
+"Good-by, Grandpa!"
+
+"Good-by, General!" quavered the old man. "Good-by!" A shaking hand
+lifted in a salute.
+
+Mr. Perkins gave Barber a courteous nod as he passed him. "Good-by," he
+said pleasantly.
+
+"Good-by," returned Barber. "And good riddance!" He slammed the door.
+
+Then something strange happened--something that had never happened
+before. Without giving Johnnie a look, Barber lifted down the lamp,
+lighted it, carried it into Cis's room, and closed the door.
+
+Rooted to the floor, alert as any frightened mouse, Johnnie listened. He
+could hear the longshoreman moving about, and the scrape of the
+dressing-table box as it was lifted from its place, then shoved back.
+What was Barber hunting? Fortunately the books were wound up in
+Johnnie's bedding, a precaution taken by their owner in view of Barber's
+spoken determination to return and take a look at Mr. Perkins. By any
+chance did the longshoreman know about the Handbook? If he did, and if
+he found it, what would happen then?
+
+After what seemed a long time, Barber appeared. Except for the lamp, his
+hands were empty. He blew into the top of the chimney and set the lamp
+back in its place. "Tea," he ordered.
+
+Startled, Johnnie fairly rose into the air. When he touched the floor
+again, he was halfway to the stove. He set the table for one, mustering
+the food which Big Tom was to have had in the lunch pail. Barber ate,
+occasionally growling under his breath; or blew fiercely at the full
+saucer from which he was drinking. His look roved the room as if he were
+still searching. His meal finished, he found his hat, hung the cargo
+hook about his neck, and slouched out.
+
+Then for the first time Johnnie relaxed, and slumped into the morris
+chair. He was not only weak, he was sick--too sick with bitterness and
+hate and shame and rage even to care to go into Cis's room to see in
+what condition Big Tom had left it. He knew now that the rough handling
+that he had feared for himself, though it would have been hard enough to
+endure, was less than nothing when compared with what he had suffered in
+seeing Mr. Perkins insulted, and ordered out.
+
+He began to talk to himself aloud: "Good turns don't work! I'm sorry I
+ever done him one! I'll never do him another, y' betcher life!" Black
+discouragement possessed him. What good did it do any one to treat a man
+like Barber well? "Why, he's worse'n that mean Will Atkins that Crusoe
+hates!" he declared. "And the first time I git a chance, away I'll go,
+Mister Tom Barber, and this time I won't _never_ come back!"
+
+"Sh!" whispered old Grandpa. "Sh!" The faded blue eyes were full of
+fear.
+
+Johnnie fed the old soldier and got him to sleep. Then he tapped the
+basket signal up to Mrs. Kukor's. He had found the bed roll undisturbed,
+and knew that Big Tom had not discovered his treasures. But he would not
+take any further chances. When the basket came swinging slowly down, he
+called a brief explanation to the little Jewish lady. When the basket
+went up, it swung heavily, for his six precious books were in it.
+
+Now he had no time, and no inclination, for reading. And he had no
+patience for any law that aimed to stand in his way. (Big Tom had driven
+Mr. Perkins from the flat; also, he had just about swept the place clean
+of every good result that the scoutmaster had worked.) What Johnnie felt
+urged to do seemed the only thing that could lessen all that rage and
+shame, that hate and bitterness, which was pent up in his thin little
+body.
+
+"So I can't ever be a scout, eh?" he demanded. "Well, you watch me!" He
+planted the kitchen with a trackless forest through which boomed a wind
+off Lake Champlain. The forest was dark, mysterious. Through it,
+stealing on soft, moccasined feet, went Johnnie and the cruel Magua,
+following the trail of the fleeing and terrified longshoreman.
+
+They caught him. They bound him. And now the _Hispaniola_ came into
+sight across the Lake, her sails full spread as she hurried to receive
+her prisoner. Johnnie and Magua put Barber aboard. The latter pleaded
+earnestly, but no one listened. Again the ship set sail, bound for that
+Island which had yielded up its treasure to Captain Smollet's crew. On
+this Island, Big Tom was set down. And as the _Hispaniola_ set sail once
+more, her prow pointed homeward, Johnnie looked back to where the
+longshoreman was kneeling, hands appealingly upraised, beside those
+certain three abandoned mutineers.
+
+"And there y' stay," called Johnnie; "--for life!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CIS TELLS A SECRET
+
+
+CIS was seated on her narrow pallet, her back against the prized
+excelsior cushion, her knees drawn up within the circle of her slender
+arms. About her shoulders tumbled her hair, its glossy waves framing a
+face, pale and tense, in which her eyes were wide pools of black.
+
+Johnnie was just below her on the floor, his quilt spread under him for
+comfort, a bare foot nursed in either hand. The combined positions were
+such as invariably made for confidences. And he guessed that what she
+had to tell him now was something unusually important and exciting.
+
+"Johnnie," she whispered, and he saw himself dancing in those dark
+pools; "--oh, if I don't tell it to somebody, I'll just _die_! Oh,
+Johnnie, what do you think? What do you _think_?"
+
+He thought; then, "New shoes?" he hazarded. "A new dress? A--a--more
+money at the fact'ry? Or"--and in an excited rush--"another book!"
+
+"_Oh!_" She lifted her face to the ceiling, wagging her head helplessly.
+"Shoes! or a dress! or money! or a book! They're nothing, Johnnie,
+alongside of the truth--just _nothing_!"
+
+"Well, then, what?" he asked, leaning forward encouragingly. "Go on,
+Cis! Tell me!"
+
+"Johnnie Smith,"--impressively--"you're sitting beside a young lady
+that's going to be married!"
+
+Johnnie gasped. "_Married?_" He fell back from her, the better to stare.
+He had expected an important communication; but he was not prepared for
+anything so astounding as this.
+
+She nodded. "Right away."
+
+Going to be married! So that was why she seemed so different, so
+changed! that was why she had been wearing her hair up, and fussing so
+often with her nails! why she cared no longer for Edwarda! why she could
+not see the people of his thinks! It was simple enough, now that he
+understood. Of course with a wedding in view, naturally she was
+grown-up; and a girl, whenever she got grown-up, could not let her
+braids hang down her back. And as for fine hands-- "Y' mean y've heard
+from the _Prince_?" he demanded.
+
+She laughed. "No-o-o-o! Oh, Johnnie, you silly!"
+
+He knit his brows and regarded her reprovingly. "Well," he argued, "y'
+always told me how much y' love him."
+
+"But I didn't ever know him even! And that was a long time ago!--No,
+it's some one else, and really a Prince, because he's so splendid! Oh,
+Johnnie, guess! Guess the most wonderful person ever! Guess a knight!
+Like Galahad! Oh, he's _exactly_ like Galahad!" Now she gazed past him.
+There were tears on her eyelashes. Her parted lips were trembling. "I'm
+too happy almost to live!" she added. Then down went her forehead to
+rest on her knees, and he saw that she was trembling all over.
+
+There was a long silence. Just at first he had felt inclined to taunt
+her a little for being so changeable in her affections, so flighty; and
+it had hurt his opinion of her, this knowledge that she could be
+disloyal. But now he was curious. Who was really a Prince? and splendid?
+and like Galahad?
+
+He saw a figure, tall and dark, majestically seated upon a great, bay
+horse. A cap shaded proud, piercing eyes. A uniform set the rider wholly
+apart from all the ordinary men hurrying by in both directions. Who in
+the city of New York was so like a knight as one of those brave, superb,
+unapproachable, almost royal, creatures, a mounted policeman? ("Fine
+Irishers," as Mrs. Kukor called them.)
+
+Then Johnnie was reminded of something. "Cis, will y' be married with a
+red carpet?" he whispered.
+
+She looked up, turning on him a smile so sweet and glowing that it was
+like a light. "I don't know," she whispered back. "Maybe--if I want
+one--I think so." Down went her head again.
+
+Now another picture. The carpet was laid. It stretched across the smooth
+pavement under a long, high, gray canopy. A red carpet and a gray canopy
+meant just one thing: great wealth. And Johnnie saw Cis following where
+that carpet led, beside her one of the four richest men in the world.
+This man was Mr. Astor (or Mr. Vanderbilt, or Mr. Rockefeller, or Mr.
+Carnegie--any one of the quartette would do). The mounted policeman was
+still a part of the happy scene, but only in an official capacity, since
+from the back of his prancing bay he was keeping off the vast crowd that
+was swarming to see the bridal couple.
+
+And, naturally, the policeman, in spite of his fine uniform, was not to
+be compared for a moment to the bridegroom. New York had many policemen;
+it had only one Mr. Astor (or Mr. Vanderbilt, or Mr. Rockefeller, or Mr.
+Carnegie). Also, the future surroundings of a Mrs. Policeman--what were
+they when put alongside what Cis would have when she was Mrs.
+Any-one-of-the-Four? A house as big as the Grand Central Station--that
+was a certainty. With it would go silk dresses and furs with dozens of
+little tails to trim them; jewels of the sort Aladdin had sent the
+Sultan for the Princess Buddir al Buddoor; books in as great a number
+as Cis cared to buy, all from that store in Fifth Avenue; automobiles
+like those owned by the Fifty-fifth Street rich man; dishes of massy
+gold.
+
+"And I betcher I'll ride in one of her cars," he thought; "and I'll read
+her books!" And at once the future looked rosy and promising.
+
+She began to whisper again, her chin on a knee: "He's got a place for me
+all picked out! I won't have to go to the factory any more! I'll have
+pretty clothes, and good things to eat every meal, and see plays and
+moving-pictures every week, and just have nothing to do but keep house,
+and sew, and----"
+
+The startled expression on Johnnie's face stopped her. "Keep house?" he
+repeated, disgusted. "_Sew?_" These were not matters which should
+trouble the bride of a millionaire! "What're y' goin' t' do things like
+_that_ for?"
+
+She blinked at him, rebuffed and puzzled. "Why not? I like to sew."
+
+"Aw,"--the palace of his vision was down now, had vanished like
+Aladdin's own--"what's your new name goin' t' be?" He felt unaccountably
+cross.
+
+"Johnnie! What's the matter with you? And you mean you don't know? you
+can't guess? You haven't _noticed_? And you right here all the time?"
+
+Surprise stiffened Johnnie's countenance. "Oh!" he cried, amazed and
+glad. "Oh, Cis, I know now! You're goin' t' marry One-Eye!"
+
+Girls, as he knew, were very strange; and surely this one was not the
+least so. It was a conclusion that came to him now, and forcibly. For at
+his solemn, heart-felt, happy question, what this girl did was to fall
+back against her pillow, shouting with laughter, waving both arms, even
+kicking out her feet in the craziest manner. And "One-Eye!" she
+repeated; "One-Eye!" Then was swept into another paroxysm of mirth.
+
+Presently, "Well, go on! Tell me!" Johnnie said with proper masculine
+severity.
+
+"Oh, Johnnie, you _are_ so funny!" she declared breathlessly. "One-Eye!
+That _old man_! Oh, never, never, never, _never_!" The last never was
+only a squeak.
+
+"When y' git done laughin'--" he prompted; and waited, lips set, and
+lids lowered with displeasure.
+
+"Somebody a _thousand_ times nicer than One-Eye!" she went on. "A
+_million_ times nicer! And, oh, Johnnie, how I _love_ him!"
+
+Johnnie's heart sank, heavy with the great pity that now welled up in
+his heart. He knew whom she meant; but he knew, too, that, sweet and
+pretty and lovable as she was, and no doubt capable of winning the
+affections of a mounted policeman or a millionaire, she had not the
+slightest chance in the world of marrying the handsome, the good, the
+wise, the peerless and high-born Mr. Perkins. "St! st! st!" he mourned.
+He sighed, leaned against the side of the shelf, propped his yellow head
+on a big hand, and watched her sadly.
+
+"Mrs. Algernon Godfrey Perkins!"--Cis spoke as if in an ecstatic dream.
+"A. G. P.! _Oh_, but they're lovely initials!"
+
+He was glad when she leaned her head on her knees again, for then she
+could not see his face. "Gee!" he murmured.
+
+"It was you brought him to me!" went on Cis. "I'll never forget that,
+Johnnie! It means my whole life! Just think of that! A whole, long,
+wonderful life with _him_!"
+
+"Aw, but, Cis! Are y' sure y' got a chance?"--his voice was tender with
+sorrowful concern.
+
+She sat up. "Johnnie Smith, what're you talking about?" she demanded. "A
+_chance_! Why, he loves me! He says so! Over and over and over! And look
+here!" She thrust a finger under the collar of her dress and drew out a
+length of white ribbon, narrow and shining. Mid-way of it, playing along
+the satin, was a ring--a gold ring set all the way round with tiny,
+white, glistening stones. "Mr. Perkins, he gave me this," she added, and
+caught the ring to her lips.
+
+"Mrs. Perkins!" Now his eyes were big with the wonder of it all! That
+Waldorf-Astoria apartment--Cis was to live in it! There could no longer
+be any doubt of it. The ring was solid proof. Almost reverently he
+reached to take it in his fingers. "The same as Aladdin loved the
+Princess!" he said slowly.
+
+Cis gave a toss of her brown head. "Oh, Aladdin!" she scoffed. "This is
+really and truly, Johnnie! There's no make-believe about it!"
+
+What all this meant to her, to Mr. Perkins, and to him, he realized
+then. But he could not be happy over it because of a new fear. "Oh,
+Cis!" he cried, leaning close to speak low. "Don't y' know what's goin'
+t' happen? If y' tell Big Tom 'bout this, he'll kill y'! And, oh! oh!
+He'll kill _him_! Mister Perkins!"
+
+"Sh! Sh!" She put an arm about him. "It's going to be all right! Who'll
+tell Big Tom? Don't you worry. _I_ don't. I'm not his daughter. Mr.
+Perkins is going to find me a guardian. It'll be a lady, I think. Anyhow
+then I'll do just what the guardian says. You know, guardians 're
+awfully stylish. Girls have them in books, and in the movies. Yesterday
+somebody was telling at the factory about----"
+
+She had caught his interest, taking it from that fresh worry. His arms
+about her, his head resting against her shoulder, they talked on and on,
+in whispers. When Barber came stomping in, and ordered them to be quiet,
+Johnnie forsook the little blue room; but he could not sleep, and stole
+to the roof for a breath of fresh air.
+
+The night was the most beautiful he had ever seen. Or was it the joy in
+his own heart that made everything seem so perfect? How deeply blue were
+the patches of star-sprinkled sky showing between clouds of dazzling
+white! How sweet and live was the air driving cityward from the sea! And
+the moon! As it came slipping from cloud to cloud, as round as the
+washtub, and nearly as large, it seemed to Johnnie to have a face that
+he could see plainly. And that face, full and fat, was laughing!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ROSES THAT TATTLED
+
+
+"CIS BAR-R-BER-R-R! Cis Bar-r-r-ber-r-r! Cis Bar-r-r-ber-r!"
+
+It was the shrill voice of the Italian janitress, calling up from the
+area, and the summons was peremptory and impatient.
+
+The day was Sunday, so that Cis, as well as Big Tom, was at home. At the
+moment the longshoreman was humped over the sink, rinsing his bluish
+jowls after a shave. Cis was beside him, standing at the kitchen window.
+The day before she had been told by a girl friend that one side of every
+person's face is always better-looking than the other side; and now she
+was holding up in front of her the broken bit of mirror while, as she
+turned her head delicately, now this way, now that, she tried to decide
+between the merits of the two views.
+
+"Cis _Bar_--rber!" sounded the call again, this time with an added note
+of annoyance.
+
+Cis transferred her attention to her nose. Recently a certain somebody
+had told her one or two things about that nose. She was considering
+this, aided by the glass. "My! That janitress is getting bossier and
+bossier!" she remarked somewhat languidly.
+
+Johnnie, bent over his violets, paused with a flower half done. He
+marveled at her lack of curiosity, envying her for it. How grandly
+grown-up she was! As for him, he was fairly on pins and needles to know
+what it was the janitress wanted. "St! st!" he hissed cautiously
+(Barber's head being just then buried in the roller towel). He tried
+hard to catch her eye.
+
+"Cis _BAR-BER_!"--it was a shriek.
+
+"I've told that woman, over and over, that my name _isn't_ Barber," went
+on Cis, touching her hair with deft fingers.
+
+Barber took his head out of the towel. "Go and see what she wants," he
+commanded irritably. "She'll wake the old man."
+
+"She wants me to be running up and down three flights of stairs,"
+returned Cis, calmly. (It was astonishing the attitude she took these
+days with Big Tom, the tone of equality she used.) "She thinks I'm still
+one of the youngsters in this building, and that she can order me around
+like she used to do. But I'm going to remind Madam Spaghetti that I'm
+seventeen to-day." She gave a toss of her head as she went out.
+
+Seventeen! Sure enough! Johnnie pondered her good fortune. It would be
+quite a little more than six years before he would be seventeen. How
+remote that fortunate day seemed! And how the time would drag! Oh, if
+there were only some scheme for making it go faster!
+
+"Let your hair alone!" scolded Big Tom, who was raking his own at the
+window, his legs spraddled wide in order to lower himself and thus bring
+his head on a level with Cis's mirror.
+
+A scout is obedient. Down came Johnnie's hand. Also, a scout is cheerful
+when obeying; so up went the corners of his mouth. And there was one
+more point to cover: courtesy. "Yes, sir," he answered politely. He
+proceeded with his petals of violet cotton and his little length of
+stem. For what had Mr. Perkins said so often about all these matters of
+conduct?
+
+"Get the habit of doing them, old fellow. If being a scout means
+anything, it means living up to the laws, sticking close to the spirit
+of the whole scout idea, and following out what the Handbook teaches.
+Put the question of Big Tom out of your mind. Whether he likes what you
+do or not; and whether or not you please him when you live by the laws,
+those aren't the main considerations. No! It's yourself you must think
+of! your character! Remember that you're not trying to make over Tom
+Barber. Body and soul, you're making over Johnnie Smith!"
+
+And these days Johnnie Smith was getting on by leaps and bounds with his
+preparation, his training to be a scout. Fortunately that meeting
+between Mr. Perkins and Big Tom had made no difference whatever in his
+program. The morning after it took place, the scoutmaster had made his
+appearance as usual at eleven o'clock. "I can't let Mr. Barber drive me
+away," he explained. "Why, that would be deserting you, old fellow, and
+you're counting on me, aren't you? No, we'll go right ahead."
+
+"But if he finds out!" Johnnie ventured, happy, yet somewhat
+apprehensive.
+
+"He'll order me out again probably," returned Mr. Perkins, calmly. "Of
+course, if he could understand what I'm trying to do for you, I'm sure
+he'd look at the whole matter in a friendlier way." (Mr. Perkins never
+came closer than this to a criticism of the longshoreman.) "Well, he
+can't understand, because, you see, the poor chap never had the right
+thing done for him.--Yes, we'll go right ahead."
+
+However, as Johnnie continued to feel nervous on the score of what his
+foster father might do to this good friend if the latter was again
+discovered at the flat, the scoutmaster, for Johnnie's sake, and to make
+the boy's mind more easy, agreed to change the time of his call to a
+little after one o'clock of each afternoon, it being decided that this
+hour was the safest.
+
+Johnnie had wanted to say something about the ring, and the
+engagement--something to the effect that he was happy over the news,
+only Mr. Perkins was taking his (Johnnie's) job away from him, since he
+had planned, when he grew up,--yes, and even before--to take care of Cis
+himself. But for some reason he did not find it easy to broach the
+subject; and since the scoutmaster did not begin it (he looked ruddier
+and browner than ever before, Johnnie thought), the upshot of it was
+that the engagement did not get discussed at all.
+
+Instead, the Handbook took up the whole of the hour. A mysterious signal
+on the sink pipe brought all of the books down to them, descending in
+the basket as if out of the sky. Mrs. Kukor had to be thanked then, from
+the window, after which Mr. Perkins and Johnnie settled down to a
+chapter treating of the prevention of accidents, first-aid, and
+lifesaving. And that afternoon, when the scoutmaster was gone, Letitia
+was several times rescued from drowning, and carried on a stretcher; and
+that evening Cis, on coming in from work, found Grandpa's old, white
+head bandaged scientifically in the dish-towel, this greatly to the
+veteran's delight, for he believed he had just been wounded at the
+Battle of Shiloh.
+
+The chapter for the next day after proved even more exciting. It was all
+about games--the Treasure Hunt, and Let 'er Buck, Capture the Flag, and
+dozens more, but each as strange to Johnnie as another, since he had
+never played one of them. Mr. Perkins added his explanations to those in
+the Handbook, and showed Johnnie and Grandpa how cock-fighting was done,
+gave a demonstration of skunk tag, and proved that the soft, splintery
+boards of the kitchen floor were finely adapted to mumbly peg.
+
+That night on the roof, Johnnie hailed to him a score of scouts, along
+with Jim Hawkins and David, Aladdin, and several of the younger Knights
+of King Arthur. Then went forward a great game of duck on a rock,
+followed by a relay race and dodge-ball. The roof had come to mean more
+and more to Johnnie of late, but now he felt especially glad that he had
+it to go to. During the past few weeks he had frequented it under every
+sort of summer-night sky. It was his weather station, his observatory,
+his gymnasium, his park, his highway, his hilltop, his Crusoe's Island.
+In the thinks he conjured up there, it was also his railroad station,
+for he traveled far and wide from it on trains that went puffing away
+from that little house built at the top of the stairs; and it was his
+wharf, to which tall-masted ships came with the swift quiet of so many
+pigeons. But now the roof was for him still another place--besides a
+health resort: it was his playground for all those scout games.
+
+But he and Mr. Perkins had not stopped at that chapter on Games. From
+cover to cover Johnnie absorbed the Handbook, reading even the Appendix
+and the Index! He read the advertisements, too, and came to own a kodak,
+a junior rifle, a watch, a scout axe, and various other desirable
+things. But the merit badge he did not own. He meant to earn that, to
+have it really--not just as a think; for which reason he never lagged in
+the matter of his meal getting.
+
+Big Tom profited through this determination of Johnnie's. Night after
+night he had biscuits and gravy. He had apple sauce where formerly
+Johnnie would have let the longshoreman eat his green apples uncooked.
+Barber profited, too, in the amount of work Johnnie did every day,
+promptly and thoroughly, and in those good turns which served to make
+old Grandpa happier.
+
+Now as Johnnie waited for Cis to return from the area, he pondered on
+the difference between Big Tom and Mr. Perkins. The latter had often
+pointed out to Johnnie that it did not cost anything to be either polite
+or cheerful, and the boy liked being both. Why was Big Tom neither?
+"Mister Barber, what does 'Birds of a feather flock t'-gether' mean?" he
+inquired.
+
+Barber had on a white collar and his best coat. His shoes were laced,
+too. This was the Sunday-morning longshoreman that was the pleasantest
+to look at. "Where d' y' git hold of such stuff?" was his retort. (Yet
+Barber smiled as he put on his hat. The boy was coming to time in great
+shape these days, behaving himself, doing his work, learning to answer a
+man right. A blind person could see the improvement. Who could say
+truthfully that he was not raising the boy first-class?)
+
+As the hall door shut behind Barber, Johnnie could scarcely keep himself
+down in his chair. He wanted to look out of the window to try if he
+could not see Cis. But he stayed where he was, and twisted away busily.
+Barber might be at his old tricks; might open the door at any moment.
+But also, just so many violets must be made of a Sunday, and just that
+many would be made. A scout is trustworthy.
+
+Yet just so many violets were not to be made, thus proving how uncertain
+life is. For here came Cis, switching her way in importantly. She was
+panting. She was flushed. Cautiously she shut the door behind her. "I've
+been up on Mrs. Kukor's stairs, waiting," she half whispered. Under one
+arm she was carrying a long, satiny-white box.
+
+"_Another_ doll?" demanded Johnnie, astonished and disappointed. To him
+any long, white box could mean nothing else. However, he rose, unable to
+be entirely indifferent even to a new doll.
+
+"Doll!" cried Cis, scornfully. She dropped the box on the table.
+
+Then Johnnie saw that it was not a doll; for out of one end of the
+box--an end that was open--extended a handful of long, slender, green
+stems. The gift was flowers, tied, not with common string, but with a
+flat, green tape which looked fully as expensive as ribbon, and nearly
+as handsome. "Oh, gee!"--this as he seized the stems, not being able to
+wait, he was so excited, and tried to draw the flowers from the box.
+"Oh, Cis, d'y' s'pose these 're from One-Eye? D'y' think maybe One-Eye
+is back?--Oh, hurry!"
+
+"Wait!"--speaking gently, yet with something of a high-and-mighty air.
+"Johnnie, you've got One-Eye on the brain." The cord untied, she slipped
+the cover off the box. Next she swept aside a froth of crisp
+tissue-paper which was still veiling the gift. Then together they looked
+down.
+
+"O-o-o-o-h!" It was a chorus.
+
+Roses! Pink roses! A very pile of them, snuggling in the cool, delicate
+greenery of ferns! Up from them lifted a fragrance that rivaled even
+that of orris root. Cis leaned to breathe. Next, Johnnie leaned, all but
+swelling to the bursting point that flat little chest of his to take in
+the delicious perfume. Thus for a while, and without speaking, they
+dipped their heads, alternating, to the box.
+
+Presently, Cis lifted the bouquet--almost with reverence. The cups of
+the flowers were narrow, looked into from directly above, as if each
+flower had just opened. And, oh, how young each seemed! and how
+beautiful! When, in all the years since the tenement had been built, had
+it sheltered such loveliness! Bravely enough the dark, smudgy kitchen,
+with its scabby walls and its greasy, splintery floor, grew knots of
+violets. But here were flowers not made by hands: flowers which had come
+up out of the earth!--yet with a perfectness which was surely not of the
+earth; certainly not, at any rate, of this particular corner of it
+situated in the Lower East Side.
+
+"My first roses!" Cis said. Her tone implied that they were not her
+last.
+
+"They're fine!" pronounced Johnnie, solemnly.
+
+"_Fine?_ They're darling! They're precious! They look as if they'd just
+come down from Heaven!" Out of the long, white box Cis now took a small,
+square envelope. She handed it to Johnnie. "Open it, please," she bade,
+and rather grandly, her air that of one who has been receiving boxes of
+roses all her life. Then once more she buried that complimented nose
+among her flowers.
+
+The envelope was not sealed. That was because, Johnnie concluded, there
+was no letter in it. What it contained was a narrow, stiff card. On the
+card, written in ink, was "Many happy returns of the day!" This Johnnie
+read aloud. "But there's no name," he complained. "So how d'y' know
+these didn't come from One-Eye? I'll just bet they did! I'll----"
+
+"Read the other side," advised Cis calmly. She fell to counting the
+roses.
+
+Over went the card. "Oh, yes; you're right--Mister Algernon Godfrey
+Perkins, it says. Gee! but he must've spent a pile of money! And what
+day's he talkin' about? How can a day return?"
+
+"Your birthday can return--every year, the way Christmas does. To-day is
+seventeen times my birthday has returned; and there's just seventeen
+roses here. That's one for each year I've lived." She began to whisper
+into the buds, touching in turn each pink chalice with her pink lips.
+"This is the rose for the year I was one, and this is the rose for the
+year I was two, and this is the rose----"
+
+Johnnie proceeded, boylike, to acquire some intimate and practical
+knowledge of her gift. He opened one flower a little, carefully
+spreading its petals. "My! ain't they soft!" he marveled. "Gee! I'd like
+t' make some 'xac'ly like 'em out o' silk! And, ouch! What's _this_?"
+
+"This" was a thorn, the first he had ever seen. Learning that the roses
+had many thorns, he begged hard for one, whereupon Cis broke off for him
+that particular needlelike growth which was the farthest down on any
+stem. He received it gratefully on a palm, carried it to the window, and
+there split it open with a thumb-nail; and having been assured by Cis
+that it was a safe enough thing to do, he finally put the divided thorn
+into his mouth and chewed it up. And found it good!
+
+Next, he begged a bit of stem. At first, Cis demurred, arguing that to
+cut a stem might injure the rose at its top; but was won over when
+Johnnie pointed out that all of the stems had been already cut
+once--"and maybe it was good for 'em!" But then the question was, which
+of the seventeen stems could best spare a bit of its length? This took
+consideration; also, measuring--with a string. At last the longest stem
+of all was found. Cis held it tenderly while Johnnie did the cutting.
+Snip! He got a quarter-inch of the growth. This, also, he split,
+examined, smelled, and ate. And discovered that it tasted even better
+than the thorn!
+
+Meanwhile, Cis was parading, her bouquet clasped to her breast. He went
+over and walked to and fro beside her, studying the flowers. "Those come
+up out o' the dirt, didn't they?" he mused. "But they're pink and green.
+And dirt ain't, is it? So how can the _roses_ be like they are? 'R else
+the ground ought t' be pink on top--that's t' make the flowers--and
+green 'way down, so's t' grow the stems. And how does the roses know not
+t' git green up top and pink all up and down? And how----"
+
+"Oh, do hush!" implored Cis. "Don't you see that I'm trying to think?
+Don't talk aloud, Johnnie, please!"
+
+It was then they heard the stairs creak, and a heavy step in the hall.
+And thought of Big Tom for the first time--having been too enthralled by
+the roses, until now, to remember anything else. "Oh, quick!" Johnnie
+was between Cis and the door of her room. He moved aside to let her
+pass. "Oh!"--but, being panic-stricken, she stepped in the same
+direction, so that she stumbled against him. Finding himself again
+blocking her path, "Hurry!" he urged, and dodged the other way. She also
+dodged that way. Thus they did a kind of frightened side-to-side dance
+there in the middle of the kitchen floor--as the door opened and Barber
+appeared, his coat on his arm.
+
+Face to face, with the roses between them, Cis and Johnnie stayed where
+they were, as if stricken into helplessness by the sight of the
+longshoreman, toward him turning their beseeching, anxious look. Each
+reached blindly to touch the other, for strength and sympathy. And the
+roses, lifted to the level of their lips, swayed to their hard
+breathing.
+
+Barber lumbered closer. "What y' got there?" he demanded. He flung his
+coat from him, to light upon the table, where it covered those other
+flowers which were of cotton.
+
+"R--roses," faltered Cis, her voice scarcely audible.
+
+Now the longshoreman came to loom over them. "Where 'd y' git 'em?" he
+asked next, staring at the bouquet almost wildly. ("He'll jerk it,"
+thought Johnnie.)
+
+"You--you remember the--the Mr. Perkins?" Cis began, not taking her eyes
+from Big Tom's face.
+
+Barber did not "jerk" the roses. Instead, he pointed one of those long
+arms toward the window. "Walk over there," he commanded, "and pitch 'em
+out!" His arm stayed outstretched.
+
+Cis tried to speak, made as if to plead, but could only swallow. As for
+Johnnie, he was petrified, mesmerized, and remained in her path,
+watching those eyes which were bulging so furiously, while that white
+flash in the left one darted into sight and disappeared, then came and
+went again.
+
+"_Out!_" repeated Barber.
+
+Cis lowered her look to her roses, as if she were seeing them for the
+last time. Even in the dusk of the kitchen their bright color was
+reflected upon her face, which, but for the flowers, would have been a
+ghastly white. A quick catching of the breath, like a sob. Then, her
+chin sunk among the blossoms, she half-circled Johnnie, and slowly
+started windowward.
+
+"Git a move on!" Barber spoke low.
+
+At that, she turned, holding the roses toward him. "Oh, Mr. Barber!" she
+begged. "Don't make me! Don't! The first roses I've ever had! The first!
+Oh, don't hurt 'em!"
+
+The wheel chair began to swing around. It was curious how quickly a note
+of dissension could rouse the old soldier from sleep, though with any
+amount of excitement of the happy kind he napped undisturbed. "Johnnie?
+Johnnie?" he called. The faded, weak eyes peered about.
+
+Barber acted quickly. With a muttered curse, he lunged across the room
+to Cis, snarled into her face as he reached her, and wrenched the roses
+out of her hand. "I'll hurt 'em all right!" he promised savagely.
+
+"Tommie! Tommie!"--it was a joyous cry. The bright flowers had caught
+Grandpa's eye. "Oh! Oh, Tommie!" Now the chair started in Barber's
+direction. "Oh, Mother! Oh, go fetch Mother!" He let Letitia drop as he
+turned at the wheels.
+
+The roses were half way out of the window; Barber drew them back, as if
+his father's delight in the bouquet had made him change his mind. But he
+did not give them to Grandpa. Instead, he hid the flowers behind him.
+"Git the old man some milk," he told Johnnie; and to Cis, "You put on
+your hat and take these out, and don't you come back with less'n a
+dollar."
+
+"A--a dollar?" She began to weep. Though she did not yet understand what
+he meant her to do.
+
+"Yes, a dollar." Barber stayed beside the window, the roses still at his
+back. "You heard me! Sell 'em."
+
+She turned toward her room. "Sell my birthday present!" she sobbed. "The
+first bouquet I've ever had! The first!" But instinctively her hands
+went up to smooth her hair.
+
+That told Johnnie that she was getting ready to put on her hat and obey
+a wicked command. He fumbled with the milk bottle and a cup, spilling a
+little of the drink. "All right, Grandpa," he soothed. But his tone was
+not indicative of his real feelings. Other words were boiling up in him
+that he did not speak: "_I_ wouldn't sell 'em, y' betcher life! He could
+go out and sell 'em himself! And I'd tell him so, y' betcher life! And
+he could lick me if he wanted t'! He could pound me till I died! But I
+wouldn't mind him!"
+
+Something came driving up into his throat, his eyes, his pale, strained
+face. It was the blood of hate. It choked and blinded him, sang in his
+ears, swelled his thin neck, reddened his unfreckled cheeks. Oh, this
+was more than he could bear, even if he was to be a scout some day! The
+laws, the good resolutions, the lessons taught by Mr. Perkins, they were
+not helping him now when this fearful thing was being done. He began a
+terrible think--of Big Tom down on the floor, helpless, bleeding,
+begging for mercy, while Johnnie struck his cruel tormentor again and
+again--trampled him--laughed--shouted----!
+
+Cis came from the tiny blue room. Her head was lowered. The tears were
+making wet tracks between eyes and pitifully trembling mouth. She walked
+as far as the table, which checked her, and she halted against it
+blindly.
+
+"There you are," said Big Tom. He tossed the roses upon his coat. "Go
+on, now! Hurry! Don't wait round till the old man gits t' fussin';
+and"--as she gathered the roses up and made slowly toward the
+door--"don't do no howlin' on the street, or folks'll think y're crazy."
+
+She halted and turned her tear-stained face toward him. "People _will_
+think I'm crazy!" she sobbed. "A girl like me selling flowers on the
+street of a Sunday morning!"
+
+"Wait!" That had changed his mind. "Give 'em t' Johnnie."
+
+Johnnie went to her. But for a moment he did not take the roses, only
+looked up, twisting his fingers, and working a big toe. His teeth were
+set hard. His lips were drawn away from them in a grimace of pure agony.
+Scouts were brave. Did _he_ dare to be brave? Cis had not held out
+against the order, and he had blamed her in his heart for her weakness
+as he vowed to himself that he would rebel. But now--! Could he turn and
+speak out his defiance? Could he tell Barber that he would not sell the
+flowers?
+
+The next thing, he had taken the bouquet into his hands. He did not mean
+to; and he did not look at Cis after he did it, because he could not.
+His head was bowed like hers now; his heart was bursting. But not solely
+on account of the roses. He was thinking of himself. He was a little
+coward--there was no use denying it! Yes, he was as cowardly as a girl!
+Here he had been given his chance "to face danger in spite of fear," "to
+stand up for the right"--and he had failed! He understood clearly that
+this was not the time to be obedient, and that he could not offer
+obedience as an excuse. No boy should carry out an order to do what was
+wrong.
+
+"Git along!" It was Big Tom again, fuming over the delay.
+
+Hatless, barefooted, in his flopping, too-big clothes, and with
+seventeen rosebuds clasped to his old, soiled shirt, Johnnie went slowly
+out, black shame in his soul.
+
+"I--I couldn't say it!" he mourned. "I wanted t', but it jus' wouldn't
+come out! I s'pose it's 'cause I ain't a reg'lar scout yet." Going down
+the stairs, he saw no one, though several of the curious (having learned
+about the big box that had gone up) saw him. But, strangely enough, they
+watched him in silence, their speech stayed by the misery in his lowered
+face and bent shoulders. "After a while I'll be better, maybe," he told
+himself hopefully. "But now 'bout all I can do, seems like, is keep my
+teeth clean."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FATHER PAT
+
+
+AN energetic, hot, and dust-laden wind caught at Johnnie as he came out
+upon the street, whipping strands of his yellow hair into his eyes and
+about his ears, blowing the fringe at his knees and elbows, billowing
+the big shirt till his ribs were fanned, and setting to wave gayly all
+those pink rosebuds and their green leaves.
+
+The wind did more: warm as it was, it calmed his thoughts and steadied
+his brain, so that he was able to see the whole matter of the birthday
+bouquet clearly, and reach a new and better decision in regard to the
+flowers. Now he understood perfectly that in spite of whatever might
+happen to him when he got home, he could not sell Mr. Perkins's gift. No
+boy who intended to be a scout could do such a things--then return, even
+with the large sum of one whole dollar, and expect Cis to speak to him
+again. And how could he ever bear to admit such a sale to Mr. Perkins?
+or to One-Eye?
+
+"I'd rather fall down and die!" he vowed. "'Cause it'd show 'em all that
+I ain't gittin' made over a bit!"
+
+But if he did not dispose of the flowers to some one, as the
+longshoreman had ordered, what then? Should he turn around and go
+straight back to the flat--now? He halted for a moment, thinking. To go
+back would, of course, mean a beating, perhaps with the buckle end of
+the strap! (A thought that made him shiver as he stood there, on a hot
+pave, in the summer sun.) Oh, was there not some way by which he could
+keep the bouquet and yet not suffer punishment? Suppose he gave the
+roses away? to the first old lady he met? and then reported to Big
+Tom--with tears!--that a gang of boys had snatched the flowers out of
+his hands? But that would be telling a lie, and a lie would be as bad,
+almost, as taking money for Cis's blossoms. No, he would not lie, though
+not so long ago, before he met the scoutmaster, and read the Handbook,
+he would not have hesitated; indeed, he would have rejoiced in cheating
+Barber, and complimented himself on thinking up such a clever story.
+
+Suppose, however, that he were to sell the flowers for a dollar, keep
+the money, and not return to the flat at all? For a moment this plan
+seemed such a good one that he started off briskly, his look searching
+the faces of passersby. Another moment, and he came short again. How
+could he cut himself off from Mr. Perkins? For if he did, his hope of
+being a scout, when he was twelve years old, would be gone. Also, there
+was that wedding; he had set his heart on attending it, and walking the
+red carpet between lines of envious onlookers. No, this was no time to
+be leaving the flat.
+
+Then, a splendid idea! And he made up his mind instantly that he would
+carry it out, so on he started, though more slowly than before. His new
+plan was this: He would walk, and walk, and walk, enjoying the buds all
+the while, their delicate fragrance, the silken touch of their petals
+against his chin. As he walked, he would not look at any one--just at
+the scenery; so that when he returned home he could truthfully say that
+he had seen no one even so much as look at the roses. No matter what any
+stranger might say to him, he would not stop, and then he could declare
+that nobody had stopped him. Also, should a lady or gentleman hail him,
+asking to buy, he would not answer, and so he would be able to say that
+he had not refused to sell.
+
+He would stay out till it was late--till it was dark, and the three at
+home were grown anxious. Then when he felt sure that Grandpa was abed,
+back he would go, taking the roses to Cis. He would enter the flat
+"staggerin', like I can hardly stand up." And mourn over his ill-luck as
+a salesman. And if he had to take a whipping, "Well, I'll yell as hard's
+I can" (everybody's window was open these soft June nights) "even if I
+scare Grandpa a little, and I'll make Big Tom quit quick. And anyhow I'd
+feel awful for a long time if I done what _he_ wants me to, but a
+lickin', why, it don't last."
+
+He felt a return of pride and self-respect. On he rambled, looking at
+the scenery, and particularly at the higher portions of it, this so as
+to avoid the eyes of passing people. Luckily for his peace of mind, he
+did not know that cut flowers need water, or that they would wilt, and
+be less fresh and beautiful than they were now. So, considering the
+circumstances, his thoughts were cheerful, for while the coming evening
+might bring him trouble and tears, the future not so immediate promised
+praise and love and a clear conscience. "By mornin'--by this time
+t'-morrow, the hurt'll be over," he reflected, and then without regrets
+he could go in and look at Mr. Roosevelt, could face Aladdin, too, and
+Galahad, Jim Hawkins, Mr. Lincoln, Daniel Boone and all his other
+friends. (He had not read and studied that chapter on Chivalry without
+results!)
+
+Every one stared at the strange little figure in the big, ragged clothes
+with a sumptuous bouquet of pink rosebuds held so high against his
+breast, under his folded arms, that only his tousled hair and his gray
+eyes showed. Some were curious, and swung round as he went by to look
+after him. Others smiled, for the contrast between the boy and his
+armful of blossoms was comical. A few looked severe, as if they
+suspicioned that he had not come by the bouquet honestly. Now and then a
+boy called to him, or ran alongside. At a corner, two girls caught at
+one of the buds, missed it, then scampered out of reach, squealing. His
+chin up, his eyes up, he ignored them all.
+
+On and on he sauntered--west, then north. Perhaps he might go as far as
+that store where New York bought all of its books. Being Sunday, of
+course, the store would be closed. But it would be fine to have a look
+in at the windows. From the book shop he would swing east again, for a
+glimpse of the horse palace. It might just happen that One-Eye would be
+back! Oh, if only----!
+
+"Hey there!"
+
+Somehow he knew that the call was at him. And though it was a man who
+was hailing him, he pretended that he did not hear. But a whistle
+blew--a police whistle. Instantly he brought up. According to one of
+those twelve laws in the Handbook, a scout is obedient to "all other
+duly constituted authorities," and Mr. Perkins had explained that
+"constituted authorities" is simply a big word way, and a nice way, of
+saying "cops." Johnnie turned about; and there was the large figure in
+official blue, from whose gray mustache a whistle was at that moment
+descending.
+
+The policeman was standing in front of a grocery store. Shoulder to
+shoulder with him was another man who was even larger--taller, and
+wider, and thicker through. About this man's dress there was something
+strange. He had on no tie. Instead, laid neatly below the narrow line of
+his white collar was a smooth triangle of black.
+
+Johnnie marched straight up to the two. "Yes, sir?" he said to the
+patrolman. (He would have saluted if he had had a free hand.)
+
+The patrolman stared, open-mouthed. Naturally enough he had jumped to
+the conclusion, as some others had, that this boy in cast-off clothes
+had not come by a valuable bouquet through purchase. He had expected
+that Johnnie, when challenged, would promptly take to his heels. And
+here----!
+
+The gentleman who had on no tie was also staring in amaze. Externally
+this boy with the roses was a guttersnipe. But--who in all his life ever
+before saw a guttersnipe with eyes so lacking in cunning and roguery?
+eyes, clear, honest, fearless, manly? "And that bright," the gentleman
+declared, but as if he were talking only to himself, "that ye could fair
+light a candle at 'em!"
+
+Johnnie guessed that the candle-lighting eyes were his own. His ears
+moved perceptibly backward and his cheeks lifted in a grin. He was
+himself looking into a pair that were jolly and keen and kind--and
+Irish. A soft straw hat shaded them; and short, flaming-red hair, which
+filled in at either side of the head between hat and ear, served to
+accentuate the green that tinged their mild gray. Below the eyes was a
+nose unmistakably pugged. Lower still, a long upper lip gave to a mouth
+(generous in size) that, smiling, showed itself to be full of dental
+bridges made entirely of gold.
+
+"Massy gold!" Johnnie reflected admiringly, "like the dishes Aladdin's
+got." And he made up his mind, then and there, that when he was
+grown-up, and could afford it, he would have gold bridges.
+
+"And where d' ye think ye're goin' wid th' roses?" inquired the giant in
+the blue uniform, managing a smile for this rarity among city urchins.
+
+"No 'xact where," replied Johnnie.
+
+"Well, then, little lad, dear," said the other man, "is it lost ye are?
+or are all those sassy roses just coaxin' ye out into the sun?"
+
+Now here was a thought that appealed! Johnnie's eyes twinkled. "Wouldn't
+y' both like t' have a smell of 'em?" he asked, and lifted the bouquet
+temptingly. "I was sent out to sell 'em."
+
+Now witness a stern guardian of the peace, who but a moment ago had in
+his mind the thought of "landin' a bit of a thief," leaning forward to
+take a breath of the flowers. "Grand," he agreed. The larger man took
+off his hat before he bent to inhale. "Dain-tee!" he cried, with an
+enthusiastic shake of his red head; then to a half-dozen small loiterers
+who were straining to hear, "There! there! Run along now, children dear!
+Ye're wanted at the telephone!"
+
+"I'll be tellin' certain folks a few things relatin' t' the sellin' o'
+this or that on the street," now observed the policeman, vaguely. "Eh,
+Father Pat?"
+
+"I'll be glad t' go along with ye," returned the other, "and if things
+'re as bad as they look t' be, then it's Patrick Mungovan that'll do a
+bit o' rakin'!" He settled the straw hat.
+
+"Just where d' y' live, young man?" asked the policeman.
+
+Johnnie had guessed from the tone of the priest that a "rakin'" was
+something not altogether pleasant; had concluded, too, that it would
+fall to the lot of Big Tom. So he gave the address gladly, and as his
+two new friends stepped forward, was himself ten feet away in a flash,
+and--going in the wrong direction!
+
+"Here, now! Here!" called the officer after him, at once stern and
+suspicious. "Don't ye be leadin' _me_ no wild goose chase!" Johnnie
+having halted, the other came up to him and seized him by one big
+sleeve. "Ye tell me one thing, and ye start the opp'site! How's that?"
+
+"I guess I don't know where I am," admitted Johnnie. "Y' see, I don't
+git out much, and so I don't know my way good."
+
+"Now, what could be honester, Clancy?" chided the bigger man. "Shure,
+ye can see by the color o' his skin that he's a shut-in.--So, now,
+square about, little flower peddler, but, oh, go easy! easy! That is, if
+ye want me t' go along, or, shure, big as I am, and fat----"
+
+"Ye're _not_ fat, Father!" denied Clancy. They were all under way now,
+with Johnnie in the middle.
+
+"Well, solid then," amended the other, breathing hard. "Shure, it's me
+that cuts up a big piece of cloth when it comes t' clothes, which is
+deceivin' enough, since I'm back from the war. For what's a man--and
+never mind his size--if his lungs is gone? or goin'?"
+
+Johnnie turned upward a troubled look. "Did y' git hurt in the war?" he
+asked.
+
+"Well, maybe ye wouldn't call it hurt, exactly," answered the Father.
+"Shure, they didn't let out anny of the blood of me, but 'twould've been
+better, I'm thinkin', if they had. No, lad dear, they sent me over a
+whiff of the gas, the wind bein' right for the nasty business, and I had
+the bad taste t' swallow it."
+
+As they fared along, Johnnie kept up a steady chatter in a manner that
+was obviously friendly and cheerful, this in order to make passersby
+understand that his return was in the nature of another triumph, and
+that he had not been arrested. As for his look and carriage, they were
+those of a proud boy.
+
+By the time his companions had learned how matters stood in the flat,
+the three had reached the stairs and begun a slow climb. With the
+caution of his kind, the policeman did not allow Johnnie to lead the
+way. The latter came second in the procession, the priest toiling last,
+with much puffing and many a grunt.
+
+The progress of the three being so leisurely, there was time for the
+inhabitants of the building to hear of the interesting pair that were
+ascending with Johnnie Smith, and to assemble in groups at the landings,
+while excited chatter wafted the dust which the visitors raised, and
+the stairs creaked alarmingly.
+
+When the Barber door was reached, the representative of the law
+paused--as if waiting for the priest to come up. In reality, standing
+sidewise, one ear close to a panel, he listened to what was going on
+inside. As Johnnie, with the bouquet waving against his breast, came to
+a halt at the official heels, he heard it all, too--a roar of threats
+and curses, loud stamping to and fro across a squeaking floor, while
+like a sad accompaniment to a harsh tune there sounded a low, frightened
+weeping.
+
+Johnnie peered up into the policeman's face. Dark as was the hall, he
+could see that Mr. Clancy's visage was stern. Father Pat was beside them
+now, steadying himself by a hand on the rickety banister, while he laid
+the other upon his breast as if to ease his panting. His look was
+horrified.
+
+The youngest of that trio rejoiced that Big Tom was acting so badly just
+at this time. It meant that the "rakin'" would surely happen; and after
+Father Pat had done his part, Johnnie hoped that the policeman would
+arrest the longshoreman, drag him away to prison, and perhaps even whack
+him a time or two with his polished stick.
+
+These possibilities were comforting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+AN ALLY CROSSES A SWORD
+
+
+OFFICER CLANCY did not wait even to knock once upon the Barber door, but
+pushed it open sharply--discovering Big Tom and Cis, face to face on the
+far side of the kitchen table, the latter with wet cheeks, while her
+shrinking, wilted young figure was swayed backward out of reach of the
+huge finger which the longshoreman was shaking before her eyes. Beside
+her, crouched down in his chair, was old Grandpa, peering out between
+the folds of his blanket like a frightened kitten.
+
+The interruption halted Big Tom halfway of a stormy sentence, and he
+turned upon the entering officer a countenance dark and working. (As
+Father Pat said afterward, "Shure, and 'twas as black as anny colored
+babe's in Cherry Street!") However, that newly shaved visage lightened
+instantly, paling at sight of the police-blue and the shield.
+
+The officer spoke first. "This kid belong here?" he asked.
+
+"Lives here," admitted Barber, swallowing.
+
+"I take it ye're not a florist," went on Clancy.
+
+"I ain't."
+
+"Ah! In that case,"--firmly--"ye'll not be sendin' anny boy out on to
+the street t' sell roses: leastways, not without the proper license,
+which ye can ask for up at City Hall." Next, the patrolman gave Johnnie
+a friendly shove toward the middle of the room. "Hand the posies t' yer
+sister, young man," he commanded.
+
+Johnnie darted to obey, and Cis made a joyous start toward him. Their
+hands touched, and the roses changed keeper.
+
+Meanwhile Barber had gained back a little of his usual self-confidence.
+"Oh, all right," he remarked. "But we need money a lot more'n flowers."
+
+"That's as it may be," conceded Clancy, dryly. "But--the law's the law,
+and I'll just tell ye this much":--he emphasized his statement by
+pointing the stick--"ye're lucky t' 'scape a fine! Seein' ye're so short
+o' cash!"
+
+Most men, as Barber liked to boast, did not dare to give the
+longshoreman any of their "lip." But now he was careful to accept the
+ultimatum of the officer without a show of temper. "Guess I am," he
+assented.
+
+Clancy nodded. "And I'll see ye later, Father Pat?" he inquired, giving
+the priest a meaning glance.
+
+"Please God," replied the Father, settling himself in the morris chair.
+(He knew when young eyes implored.)
+
+"I'll say good-day t' ye all," went on the policeman. He gave Johnnie a
+wink and Cis a smile as he went out.
+
+Father Pat now took off his hat. In such cases it was well to "set by"
+till the storm blew over. "I'm thinkin' I met ye on the docks one day,"
+he observed cordially enough to Big Tom. "'Twas the time there was
+trouble over the loadin' of the _Mary Jane_."
+
+Barber was chewing. "Y' had that honor," he returned, a trifle
+sarcastic.
+
+"Ha-ha!" laughed the Father. But there was a flash of something not too
+friendly in his look. "Honor, was it? I'm glad ye told me! For meself,
+shure, I can't always be certain whether 'tis that--or maybe just the
+opp'site!"
+
+"_I_ can be sure," went on the longshoreman. He sucked his teeth
+belligerently. "I know when I'm honored, and also when I'm not."
+
+"Is it like that?" retorted Father Pat smoothly. "Then I'll say ye're
+smarter than I judged ye was from seein' ye put a lad on to the street
+t' sell flowers of a Sunday mornin'."
+
+To Cis this passage between the men was all pure agony. She dropped down
+beside Grandpa's chair, and stayed there, half hidden. But it was not
+misery for Johnnie. He had rightly guessed what the "rakin'" would be,
+and for whom. And now it was going forward, and he welcomed it.
+
+It was then that it came over him how different was this newest friend
+from his other two! One-Eye always left Johnnie puzzled as to his real
+opinion of the longshoreman, this through saying just the opposite of
+what he meant. Mr. Perkins, on the other hand, did not express himself
+at all; in fact, almost ignored Barber's existence. But Father Pat! Not
+even old Grandpa could be in doubt as to how the priest felt toward the
+longshoreman.
+
+"Oh, don't you worry about this kid," advised Big Tom. "I git mighty
+little out o' _him_."
+
+Father Pat stared. Then, bluntly, "Shure, now, don't tell me that! Ye
+know, I can see his big hands."
+
+Johnnie's hands, at that moment, were hanging in front of him, the
+fingers knotted. He glanced down at them. He had never thought of them
+as being large, but now he realized that they were. What was worse, they
+seemed to be getting bigger and bigger all of a sudden! The way they
+were swelling made him part them and slip them behind his back.
+
+"When I was a shaver, I didn't have no time t' be a dude!" asserted Big
+Tom. "And this kid ain't no better'n me!"
+
+"As a man," answered the Father, "shure, and I hope he'll be better
+than the two o' us put t'gether! Because if the boys and girls don't
+improve upon the older folks, how is this world t' git better, t'
+advance?" As he spoke, his look went swiftly round the room.
+
+Barber laughed. "Well, I can tell y' one thing about him," he said. "He
+won't never make a longshoreman--the little runt!"
+
+At that, Father Pat fairly shot to his feet, and taking a forward step,
+hung over Big Tom, his green eyes black, his freckled face as crimson as
+his hair. "Runt is it!" he cried. "Runt! And I'll ask ye why, Mr. Tom
+Barber? Because ye've kept him shut up in this black place! Because
+ye've cheated him out o' decent food, and fresh air, and the flirtin' up
+o' his boy's heels! Does he find time t' play? Has he got friends? Not
+if ye can help it! Oh, I can read all the little story o' him--the sad,
+starved, pitiful, lonely, story o' him!"
+
+Barber got up slowly, laying down his pipe. "I guess I know a few things
+I've done for him," he answered angrily. "And I don't want abuse for
+them, neither! He's got a lot t' be thankful for!"
+
+"Thankful, yer Grandmother!" raged the Father, but somewhat
+breathlessly. "I don't want t' hear yer excuses, nor what ye've done! I
+can see through ye just as if ye was a pane o' glass! It's the carin'
+for the old man without a penny o' cost that ye've thought about! It's
+the makin' o' a few flowers for a few cents!"--he pointed to the
+table--"when the lad ought t' be at his books! Greed's at the bottom o'
+what ye do--not only workin' the lad too hard for his strength, but
+cheatin' him out o' his school!"
+
+"I guess that's all," said Barber, quietly. "I'll ask y' t' cut it."
+
+"I'll cut nothin'!" cried the priest. "These five years ye've been
+waitin' for a man t' come and tell ye the truth. Well, I'm only what's
+left o' a man, but the truth is on me tongue! And it's comin' off, Tom
+Barber,--it's comin' off! Shut up another lad like ye've shut him,
+thrash him, and half starve him in his mind and his body, and see what
+ye'd get! Ye'd get an idiot, that's what ye'd get! The average lad
+couldn't stand it! Not the way this boy has! Because why? I'll tell ye:
+ye've made his home a prison, and ye've dressed him like a beggar, but
+ye've never been able t' keep his brain and his soul from growin'! Ye've
+never been able t' lock _them_ up! Nor dress them badly! And God be
+thanked for it!"
+
+"A-a-a-w!" snarled Barber. "I wish all _I_ had t' do was t' go from flat
+t' flat and talk sermons!"
+
+"Ye wish that, do ye?" cried the Father, rumpling his red hair from the
+back of his neck upward. "Well, shure, ye don't know what ye're talkin'
+about! For there isn't annything harder than talkin' t' folks that
+haven't the sense or the decency t' do what's right. And also--no rascal
+pines t' be watched!"
+
+Barber stared. "What's y're grudge?" he demanded.
+
+"A grudge is what I've got!" replied Father Pat. "It's the kind I hold
+against anny man who mistreats children! And while I live and draw
+breath, which won't be long, I'll fight that kind o' a man whenever I
+meet him! And I'll charge him with his sin, so help me God, before the
+very bar o' Heaven!"
+
+Big Tom shrugged. "Y' ain't a well man," he said; "and then again, y'
+happen t' be a priest. For both which reasons I don't want no trouble
+with y'. So I'll be obliged if y'll hire a hall, or find somebody else
+t' scold, and let up on me for a change. This is Sunday, and I'd like a
+little rest."
+
+Father Pat went a foot nearer to the longshoreman. "Because I'm a
+priest," he answered, "I'll not be neglectin' me duty. Ye can drive away
+scoutmasters, and others that don't feel they've got a right t' tell ye
+the truth in yer own house, but"--he tapped his chest--"here's one man
+ye _won't_ drive away!"
+
+Big Tom reached for his pipe and his hat. "Well, stay then!" he
+returned.
+
+"Stay? That I will!" cried the Father. "The lad and the girl, they've
+got a friend that's goin' t' stick as long as his lungs'll let him."
+
+"Good!" mocked the longshoreman. "Fine!" He pushed his hat down over the
+stubble of his hair, and went out, slamming the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE END OF A LONG DAY
+
+
+A LONG moment of breathless silence--while four pairs of eyes fixed
+themselves upon the hall door, and as many pairs of ears strained to
+follow the creak and clump of Big Tom's departure. The sound of his
+steps died away. Another, and a longer, wait, and the door moved and
+rattled, that signal which marked the opening and shutting of the area
+door three flights below. The longshoreman was really gone. Cis laid her
+forehead against an arm of the wheel chair, and burst into tears,
+clinging to old Grandpa, and trembling, and frightening him into
+weeping; whereupon Johnnie hurried to them, and alternately patted them
+comfortingly, and Father Pat came to stand over the three.
+
+"Dear! dear! dear!" exclaimed the priest. "But ain't I glad that I came,
+though! Shure, the big baboon was ugly! Ha-ha-a-a! And when he's like
+that, faith, and how he throws the coconuts!"
+
+That fetched the smiles, even from Cis. And, "Oh-ho! Here comes the
+sun!" cried the Father, beaming joyously at them all. "Shure, we've had
+the thunderstorm, and the air's clear, and so all the kittens dear can
+come out o' their corners, and frisk a bit! Faith, I wasn't half as mad
+as I sounded. No, I wasn't, old gentleman! (And what's that he's holdin'
+on to? Bless me soul, is it a doll?)" Then having taken up Letitia, and
+turned her about, and chuckled over her, and given her into Grandpa's
+outstretched hands again, "It's only that our rampin' Mr. Barber," he
+explained, "wouldn't understand me if I didn't give him a bit o' the
+rough edge o' me tongue--no, nor respect me, neither! So I laid it on a
+mite thick!--Oh, that man! Say, he'd sell the tears right out o' yer
+eye! Yes, he would! He'd sell yer eyelashes t' make a broom for a fly!"
+
+"Big Tom, he makes me awful 'fraid sometimes," confessed Johnnie. "But
+he makes Cis lots 'fraider, 'cause she's only a girl."
+
+"A girl!" cried the Father. "And ye think bein' a girl is anny good
+reason for bein' afraid? Faith, little friend, have ye not got hold o' a
+wrong notion entirely about girls?" Then seeing that here was an
+opportunity to take the thoughts of these two harried ones away from
+themselves, "Children dear," he went on, "all this about girls who are
+afraid reminds me o' a certain story. 'Twas in Belgium it happened, a
+few years back, and in the city o' Brussels, which is the capital. Oh,
+'tis a grand and a sorrowful story! So! Come now!" He wheeled Grandpa to
+a place beside the morris chair, signed Cis to take the kitchen chair,
+helped Johnnie to a perch on the table, and sat again, the others drawn
+about his red head like so many moths around a cheerful lamp.
+
+It was just as the tale of Edith Cavell ended that, most opportunely,
+who should come stealing in but Mrs. Kukor, pushing the door open with a
+slippered foot, for each hand held a dish. The exciting events which had
+transpired in the Barber flat being common property up and down the area
+building, naturally she knew them; also, leaned out of her own window,
+she had heard more than enough. The paleness of her round face told how
+anxious she was.
+
+The priest stood up. "I'm Father Patrick Mungovan, at yer service,
+ma'am," he said, bowing gravely.
+
+Mrs. Kukor first wiped both plump hands upon a black sateen apron. Then
+she extended one of them to the priest. "Glat to meet!" she declared
+heartily. "Und glat you wass come!"
+
+The Father shook hands warmly. "Shure, ma'am," he declared, "our two
+young folks is likely not t' suffer for lookin' after from now on, I'm
+thinkin', what with our little League o' Nations."
+
+Tears welled into Mrs. Kukor's black eyes. "Over Chonnie und Cis," she
+declared, "all times I wass full of love. _Only_"--she lifted a short,
+fat finger--"nefer I haf talk my Hebrew religions mit!"
+
+Father Pat gave her another bow, and a gallant one. "Faith, Mrs. Kukor,"
+said he, "the good Lord I worship was a Hebrew lad from the hills o'
+Judea."
+
+Next, Mrs. Kukor had a look at the roses, whose fragrance she inhaled
+with many excited exclamations of delight. After that, there was ice
+cream and raisin cake, enough for all. Every one served, the priest and
+Mrs. Kukor were soon chatting away in the friendliest fashion.
+
+It was then that a regrettable accident occurred. In spite of the fact
+that the ice cream was in a melting condition, and the cake deliciously
+soft and crumbling, one of those several dental bridges of the Father's
+suddenly became detached, as it were, from its moorings, and had to be
+rolled up in one corner of a handkerchief and consigned to a pocket.
+Amid general condolences then, the priest explained that the happening
+was not wholly unexpected, since, in choosing a dentist, he had let his
+heart, rather than his head, guide his selection, and had given the work
+to an old and struggling man whose methods were undoubtedly obsolete.
+"But ye see," he concluded, "I knew at the time that the work would far
+outlast the necessity for it, since I'll not be needin' anny teeth very
+long"--a statement the full meaning of which fortunately escaped the
+comprehension of his two young hearers. "But ye might say," he went on,
+"that neither the cake nor the cream have put a strain on that bridge,
+so I'll not be blamin' the dentist. For ye see, it's like this: when
+I've somethin' betwixt me teeth that's substantial, the danger to the
+bridges is far less. It's when I've nothin' that I do them the most
+damage, havin' so much grip t' me jaws, and not annything t' work it out
+on."
+
+Mrs. Kukor now rose to take her leave, explaining how it happened that
+she did not want to have Mr. Barber discover her there, since, if the
+longshoreman were to decide that she was interfering in any way--too
+much--he might, she feared, remove his household to some other, and
+distant, flat, where she could not be near the children--oy! oy! oy!
+
+Father Pat gave her his address. "Some day," he declared, "ye might be
+wantin' t' send me a picture post card, in which case ye'd need t' know
+where I live"--a remark which made Johnnie believe that the Father must
+be particularly fond of picture post cards! "But now and again, I'll
+drop in t' see ye," promised the priest, "and t' have a cup o' kosher
+tea! Shure, ma'am, in anny troublesome matter, two heads is better than
+one, even if one has been gassed!"
+
+Mrs. Kukor gone, Father Pat began to take thought of his own leaving.
+But first he set about cheering up his new, young friends, who were
+subdued, to say the least, this in spite of the refreshments. "Now,
+shure, and there's things about this place which could be far, far
+worse," he asserted. "In this shady bit o' flat, ye're shut up, I grant
+it. But consider what ye're shut away from--ugly things, like fightin'
+and callin' names"--his argument being intended chiefly for Johnnie.
+
+"And I don't mind about my old clothes," declared the latter stoutly.
+"Anyhow, I don't mind 'cause they're raggy. All I'm sorry for is that my
+rags don't _fit_."
+
+Afterward he concluded that there must have been something rather
+sensible about this remark of his--something calculated to win approval.
+For the Father suddenly reached out and took Johnnie into his arms, and
+gave him a bearish hug, and laughed, and wiped the green eyes (which
+were brimming), and laughed again, finally falling into a coughing fit
+that sent Johnnie pell-mell for a cup of water and made Cis wait in
+concern beside the morris chair.
+
+The cough quieted soon, and again Father Pat was able to talk. "Did ye
+ever hear another lad like him?" he inquired of no one in particular.
+"Ah, God love him! He doesn't mind his rags, only he wishes that they
+fit! Dear, dear, rich, little, poor boy!"
+
+After he was gone, Johnnie and Cis sat in silence for a good while,
+their young hearts being too full, and their brains too busy, for
+speech. But at last, "Oh, why didn't we ever know him before!" mourned
+Cis. "He lives close by, and he's not afraid of _anything_!"
+
+"He's my friend for life!" vowed Johnnie. "And, oh, Cis, this is who's
+like Galahad!--not Mister Perkins at _all_! Mister Perkins is like--like
+Sir Percival, that's who _he's_ like. But Father Pat (don't y' _love_
+the name!) he could sit on the Per'lous Seat, y' betcher life!--Oh, if
+_only_ his hair wasn't red!"
+
+When she had assured him that red was a most desirable color for hair,
+since it meant a splendid fighting spirit, he had to know all she could
+tell him about priests, which was a good deal. "They can marry you, and
+they can bury you," she began. "And they preach, and pray about a
+hundred times as much as anybody else, and that's one reason why he's so
+good. If you've done anything wicked, though, you've got to tell a
+priest about it, and----"
+
+"I'll tell him about the toothbrush," promised Johnnie. "I won't mind
+tellin' him, some way or other, anyhow, and it's bothered me, Cis, quite
+a lot--oh, yes, it has!"
+
+Cis did not mind the Father's knowing about their bargain; provided,
+however, that she herself be allowed to tell Mr. Perkins. She felt
+better already in her conscience, she declared, and even sang as she set
+about rearranging her roses. Each one of these she named with a girl's
+name, Johnnie assisting; and the two were able, by the curl of a petal,
+or the number of leaves on a stem, or some other tiny sign, to tell Cora
+from Alice, and Elaine from Blanchefleur, and the Princess Mary from
+Buddir al Buddoor, as well as to recognize Rebecca, and Julia, and
+Anastasia, and Gertie, and June--and so on through a list that made
+little godmothers to the rosebuds out of Cis's favorite acquaintances at
+the paper-box factory.
+
+Big Tom had little to say when he returned, but that little was pleasant
+enough. When he went to bed, he left his door wide. Grandpa had been
+allowed to stay beside the kitchen window, and there Cis brought a quilt
+and pillow, her own room being unbearably close and hot. As for Johnnie,
+quite openly and boldly he shouldered his roll of bedding and took it to
+the roof! (For after what Father Pat had told them that day, could he,
+being a boy, fail to do the daring thing? Also, were they not now under
+the protecting care of a red-headed fighter?)
+
+Arrived on the roof, he did not lie down, but walked to and fro. A
+far-off band was playing in the summer night, at some pier or in an open
+space, and its music could be faintly heard. Children were shouting as
+they returned from the Battery. The grind of street cars came in low
+waves, not unlike the rhythmic beat of the seas which he had never seen.
+He shut his ears to every sound. Eastward loomed up the iron network of
+the bridges, delicate and beautiful against the starlit sky. South, and
+near by, clustered the masts of scores of ships. North and West were
+the sky-piercing tops of the city's highest buildings. Sights as well as
+sounds were softened and glorified by the night, and by distance. But he
+saw--as he heard--nothing of what was around him. He felt himself lifted
+high above it all--away from it.
+
+That was because his spirit was uplifted. Just as Big Tom, with his
+harsh methods, his ignorance, his lack of sympathy and his surly tongue,
+could bring out any trait that was bad in him, and at the same time
+plant a few that did not exist, just so could Father Pat, kindly, wise,
+gentle, gracious and manly, bring out every trait that was good. And for
+a while at least, the priest had downed and driven out every vestige of
+hatred and bitterness and revenge from the boy's heart.
+
+Johnnie did not even think of Barber, or what the longshoreman had done
+that day. In his brain was a picture which thrilled and held him, if at
+the same time it tortured him--a picture that he saw too keenly, and
+that would not go away. It was of that brave Englishwoman, face to face
+with her executioners.
+
+What a story!
+
+He shook his head over it, comparing it with _Treasure Island_ and all
+the others, and wishing he had it written down, and marveling again over
+the rare courage of its heroine. To be scolded and whipped was one
+thing; it was quite another to be stood up against a wall in front of a
+line of guns. And he remembered that he--a boy--had not been able, this
+very day, to take even a strapping! What if he had been asked to accept
+death?
+
+How far away--yes, as if it were days and days ago!--seemed that order
+of Big Tom's to go out and sell Cis's flowers! That was because this
+wonderful, heart-moving tragedy of Edith Cavell's had happened in
+between! As the sky slowly became overcast, and the darkness deepened,
+he set himself to think the nurse there on the roof beside him--a
+whiteclad, slender figure.
+
+He had done her a wrong in questioning the bravery of girls, and she had
+died with her hands tied! "Oh, my!" he breathed apologetically to the
+picture which his imagination made of her, "if I was only _half_ as
+brave as you!"
+
+He could keep her there before him not longer than a moment. Then she
+wavered and went, and he found himself standing beside his blanket roll.
+Though he covered his eyes to make his pretend more vivid, she would not
+return.
+
+However, she was to come again one day--to come and sustain him in an
+hour of dreadful trial that was ahead, though now, mercifully, he did
+not know it. And there was to be another story, just as thrilling, if
+not more so, which also would help him in that hour; and, later on,
+would carry him through darker ones.
+
+With new visions in his brain, and new resolutions in his boy's heart,
+he took up the bedding bundle and went back to the flat. There he fell
+asleep in a room where seventeen pink rosebuds spread their perfume.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ANOTHER GIFT
+
+
+NEXT morning it was plain that the roses had brought about certain
+differences in the flat. Not that there were any blunt orders, or
+quarrels. Barber did not bring up the subject of Mr. Perkins and his
+gift; in fact, he did not even address Cis once, though he eyed her
+covertly now and again. But the good breakfast which Johnnie had risen
+early to prepare was eaten in a quiet that was strained, as if a storm
+were about to break. Johnnie could not keep his heart from thumping
+unpleasantly. And he was limp with relief when, a moment or two after
+Cis took her departure, the longshoreman went scuffing out.
+
+Then Johnnie's recovery was swift. On waking he had whisked the flowers
+into Cis's room, guessing that the mere sight of them would annoy
+Barber. Now he fetched them out, let Grandpa enjoy a whiff of their
+perfume, poured them fresh water (they held it like so many cups!), and
+carried them to the window so they might breathe some outdoor air. As it
+happened, that little girl with the dark hair was sitting on her fire
+escape. Spying her, Johnnie waved the blossoms at her, receiving in
+return a flashing smile.
+
+He did not tarry long at the window. A scout does not fail to do a given
+task; and on this summer day, with the early sky already a hot
+gray-blue, the task to be done was the washing. Heat or no heat, the
+boiler had to take its place on the stove. The soapy steam of the
+cooking drove out the roses's scent of course, but that did not greatly
+matter so long as, every minute or so, Johnnie was able to turn from his
+washboard and enjoy their pink beauty.
+
+By eleven o'clock he had the washing on the line. The flat was
+straightened up, too, and Grandpa was looking his best. About noon,
+Father Pat, coming slowly up the three flights, heard a series of slam
+bangings coming from the direction of the Barber flat--also, sharp
+toot-toots, and heavy chugs. And when the priest opened the hall door
+and peeped in, a conductor's bell was ding-dinging, while the empty wood
+box was careening madly in the wake of the wheel chair.
+
+"Ha-ha-a! Johnnie lad!" he hailed. "And, shure, is it a whole battery in
+action that I'm seein'?"
+
+Johnnie turned a pink and perspiring face which was suddenly all smiles.
+To the joy of living a fascinating think was now added the joy of
+finding still another person who was ready to share it. "It's the
+biggest N'York S'press!" he declared. "And we're takin' our vacation
+trip!"
+
+"Ah, little pretender!" exclaimed the Father, fondly, and with something
+like a note of pity. "But, oh, the idea o' me not recognizin' a train!
+And especially the Twentieth Century Limited when I look her right in
+the headlight!"
+
+"We been t' the Ad'rondacks," informed Johnnie, "and we got a load o'
+ice."
+
+"Ah, and that's treasure, truly," agreed the Father, "on this scorchin'
+day! And ye've put the same into a grand casket, if I'm not
+mistaken"--indicating the box.
+
+"A casket o' wood."
+
+"But precious, what with coal so high!"
+
+When the priest had settled himself in the morris chair, Johnnie came
+to lean close to this new friend who was both an understanding and a
+sympathetic soul. "Want t' hear a secret?" he half whispered.
+
+Father Pat was as mysterious as possible. "Shure, and 'tis me business
+t' hear secrets," he whispered back. "And what's more, I never tell!"
+
+"Well," confided Johnnie, "there's a lot o' my friends--Jim Hawkins, and
+Galahad, and Uncas, and, oh, dozens o' others--all just ready t' come
+in!"
+
+"No-o-o-o!"
+
+"Honest!"
+
+"Galahad, too!--him with the grand scarlet robe, and the chain mail t'
+the knees, and the locks as bright as yer own! Well, I'm that glad t'
+hear it! and that _excited_!"
+
+Breathing a warning, Johnnie sped to the sink, rapped once, then twice,
+then once again. A short wait, followed by soft pad-pads on the floor
+overhead. Next down into sight at the window came the basket, filled to
+the top with books.
+
+At sight of the basket, for some reason Father Pat suddenly seemed
+anxious; and as Johnnie drew it to the window sill, the priest pried
+himself up out of the big chair. "Shure, 'tis divvlement!" he
+pronounced. "Yet still 'tis grand! Only keep 'em all right there, lad
+dear, and I'll come over t' be introduced."
+
+Proudly and impressively Johnnie proffered first his _Aladdin_. Nodding
+delightedly, the Father took it. "Yes, 'tis the very same Aladdin!" he
+declared. "Ye know, I was afraid maybe the Aladdin I know and this one
+were two diff'rent gentlemen. But, no!--Oh, in the beginnin' weren't ye
+afraid, little reader dear, that this friend o' ours would end up wrong?
+and be lazy and disobedient t' the last, gaddin' the streets when he
+ought t' be helpin' his mamma?"
+
+"But he turned out fine!" reminded Johnnie.
+
+Now the other precious volumes had their introduction. And, "All
+bread--_rale_ bread!" said the Father as he looked at them. "Not stones!
+No!" But he handed them back rather too quickly, according to Johnnie's
+idea. However, the latter was to know why at once; for with a sharp
+glance toward the hall door, "Now, who d' ye think was sittin' on a step
+in front o' the house as I came in--his dinner pail 'twixt his two
+feet?" asked the priest. "The big ogre himself!"
+
+"Oh!" The pipe rang to Johnnie's hurried knockings, which he repeated in
+such a panic that Mrs. Kukor could be heard rocking about in excited
+circles. And it seemed minutes (though it was not half of one) before
+the basket-strings tightened and the books went jerking up to safety.
+Then, "My! What if he'd walked in while they was down!" Johnnie
+exclaimed. "And why didn't he go t' work? What's he waitin' for?"
+
+They had the same explanation at the same moment. _Mr. Perkins!_ So what
+might not happen, down there in the area, when the longshoreman, lying
+in wait for his victim, stopped the giver of bouquets?
+
+Something besides the heat of midday made Johnnie feel very weak of a
+sudden, so that he had to sit down. "Now, shush! shush!" comforted the
+Father. "Shure, and the ogre'll not be eatin' up anny scoutmaster this
+day. No, no. There'll be nothin' more than a tongue-lashin', so breathe
+easy, lad dear!"
+
+"But Mister Perkins won't come any more!" argued Johnnie, plaintively.
+"And so how'll I finish learnin' t' be a scout? Oh, Father Pat!"
+
+While the next hour went by, it was an anxious little figure that sat
+opposite the priest, listening, listening--for some loud angry words out
+of the area, or heavy steps upon the stairs. That entrance below could
+not be seen from the window. And Johnnie could not bring himself to go
+down. One o'clock came and passed. But Mr. Perkins did not come. So,
+undoubtedly, Big Tom had seen the scoutmaster. But whatever had
+happened, all had been quiet. That was some consolation.
+
+"It's funny about my friends," observed Johnnie at last. He shook a
+discouraged head. "Some way, I never have more'n one at a time."
+
+The Father set about cheering him up. "Ah-ha, now, and let's not worry a
+bit more!" he urged. "Shure, and I've climbed up here this day t' ask ye
+a question, which is: if Father Pat was t' say t' ye that he'd bring ye
+a new book the next time he chanced by, why, then, little lover o'
+readin', just what kind o' a book would ye best like t' have?"
+
+Here was something to coax the mind away from concern! "Oh, my!" said
+Johnnie. "_Another_ book? A _new_ one?" Getting up to think about his
+answer, he chanced to glance out of the window. And instantly he knew
+what he should like. "Oh, Father Pat!" he cried. "Has--has anybody ever
+made up a book about the stars?"
+
+"The stars!" the Father cried back. "Shure, lad dear, certain gentlemen
+called astronomers have been writin' about the stars for hundreds o'
+years. And they've named the whole lot! And weighed and measured 'em,
+Johnnie,--think o' the impudence o' that! Yes, and they've weighed the
+Sun, and taken the measure o' the Moon! Also, there's the comets,
+which're called after the men who first find 'em. And, oh, think what
+it's like t' have yer name tied t' the tail o' a comet for a million
+years! Ho-ho! ho-ho! That's an honor! Ye never own the comet, still 'tis
+yours!"
+
+"My! I'd like t' find a Johnnie Smith comet!" declared Johnnie. "And
+after all"--solemnly--"I think I won't try t' be President; nope, I'll
+be a 'stronomer."
+
+"Faith," rejoined the Father, the green eyes shining roguishly, "and
+there's points o' resemblance 'twixt the two callin's. Both o' them, if
+I ain't mistaken, are calculated t' keep a conscientious man awake o'
+nights!"
+
+"I'll be awful glad t' have a star-book," decided Johnnie. "Thank y' for
+it."
+
+The priest smiled fondly at the ragged little figure silhouetted against
+the window. "Shure, and that's the book I'll be buying for ye," he
+promised. "And in the crack o' a hen's thumb!"
+
+The Father ended his visit to the building by going upstairs, which fact
+Johnnie knew because of the walking around he could hear overhead, and
+the chair scrapings. But before Father Pat left the Barber flat Johnnie
+told him about going up on the roof (though he did not confess that Cis
+knew about it, or that he had bought her silence with the toothbrush).
+His new friend listened without a word of blame, only looking a trifle
+grave. "And what do ye think ye ought t' do for Madam, the janitress?"
+he asked when Johnnie had finished his admission. "For as I see it,
+she's the one entitled t' complain."
+
+"I'll tell y'," answered Johnnie, earnestly; "I've swept off the roof
+twice, good's I could, and I've swept the stairs that go up t' the roof.
+And once I swept this hall."
+
+"A true scout!" pronounced the Father. "And I'm not doubtin' that if
+ye'd promise t' go on doin' the same, Madam'd be glad t' let ye go up.
+Suppose ye try the suggestion."
+
+Johnnie promised to try.
+
+Late that afternoon the saddest thing happened: the roses died. They had
+been looking sick, and not at all like themselves, since before
+noontime. As Johnnie, preparing to set his supper table, lifted the
+quart milk bottle which held the bouquet, intending again to place it on
+Cis's dressing-box, the flowers, with a sound that was almost like a
+soft sigh, showered their crumpling petals upon the oilcloth. Shocked,
+Johnnie set the bottle quickly down. But only seventeen bare stalks were
+left in it. The last sweet leaf had dropped.
+
+He stood for a little looking down. The first shock past, his whole
+being became alive with protest. Oh, why should beautiful flowers ever
+have to die? It was wrong! And there swept over him the hated
+realization that an end comes to things. He could have wept then, but he
+knew that scout boys do not give way to tears. For the first time in his
+life he was understanding something of life's prime tragedy--change.
+Girls grow up, dolls go out of favor, roses fade.
+
+He could not bear to throw the petals away. Very gently he gathered them
+up in his two hands and put them into a shallow crockery dish, and
+sprinkled them with a little cool water. "Gee! What'll Cis say when she
+sees them!" he faltered. (How live and sturdy they had seemed such a
+little while ago!)
+
+"Cis," he told her sadly when she came in (just a moment before Big Tom
+returned from work), "Blanchfleur, and Cora, and Elaine, and Gertie, and
+all--they fell t' pieces!"
+
+She was not cast down by the news or the sight of the bowl. She had, she
+said, expected it, the weather being warm and the flat hot. After that,
+so far as he could see, she did not give the flowers another thought.
+When he told her that Father Pat had discovered the longshoreman waiting
+for Mr. Perkins in the area, she was not surprised or concerned. In the
+usual evening manner, she brushed and freshened and pressed, smiling as
+she worked. She seemed entirely to have forgotten all the unhappy hours
+of the day before. True, she started if Barber spoke to her, and her
+quaint face flushed. But that was all.
+
+"Clear grown-up!" Johnnie told himself as he put the petals out of
+sight on a cupboard shelf, laying the stems beside them.
+
+"Everything's going to be all right," she assured him when she told him
+good night, "now that we've got Father Mungovan." (So that was why she
+was so happy! Or was it because she was engaged? Johnnie wondered.)
+
+In the days that followed Father Pat became a familiar figure in and
+about the area building. (And this was fortunate for Johnnie, since Mr.
+Perkins's visits had suddenly come to an end.) Almost at any hour the
+priest might be seen slowly crossing the brick pavement, or more slowly
+climbing the stairs on his way to the Barber flat. When he was not at
+Johnnie's, reading aloud out of the book on astronomy while Johnnie
+threaded beads, he might be found overhead in Mrs. Kukor's bright
+kitchen, resting in a rocker, a cup of tea nursed in both hands, and
+holding long, confidential and (to Johnnie) mysterious conversations,
+which the latter wished so much he might share, though he always
+discouraged the wish, understanding that it was not at all polite to
+want to be where he was not invited.
+
+He and the priest, of course, had their own lengthy and delightful
+talks. Sometimes it would be Johnnie who would have the most to say.
+Perhaps he would tell Father Pat about one of his thinks: a vision, say,
+of high roof-bridges, built far above the crowded, noisy
+streets--arched, steel bridges, swung from the summit of one tall
+building to another like the threads of a spider's web. Each bridge was
+to be lighted by electricity, and "I'll push Grandpa's wheel chair all
+across the top o' N'York!" he declared.
+
+Father Pat did not laugh at this think. On the contrary, he thought it
+both practical and grand. Indeed, he laughed at none of Johnnie's ideas,
+and would listen in the gravest fashion as the boy described a new
+think-bicycle which had arrived from Wanamaker's just that
+minute--accompanied by a knife with three blades and a can opener. The
+Father agreed that there were points in favor of a bicycle which took up
+no room in so small a flat, and required no oiling. And if Johnnie went
+so far as to mount the shining leather seat of his latest purchase and
+circle the kitchen table (Boof scampering alongside), the priest would
+look on with genuine interest, though the pretend-bicycle was the same
+broomstick which, on other occasions, galloped the floor as a dappled
+steed of Aladdin's.
+
+As a matter of fact, Father Pat entered into Johnnie's games like any
+boy. Unblushing, he telephoned over the Barber clothesline. More than
+once, with whistles and coaxings and pats, he fed the dog! He even
+thought up games of his own. "Now ye think I'm comin' in alone," he said
+one morning. "That's because ye see nobody else. But, ho-ho! What
+deceivin'! For, shure, right here in me pocket I've got a friend--Mr.
+Charles Dickens!"
+
+On almost every visit he would have some such surprise. Or perhaps he
+would fetch in just a bit of news. "I hear they're thinkin' o' raisin' a
+statoo o' Colonel Roosevelt at the Sixth Avenoo entrance to Central
+Park," he told Johnnie one day. "And I'm informed it's t' be Roosevelt
+the Rough Rider. Now at present the statoo's but a thought--a thought in
+the minds o' men and women, but in the brain o' a sculptor in
+particular. However, there'll come a day when the thought'll freeze into
+bronze. Dear me, think o' that!"
+
+At all times how ready and willing he was to answer questions! "Ask me
+annything," he would challenge smilingly. He was a mine, a storehouse,
+yes, a very fountain of knowledge, satisfying every inquiry, settling
+every argument--even to that one regarding the turning of the earth. And
+so Johnnie would constantly propound: How far does the snow fall? Why
+doesn't the rain hurt when it hits? Do flies talk? What made Grandpa
+grow old?
+
+Ah, those were the days which were never to be forgotten!
+
+There came a day which brought with it an added joy. So often Johnnie
+had mourned the fact that he did not have more than one friend at a
+time. But late on a blazing August afternoon, just as the Father was
+getting up to take his leave, the hall door squeaked open slowly, and
+there on the threshold, with his wide hat, his open vest, watchchain,
+furred breeches and all, was One-Eye! ("Oh, two at a time, now!" Johnnie
+boasted to Cis that night. "Two at a time!")
+
+Yet at first he was not able to believe his own eyes. Neither was Father
+Pat. The priest stared at the cowboy like a man in a daze. Then he
+looked away, winking and pursing his lips. Once more he stared. At last,
+one hand outstretched uncertainly, he crossed to One-Eye and cautiously
+touched him.
+
+Not understanding, One-Eye very respectfully took the hand, and shook
+it. "How are y'?" he said.
+
+"Ah! So ye _do_ exist!" breathed the Father, huskily. Then shaking hands
+again, "Shure, I've heard about ye for this long time, but was under the
+impression that ye was only a spook!"
+
+Warm were the greetings exchanged now by the cowboy and Johnnie. One-Eye
+was powerfully struck by the improvement in the latter's physical
+appearance. "Gee-whillikens, sonny!" he cried. "W'y, y're not half as
+peeked as y' used t' be! Y're fuller in the face! And a lot taller!
+_Say!_" And when Johnnie explained that it was mostly due to a quart of
+milk which a certain Mr. Perkins had been bringing to him six days out
+of seven (until the supply had been cut off along with the visits of the
+donor), without another syllable, up got One-Eye and tore out, leaving
+the door open, and raising a pillar of dust on the stairs in the wake
+of his spurs. He was back in no time, a quart of ice-cold milk in either
+hand. "If he likes it," he explained to Father Pat, "and if it's good
+for him, w'y, they ain't no reason under the shinin' sun w'y he can't
+have it.--Sonny, I put in a' order for a quart ev'ry mornin'. And I paid
+for six months in advance."
+
+His own appearance was not what it had been formerly. He looked less
+leathery, and lanker. In answer to Johnnie's anxious inquiry, he
+admitted that he had been sick, "Havin' et off, accidental, 'bout half
+a' inch o' mustache;" though, so far as Johnnie could see, none of the
+sandy ornament appeared to be missing. And where had he been all this
+long time? Oh, jes' shuttlin' 'twixt Cheyenne and the ranch.
+
+His sickness had changed him in certain subtle ways. He had less to say
+than formerly, did not mention Barber, did not ask after Cis, and
+jiggled one foot constantly, as if he were on the point of again jumping
+up and taking flight. Father Pat gone, he brightened considerably as he
+discussed the departed guest. "Soldier, eh!" he exclaimed. "Wal, young
+feller, I'll say this preachin' gent ain't no ev'ryday, tenderfoot
+parson! No, ma'am! He's got savvy!"
+
+He was politely attentive, if not enthusiastic, when Johnnie told him
+more about Mr. Perkins, the future scout dwelling especially upon that
+rosy time which would see him in uniform ("but how I'm goin' t' get
+that, I don't know"). Johnnie did all the setting-up exercises for the
+Westerner, too; and, as a final touch, displayed for his inspection an
+indisputably clean neck!
+
+But Johnnie had saved till the last the crowning news of all. And he
+felt certain that if the cowboy had shown not more than a lively
+interest in Father Pat, and had been only politely heedful regarding boy
+scouts, things would be altogether different when he heard about the
+engagement.
+
+"One-Eye," began Johnnie, impressively, "I got somethin' _else_ t' tell
+y'. Oh, it's somethin' that'll su'prise y' _awful_! What d' y' think it
+is?"
+
+One-Eye was in the morris chair at the time, his hat on, his single
+organ of vision roving the kitchen. In particular, it roved in the
+direction of the tiny room, where, through the open door, could be seen
+dimly the gay paper flounces bedecking Cis's dressing-table. "Aw, I
+dunno," he answered dully.
+
+"But, _guess_, One-Eye!" persisted Johnnie, eager to fire the cowboy's
+curiosity. "Guess! And I'll help y' out by tellin' y' this much: it's
+'bout Cis."
+
+Ah! That caught the interest! Johnnie could tell by the way that single
+eye came shooting round to hold his own. "Yeh?" exclaimed the Westerner.
+"Wal--? Wal--?" He leaned forward almost impatiently.
+
+"Cis and Mister Perkins 're goin' t' be married."
+
+One-Eye continued to stare; and Johnnie saw the strangest expression
+come into the green eye. Anger seemed a part of that expression, and
+instantly Johnnie regretted having shared the news (but why _should_ the
+cowboy be angry?) Also there was pain in the look. Then did One-Eye
+disapprove?
+
+At this last thought, Johnnie hastened to explain how things stood in
+the flat. "Big Tom, he don't know they're goin' t' be married," he said,
+"and we'd be 'fraid t' tell him."
+
+"I--I savvy." Now One-Eye studied the floor. Presently, as if he were
+busy with his thoughts, he reached up and dragged his hat far down over
+his blind eye. The hat settled, he settled himself--lower and lower in
+the big chair, his shoulders doubling, his knees falling apart, his
+clasped hands hanging between his knees and all but touching his boots.
+Thus he stayed for a little, bowed.
+
+All this was so different from what Johnnie had expected that again he
+suspected displeasure--toward Cis, toward himself; and as with a
+sinking, miserable heart he watched his visitor, he wished from his soul
+that he had kept the engagement to himself. "Y' ain't g-g-glad," he
+stammered finally.
+
+However, as Johnnie afterward remarked to Cis, when it came to judging
+what the cowboy felt about this or that, a person never could tell. For,
+"Glad?" repeated One-Eye, raising the bent head; "w'y, sonny, I'm
+tickled t' death t' hear it!--jes' plumb tickled t' death!" (And how was
+Johnnie to know that this was not strictly the truth?)
+
+The next afternoon, while Father Pat was reading aloud the story of the
+Sangreal, here entered One-Eye again, stern purpose in the very
+upturning of that depleted mustache. "Figgered mebbe I could ask y' t'
+do somethin' fer me," he told the priest. "It's concernin' that scout
+proposition o' Johnnie's. Seems like he'll be needin' a uniform pretty
+soon, won't he? Wondered if y'd mind pur-_chasin'_ it." Then down upon
+the kitchen table he tossed a number of crisp, green bills.
+
+Stunned at sight of so much money, paralyzed with emotion, and
+tongue-tied, Johnnie could only stare. Afterward he remembered, with a
+bothersome, worried feeling, that he had not thanked One-Eye before the
+latter took his leave along with Father Pat. That night on the roof he
+walked up and down while he whispered his gratitude to a One-Eye who was
+a think. "Oh, it just stuck in my throat, kind of," he explained. "Oh,
+I'm sorry I acted so funny!" (Why did the words of appreciation simply
+flow from between his lips now? though he had not been able to whisper
+one at the proper time!)
+
+That night, wearing the uniform he had not yet seen, he took a long
+pretend-walk; but not along any street of the East Side; not even up
+Fifth Avenue. He chose a garden set thick with trees. There was a lake
+in the garden; and wonderful birds flew about--parrots, they were, like
+the ones owned by Crusoe. For a new suit of an ordinary kind, any
+thoroughfare of the city might have done well enough. But the new
+uniform demanded a special setting. And this place of enchantment was
+Mr. Rockefeller's private park!
+
+It seemed as if the night would never go! Next morning, it seemed as if
+Big Tom would never go, nor the Father come. But at an early hour the
+latter did appear, panting, in his arms a large pasteboard box. At sight
+of that box, Johnnie felt almost faint. But when the string was cut, and
+the cover taken off, disclosing a crisp, clean, khaki uniform, with
+little, breathless cries, and excited exclamations, yes, and with wet
+lashes, he caught the gift up in his arms and held it against him,
+embracing it. It was his! His! Oh, the overwhelming joy of knowing it
+was his!
+
+Though there was, of course, a chance that another strike might happen,
+and Big Tom come trudging home, nevertheless Johnnie could not resist
+the temptation of donning the precious outfit, seeing himself in it, and
+showing himself to the Father. But first he took a thorough hand-wash,
+this to guard against soiling a new garment; to insure against surprise
+while he was putting the clothes on, he scurried into Cis's room with
+the armful, leaving Father Pat in the morris chair, from where the
+latter called out advice now and again.
+
+On went everything. Not without mistakes, however, and some fumbling, in
+the poor light, over strange fastenings (all of Johnnie's fingers had
+turned into thumbs). The Father had done his part particularly well, and
+the suit fitted nicely. So did the leggings, so soon as Johnnie,
+discovering that he had them on upside down, inverted them. The
+buttoning and the belting, the lacing and the knotting, at an end, he
+put on the hat. But was undecided as to whether or not he should wear it
+at a slant of forty-five degrees, as One-Eye wore his, or straight, as
+was Mr. Perkins's custom. Finally he chose the latter fashion, took a
+long breath, like a swimmer coming up out of the depths, and--walked
+forth in a pair of squeaking brown shoes.
+
+How different from the usual Johnnie Smith he looked! He had lost that
+curious chunky appearance which Barber's old clothes gave him, and which
+was so misleading. On the other hand, his thin arms and pipelike legs
+were concealed, respectively, by becoming cloth and canvas. As for his
+body, it was slender, and lithe. And how straight he stood! And how
+smart was his appearance! And how tall he seemed!
+
+The priest threw up astonished hands. "Shure," he cried, "and is this
+annybody I know?"
+
+"Oh, it is! I am!" declared Johnnie, flushing under the brim of the
+olive-drab hat. "It's me, Father Pat! Oh, my! Do I look fine? D' y' like
+it?"
+
+Grandpa did, for he was circling Johnnie, cackling with excitement. "Oh,
+go fetch Mother!" he pleaded. "Go fetch Mother!--Oh, Mother, hurry up!
+Come and see Johnnie!"
+
+The Father walked in circles too, exclaiming and admiring. "It can't be
+a certain little lad who lives in the Barber flat," he puzzled. "So who
+can it be? No, I don't know this small soldier, and I'll thank ye if
+ye'll introduce me!"
+
+"Oh," answered Johnnie, "I ain't 'zac'ly sure I'm myself! Oh, Father
+Pat, isn't it wonderful?--and I know I've got it 'cause I can take hold
+of it, and _smell_ it! Oh, my goodness!" A feeling possessed him which
+he had never had before--a feeling of pride in his personal appearance.
+With it came a sense of self-respect. "And _I_ seem t' be new, and
+clean, and fine," he added, "jus' like the clothes!"
+
+"Ye're a wee gentleman!" asserted the Father; "--a soldier and a
+gentleman!" And he saluted Johnnie.
+
+Johnnie returned the salute--twice! Whereupon Grandpa fell to saluting,
+and calling out commands in his quavering old voice, and trying to stand
+upon his slippered feet.
+
+In the midst of all the uproar, "Oh, One-Eye! One-Eye! One-Eye!" For
+here, piling one happiness upon another, here was the cowboy, staggering
+in under the weight of a huge, ice-cold watermelon.
+
+"That's my name!" returned the Westerner, grinning. "But y' better take
+the eggs outen my pockets 'fore ye grab me like that. Y' know eggs can
+bust."
+
+When the eggs were rescued, along with a whole pound of butter, Johnnie
+saluted One-Eye. Next, he held out his hand. "Oh, I--I think you're
+awful good," he declared (he had thought up this much of his speech the
+night before on the roof).
+
+One-Eye waved him away as if he were a fly, and said "Bosh!" a great
+many times as Johnnie tried to continue. Finally, to change the subject,
+the cowboy broke into that sad song about his mother, which stopped any
+further attempt to thank him.
+
+"I'll tell y' what," he declared when Johnnie's mind was at last
+completely diverted from his polite intention; "they's jes' one thing
+shy. Yeppie, one. What y' need now is a nice, fine, close hair cut."
+
+"At a--at a barber's?" Johnnie asked, already guessing the answer.
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"Oh, One-Eye!" gasped Johnnie. (Oh, the glory of going out in the
+uniform! and with the cowboy! And how would he ever be able to take the
+new suit off!) "But if I wear it out, and _he_ sees me, and----"
+
+One-Eye was at the door, ready to lead the way. (Father Pat would stay
+behind with Grandpa.) The cowboy turned half about. "If Barber was t'
+find out," he answered, "and so much as laid a little finger on that
+suit, he'd have t' settle matters with _me_. Come!"
+
+Like one in an enchanted dream, Johnnie followed on in his stiff, new
+shoes. It was noon, and as they emerged from the dark hallway which led
+into the main street to the north, the sidewalks were aswarm. Indeed,
+the doorstep which gave from the hall to the pave was itself planted
+thick with citizens of assorted sizes. To get out, One-Eye lifted his
+spurred boots high over the heads of two small people. But Johnnie,
+doffing the scout hat with practiced art, "'Scuse me, please," he
+begged, in perfect imitation of Mr. Perkins; and in very awe fully six
+of the seated, having given a backward glance, and spied that uniform,
+rose precipitately to let him by.
+
+"Johnnie Barber!" gasped some one. "What d' y' know!" demanded another.
+From a third came a long, low whistle of amazement.
+
+Johnnie's ears stung pleasantly. "Hear 'em?" he asked One-Eye. "Course
+they mean me!"
+
+"Ad-mi-ra-tion," pronounced the cowboy, who always took his big words
+thus, a syllable at a time. "Sonny, y've knocked 'em all pie-eyed!"
+
+The barber shop was not nearly so regal as that restaurant of fond and
+glorious memory. Yet in its way it was splendid; and it was most
+interesting, what with its lean-back chairs, man-high mirrors, huge
+stacks of towels, lines of glittering bottles, and rows of shaving mugs
+(this being a neighborhood shop). And how deliciously it smelled!
+
+It was a little, dark gentleman in a gleaming white coat who waved
+Johnnie into one of the chairs--from which, his eyes wide and eager, the
+latter viewed himself as never before, from his bare head to his knees,
+and scarcely knew himself!
+
+One-Eye came to stand over the chair. "Now, don't y' give the boy one of
+them dis-gustin', round, mush-bowl hair cuts!" he warned, addressing the
+small, dark man. "Nope. He wants the reg'lar old-fashioned kind, with a
+feather edge right down t' the neck."
+
+When one travels about under the wing of a millionaire, all things
+happen right. This was Johnnie's pleased conclusion as, with a snip,
+snip, snip, the bright scissors did their quick work over his yellow
+head. He had a large white cloth pinned about his shoulders (no doubt
+the barber had noted the uniform, and was giving it fitting protection),
+and upon that cloth fell the severed bits of hair, flecking it with
+gold. In what One-Eye described afterward as "jig-time," the last snip
+was made. Then Johnnie had his neck dusted with a soft brush, the white
+cloth was removed, and he stood up, shorn and proud.
+
+Outside, several boys were hanging against the window, peering in. As
+Johnnie settled his hat he recalled something Father Pat had once said
+about the desirability of putting one's self in another person's place.
+Johnnie did that, and realized what a fortunate boy he was--with his
+wonderful friend at his side, his uniform on his back, and "a dandy hair
+cut." So as he went out in One-Eye's wake, "Hullo!" he called to the
+boys in the most cordial way.
+
+"And I reckon we look some punkins?" the cowboy observed when they were
+back in the flat once more.
+
+"Shure," replied Father Pat, "and what's more civilizin' than a barber
+shop!"
+
+And now the question was, how could Cis view Johnnie in all his military
+magnificence without putting that new uniform in danger? One-Eye had
+the answer: he would be down in the area when Big Tom arrived from work,
+"And off we'll go for see-gars," he plotted, "so the field'll be clear."
+
+However, as he waited for Cis, Johnnie could not bring himself to take
+too many chances with One-Eye's superb gift, and hid it, though he felt
+hot enough, beneath Barber's big clothes (and how fortunate it was that
+the longshoreman's cast-offs were voluminous enough to go over
+everything). Thus doubly clad, he looked exceedingly plump and padded.
+That was not the worst of it. The sleeves of the new coat showed. But
+all he had to do was draw up over them that pair of Cis's stockings
+which had kept his thin arms warm during the past winter. Of course his
+leggings and the shoes also showed, so he took these off. Then
+perspiring, but happy, he watched his two friends go, giving them a
+farewell salute.
+
+Cis came in promptly. "Oh, all day I've hardly been able to wait!" she
+declared. Then with upraised hands, "Oh, Johnnie, how _beautiful_ you
+are! Oh, you're like a picture! Like a picture I once saw of a boy who
+sang in a church! Oh, Johnnie, you're the best-looking scout in all New
+York! Yes, you are! And I'm going to kiss you!"
+
+He let her, salving his slight annoyance thereat with the thought that
+no one could see. "But don't say anythin' t' the Father 'r One-Eye about
+me bein' beautiful," he pleaded. "Will y'? Huh?"
+
+She promised she would not. "Oh, Johnnie," she cried again, having taken
+a second view of him from still another angle, and in another light,
+"that khaki's almost the color of your hair!"--which partly took the joy
+out of things!
+
+Yet, under the circumstances, no pang of any sort could endure very
+long. Particularly as--following the proper signal--Johnnie went to Mrs.
+Kukor's, Cis at his brown heels. Arrived, he saluted an astonished lady
+who did not at first recognize him; then he took off the new hat to her.
+She was quite stunned (naturally), and could only sink into a rocker,
+hands waving, round head wagging. But next, a very torrent of
+exclamations, all in Yiddish. After that, "Soch stylish!" she gasped
+rapturously. "Pos-i-tivvle!"
+
+Back in the flat again, Johnnie took off the uniform. That called for
+will power; but he dared not longer risk his prized possession. Late
+that night, when Big Tom had eaten to repletion of the watermelon, and
+smoked himself to sleep on one of One-Eye's cigars, Johnnie reached in
+around the jamb of Cis's door and cautiously drew that big suit box to
+him. In the morning it would have to join the books upstairs. However,
+for a happy, dark hour or two he could enjoy the outfit. How crisp and
+clean and strong it felt! Blushing at his own foolishness, he lifted the
+cowboy's gift to his lips and kissed it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ANOTHER STORY
+
+
+THE first Sunday in September was a day that Johnnie was never to
+forget. Big Tom, Grandpa, Cis, and he--all were gathered about the
+kitchen table for the noon meal when Father Pat and One-Eye came in, the
+Father without his usual cheery greeting, though there was nothing
+downcast in his look or manner. On the contrary, something of pride was
+in his step, slow as that step was, and also in his glance, which
+instantly sought out Johnnie. The face of the cowboy, however, was
+stern, and that single eye, greener than either--or both--of the
+Father's, was iron-hard and coldly averted.
+
+As the hall door shut at their backs, the priest raised his right hand
+in a gesture which was partly a salutation, partly a blessing. "Barber,"
+he began solemnly (the longshoreman, having given the visitors a swift
+and surly look, had gone on busily with his eating), "we've come this
+mornin' about the Blake matter."
+
+Startled, Big Tom threw down his knife and rose, instantly on the
+defensive; and Johnnie and Cis, watching, understood at once that "the
+Blake matter" was one known to the longshoreman, not welcomed by him,
+though most important. "Oh, y' seen that guy, Davis, eh?" he demanded.
+
+"Not one hour ago," answered the priest, quietly.
+
+"Tuh!"--it was an angry sneer. "And I s'pose he whined 'bout me takin'
+the kid?--though he could do nothin' for Johnnie. Sophie was dead, and
+the kid was too little t' be left alone."
+
+"Ye took the lad the day Albert Davis was half crazed over his wife,"
+charged the Father; "--hurried him off without a word or a line! A bad
+trick altogether! Oh, Davis guessed ye had the boy--the wee Johnnie he
+loved like a father. But he had small time t' hunt, what with his work.
+And at last he had t' give up."
+
+All that told Johnnie a great deal. He shot a look at Cis. Barber had
+taunted him often with his Uncle Albert's indifference--with the fact
+that not even a post card had ever come from the rich man's garage to
+the lonely little boy in the area building. But how _could_ Uncle Albert
+send a post card to some one if he did not know that some one's address?
+
+Barber kicked the morris chair out of his way. "That's the thanks I git
+for supportin' a youngster who ain't no kin t' me!" he stormed.
+
+Father Pat drew himself up. The red stubble on his bare head seemed
+stiff with righteous wrath. "Then I'll ask ye why ye kidnapped the lad?"
+he cried. "No kin t' ye, eh? And ye knew it, didn't ye? Then! So why
+didn't ye leave the boy with Davis?--Because ye wanted his work!"
+
+"Work!" repeated Barber, and broke into a shrill laugh. "Why, he wasn't
+worth his feed! I took him jus' t' be decent!"
+
+"Barber," returned the Father, firmly, "the tellin' o' a lie against
+annybody is always a bad thing. But there's another kind o' lie that's
+even worse, and that's lying t' _yerself_--that ye was thinkin' o' _his_
+good when ye rushed him away, and not o' yer own pocket!" Then, nodding
+wisely as he took the chair Big Tom booted aside, "_If_ ye wanted t' be
+so decent, why didn't ye take the lad when his father and mother died?
+Ha-a-a! He was too tiny t' be useful then, wasn't he? So ye let Sophie
+Davis bring him up; ye let his uncle support him."
+
+"Oh, all right," rejoined the longshoreman, resentfully. "I guess when
+y've made up your mind about a man, there ain't no use talkin' t' y', is
+there?"
+
+"No use, Mr. Barber," answered the other. "And this very mornin', while
+I've still got the breath and the strength t' do it, I mean t' tell the
+lad the truth!"
+
+"I been intendin' t' tell him myself," asserted Barber. "But up t' now,
+it wasn't no story t' be tellin' a little kid--leastways, not a kid
+that's got a loony way o' seein' things, and worryin' over 'em. And I
+warn y'! Y're likely as not t' make him sick!"
+
+The priest chuckled. "Y' ought t' know about that," he agreed. "Seein'
+that ye've made him sick yerself, often enough."
+
+At that, with a backward tip of his head, so that the wide hat fell off,
+and with the strangest, rasping, strangling sound in his skinny throat
+(his great, hairy Adam's-apple leaping, now high, now low), One-Eye
+began to laugh, at the same time beginning a series of arm-wavings,
+slapping first one thigh and then the other. "Har! har! har!" he
+ejaculated hoarsely.
+
+With a muttered curse, Big Tom walked to the door. "Go ahead!" he cried.
+"But _I_ don't set 'round and listen t' the stuff!" Black, fuming, he
+slammed his way out.
+
+One-Eye pointed out the kitchen chair to Cis; and when she was seated,
+got the wood box and set it on its side. "Come and roost along with me,"
+he bade Johnnie, the single eye under the wet-combed, tawny bang smiling
+almost tenderly at the boy.
+
+When they were all comfortably settled, "Our good friend here got most
+o' the information," informed Father Pat. "So, One-Eye, wouldn't ye like
+t'----"
+
+"Oh, not me! Not me!" the Westerner answered quickly. "I ain't no hand
+for tellin' nothin'! No, Father! Please! I pass!"
+
+"Johnnie," began the priest, "it's likely ye've guessed, after hearin'
+all I said t' Mr. Barber, that ye was (what I'll be bold enough t' call)
+stolen from yer Uncle, who wasn't ever able t' locate ye again."
+
+"Yes, sir,"--with a pleased smile. His Uncle Albert was not more than an
+hour away. That was the best of news!
+
+"And ye noted me use the name o' Blake," continued the other. "Well, it
+happens t' be yer own name."
+
+"Blake!" Cis was amazed.
+
+"Y' mean--y' mean my name ain't Smith," faltered Johnnie, who had, for a
+moment, been too stunned by the news to speak.
+
+"Smith was the first name Mr. Barber could think up," explained Father
+Pat, "when he made up his mind t' take ye, Mr. Davis bein' gone t' the
+hospital."
+
+One-Eye burst out. "Never liked the name!" he declared. "Knowed a feller
+oncet--Jim Smith--a snake! a bald-haided buzzard! a pole-cat!"
+
+Johnnie was staring at the floor. "John Blake!" he said under his
+breath. "O' course! Me! 'Cause it sounds all right, some way, and Smith
+_never_ did!--Not John Smith, but John Blake!"
+
+"Johnnie," went on the Father, "I told the dear two o' ye the story o'
+Edith Cavell. And ye thought that story grand, which it is. But t'day
+I'm tellin' ye another--one which, in its way, is equally grand. But
+this time the story's about a man--a wonderful man, gallant and brave,
+that ye'll love from this hour on."
+
+"Please, what does he look like?" asked Johnnie, wanting a definite
+picture in his mind.
+
+"A proper question!--And, see! The old gentleman's asleep again! Good!
+Wheel him a mite away, would ye mind, Miss Narcissa? He'll dream a bit
+better if he isn't under me voice. Thanks!--Well, then, first o' all,
+I'll have ye take note o' this man's general appearance, like. He was
+young, as men go, bein' only thirty-one; though"--with a laugh and a
+shake of the head--"ye think him fairly old, don't ye? Ha! But the
+day'll come when thirty-one'll seem t' ye like a baby right out o' the
+cradle! Yes, indeed!--But t' go back t' the man: thirty-one he was----"
+
+"Was?" inquired Johnnie. "Is he dead? Or--or maybe now he's thirty-two?"
+
+"He'll be thirty-one," said Father Pat, "to the very end o' time. For he
+is dead, lad dear, though God knows I wish I could tell ye otherwise,
+but we'll not be questionin' His mercy nor His judgment. And when all is
+said and done, his brave death is somethin' t' give thanks for, as ye'll
+admit fast enough when ye've heard.--Well, thirty-one, he was, and about
+me own height. But not me weight. No, he was a lighter-weighing man. He
+had sandyish hair, this gentleman, and a smooth face. His eyes were
+gray-and-blue. And from what I hear about him, he smiled a good deal,
+and was friendly t' ev'rybody, with a nice word and cheery how-dy-do.
+His skin was high-colored like, and his chin was solid and square, and
+he had a fine straight nose, and--but have ye got it all?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" Johnnie scarcely remembered that any one else was with them.
+"Slim, and light-haired (like me), and no whiskers, and kind of gray
+eyes, and all his face nice. But I can't see it _'xac'ly_ as I'd like
+t', 'cause maybe what I see and what he looked like ain't just the
+same."
+
+"In that case," replied the Father, "it's a good thing, I'm thinkin',
+that I brought along a photograph!"
+
+There it was in his hand. He held it (small and round, it was) cupped by
+a big palm; and Johnnie, leaning forward, studied the pictured
+countenance carefully. "That's right," went on the priest; "look at it
+close--close!"
+
+"I--I like him," Johnnie said, after a little. "And I'm awful sorry he's
+dead.--But please go on, Father Pat. I want t' hear 'bout him. Though if
+the story's very sad, why, I'm 'fraid that Cis'll cry."
+
+"I won't," promised Cis. "But--but if the story tells how he died, I
+don't think I'll look at the picture--not just yet, anyhow."
+
+The priest laid the photograph, face down, upon the table. "It isn't
+that Miss Narcissa'll cry," he argued; "but, oh, what'll we say t' this
+young lady when she sees _us_ weep?--for, little lad dear, this is a
+tale--" He broke off, then and there, as if about to break down on the
+spot. But coughed, and changed feet, thus getting control of himself
+once more, so that he was able to go on.
+
+"This young man I'm tellin' about lived in Buffalo," continued the
+Father. "Now that city is close t' the noble Falls that ye're so fond o'
+visitin' with Grandpa. Well, one day in the Spring----"
+
+"Scuse me! Last spring?" Johnnie interrupted.
+
+"Eight long springs ago," answered the Father. "Which would make ye
+about two years o' age at the time, if me arithmetic is workin' fairly
+well t'day."
+
+"Two is right," declared Johnnie, with the certainty of one who has
+committed to memory, page by page, the whole of a book on numbers.
+
+"But as ye were all o' four years old at the time," corrected the
+priest, "eight springs ago would make ye twelve years old at this
+date----"
+
+"_Twelve?_"
+
+"Ha-ha-a-a-! Boy scout age!" reminded the Father.
+
+At that, Johnnie, quite overcome by the news, tumbled sidewise upon
+One-Eye's hairy knees, and the cowboy mauled the yellow head
+affectionately. When the Westerner set Johnnie up again, "So ye see Mr.
+Barber shoved yer age back a bit when ye first came here," explained the
+priest. "And as ye was shut in so much, and that made ye small for yer
+years, why, he planned t' keep ye workin' for him just that much longer.
+Also, it helped him in holdin' ye out o' school."
+
+One-Eye's mustache was standing high under the brown triangle of his
+nose. The single eye was burning. "Oh, jes' fer a good _ex_-cuse!" he
+cried. "Fer a chanst! Fer a' openin'! And--it'll come! It'll come! I
+ain't goin' t' leave Noo York, neither, till I've had it!"
+
+If Cis caught the main drift of all this, Johnnie did not. "I'd like t'
+be able t' send word t' Mister Perkins!" he declared. "Oh, wouldn't he
+be tickled, though!--Cis, I can be a scout--this minute!" Then
+apologetically, "But I won't int'rrupt y' again, Father Pat. I know
+better, only t' hear what you said was so awful fine!"
+
+"Ye're excused, scout dear," declared the priest. "Shure, it's me that's
+glad I can bring a bit o' good news along with the sad--which is the way
+life goes, bein' more or less like bacon, the lean betwixt the fat. And
+now I'll go on with the story o' the young man and his wife, and----"
+
+"There's a lady in the story?" asked Cis.
+
+"A dear lady," answered the Father. "Young and slim, she was--scarce
+more than a girl. With brown hair, I'm told, though I'm afraid I can't
+furnish ye much more o' a description, and I'm sad t' say I've got no
+photograph."
+
+"Guess I won't be able t' see her face the way I do his," said Johnnie.
+
+"She must've been very sweet-lookin' in the face," declared Father Pat.
+"And bein' as good as she was good-lookin', 'tis not hard t' understand
+why he loved her the way he did. And that he did love her, far above
+annything else in the world, ye'll understand when ye've heard it all.
+So think o' her as beautiful, lad dear, and as leanin' on him always,
+and believin' in what he said, and trustin'. Also, she loved him in the
+same way that he loved her, and we'll let that comfort us hereafter
+whenever we talk about them--the strong, clean, fine, young husband, and
+the bit o' a wife.
+
+"Well, it was Spring, and they, havin' been kept in all winter, had a
+mind one day t' visit the Falls. That same day was lovely, they tell me,
+sunny and crisp. And she wore a long, brown coat over her neat dress,
+and a scarf of silk veilin' about her throat. And he wore his overcoat,
+there bein' some snap in the air.
+
+"Quite a lot o' folks was goin' out upon the ice below the Falls, for
+the thawin' and the breakin' up was not goin' forward too much--they
+thought--and a grand view was t' be had o' the monster frozen floor, and
+the icicles high as a house. So this gentleman and his wife----"
+
+"My father and mother!" cried Johnnie. "Oh, Father Pat, y're goin' t'
+tell me how they both got drownded!"
+
+"Now! now! now!" comforted One-Eye, with a pat or two on a shoulder. "Y'
+want t' know, don't y'? Aw, sonny, it'll make y' proud!"
+
+Johnnie could only nod. The Father went on: "They went out upon the ice
+with all the others, and stood gazin' up at the beautiful sight, and
+talkin', I'll venture t' say, about how wonderful it was, and sayin'
+that some day they'd bring the boy t' see it."
+
+"Me,"--and Johnnie drew closer to One-Eye.
+
+"Only a bit o' a baby, ye was, lad dear, safe at home with yer Aunt
+Sophie, but big enough t' be put into ev'ry one o' their dreams and
+plans. --So when they'd looked long, and with pleasure, at the fairy
+work o' the frozen water, they turned and watched downstream. There was
+a vast floor o' ice in that direction, all covered still with snow. At
+the far edge o' the floor showed open water, flowin' in terrible
+wildness, so that no boat ever rides safely in it, nor can anny man swim
+through it and live.
+
+"The rapids lay below there, but these were a long way off from the
+sightseers at the Falls. They could see the tumblin', perhaps, and maybe
+hear the roar. But what was under their feet was firm as the ground, and
+they felt no fear."
+
+"But--but was it safe?" Johnnie faltered. "Oh, Father Pat, I'm 'fraid it
+wasn't!"
+
+"Where they stood, it was," declared the Father. "But all at once, a
+smart puff o' wind caught that pretty wisp o' veilin' from the young
+wife, and wafted it away. And as quick as the wind itself after it she
+darted; but when she was close to it, up and off it whirled again, and
+she followed it, and he after her, and--shouts o' warnin' from all!"
+
+Johnnie took his underlip in his teeth. By that power of his to call
+before him vividly the people and places and things he heard, or read,
+about, and to see everything as if it were before him, now he was seeing
+the snow-covered flooring of the river, the hastening figure headed
+toward danger, and the frightened one who pursued, while the sun shone,
+and voices called, and the river roared below.
+
+"There was good reason t' shout," continued the priest. "For by a bitter
+chance the ice had cracked clear across 'twixt where the two were
+hastenin' and where they had stood before."
+
+Now Johnnie suddenly grew white, and his lip quivered out from its hold.
+"But they must go back, Father Pat!" he cried, his breast heaving. "Oh,
+they must go back!"
+
+"They can't," answered the Father, speaking very low. "Oh, dear lad,
+they're cut off from the shore. There's a big rift in the ice now, and
+it's growin' each moment bigger, and they're on the wrong side o' it,
+and--floatin' down river."
+
+One-Eye slipped an arm about Johnnie, drawing the bright head to a
+shoulder. "Are y' all right, sonny?" he asked huskily. "Can y' hear the
+rest? Or----"
+
+"Yes,"--but it was scarcely a whisper, and the flaxen lashes were
+shuttering the gray eyes tight. "I--I ought t' be able t' stand just
+hearin' it, if--if _they_ could stand the really thing."
+
+"I don't want t' break the wee heart o' ye," protested the Father,
+tenderly. "And so maybe we'll wait?"
+
+"No, sir." Johnnie opened his eyes. "I'm goin' t' feel b-bad. But please
+don't mind me. I'm thinkin' of Edith Cavell, and that'll help."
+
+"God love the lad!" returned the Father, choking a little. "And I'll go
+on. For I'm thinkin' it's better t' hear the truth, even when that truth
+is bitter, than t' be anxiously in doubt." Then, Johnnie having assented
+by a nod, "That rift grew wider and wider. As they stopped runnin' after
+the veil, and turned, they saw it, the two o' them. 'Tis said that the
+young wife gave a great cry, and ran back towards the Falls, and stood
+close t' the rim o' the ice, and held out her two hands most pitiful.
+But all who were on the ice had scattered, the most t' hurry t' do
+somethin' which would help."
+
+"Oh, they _must_ hurry!"--it was Cis this time, the pointed chin
+trembling.
+
+"Ropes--they got ropes, for there was a monster bridge below, which the
+two will pass under before long, as the ice-cake floats that far. And
+the ropes must be ready, and let down t' save 'em.--Yes, rods o' rope
+were lowered, as fast as this could be managed, and as close as possible
+t' where the men on the bridge judged the pair on the ice would go by.
+There was a big loop in the end that trailed t' the river. But long as
+that rope was, shure, it wasn't long enough, though the man was able t'
+catch it--and what a shout o' joy went up!--and he could've slipped it
+over his own head as easy as easy, but he would not do it--no, not
+without _her_. But, oh, as he leaned to drop the big loop around her
+(another rope was comin' down at the same time for him), she weakened,
+and fainted in his arms, and lay there in the snow.
+
+"He lifted her--quick! But before he could pass the loop over her head,
+the current swept her on. Now there was still time for him t' spring
+back and save himself--save her, he could not. But he would not leave
+her lyin' there and save himself, and so--and so----"
+
+"Oh, has he _got_ t' die?" pleaded Johnnie, brokenly.
+
+"Johnnie," went on the Father, gently, "we're not on this earth just t'
+have a good time, or an easy time,--no, or a safe time. We're here t' do
+our duty, and this is how yer father thought. Lad, dear, some day ye'll
+come t' a tight place yerself. And ye'll have t' decide what ye're t'
+do: go this way, which is the easiest, or that, which is the hard path
+o' duty, a path which'll take all the pluck ye've got, but the right
+one, nevertheless--the fine, true way. And when such a time comes,
+shure, ye'll remember what _he_ did that day----"
+
+Johnnie's eyes were closed again. From under his shining lashes the
+tears were beginning to creep, finding their way in long letter S's down
+his pale cheeks. "I'll think o' what my father did!" he answered. "Oh, I
+will, Father Pat! My fine, wonderful father!"
+
+"Could he have chosen t' be saved, and leave the young wife there? O'
+course, he could not--if ever he wanted t' have a peaceful thought
+again, or the respect o' men and women. But maybe he didn't even think
+o' all this, but just did the brave act naturally--instinctively. No, he
+would not be saved without her. And--the ropes were both out o' reach,
+now, and the ice cake was floatin' swifter, and swifter, and, dear!
+dear! breakin' at one side.
+
+"His wife in his arms, he faced about, holdin' the slim, brown figure
+against his heart. He was talkin' to her then, I'll be bound, sayin' all
+the tender, lovin' things that could ease her agony, though as,
+mercifully enough now, she was limp in his hold, likely she could not
+even hear."
+
+"Oh, I hope so!" said Cis. "Then she wouldn't be suffering!"
+
+"From the shore the people watched them, and from the bridge. But manny
+could not watch, for, ah, 'twas a tragic sight. Some o' these prayed;
+some hid their faces. But others shouted--in encouragement, maybe, or
+just terror. Annyhow, the young husband, hearin' the calls, lifted his
+face t' that high bridge. And 'twas then _he_ called--just once, but
+they heard. And what he called was a single name, and that name
+was--_Johnnie_."
+
+Down went Cis's head then, and she wept without restraint. But Johnnie
+was somehow uplifted now, as by pride. "I can see him!" he cried. "My
+father! Just as _plain_!" He sat up straight again, though his eyes were
+still shut. "I can see his face, smilin', and his light hair! Why, it's
+as if he was lookin' straight at _me_!" Then trembling again into
+One-Eye's hold, "But I can't see my mother's face, 'cause it's turned
+away, hidin' on my father's shoulder. I can see just her back. Oh,
+my--poor--m-mother!"
+
+"He was thinkin' o' the baby he was leavin' behind," went on the priest,
+"in that last moment o' his life. And if she was, too, then it's no
+wonder the gentle thing couldn't lift her head."
+
+"Oh! Oh, Father Pat!"--while One-Eye stroked the yellow hair he had
+ruffled, and whispered fondly under that dun mustache.
+
+"The ice was near the rapids now, so there isn't a great deal more t'
+tell," continued the Father. "He put up one hand, did yer father, wavin'
+it in a last salute--thankin', maybe, the men who had worked so hard
+with the ropes.--O God o' Mercy, wast Thou not lookin' down upon Thy
+servant as he gave his life cheerfully just t' comfort hers one minute
+longer?
+
+"The agony was short. The rapids caught the cake, which whirled like a
+wheel--once. Then it tipped, breakin' again, crumblin' t' bits under
+them, and they sank. There was just a glimpse, a second's, o' his head,
+shinin' in the sun. Then they were gone--gone. God rest his soul--his
+brave, brave soul! And God rest her soul, too!" The Father crossed
+himself.
+
+After awhile, having wiped his own eyes, he went on once more: "Behind
+them swayed the rope as the men on the bridge slowly dragged it up and
+up. And the people everywhere turned away, and started slowly home. Not
+alt'gether sadly, though. For they'd seen a beautiful thing done, one
+which was truly sublime. And later in yer life, lad dear, when ye hear
+tell, manny a time, how this boy or that has had somethin' left t' him
+by his father--land, maybe, or a great house, or money--then don't ye
+fail t' remember what was left t' yerself! For yer father left ye more
+than riches. He left ye the right t' be proud o' him, and t' respect and
+honor him, and there's no grander inheritance than that! And the
+sweetness which was yer mother's, along with the bravery o' yer father,
+all are yer own, comin' t' ye in their blood which courses through yer
+own veins. Inheritance! What a lot is in the word! Manny's the time I've
+wondered about ye--how ye love what's decent and good--good books, and
+right conduct, and t' be clean, and all the rest o' it. But now I
+understand why. Come t' me, little son o' a good mother! Little son o' a
+brave father!" The priest held out his hand.
+
+As Johnnie came, Father Pat took from a pocket a leather case which,
+when opened, disclosed--was it a piece of money? or an ornament? Johnnie
+could not decide. But it was round, and beautiful, and of gold. Taken
+from its case, it was heavy. On the obverse side it bore the likeness of
+a man as old, nearly, as Grandpa; on the reverse, cut in a splendid
+circle, were the words, _Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
+lay down his life for his friends_. In the center, in lasting letters of
+metal, were other words: _Awarded to William Blake._
+
+"'Tis a medal," explained the Father, "and 'twas awarded to that husband
+who would not save himself if he could not save his wife."
+
+"Is--is that my father's picture?" Johnnie asked, under his breath.
+
+"No, lad dear. 'Tis Andrew Carnegie, that--the founder of the Carnegie
+Hero Fund. He was a poor boy when he came to America from Scotland. And,
+Johnnie, dear, books was what _he_ loved, and when he was a little
+telegraph messenger, he'd read when he could, in betwixt scamperin' here
+and there with messages. He lived to make a fortune, and much of that
+fortune he spent in buildin' libraries for those who can't afford to buy
+their own books. And he did manny other things, and one o' 'em was--t'
+leave an educational award t' the wee son o' a certain hero I could
+name, so that the lad, as soon as he was big enough, could go t' school
+and college. Now, who d' ye think I mean?"
+
+Johnnie knew; yet it was all so sudden that he could not wholly realize
+it. "Money for school, lad dear," repeated the priest. "It's been
+waitin' for ye this long time. But Mr. Tom Barber didn't happen t' know
+about it, and we'll not be sayin' a word t' him just yet. No; I'm
+thinkin' the news would be the end o' the dear man--so much money in the
+family, and him not able t' put his hands on a cent!"
+
+When Father Pat was gone, One-Eye with him, he left behind, not a
+sorrowing little boy, who blamed Fate for having robbed him of both
+father and mother in one terribly tragic hour, but a boy who was very
+proud. There was this about him, too: he did not feel fatherless and
+motherless any longer, but as if the priest had, somehow, given him
+parents.
+
+"And, oh, wasn't it a beautiful story?" Cis asked, as they put the medal
+in a pocket of the new scout coat. (The picture Father Pat had carried
+away to have copied.) "Johnnie, I feel as if I'd been to church! It's
+like the passing of Arthur--so sad, but so wonderful! Oh, Johnnie Blake,
+think of it! You're twelve! and you can go to school! and you're the son
+of a hero!"
+
+"Yes," said Johnnie. As he had not done the work which he knew Big Tom
+expected of him that Sunday, now he got out the materials for his
+violet-making and began busily shaping flowers. "And I'm goin' t' be a
+scout right off, too," he reminded. "So I mustn't shirk, 'r they won't
+give me a badge!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+REVOLT
+
+
+"'TAKE two cupfuls of milk,'" read Johnnie, who was bent over his newest
+possession, a paper-covered cookbook presented him only that morning by
+his good friend overhead; "'three tablespoonfuls of sugar, one-half
+saltspoonful of salt' (only, not havin' a saltspoon, I'll just put in a
+pinch), 'one-half teaspoonful of vanilla' (and I wonder what vanilla is,
+and maybe I better ask Mrs. Kukor, but if she hasn't got any, can I
+leave vanilla out?), 'the yolks of three eggs'--" Here he stopped. "But
+I haven't got any eggs!" he sighed. And once more began turning the
+pages devoted to desserts.
+
+This sudden interest in new dishes had nothing whatever to do with the
+Merit Badge for Cooking. The fact was, he was about to make a pudding;
+and the pudding was to be made solely for the purpose of pleasing the
+palate of Mr. Tom Barber.
+
+Johnnie had on his scout uniform. And it was remarkable what that
+uniform always did for him in the matter of changing his feelings toward
+the longshoreman. The big, old, ragged clothes on, the boy might be glad
+to see Barber go for the day, and even harbor a little of his former
+hate for him; but the scout clothes once donned, their very snugness
+seemed to straighten out his thoughts as well as his spine, the former
+being uplifted, so to speak, along with Johnnie's chin! Yes, even the
+buttons of the khaki coat, each embossed with the design of the scout
+badge, helped him to that state of mind which Cis described as "good
+turny." Now as he scanned the pages of the cookbook, those two upper
+bellows pockets of his beloved coat (his father's medal was in the left
+one) heaved up and down proudfully at the mere thought of to-day's good
+deed.
+
+He began to chant another recipe: "'One pint of milk, three
+tablespoonfuls of sugar, two heapin' tablespoonfuls of cornstarch'----"
+
+Another halt. The cupboard boasted no cornstarch. Nor was there gelatine
+in stock, with which to make a gay-colored, wobbly jelly. As for prune
+souffle, he could make that easily enough. But--the longshoreman did not
+want to lay eyes on another prune souffle before Washington's Birthday,
+at least, and the natal anniversary of the Father of His Country was
+still a long way off.
+
+Apple fritters, then? But they took apples. And brown betty had the
+boldness to demand molasses on top of apples!
+
+He turned more pages.
+
+Then he found his recipe. He knew that the moment his eye caught the
+name--"poor man's pudding." He bustled about, washing some rice, then
+making the fire. All the while he hummed softly. He was especially happy
+these days, for only the week before he had been visited by his Uncle
+Albert, looking a trifle changed after these five years, but still the
+kindly, cheerful Uncle Albert of the old days in the rich man's garage.
+
+He fell to talking aloud. "I got milk," he said, "and I got salt, and
+sugar, and the rinds o' some oranges. They're dry, but if I scrape 'em
+into the puddin', Mrs. Kukor says they'll make it taste fine! I'll give
+Mister Barber a bowl t' eat it out of. My! how he'll smack!"
+
+At this point, the wide, old boards of the floor gave a telltale snap.
+It was behind him, and so loud that it shattered his vision of Big Tom
+and the pudding bowl. Some one was in the room! Father Pat? Mrs. Kukor?
+One-Eye?
+
+He turned a smiling face.
+
+What he saw made him even forget that he had on the beloved scout suit.
+In the first shock, he wondered how they could have come up and in
+without his hearing them; and, second, if he was just thinking one of
+his thinks, and had himself lured these two familiar shapes into the
+kitchen. For there, in arm's length of him, standing face to face,
+were--Big Tom and Cis.
+
+They were real. In the next breath, Johnnie knew it. No think of his
+would show them to him looking as they now looked. For Barber's heavy,
+dark countenance was working as he chewed on nothing ferociously; while
+Cis--in all the past five years Johnnie had never before seen her face
+as it was now. It was set and drawn, and a raging white, so that the
+blue veins stood out in a clear pattern on her temples. Her hat hung
+down grotesquely at one side of her head. Her hair was in wild disarray.
+And her eyes! They were a blazing black!
+
+What had happened?
+
+"Let go of me!" Cis demanded, in a voice that was not hers at all.
+Barber had hold of her arm. With a sudden twist she freed herself.
+
+"Here!" Her stepfather seized her again, and jerked her to a place
+beside him. "And none o' y'r loud talk, d' y' understand?"
+
+"Yes, I understand!" she answered defiantly, yet without lowering her
+voice. "But I don't care what you want! I'll speak the way I want to!
+I'll yell--Ee-e-e----"
+
+But even as she began the shriek, one of his great hands grasped the
+whole lower half of her face, covering it, and stopping the cry.
+
+The next moment she was gasping and struggling as she fought his hold.
+She tried to pull backward. She dragged at his hand as she circled him.
+
+It was a strange contest, so quiet, yet so fierce. It was not like
+something that Johnnie was really seeing: it was like one of those
+thinks of his--a terrible one. Bewildered, fascinated, paralyzed, he
+watched, and the matches dropped, scattering, from his hands.
+
+The contest was pitifully unequal. All at once the girl's strength gave
+out. Her knees bent under her. She swayed toward Big Tom, and would have
+fallen if he had not held her up--by that hand over her mouth as well as
+by the grasp he had kept on her elbow. Now those huge, tonglike arms of
+his caught her clear of the floor and half threw, half dropped, her upon
+the kitchen chair.
+
+"You set there!" commanded Barber.
+
+Too spent for speech, but still determined not to obey him, Cis tried to
+leave the chair, and drew herself partly up by grasping the table. But
+she could not stand, and sank back. At one corner of her mouth showed a
+trickle of blood, like a scarlet thread.
+
+The sight of it brought Johnnie to her in an agony of concern. "Oh,
+Cis!" he implored.
+
+With one flail-like swing of a great arm, Barber swept the boy aside.
+"Stay where y' are!" he said to Cis (he did not even look at Johnnie).
+Then he crossed to the hall door, which was shut, and deliberately
+bolted it. The clash between him and Cis had been so quiet that Grandpa
+had not even been wakened. Now Barber went to the wheel chair, and
+gently, slowly, began to trundle it toward the bedroom. "Time t' go t'
+s'eep, Pa," he said coaxingly. "Yes, time for old man t' go
+s'eepy-s'eepy." When the chair was across the sill, he closed the door
+upon it.
+
+Meanwhile, Johnnie had again moved nearer to Cis. Now was his chance to
+get away in his uniform and change into his old clothes; to gather up
+his old, big shirt and trousers from where they lay on the morris
+chair, unbolt the door, and make for that flight of stairs leading up to
+the roof. But--he did not even think of going, of leaving her when she
+needed him so. He wanted to help her, to comfort. "Oh, Cis!" he
+whispered again.
+
+She seemed not to hear him, and she did not turn her burning eyes his
+way. Breathing hard, and sobbing with anger under her breath, she stared
+at Barber. Her lip was swelling. Her face was crimson from her fight.
+Drops of perspiration glistened on her forehead.
+
+Barber's underlip was thrust out as he came back to her. "Y' ain't got
+the decency t' be quiet!" he charged, "in front o' that poor old man!"
+
+Now she had breath to answer. She straightened in her chair, and met him
+with a boldness odd when coming from her. "Grandpa isn't the only person
+in this flat to be considered," she returned.
+
+"Jus' the same"--Big Tom shook a finger in her face--"he's the _first_
+one that's goin' t' be considered!"
+
+"Johnnie and I have _our_ rights!" she cried.
+
+As she spoke his name, Johnnie's heart leaped so that it choked
+him--with gratitude, and love, and admiration.
+
+"Never mind y'r rights!" the longshoreman counseled. "I begin t' see
+through you! Y're a little sneak, that's what y' are! Look at the crazy
+way y're actin', and I thought y' was a quiet girl! Y' been pretty cute
+about hidin' what y're up to!"
+
+"Hiding!" she answered, resentful. "What do I have to hide from _you_?
+What I do is none of _your_ business! I'm not a relation of yours! and
+I'm seventeen! And from now on----"
+
+"Oh, drop that!" interrupted Barber. "Y' waste y'r breath!" Then with
+another shake of the finger, "What I want t' know--and the truth, mind
+y'!--is how long has this been goin' on?" He leaned on the table to
+peer into her eyes.
+
+Going on? Johnnie's look darted from one to the other. Had Cis been
+staying away from the factory? Had she been taking some of her earnings
+to see a moving-picture? or----
+
+"I don't have to tell you!" Cis declared.
+
+"I'm the man that feeds y'!" Barber reminded. "Jus' remember _that_!"
+
+"You've taken my earnings," she returned. "You've taken every cent I've
+ever got for my work! And don't you forget _that_!"
+
+"Ev'ry girl brings home her wages," answered the longshoreman. "And
+don't y' forgit that I fed y' many a year before y' was _able_ t'
+work----"
+
+"While my mother was living, she earned my food!" Cis cried. "And _I've_
+worked, just as Johnnie has, ever since I was a baby!"
+
+"Have y'? Bosh! Y' been a big expense t' me, that's what y' been, for
+all these past ten years! And now, jus' when y're old enough t' begin
+payin' me back a little, here y' go t' actin' up! Well, you was left in
+my hands. I'm only stepfather to y'. All right. But I'm goin' t' see
+that y' behave y'rself."
+
+"You've got nothing to say about me!" she persisted.
+
+"No? I'll show y'! But what I want t' know now is, how many times have
+you met this dude at the noon hour?"
+
+Then Johnnie understood what had happened.
+
+"Ha-a-a-a!" Cis threw back her head with a taunting laugh. "Dude! So
+he's a dude, is he? But I notice, _big_ as you are, that you didn't let
+Mr. Perkins know you'd been watching us! You didn't come up to the bench
+and speak to _him_! No! You waited till he was gone! You were only brave
+enough to do your talking in front of a lot of girls! Ha-a-a-a!" Then
+her anger mounting, "_You_ talk about sneaking! That's because _you've_
+sneaked and followed us!"
+
+"Y're too young t' have any whipper-snapper trailin' 'round with
+y'--noons, 'r any other time," declared Barber.
+
+"My mother married when she was seventeen!" retorted Cis.
+
+"It'll be time enough for y' t' be thinkin' o' beaus when y're twenty,"
+went on Big Tom, quietly.
+
+She stood up. "You hate to see anybody happy, don't you?" she asked
+scornfully. "You're afraid maybe Mr. Perkins will like me, and want me
+to marry him, and give me a good home!"
+
+"You can put that Perkins out o' y'r head," commanded the longshoreman.
+"When y're old enough, o' course, y're goin' t' marry; but I plan t'
+have y' marry a _man_."
+
+"Mr. Perkins is a man," she answered, not cowed or frightened in the
+least.
+
+"Not _my_ notion o' a man," said Big Tom.
+
+"I like him all the better for that!" she returned--an answer which
+stung and angered him anew, for he caught her roughly once more and
+hurled her back into her chair.
+
+She stayed there for a moment, panting. Then, "I'm going to marry Mr.
+Perkins," she told him. "To-morrow--_if I live_!"
+
+"T'morrow!" He shouted the word. "What're y' _talkin'_ about? I'll
+_kill_ y' first! I'll----"
+
+"Oh, don't!" As Barber reached to seize Cis again, Johnnie dragged at
+his sleeve.
+
+But the longshoreman did not notice him. It was Cis who cried out to
+Johnnie, still defying Big Tom. "Oh, let him do what he wants!" she
+said. "Because he won't have a chance even to speak to me after to-day!
+Let him! Let him!"
+
+Barber shook her, and stepped back. "After t'-day," he told her, "y'll
+work right here at home!"
+
+"Home! _Home!_" She laughed wildly. "Do you call _this_ a home?"
+
+"I'll see that y' behave y'rself!" he vowed.
+
+"You'd better see that you behave _yourself_!" she retorted. "Because
+Johnnie doesn't belong to you--you haven't any rights over him! And he's
+gone once, and he'll go again--after I go! And I'm going the minute I
+can stand on my feet! I've stayed here long enough! Then you can try it
+alone for a change!"
+
+"Oh, _can_ I?"
+
+"I'll never do another thing for you!" she went on; "--in this flat or
+out! No, not in all the rest of my life! Oh, I'm not like Johnnie! I
+can't pretend it's beautiful when it's awful! and imagine good clothes,
+and decent food, and have my friends driven away, and insulted! I won't
+stand it! I know what's wrong! I see things the way they are! And I'm
+not going to put up with them! No girl could bear what you ask me to
+bear! This flat! My room! The way I have to work--at the factory, and
+then here, too! And no butter! No fruit! And the mean snarling,
+snarling, snarling! And never a cent for myself!"
+
+It had all come pouring out, her voice high, almost hysterical. And if
+it surprised Johnnie, who had never before seen Cis other than quiet and
+gentle and sweet, modest, wistful and shrinking, it appalled Barber.
+Those eyes of his bulged still more. His great mouth stood wide open.
+
+Presently, he straightened and looked up and around. "Well, I guess I
+see what's got t' be done," he remarked casually.
+
+The strap--it was Johnnie's first thought; Barber was getting ready to
+whip Cis! Never before had the boy seen her threatened, and the mere
+idea was beyond his enduring. "Oh, Mister Barber!" he protested. "Oh,
+what y' goin' t' do?"
+
+For an answer, the longshoreman swung a big arm over his own head and
+gave such a mighty pull at the clothesline that it came loose from its
+fastening at either end.
+
+"Cis! He'll kill y'!" cried the boy, suddenly terror-stricken.
+
+Girls could be brave! Father Pat had said it, and Edith Cavell had
+proved it. Cis was proving it, too! For now she rose once more, and
+though she was trembling, it was only with anger, not with fear. "He can
+kill me if he wants to!" she cried defiantly. "But he can't make me mind
+him, and he can't make me stay in this flat!"
+
+Then Johnnie knew what he must do: bear himself like the scout he was so
+soon to be. Also, was he not the son of his father? And his father had
+been braver than any scout. So he himself must be extra brave. He flung
+himself against Barber, and clung to him, his arms wound round one
+massive leg. "Oh, Mister Barber!" he entreated. "Don't hurt Cis! Lick
+me! Lick me!"
+
+But Barber could not be easily diverted from his plan. "You git out o'
+my way!" he ordered fiercely. A heave of one big leg, and he slung the
+boy to one side--without even turning to look at him as he fell. Then
+again he turned to Cis.
+
+"You keep your hands off of me!" she warned. "If you touch me, you'll be
+sorry!--Oh, I hate you! I hate you! _I hate you!_"
+
+Barber laughed. "So y' hate me, do y'?" he demanded. "And y' ain't goin'
+t' stay one more night! Well, maybe y'll change y'r mind! Ha! ha! ha!
+ha! ha!" Then suddenly his look hardened. With a grunt of rage, rope in
+hand, he swooped down upon her.
+
+"You brute! You brute!"
+
+It was not till then that Johnnie understood what Big Tom meant to do.
+Crying out to him, "Oh, y' mustn't! Y' mustn't!" he rushed across to
+catch at the rope, and clung to it with all his might.
+
+Barber caught him up, and once more he threw him--so that Johnnie struck
+a wall, and lay for a moment, half stunned. Meanwhile, with his other
+hand, the longshoreman thrust Cis down into her chair. Then growling as
+he worked, he wound her in the rope as in the coils of a serpent, and
+bound her, body, ankles, and arms, to the kitchen table.
+
+Johnnie came crawling back, bruised, but scarcely knowing it; thinking
+only of Cis, of saving her from pain and indignity. "No, Mister Barber!"
+he pleaded. "Not Cis, Mister Barber! Please! It's all my fault! I
+fetched Mister Perkins here! I did! So blame me!"
+
+Barber straightened. He was breathing hard, but there was a satisfied
+shine in his bloodshot eyes. "All right, Mister Johnnie," he answered.
+His voice was almost playful, but still he did not look at the boy.
+"It's y'r fault, is it? Well, I guess maybe it jus' about is! So y'
+needn't t' worry! I'll attend t' y'--_no mistake_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+DISASTER
+
+
+BARBER took his time. He even prepared to have a smoke before
+"attending" to Johnnie. He fumbled through his coat pockets to find his
+pipe, grinning all the while at Cis.
+
+Being bound had not subdued her. She looked back at him, her face
+quivering, her cheeks streaming with angry tears. "Oh, yes, he'll go
+after you!" she sobbed. "You needn't be afraid he won't! He likes to
+take somebody that's little and weak, and abuse him, just as he's abused
+me, because I'm a girl! You don't think, Johnnie, that he'd ever take
+anybody his own size!"
+
+"That'll do!" warned Big Tom. He had found the pipe, and now came a step
+nearer to her. "Y'd better keep y'r mouth shut, young lady!"
+
+"Don't talk, Cis! Don't!" begged Johnnie, half whispering.
+
+"I _will_ talk!" she declared. "All the years I've been here I've wanted
+to tell him what I think of him. And now I'm going to!--I _am_ a young
+lady. You great, big coward!"
+
+He struck her with the flat of one heavy hand. But as she instantly
+struggled, and frantically, throwing herself this way and that, and
+almost overturning the table upon herself, the longshoreman thought
+better of continuing the punishment, and crossed to the sink to empty
+his pipe.
+
+Again Cis fell to sobbing, and talking as she wept. "I'm going to see
+that Father Pat knows about this," she threatened. "And everybody in the
+whole neighborhood, too! They'll drive you out of this part of town--you
+see if they don't! And, oh, wait till One-Eye knows, and Mr. Perkins!"
+
+It was just then, as she paused for breath, that something happened
+which was unexpected, unforeseen, and terrible in its results. The
+longshoreman, to empty his pipe, rapped once on that pipe leading down
+into the sink from Mrs. Kukor's flat--then twice more--then once again.
+
+It was the book signal!
+
+Johnnie gasped. And Cis stopped crying, turning on him a look that was
+full of frightened inquiry. He tipped back his head, to stare at the
+ceiling as if striving to see through it, and he held his breath,
+listening. During the quarrel, he had not thought of Mrs. Kukor, nor
+heard any sound from above. Was she at home? Oh, he hoped she was not!
+or that she had not heard!
+
+But she was at home, and was preparing to obey the raps. Her rocking
+steps could be heard, crossing the floor.
+
+"Johnnie!" warned Cis. She forgot herself now, in remembering what might
+be threatening.
+
+They heard the scrape of the book basket as it left the upper sill.
+Johnnie got to his feet then, watching Barber, who was leaning over the
+sink, cleaning out the bowl of the pipe with the half of a match. Oh, if
+only the longshoreman would leave the window now, before--before----
+
+Almost gayly, and as jerkily as always, the basket with its precious
+load came dropping by quick inches into full view, where it swung from
+side to side, waiting to be drawn in. And as it swung, Big Tom caught
+the movement of it, faced round, and stood staring, seeing the books,
+but not comprehending just yet how they came to be outside his window,
+or for whom they were intended. And Johnnie, his face distorted by an
+agony of anxiety, kept his eyes on Barber.
+
+"Ha-a-a-a!" Cis broke in, scornfully. "He's been asking old Grandpa
+questions, Johnnie! He's been spying on you, too! He ought to make a
+fine detective! All he does is spy!"
+
+It was this which told Barber that the books belonged in his flat, and
+to Johnnie. "So-o-o-o!" he roared triumphantly, and grabbed the four
+strings. But now his anger was toward Mrs. Kukor.
+
+His jerk at the basket had told her something: that all was not right
+down below. And the next moment she was pulling hard at the strings,
+dire amazement, and alarm, and dismay in her every jerk.
+
+Big Tom, holding firmly to the basket, leaned out to call. "Hey, there!"
+he said angrily.
+
+"Vot?"
+
+"I say, what y' sendin' books down _here_ for?"
+
+An exclamation--in that strange tongue which she spoke--smothered and
+indistinct, but fervent! Then more jerks.
+
+"Oh, yes!" called out Cis. "Now abuse her! Insult that poor little
+thing! She's only a woman!"
+
+Barber had no time to answer this. He was pulling at the strings, too,
+trying to break them. "Let go up there!" he shouted.
+
+"It wass my basket!"
+
+With a curse, "I don't care _whose_ basket it is! Let _go_!" he ordered,
+and gave such a wrench at the strings that all parted, suddenly, and the
+basket was his. "Y' think y're pretty smart, don't y'?" he demanded,
+head out of the window again; "helpin' this kid t' neglect his work!"
+
+"I pay you always, Mister Barber," she answered, "if so he makes his
+work oder not!"
+
+"Yes, and he knows it, Mrs. Kukor!" Cis called out.
+
+"Don't you ever set foot in this here flat again!" ordered Big Tom.
+
+"That's right!" retorted Cis, as fearless as ever. "Drive her away!--the
+best friend we've ever had!"
+
+"You been hidin' these here books for him!" Barber went on, his head
+still out of the window, so that much of what Cis was saying was lost
+upon him.
+
+"_Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja!_"
+
+"Don't y' yaw _me_!"
+
+But Mrs. Kukor's window had gone down.
+
+Now every other window in the neighborhood was up, though the dwellers
+round about were hidden from sight. However, they launched at him a
+chorus of hisses.
+
+"A-a-a-a!" triumphed Cis. "You see what people think of you? Good! Good!
+Why don't you go out and get hold of _them_? why don't you throw _them_
+around?--Oh, you're safe in here, with the children!"
+
+Still Barber did not notice her. Leaning farther out across the window
+sill, he shook a fist into space. "Bah!" he shouted. "Ain't one o' y'
+dares t' show y'r face! Jus' y' let me see who's hissin', and I'll give
+y' what for! Geese hiss, and snakes! Come and do y'r hissin' where I can
+look at y'!"
+
+More hisses--and cat calls, yowls, meows, and a spirited spitting;
+raucous laughter, too, and a mingling of voices in several tongues.
+
+"Wops!" cried Big Tom again. "Wops, and Kikes, and Micks! Not a decent
+American in the whole lot--you low-down bunch o' foreigners!"
+
+Cis laughed again. She was like one possessed. It was as if she did not
+care what he did to her, nor what she said to him; as if she were
+taunting him and daring him--even encouraging him--to do more. "Decent
+Americans!" she repeated, as he closed the window and came toward her,
+the books in his hands. "Do you think _you're_ a decent American? But
+they're foreigners! Ha! And you call them names! But they don't treat
+children the way you've always treated us! You'd better call yourself
+names for a change!"
+
+"And I s'pose that dude left these!" Barber had halted at the table. Now
+he turned to Johnnie, looking directly at him for the first time. The
+next moment, an expression of mingled astonishment and rage changed and
+shadowed his dark face, as he glared at the uniform, the leggings, the
+brown shoes. Next, "Where did y' git _them_?" he demanded, almost
+choking. He leveled a finger.
+
+Johnnie swallowed, shifting from foot to foot. To his lips had sprung
+the strangest words, "There's people that're givin' these suits away--to
+all the kids." (The kind of an explanation that he would have made
+promptly, and as boldly as possible, in the days before he knew Father
+Pat and Mr. Perkins.) But he did not speak the falsehood; he even
+wondered how it had come into his mind; and he asked himself what Mr.
+Roosevelt, for instance, would think of him if he were to tell such a
+lie. For a scout is trustworthy.
+
+Once more Cis broke in, her voice high and shrill. "Oh, now he's got
+something else to worry about! A second ago he was mad because he found
+out you had a few books! But here you've got a decent pair of shoes to
+your feet--for once in your life! and a decent suit of clothes to your
+back--so that you look like a human being instead of the rag bag! And
+you've got the first hat you've had since you were five years old!"
+
+The hat was lying on the floor--to one side, where it had fallen from
+Johnnie's head when Barber had thrown the boy off. Now the latter went
+to pick it up, and hold it at his side. Then, standing straight, his
+sober eyes on the longshoreman, he waited.
+
+"Where'd y' git 'em?" questioned Barber. He slammed the books on the
+table.
+
+The big-girl hands worked convulsively with the hat for a moment. Then,
+"The suit was--was give t' me," Johnnie faltered.
+
+"_Gi-i-ive?_" echoed Big Tom, as if this were his first knowledge of a
+great and heinous crime.
+
+"Think of it!" shrilled Cis. "Johnnie's got a friend that's willing to
+spend a few dollars on him! Isn't that a shame!"
+
+Barber did not look at her; did not seem to know that she was talking.
+"_Who_ give it?" he persisted.
+
+"It--it was One-Eye," said Johnnie.
+
+"Oh, _was_ it!" exclaimed the longshoreman. His tone implied that in all
+good time he would reckon with the Westerner.
+
+"Yes, One-Eye!" cried Cis. "So you can take your temper out on _him_!
+Only you better look out! One-Eye's a man--not just a kid! And cowboys
+carry pistols, too! So you better think twice before you go at _him_!
+You'll be safer to stick to abusing children!--Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"
+
+While he was waiting for silence, Barber fell to examining the scout
+uniform, article by article--the hat, the coat, the trousers, the
+leggings, the shoes, his look full of disgust, and fairly withering.
+When he was done, he sank leisurely into the morris chair, a big hand on
+each knee, and the flat back of his head rested against the old soiled
+cushion. And now he concentrated on Johnnie's countenance. "So Mister
+One-Eye fitted y' out," he resumed, and his mouth lifted at one corner,
+showing a brown, fanglike tooth worn by his pipe stem.
+
+"Y--yes, sir," replied Johnnie.
+
+"Oh, be sure to sir him!" mocked Cis. "He deserves politeness!"
+
+Big Tom showed all of his teeth. But not at what Cis had been saying; it
+was evident that some new and pleasant thought had occurred to him. He
+nodded his head over it. "I thought maybe it was that dude again," he
+remarked cheerfully. "But it was One-Eye fitted y' out! Hm! And when I'm
+off at work, instead o' doin' what y' ought t', y' fix y'rself up, don't
+y'?--soldier boy stuff!"
+
+"I--I do my work in these," pleaded Johnnie. "I do! Honest! See how nice
+the place is! I don't shirk nothin'! 'Cause y' see, a scout, he----"
+
+Big Tom let him get no further. "Take them rags off!" he commanded. The
+last trace of that smile was gone. The bulging eyes looked out through
+slits. That underlip was thrust forward wrathfully.
+
+"Take your suit off, Johnnie," counseled Cis. "Don't you see he hates to
+have you look nice?"
+
+"My--my scout suit!" faltered the boy. The light in those peering,
+bloodshot eyes told him that the longshoreman would mistreat that
+beloved uniform; and Johnnie wanted to gain time. Something, or some
+one, might interrupt, and thus stave off--what?
+
+Barber straightened. "Take--it--off," he said quietly, but with heat;
+and added, "Before I tear it off."
+
+Johnnie proceeded to carry out the order. He put the beautiful
+olive-drab hat on the table. Next he unfastened the neat, webbed belt,
+and unlaced the soldierly leggings. The emblemed coat came off
+carefully. The khaki shirt followed. Last of all, having slipped his
+feet out of the wonderful shoes, he pulled off the trousers, and stood,
+a pathetic little figure, in an old undershirt of Grandpa's, the sleeves
+of which he had shortened, and a pair of Grandpa's underdrawers,
+similarly cut--to knee length.
+
+Barber stared at the underclothes. "Who said y' could wear my old man's
+things?" he asked.
+
+"N--nobody."
+
+"They're too small for Grandpa," declared Cis, stoutly. "Johnnie might
+as well wear them. If he didn't, I'd throw them away, or use them for
+dishcloths."
+
+Barber did not notice the girl. "Nobody," he repeated. "But y' go ahead
+and use the scissors on 'em!"
+
+"Your shirts 're so big," reminded Johnnie; "and the pants, too. And if
+I didn't wear nothin', why, I'd dirty the new uniform, wearin' it next
+my skin, and so----"
+
+"Fold that truck up!" came the next command.
+
+Under Grandpa's old, torn undershirt, Johnnie's heart began to beat so
+hard that he could hear it. But quietly and dutifully he folded each
+dear article, and placed all, one upon another, neatly, the hat topping
+the pile. Finished, he stood waiting, and his whole body trembled with a
+chill that was not from cold or fear, but from apprehension. Oh, what
+was about to happen to his treasured uniform?
+
+Cis was silent now, refraining from angering Big Tom at a time when it
+was possible for him to vent his rage on Johnnie's belongings. But she
+watched him breathlessly as he rose and went to the table, and reached
+to take the books.
+
+"So y' keep 'em upstairs?" he said to Johnnie.
+
+"Yes, sir,"--it was a whisper.
+
+"She's accommodatin', ain't she, the old lady?"
+
+"She--she--yes."
+
+"A-a-ah!" The longshoreman placed the books atop the olive-drab hat,
+crushing it flat with their weight.
+
+"Oh! Oh, don't hurt 'em!" pleaded Johnnie. He put out a hand.
+
+"Oh, I won't hurt 'em," answered Big Tom. But his tone was far from
+reassuring.
+
+"I won't ever read 'em 'cept nights," promised the boy. "Honest, Mister
+Barber! And y' know y' like me t' read good. When--when Mister Maloney
+was here, why, y' liked it. And y' can lock 'em all away in the bedroom
+if y' don't b'lieve me!"
+
+Big Tom leered down at him. "Oh, I'll lock 'em up, all right," he said.
+"I'll do it up so brown that there won't be no more danger o' this scout
+business 'round the place, and no more readin'." With that, he took up
+both the books and the suit and turned.
+
+At the same moment Cis and Johnnie understood what was impending--the
+same terrible moment; and they cried out together, the one in renewed
+anger, the other in mortal pain:
+
+"_NO!_"
+
+For Barber had turned--_to the stove_.
+
+Johnnie rushed to the longshoreman and again clung to him, weeping,
+pleading, promising, asking to be whipped--oh, anything but that his
+treasures be destroyed. And at the table, Cis wept, too, and threatened,
+calling for help, striving to divert Big Tom from his purpose, trying to
+lash him into a rage against herself.
+
+"Oh, Mister Barber, y' wouldn't!" Johnnie cried. "They're ev'rything I
+got in the world! And I love 'em so! Oh, I'll stay forever with y' if y'
+won't hurt 'em! I'll work so hard, and be so good----!"
+
+Barber uncovered the fire--that fire which Johnnie had built for the
+baking of Big Tom's pudding.
+
+"The medal!" Cis shouted, straining at the rope which bound her. "Don't
+let him burn that! Johnnie! Johnnie!"
+
+Johnnie caught at the coat. "In a pocket!" he explained. "My father's!
+Look for it! Let me!"
+
+"A--what?" inquired Big Tom, lifting books and uniform out of the boy's
+reach. "What're y' talkin' about?"
+
+"Don't you _dare_ burn it!" Cis stormed. "They'll arrest you! See if
+they don't! You give it to Johnnie! If you don't, I'll tell the police!
+I will! _I will!_"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" laughed Barber. Holding everything under one arm,
+he took off a second stove lid, as well as the hour-glass-shaped support
+between the two front lids. The whole of the firebox was uncovered. It
+was a mass of coals. As the longshoreman hung over the fire, his dark
+face was lit by it. And now lifted in a horrid smile!
+
+Cis's voice rose again. Nothing could save Johnnie's books and suit:
+there was no need to keep silent. "He's a devil!" she cried. "He isn't a
+man at all! Look! He's enjoying himself! He's grinning! Oh, Johnnie,
+_look at his face_!"
+
+Johnnie fell back. And into his own face, twisted and wet with grief,
+there came an expression of a terrible wonder--the wonder that Big Tom,
+or any one, could be so cruel, so heartless, so contemptible. And there
+flashed into his mind something he had once heard Father Pat say:
+"There's not so many grown-up people in the world; there's plenty of
+grown-up bodies, but the minds at the top o' them, they're children's
+minds!" And, oh, how true it was! For Barber was like that--had a mind
+younger than Johnnie's own--the boy knew it then. Further, it was as
+mean and cruel and little as the minds of those urchins who shouted "old
+clothes," and "girl's hair." Yes, Barber had a man's body, but the brain
+of an ignorant, wicked boy!
+
+"Look at my face all y' want t'!" he was saying now. "But there's _one_
+thing sure: after this we'll know who's boss 'round here!"
+
+"This is the only place you can boss!" retorted Cis, turning wild,
+defiant eyes upon him. "A crippled old man, and a couple of young folks!
+But you bet you mind Furman!"
+
+"_A-a-a-a-a-ah!_"
+
+The cry was wrung from Johnnie. For with another loud laugh, Big Tom
+had dropped the scout hat upon the flames.
+
+"Coward!" charged the girl, again writhing in her ropes. "Low, mean
+coward!"
+
+It was beyond Johnnie's strength to watch what was happening. He threw
+up an arm to shut out the sight of Big Tom, and faced the other way.
+"Oh, don't!" he moaned weakly. "Oh, don't! Don't!" A strange, unpleasant
+odor was filling the room. He guessed that was the hat. Smoke came
+wafting his way next--a whole cloud of it--and drifted ceilingward. "Oh,
+Cis! Cis!" he moaned again.
+
+Some one was in the hall--Mrs. Kukor, for the steps rocked. "Chonnie?"
+she called now. "Chonnie! Talk sometink!"
+
+It was Big Tom who talked. "Oh, you go home, y' busybody!" he answered.
+
+"Mrs. Kukor! Mrs. Kukor! He's burning everything of Johnnie's!" shouted
+Cis.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" burst out Barber, as if this had delighted him.
+Into the fire he thrust the khaki breeches and the coat, poking them
+down upon the coals with a hand which was too horny to be scorched by
+the fire.
+
+"The medal!" mourned the girl. "Oh, I hope they'll punish you for that!
+And there's something you don't know, but it's the truth, and it'll mean
+a lot that _you_ won't like!"
+
+"Ye-e-e-eah?" Barber was waiting for the breeches and coat to burn.
+
+"Yes! Johnnie's rich! He's got money! Lots of it! You'll see! You won't
+have so much to say to-morrow!"
+
+Big Tom laughed. "T'morrow," he said good-humoredly, "I'm goin' t' have
+y'r brain examined." The room was half full of smoke now; he fell to
+coughing, and went over to pull down the upper half of the window. When
+he came back he thrust the leggings into the stove.
+
+Peering round through the smoke, Johnnie saw that. "Oh!" he whispered.
+"Oh!" He went forward a few steps, weakly; then all his strength seemed
+suddenly to go out of him, and he dropped to his knees beside a wall,
+brushing it with his hands as he went down. There he stayed, his
+forehead pressed against his knuckles.
+
+Once more Cis began to weep, in pity for his suffering. "Oh, don't you
+feel so bad!" she pleaded. "Just try to remember that we're going away,
+Johnnie! Mr. Perkins'll take us both, and Big Tom'll never see us again!
+And I love you, Johnnie, and so does Mrs. Kukor, and Father Pat, and
+One-Eye, and Mr. Perkins!"
+
+"I know!" groaned the boy. "I--I'll try t' think."
+
+"Mister Perkins!" scoffed the longshoreman. "Who cares about _that_ tony
+guy? If he ever pokes his head into this flat again, I'll stick _him_
+into the stove!" The shirt followed the leggings, after which, with a
+dull clanking of the stove lids, he covered the firebox.
+
+"But my jacket's burnin'," Johnnie sobbed. "My nice jacket! And the
+medal! Oh, the beautiful medal!"
+
+"He'll pay for it!" vowed Cis. "You'll see! I know one person that'll
+make him pay!--for hitting me, and tying me up, and burning your things!
+Just you wait, Johnnie! It'll all come out right! This isn't over yet!
+No, it isn't!"
+
+Barber was laughing again. The top of the stove was a reddening black.
+Upon it now he threw all the books; whereupon little threads of smoke
+began to ascend--white smoke, piercing the darker smoke of the burning
+hat and uniform.
+
+As the books struck the stove, Johnnie had once more turned his head to
+look, and, "Oh, my _Robinson Crusoe_!" he burst out now. "Oh, Aladdin!
+And dear Galahad!" This was more than the destruction of stories: this
+was the perishing of friends.
+
+"Never mind, dear Johnnie! Never mind!" The voice of the comforter was
+strong and clear.
+
+Once more a stove lid rattled. Big Tom was putting the first book upon
+the fire. It was the beloved _Last of the Mohicans_. Johnnie's tearful
+eyes knew it by the brown binding. He groaned. "Oh, it's Uncas!" he told
+Cis. "Oh, my story! I'll never read y' again!"
+
+"He'll wish a hundred times he'd never done it!" declared Cis. "It'll
+cost him something, I can tell you! He'll pay for them all, over and
+over!"
+
+"Is that so?" Barber was amused. Now he threw the other books after the
+first. After that, he lounged to and fro, waiting till it was certain
+that even no part of the volumes would fail to be consumed. As he
+sauntered, he found his sack of smoking tobacco and refilled that pipe
+which had been the innocent cause of all Johnnie's misfortune.
+
+With Big Tom away from the stove, the boy rose and crossed the room.
+They were turning into ashes, all his books and the other things, and he
+wanted one last look at them before they were wholly gone. He picked up
+the poker, lifted a lid, and gazed down.
+
+"Don't y' touch anythin'!" warned the longshoreman, fussing with the
+matches as he strolled.
+
+"I won't." Layers of curling black leaves were lying uppermost in the
+stove. And they were moving, as if they were living and suffering
+things. On some of the leaves Johnnie could see lettering. But as, at
+the sight, his tears burst forth again, the force of his breath upon
+those blistered pages broke them, and they crumbled.
+
+He covered the stove and stumbled away. An odd thought was in his
+tortured brain: What Scout Law of the Twelve covered the burning of a
+uniform? of the books that all scouts should love? "Trustworthy," he
+repeated aloud; "loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind,
+obedient----"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" ordered Barber.
+
+"Yes, shut up, Johnnie," advised Cis. "Because those are all things this
+man doesn't know about--he's never heard, even, of anybody's being kind,
+or friendly." Then as there came from the stove a sudden snapping and
+blowing, she turned her face toward the longshoreman, and it was
+strangely unlike her face, so changed was it by hate. "Oh, you vile,
+vile thing!" she cried.
+
+"Now I guess that'll about do," said Barber. "Understand me. I've heard
+enough."
+
+"_Nothing'll_ do," she returned firmly. "You won't ever stop my talking
+again! I sha'n't ever obey you again--no, about anything! And there are
+some things I'm going to tell about you. You think I don't know them--or
+that I've forgot. But my mother told me what she knew about you, and I
+remember it all. And to-morrow I'm going to hunt a policeman, and----"
+
+In one long step he was beside her. "You--you--_you_!" he raged,
+choking. His face was blue, and working horribly, and there was fear in
+the bulging eyes. "What're y' _talkin'_ about? Have y' gone clean
+crazy?" With a half-bend, he caught up a length of the clothesline from
+the floor and doubled it. "You open your mouth to anybody," he told her,
+fiercely, "and I'll break ev'ry bone in y'r body!"
+
+"Cis!" Johnnie rushed to her, clung to her bound arms, and warned her to
+silence.
+
+But she would not be still. She was triumphant, seeing how afraid he was
+of her threat. She straightened, moving the table as she moved, and
+broke into a shout of defiance. "_Break_ my bones!" she challenged.
+"Kill me, if you want to! But I'm going to tell--_tell_--_TELL_!"
+
+"I will kill y'!" he vowed, and doubled the rope into a short, four-ply
+whip.
+
+Johnnie forgot everything then but Cis's danger. Once more he came to
+put himself, thinly clad though he was now, between her and Big Tom.
+"Oh, don't y' see she's half crazy?" he cried to the latter. "She don't
+know what she's sayin'! Oh, Mister Barber! Mister Barber!"
+
+"They'll arrest him! They'll send him to jail! To the chair!" Cis was
+shouting, almost joyously, remembering only that now she was torturing
+their tormentor. "But I'll tell! I'll tell!"
+
+Barber did not answer her. "Git out o' my way!" he growled to Johnnie.
+"'R I'll lick you, too!"
+
+Facing Barber, Johnnie leaned back against Cis, half covering her body
+with his own. "Lick me," he begged. "Oh, but don't touch her!"
+
+Barber bared his teeth, turning a look of hate upon the boy. "You!" he
+cried, and cursed. "I'll lick y', all right! I'll lick y' so's it'll be
+a week before y' leave y'r bed!" Taking a firmer hold of the looped
+strands, he swung them above his head; then with a deep breath, and with
+all the power of his right arm, brought them down.
+
+A shriek--from Cis.
+
+But Barber had not struck her. The blow had reached only the upraised
+face and breast of the boy, driving him against Cis with terrible force.
+Even in his agony Johnnie knew that, as he was pressing against her, she
+might be inadvertently struck as Big Tom struck at him; so, staggering
+sidewise, his arms held, crossed, above his head to keep the rope from
+his eyes, he got away from the table and the bound girl. But as he went
+he continued to clutch with all of his fingers at the rope which was now
+descending with awful regularity.
+
+Shrieking, Cis covered her eyes by laying her head upon the table; and
+now she tried to cover one ear, then the other, to shut out the sound
+of the blows. And to her screams was added the voice of old Grandpa,
+whimpering in the bedroom, while he beat feebly at the door.
+
+Johnnie, however, made no sound. Each stinging blow of the rope whip
+knocked the breath out of him, sending him farther and farther away from
+the table. Sometimes he reeled, sometimes he spun, so that as Barber
+drove him with lash after lash, he went as if performing a sort of
+grotesque dance. And all the while his face was purpling in two long
+stripes where had fallen that first cruel scourge.
+
+With each swing of the strands Barber gasped out a word:
+"There!--Now!--Take!--Lazy!--_Sneak!_" Sweat dripped from among the
+hairs on his face. That white spot came and went in his left eye like an
+evil light.
+
+Some one fell to pounding upon the hall door, and some one else upon a
+dividing wall. Then, with a crash, a bottle came hurtling through a pane
+of the window.
+
+But Big Tom was himself half crazed by now, and seemed not to hear.
+"I'll learn y'!" he shouted, and rained blow after blow--till the small
+figure, those old undergarments almost in rags as the rope strands cut
+into his back, could stand up to no more punishment. Of a sudden, with
+an anguished sigh, the boy half pivoted, and a score of red bands
+showing angrily upon his bare, thin arms, gave a lurch, bent double, and
+went down, his limp body in a half circle, so that his yellow head
+touched his knees.
+
+A hoarse shriek of terror and grief from Cis; she tried to rise, and
+dragged the table part way across the kitchen, her chair with it,
+striving to get to Johnnie. "Oh, you've killed him!" she cried. "You've
+killed him!"
+
+Outside in the hall, the stairs creaked to the steps of several. Voices
+called. Doors opened and shut. Windows went up and down. From top to
+bottom the old building was astir.
+
+Big Tom strode to the door and listened. Gradually, as quiet prevailed
+in the Barber flat, the other flats fell into silence, while the
+watchers in the hall stole away. Presently the longshoreman gave a
+chuckle. Nobody cared to interfere with him. He came sauntering back to
+Johnnie.
+
+The boy was lying prone now, his eyes shut, his breast heaving. As Big
+Tom stood over him, his whole little ragged figure shivered, and he
+sucked in his breath through his clenched teeth.
+
+"Ha-a-a!" laughed Barber. "So y' will stick in y'r nose! Well, I'll
+learn y'!" Catching Johnnie up in one big hand, he carried him to the
+table and laid him over its edge, arms outstretched, the yellow head
+between them, and the thin legs hanging down toward the floor. Then
+taking up that length of rope with which he had beaten the boy, he tied
+the spent body beside that of the well-nigh fainting girl.
+
+"Now there the two o' y'll stay till mornin'," he announced when he was
+done. "Then maybe y' won't be so fresh about runnin' this place."
+
+The sun was now below the tops of the houses to the west, and the
+kitchen was beginning to darken. Big Tom got down the lamp, lighted it,
+and carried it to the bedroom. "All right, Pa," he said cheerfully, "I'm
+comin' t' put y' t' bed now. Y' want y'r milk first, don't y'? Well,
+Tommie'll git it for y'." He returned to the cupboard for the milk
+bottle, gave a smiling look at the two heads leaned on the table, and
+disappeared to bed.
+
+Presently some one tapped timidly on the hall door; but as there was no
+reply, the caller went softly away. A bit later, a gruff voice was heard
+on the landing, speaking inquiringly, and there were whispered answers.
+But the gruff voice died away on the stairs, along with heavy
+footsteps. Then only the distant rumble of the Elevated Railroad could
+be heard occasionally, or the far, seaward whistle of some steamer, or
+the scrape and screak of a street-car.
+
+And so night settled upon the flat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE VISION
+
+
+AS life came back into his body, Johnnie's first thought was a grateful
+one: how cool to his cheek was the old, crackled oilcloth on the table
+if he rested that cheek a moment, now here, now there! His second
+thought, too, was one of thankfulness: How good it was to be lying there
+so quietly after those rending blows which had driven the breath out of
+his lungs!
+
+He would have liked to tug at his hair; but as his hands were tied fast
+together, and held a little way beyond where lay his head, being secured
+almost immovably by a length of clothesline which came up to them from
+around a farther leg of the table, he could not comfort himself with his
+old, odd habit.
+
+Presently, "Cis!" he whispered. "Cis!"
+
+A moan, feeble and pitiful, like the complaint of a hurt baby.
+
+It was pitch dark in the kitchen, and though he turned his look her way,
+he could not see her. Yet all at once he knew that this was not the
+wild, fighting, bold Cis, with the strange, changed face, who had
+stormed at the longshoreman; this was again the Cis he knew, gentle,
+wistful, leaning on him, wanting his affection and sympathy. "Aw, Cis!"
+he murmured fondly.
+
+"Oh, Johnnie, I want a drink! I'm thirsty!"
+
+He pulled at his hands. But Big Tom had done his tying well, and Johnnie
+could not even loosen one of them. "I wish I could bring you some
+water," He answered. "But my legs 're roped down on this side, and he's
+got my hands 'way over my head on the other, so the most I could do
+would be t' fall sideways off the table, and that wouldn't help y' one
+bit."
+
+"Oh!" she mourned. "Oh!"
+
+"Can't you git loose?" he asked.
+
+"No! I'm tied just as _tight_!"
+
+Then for a little they were quiet, while Johnnie tried to study out a
+way of helping her. But he failed. And soon she began to fret, and move
+impatiently, now sobbing softly, as if to herself, again only sighing.
+
+He strove to soothe her. "It won't be long till mornin'," he declared.
+"If y' could make b'lieve y' was in bed, and count sheep----"
+
+"But the ropes hurt me!" she complained. "I want them off! They hurt me
+awfully, and I feel sick!"
+
+"Well," he proposed, "let's pretend y're so sick y' need a nurse,
+and----"
+
+But she would not wait for the rest of his plan. "Oh, that kind of
+thinking won't help me!" she protested. "And I don't want anybody but my
+mother!" Then sobbing aloud, "Oh, I want my mother! I want my mother!"
+
+The cry smote his heart, bringing the tears that had not come when
+Barber was beating him. Never before, in all the years he had known her,
+had she cried out this longing. Saying scarcely anything of that mother
+who was gone, leaving her so lonely, so bereft, always she herself had
+been the little mother of the flat.
+
+"Course y' do!" he whispered, gulping. "Course y' do!"
+
+"If she'd only come back to me now!" she went on. "And put her arms
+around me again!"
+
+"Don't, Cis!" he pleaded tenderly. "Oh, please don't! Ain't y' got me?
+That's pretty nice, ain't it? 'Cause we're t'gether. Here I am, Cis!
+Right in reach, almost. Close by! Don't cry!"
+
+But she was not listening. "Oh, Mother, why did you go and leave me?"
+she wept. "Oh, Mother, I want you so much!"
+
+Johnnie began to argue with her, gently: "But, Cis, think how Mister
+Perkins likes y'! My! And he wants t' marry y'! And y'll have such a
+nice place t' live in. Oh, things'll be _fine_!"
+
+That helped a little; but soon, "I want to lie down!" she complained.
+"Oh, Johnnie, it hurts to sit like this all the time! Can't you reach
+me? Oh, try to untie me!"
+
+"Cis, I can't," he protested, once more. "But it'll be mornin' before y'
+know it! W'y, it's awful late in the night right now! I betcher it's
+twelve--almost. So let's play a game, and the time'll pass so _quick_!"
+
+"I can't wait till morning for a drink!" she cried. "I'm so thirsty! And
+I want to lie down!"
+
+"Now," he started off cheerily, "--now, we'll play the way we used t'
+before y' got grown-up. Remember all the nice things we used t' do?
+Callin' on the Queen, and dancin' parties, and----"
+
+"My back hurts! Awful!"
+
+"Let's try t' think jus' o' all our nice friends," he coaxed. "Mister
+Perkins, and One-Eye, and Mrs. Kukor, and----"
+
+"Let's call to Mrs. Kukor!" she pleaded. "Let's try to make her hear!"
+
+"He'll whip us again if we do!" Johnnie cautioned. "And, Cis, I don't
+think I could stand any more whippin'. Oh, don't holler, Cis. Let's
+rest--jus' rest!" A weakness came over him suddenly, and he could not go
+on.
+
+But she was sobbing again. "I'm thirsty!" she lamented. "I'm thirsty!
+I'm thirsty! I'm thirsty!"
+
+Presently he roused himself, and remembered his faithful Buckle. He
+summoned the latter now, speaking to him in that throaty, important
+voice which he used when issuing commands. "Mister Buckle," he said,
+"bring the young lady a lemon soda jus' chock-full o' ice."
+
+"No! No!" Cis broke in petulantly. "Oh, that makes it all the harder to
+bear!--Oh, where's Mrs. Kukor? She knows something's wrong! Why hasn't
+she helped us?" She fell to weeping irritably.
+
+At his wits' end, Johnnie racked his brain for something to tell
+her--something which might take her thoughts from her misery. But his
+own misery was now great, for the clothesline was cutting into his
+wrists and ankles; while across the front of his body, the edge of the
+table was pressing into him like the blade of a dull knife. "But I'll
+stand it," he promised himself. "And I'll try t' be cheerful, like the
+Handbook says."
+
+However, there was no immediate need for his cheerfulness, for Cis had
+quieted. A few moments, and he heard her deep breathing. He smiled
+through the dark at her, happy to think that sleep had come to help her
+over the long night hours. As for himself, he could not sleep, weak as
+he was. His heart was sore because of what he had lost--his new,
+wonderful uniform, and all his dear, dear books. What were all these
+now? Just a bit of gray dust in the cooling stove! Gone! Gone forever!
+
+Ah, but _were_ they! The suit was. Yes, he would not be able ever again
+to wear that--not actually. But the books--? They were also destroyed,
+as completely as the khaki uniform. And yet--_had_ Big Tom really done
+to them what he wanted to do? _Had_ he wiped them out?
+
+No!
+
+And as Johnnie answered himself thus, he realized the truth of a certain
+statement which Father Pat had once made to him: "The only possessions
+in this world that can't be taken away from ye, lad dear, 're the
+thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge that ye've got in yer brain." And
+along with his sudden understanding of this there came a sense of joyous
+wonder, and a feeling of utter triumph. His precious volumes were
+burned. True enough. Their covers, their pictures, their good-smelling
+leaves, these were ashes. But--_what was in each book had not been wiped
+out_! No! The longshoreman had not been able to rob Johnnie of the
+thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge which had been tied into those books
+with the printed letter!
+
+"I got 'em yet, all the stories!" he cried to himself. "The 'stronomy,
+too! And the things in the Handbook! They're all in my brain!"
+
+And the people of his books! They were not destroyed at all! Fire had
+not wiped them out! They were just as alive as ever! As he lay,
+stretched over the table edge, they took shape for him; and out of the
+black corners of the room, from behind the cupboard, the stove, and the
+chairs, they came trooping to him--Aladdin, the Sultan, the Princess
+Buddir al Buddoor, Jim Hawkins, Uncas, King Arthur, Long John Silver,
+Robinson Crusoe, Lincoln, Heywood, Elaine, Galahad, Friday, Alice, Sir
+Kay!
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "Oh, gee, all my friends!" Oh, yes, the
+people in stories _did_ live on and on, just as Father Pat had said;
+were immortal because they lived in the minds of all who loved them!
+
+His eyes were shut. But he smiled at the group about him. "He didn't
+hurt y'!" he said happily--but whispering as before, lest he disturb
+Cis. "Say! He didn't hurt y' a teeny-weeny bit!"
+
+Pressing eagerly round him, smiling back at him fondly, those book
+people whom he loved best replied proudly: "Course he didn't! Shucks! We
+don't bother 'bout _him_!"
+
+"Oh, fine! Fine!" answered Johnnie.
+
+Next, he understood in a flash why it was that Father Pat could feel so
+satisfied about Edith Cavell. That general (whose name was like a hiss)
+could shoot down a brave woman, and hide her body away in the ground,
+_but he could not destroy her_! No! not with all his power of men and
+guns! She would live on and on, just as these dear ones of his lived on!
+And the fact was, her executioner had only helped in making her live!
+
+Yes, and here she was, right now, standing in white beside scarlet-clad
+Galahad! In the darkness her nurse's dress glimmered. "I'm better 'cause
+I know you," Johnnie said to her. His tied right hand closed as if on
+the hand of another, and he bent his head on the oilcloth, as if before
+a Figure. "Oh, thank y' for comin'!"
+
+Then came another wonderful thought: what difference did it
+make--really--whether he was on his back on his square of old mattress,
+or here on his face across the table _if_ he wished to think some
+splendid adventure with all these friends? "Not a bit o' difference!" he
+declared. "Not a bit!" Big Tom had been able to tie fast his feet and
+hands; but in spite of that Johnnie could go wherever he pleased!
+
+His wound-darkened, tear-stained face lit with that old, radiant smile.
+"Big Tom can't tie my thinks!" he boasted. He was out of his body now,
+and up on his feet, looking into the faces of all those book friends.
+"So let's take a ship--your ship, Jim Hawkins! Ye-e-eh, let's take the
+_Hispaniola_, and sail, and sail! Where? The 'Cific Ocean? 'R t' Cathay?
+'R where?" Then he knew! "Say! we'll take a 'stronomy trip!" he
+announced.
+
+In one swift moment how gloriously arranged it all was! Halfway across
+the kitchen floor, here were wonderful marble steps--steps guarded on
+either side by a stone lion! The steps led up to a terrace that was
+rather startlingly like Father Pat's description of the terrace below
+the great New York Public Library; yet it was not the Library terrace,
+since there was no building at the farther side of it. No, this wide,
+granite-floored space was nothing less than a grand wharf.
+
+Up to it Johnnie bounded in his brown shoes--and a new think-uniform
+fully as handsome as the one Big Tom had thrust into the stove. On the
+step next to the top one, some one was waiting--a person dressed in
+work-clothes, with big, soiled hands, and an unshaven face. This
+individual seemed to know that he was out of place and looking his
+worst, for his manner was apologetic, and downcast. He implored Johnnie
+with sad eyes.
+
+It was Big Tom!
+
+How beautiful the terrace wharf was, with its balustrades, and its
+fountains, and its giant vases, these last holding flowers which were as
+large as trees! And how deliciously cool was the breeze that swept
+against Johnnie's face from the vast air ocean stretching across the
+roofs! At the very center of the terrace was the place of honor. There
+Johnnie took his stand.
+
+He glanced round at the longshoreman. "No, we don't want y' on this
+trip," he said firmly. He felt in a pocket for a five-cent piece, found
+it, and tossed it to Barber. "Go and buy y'rself a lemon soda," he bade
+kindly. "Hurry and git away, 'cause some folks is comin'."
+
+Poor Barber! In spite of all he had done, it was almost pitiful to
+observe how disappointed he was at this order, for he yearned to be
+included in the approaching, and thrilling, adventure. He got to a knee,
+holding out both hands. "Johnnie," he said, "I'll work! I'll do the
+loadin' and unloadin'!" (The cargo hook was round his thick neck.)
+
+"Nope," answered Johnnie, carelessly. "Don't need y'. Got Aladdin's
+slaves." He waved a hand, motioning the suppliant off.
+
+Below Big Tom scores of Johnnie's friends were waiting--his book
+friends, his real friends, and his think-acquaintances. Ignoring the
+longshoreman, Johnnie called down to them. "Come on up!" he invited.
+"Come ahead! The wind's fine! The ship, she's headin' this way!"
+
+Music sounded, for just that second Johnnie had ordered a band. With the
+music there was plenty of dandy drumming--_Rumpety! rumpety! rump! rump!
+rump!_
+
+Then, ushered by Buckle, the guests began to stream up the steps.
+One-Eye was first, attended by all of his fellow cowboys; and there was
+some yip-yipping, and ki-eying, in true Western fashion, Johnnie
+saluting each befurred horseman in perfect scout style. On the heels of
+all these came Long John Silver, stumping the granite with his wooden
+leg, and bidding his fellow buccaneers walk lively. Of course Jim
+Hawkins was of this party, carrying the pieces-of-eight parrot in one
+hand and leading Boof with the other.
+
+David and Goliath were the next, and each was so pleasant to the other
+that no one would have guessed they had ever waged a fight. The two,
+like all who had gone by before, gave Barber a withering look as they
+passed the drooping figure, after which Mr. Buckle, acting as a sort of
+Grand Introducer, planted himself squarely in front of Big Tom, turning
+upon him that gorgeous red-plush back, and wholly cutting off his view.
+
+"Glad t' see y'!--It's fine y' could come!--How-d'y'-do!" Johnnie's hand
+went from side to hat brim like a piston.
+
+Another parrot! This was Crusoe's, borne by the Islander's servant,
+Friday, who strode in the wake of his master along with any number of
+man-eating savages, all, however, under perfect control. And on the
+heels of these, having just alighted from mammoth, armored and howdahed
+elephants, advanced Aladdin, escorting his Princess and her father, the
+Sultan, and accompanied by fully a hundred slaves, all fairly groaning
+under trays of pearls and rubies, diamonds and emeralds. The slaves and
+the savages mingled with one another in the friendliest fashion; and as
+Uncas and his painted and feathered braves now appeared, yelling their
+war cry and swinging their tomahawks, there was, on hand, as Johnnie
+remarked to Mr. Buckle, quite an assortment of kitchen and other help
+for the voyage.
+
+"But y're the boss o' 'em all," Johnnie hastened to add. "So don't y'
+let one o' 'em run y'."
+
+Of course Mr. Perkins could not be left out of this extraordinary
+voyage. He came with Cis, the latter wearing such a pretty pink dress.
+Grandpa walked with them, looking straight and strong and happy. The
+first two, as might have been expected, paid not the slightest attention
+to the longshoreman beyond making a slight detour in passing him. But
+the old veteran shook a stern head at his son.
+
+_Rumpety! rumpety! rumpety! rump!_
+
+Small wonder that the music was blaring forth again! For here were
+guests of great distinction--Mr. Carnegie (looking older than formerly),
+Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Astor and Mr. Vanderbilt. There was no mistaking
+them, for they wore millionaire hats, soft and velvety, and coats with
+fur collars. All were strolling as leisurely and jauntily as only true
+plutocrats can afford to do.
+
+When they reached Big Tom, they halted; and at the same moment they
+turned their four heads to stare at him, and showed him their four
+countenances in four cold frowns. Then--they turned their heads away,
+all snubbing him at once, and sauntered up the last step to the terrace,
+and so forward to where their young host stood.
+
+"Gee, he hated what y' done t' him!" exclaimed Johnnie. After shaking
+hands with them, he passed them on to Uncas and his braves, the Indians
+receiving them with every indication of cordiality.
+
+_Bling-ell! bling-ell! bling-ell-dee-dee!_--a fresh burst of melody.
+
+This time the Prince and his gentlemen were approaching, all
+silk-hatted, and frock-coated, and gold-caned. His Royal Highness
+led--naturally--and was assisting dear, little Mrs. Kukor as he came,
+and she was beaming up at Royalty, and talking at him with both pudgy
+hands, and rocking madly in her effort to keep step.
+
+Following on the proper salutations, the English Prince and Aladdin very
+properly got together, treating each other like old friends, while
+Johnnie faced about to greet Father Pat, who was puffing and blowing as
+he made the last step, and pointing back over a shoulder to where King
+Arthur was approaching with Guinevere, the former in royal robes, with
+four kings walking before him, bearing four golden swords; while the
+Queen had four queens ahead of her, bearing four white doves. There was
+a choir in this majestic train, and after the choir came fully two dozen
+knights whose chain mail shone in the sunlight like gold.
+
+"Here she comes!"
+
+Now hats waved wildly, and handkerchiefs fluttered--as into sight, her
+many rosy, silken sails filled to stiffness with the breeze, her scores
+of flags snapping in the glorious air, and all her lovely lines showing
+in sharp beauty against a violet-blue sky, came Jim Hawkins's superb
+ship, crewless, and unguided, but moving evenly, slowly, majestically,
+as if she were some living thing!
+
+Roses garlanded her--pink roses by the thousands. They circled her rail
+like a monster wreath. They hung down from her yardarms, too, in mammoth
+festoons. And her cargo--forward, it was of watermelons, which were
+arranged in a huge heap at the prow; aft, her load was books! There were
+books in red bindings, and books in brown and green. Here and there on
+the piles of volumes a book would be open, showing attractive
+illustrations. To judge of the size of the consignment it was evident
+that not one book had been left in that certain Fifth Avenue store!
+
+Cheers--as softly the _Hispaniola_ came to a stop.
+
+"All aboard!" shouted Johnnie. "All but Thomas Barber, who's goin' t' be
+left behind 'cause he was so mean!"
+
+What a blow! The longshoreman, plainly crushed by it, sank lower on his
+step and covered his face.
+
+But the company cared little how he felt. Shouting gayly, chatting,
+smiling, waving to one another, all swarmed across the rose-bordered
+rail to embark at Johnnie's bidding. Last of all stalked the haughty
+Buckle--to begin passing melon.
+
+"Ready! Let 'er go!"
+
+Now a soul-inspiring blending of choir and instruments--just as Johnnie
+gave his command, and the ship of his dreams moved off across the roofs
+of the city, with no rolling from side to side. Skillfully she steered
+her own way among the chimneys till she was lifted above them, all the
+while tossing the blue air to either side of her prow exactly as if it
+were water, so that it rose up in cloud-topped waves, and curled, and
+broke along her rose-trimmed sides in crystal, from where it fell to lay
+behind her in a long, tumbled, frothy path.
+
+"Oh, Cis, we're sailin' the sky!" Johnnie shouted. His yellow hair was
+blowing straight back from his eager, happy face as he peered forward
+(as a good captain should) into the limitless, but astronomer-charted,
+leagues ahead. "We're floatin' in the ocean o' space!"
+
+Here, close at hand, was a cloud, monster, dazzlingly white, and made
+all of dew which was heavenly cool. Gallantly the _Hispaniola_ plunged
+into it, sending the bits of cloud from her in a milky spray, but
+catching some of them upon her sides and sails, so that as she came
+forth into the sun again, she seemed set with all of Aladdin's
+diamonds!
+
+"On, and on, and on, and on!" Johnnie commanded. (He had no time even
+for a slice of watermelon!) Oh, how wonderful to think that there was no
+shore ahead upon which Jim Hawkins's ship would need to beach! that
+Johnnie and his friends could go on sailing and sailing for as long as
+they chose!
+
+"Look out for the Great Bear and the Bull!"--another command for the
+_Hispaniola_, for now that the ship was higher, she was passing among
+the stars, all as perfectly round as so many toy balloons, all
+marvelously luminous, and each most accommodatingly marked across its
+round, golden face (in great, black, capital letters!) with its
+name--MARS, JUPITER, SATURN, VENUS.
+
+It seemed to Johnnie as if he were meeting old friends. "Oh, Arcturus!"
+he hailed. "Aldebaran! Neptune!"
+
+"Johnnie, don't bump the Moon!" cried the Prince and his gentlemen,
+waving their canes.
+
+"Y' betcher life I won't!"
+
+Any large body, the good ship most considerately avoided. As for the
+small ones, which had no names on them, if she struck one, it glanced
+off of her like a red-gold spark.
+
+"Aw, gee!" cried Johnnie, easing his tortured little body by a shift of
+his weight across the table edge; "this is jus' fine!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+HELP
+
+
+KNOCK! knock! knock! knock!
+
+At the first knock of the four, a sparrow to whom Johnnie had, for this
+long while, been giving good-turn crumbs, made a scrambling get-away
+from the window sill, followed in the same instant by a neat, brown mate
+who was equally startled at such a noise from somewhere just within. For
+dawn was only now coming upon the thousands of roofs that shelter the
+people of the Greatest City, the sun being still far down behind a
+sea-covered bulge of the world. And this was an hour when, usually, only
+early birds were abroad.
+
+Rap! rap! rap! rap! rap! The summons was louder, more insistent, and
+quite unmistakably cross.
+
+It roused Cis, and she lifted her head, and drew in a long, fluttering
+breath; but she was too stiff and weary and sore even to realize that a
+visitor was at the hall door. Once more she laid a pale, tear-stained
+cheek upon the table.
+
+Bang! bang! bang! _BANG!_
+
+Now she started up, understanding that help had come. And there was a
+creaking in the bedroom, where Barber was preparing to rise, while he
+swore and grumbled under his breath. Only Johnnie did not stir. Between
+his outstretched arms his yellow head lay as still as if it were stone.
+Tied as he was, after all the long night hours his legs, held straight
+down, had completely lost their feeling; and his arms were as dead as
+his legs.
+
+BANG! BANG! _BANG!_
+
+"Aw, that'll do!" cried the longshoreman. He came slouching out of his
+room. He was fully dressed, not having taken off his clothes the night
+before. For it had been his intention to leave Cis and Johnnie tied for
+an hour or two, then to get up and set them free. Now, seeing that it
+was morning, he first gave a nervous glance at the clock, then hurriedly
+dug into a pocket, fetched out his jack-knife, opened a blade, and cut
+the ropes holding Cis; next, and quickly, he severed those tighter
+strands which bound the boy.
+
+Another bang, followed by an imperious rattling of the doorknob. Then,
+"Tom Barber, are ye in? If ye are, open this second, or I'll break down
+yer door!" It was Father Pat's voice, lacking breath, but deep with
+anger.
+
+It was plain to Big Tom that the priest knew of the trouble. "Now, who's
+been runnin' t' _you_?" he snarled. "Never seen such a buildin' for
+tattle tales!--Here! Set up!" (This to Cis, who wavered dizzily in her
+chair as the longshoreman shoved her roughly against the back of it.)
+
+"Let me in, I tell ye!" ordered the Father, "or I'll go out and find a
+policeman!"
+
+"All right! All right!"--impatiently. "Wait one minute!" Now Big Tom
+hastened to lift Johnnie off the table and stand the boy upon his feet.
+
+But the moment the support of Barber's hand was taken away, Johnnie
+collapsed, going down to the floor in a soft, little heap, from the top
+of which his blue-marked face looked up sightlessly at Big Tom.
+
+Frightened, the latter lifted the boy and laid him in the morris chair.
+The small, cold body, partially covered by the rags of Grandpa's old
+undersuit, was so white and limp that it seemed lifeless. Hastily the
+longshoreman threw his own coat over Johnnie, after which he swept
+together the several lengths of clothesline and flung them out of sight
+under the stove.
+
+"Barber!"
+
+The admitting of the priest could be put off no longer. For even as he
+called, Father Pat had put his shoulder to the door, so that an old
+panel was bending inward; next, he fell to kicking at the bottom rail
+with a stout shoe.
+
+Barber gave a quick glance round the kitchen, then went to pull aside
+the bolt. "Hold on!" he ordered roughly; and as he swung the door open,
+"_Nice_ time t' be hammerin' a man out o' his bed!"
+
+There was another in the hall besides the Father--Mrs. Kukor, in her
+street clothes, and wearing her best hat. Her face looked drawn, her
+black eyes weary. Her hard breathing proved that she had just come up
+three flights instead of descending one.
+
+As Barber caught sight of her, he thrust his big frame into the doorway,
+blocking it. "There she is!" he declared hotly. "The tattler! The
+busybody! Hidin' books for a lazy kid! Helpin' him t' waste his time!
+She can't come in here!"
+
+"Stand out o' me way!" cried the Father. "I'm comin' in, and this lady
+with me!"
+
+"Don't y' try t' tell _me_ what y're goin' t' do!" replied Big Tom. "Y'
+can't take the runnin' o' this flat out o' _my_ hands--neither one o'
+y'! I ain't goin' t' stand for it!"
+
+"Ha-a-a-a!" retorted the priest. "And is the abusin' o' two children
+what ye call runnin' a flat? And we can't take _that_ out o' yer hands,
+can't we? Well, God be praised, there's police in this city, and there's
+societies t' handle such hulkin' brutes as yerself, and--_and_--!" Words
+failing him, he shook a warning finger in Barber's face.
+
+Down the hall a door opened, and several heads appeared in it. This, as
+well as the priest's words, decided Big Tom (more gossip in the house
+would be a mistake). He stood aside and let his visitors enter,
+instantly slamming the door at their backs. "I won't have no girl out o'
+this flat settin' in a park with some stranger!" he declared. "I
+promised her ma I'd look after her!"
+
+He got no answer. There being no movement in the morris chair, under Big
+Tom's coat, the Father and Mrs. Kukor had rushed past it to Cis, for the
+moment seeing only her. Now they were bending over her, and "Girl, dear!
+Girl, dear!" murmured the priest anxiously; and "So! so! so!" comforted
+the little Jewish lady.
+
+Cis seemed not to know who was beside her. "He's dead!" she wept. "And
+it's my fault! _All_ my fault! O-o-o-oh!" A trembling seized her slender
+body. Once more she swayed, then toppled forward upon the table, all her
+brown hair falling over her arms.
+
+"Vot wass she sayink?" demanded Mrs. Kukor, frightened. Falling back to
+the big chair, she sat upon one arm of it, stared in horror at Cis for a
+moment, then began to cry and rock, beating her hands.
+
+"Barber, ye've a right t' be killed for this!" cried Father Pat. "And
+where's the lad? What've ye done t' him? God help ye if ye've worked him
+rale harm!"
+
+Cis turned her face, and spoke again. "Poor Johnnie died in the night!"
+she sobbed. "He couldn't talk to me! I tried! He couldn't get water! Oh,
+I want water! Give me a drink, Mrs. Kukor!"
+
+Mrs. Kukor had risen as Cis talked, and Father Pat had come to her.
+There was horror in the faces of both. Standing, his back against the
+hall door, Barber began to laugh at them. "Aw, bosh!" he said,
+disgusted. "Dead nothin'! He's in the big chair there. Plenty o' kick in
+him yet, and plenty o' meanness!"
+
+His lips moving prayerfully, the priest turned and looked down, then
+lifted the longshoreman's coat. As he caught sight of the rope-marked
+face and shut eyes of the boy, "Oh, little lad, dear!" he cried, heart
+stricken at the sight. "Oh, what's the crazy man done t' ye? Oh, God
+help us!"
+
+Together, Father Pat and Mrs. Kukor brought out Johnnie's square of
+mattress, dropped it beside the morris chair, and laid the
+half-conscious boy upon it. Then kneeling beside him, one at each side,
+they began to rub the life back into his numbed limbs. "He's breathin',
+girl dear," the priest told Cis, who could not bring herself to look at
+Johnnie. Mrs. Kukor said not a word. But down the round, brown face the
+tears flowed steadily.
+
+Having made a quick fire with kerosene and some kindling, Barber lounged
+at the stove, warming some milk for his father, setting his own coffee
+to boil, having a pull at his pipe, and keeping a scornful silence.
+Grandpa's breakfast ready, he carried it into the bedroom and fed the
+old man. After that, shutting the bedroom door, he helped himself to a
+slice of bread and some dried-apple sauce. His manner said that a great
+fuss was being made in the kitchen over nothing.
+
+It was Cis who spoke next--when Mrs. Kukor, leaving Johnnie for a
+little, came to bring the girl a drink, and bathe her face. "I'm never
+going to lie down in this place again, Mrs. Kukor," she declared. "I'm
+going to leave here this morning, and I'm never coming back--never! Can
+you brush my hair right now, please? Because I know Mr. Perkins will be
+here soon."
+
+At that, Big Tom launched into a sneering laugh. "Oh, is that so?" he
+demanded. "Fine! I'd like t' see Perkins, all right!" His great
+shoulders shook, and a horrible leer distorted his hairy face.
+
+The Father glanced up from where he was kneeling. "Ye itch t' make
+trouble, don't ye?" he charged. "When ye ought t' be thankful that this
+young woman has found such a good man for a husband. I've watched the
+Perkins lad pretty close. I've been t' see him, and he's called t' see
+me. And by ev'ry way that a man who's a priest can judge another man, I
+find no fault in him."
+
+"Well, s'pose y' don't," answered Big Tom. "It jus' happens that _I_
+do."
+
+"Ye can't!" cried the other. "Not and be honest! Ye can't find fault
+where there isn't fault! Why, he served in France, and him far under
+age. And I'll ask ye, where was _yerself_ durin' the late War?
+Supportin' a pensioned father, eh? And a girl that was earnin' her own
+livin'! And a boy who's never cost ye a cent!--Ah, don't answer me!
+Don't stain yer soul with anny more falsehoods! Money's what's irkin'
+ye--the girl's earnin's. They're more t' ye than her happiness, and a
+good home, and a grand husband!" Then to Johnnie, "Wee poet, won't ye
+wink a bright lash at the Father who loves ye?--or me heart'll split in
+two pieces!"
+
+Johnnie sighed, and winked two bright lashes, whereupon the priest
+lifted the boy's head and gave him a sip from Cis's cup of water. "Aw, a
+drink o' tea'll fix _him_ all right," asserted Barber. "He ain't half as
+bad off as he pretends."
+
+"Don't talk t' me at all, Tom Barber!" commanded the priest. "For I've
+no temper for it as I look at the face and shoulders o' this lad that
+ye've whipped so cruel! Or at the girl that ye've tied up this whole
+long night!"
+
+By now, Cis, wrapped in her own quilt, was combed and in the big chair,
+and was being plied with milk by Mrs. Kukor. She was out of pain now,
+and her concern was mostly for Johnnie. She watched him constantly,
+smiling down at him lovingly. And as he opened his eyes and looked back
+at her, she saw the stiff muscles of his face twist as if in a spasm,
+and at the sight of that twisting was frightened.
+
+"Oh, Johnnie!" she faltered. "Oh, what's the matter?"
+
+Johnnie's lips moved. "Noth--nothin'," he whispered back. "I--I'm jus'
+tryin' t' smile."
+
+"Ah, there's a brave lad for ye!" exclaimed the Father, the tears
+shining in the green eyes. "Not a whine! Not a whimper! Where'd ye find
+another boy, Tom Barber, that'd take yer heavy hand in the spirit o'
+this one? Shure, there's not a look out o' him t' show that he's hatin'
+ye for what ye did t' him! Ha-a-a! It's a pearl, he is, cast under the
+feet o' a pig!"
+
+"Y' can cut that out!" said the longshoreman. Putting down his pipe, he
+crossed the room to the priest.
+
+Father Pat got to his feet, but he did not retract. "Ye old buzzard!" he
+stormed. "Do ye dare t' lift yer hand against the servant o' God?"
+
+Big Tom fell back a step then, as if remembering who the man before him
+was. "Jus' the same, y' better go," he returned. "From now on, y' better
+keep out o' this!"
+
+"I'll go," answered the priest, calmly, "when I'm tossed out o' the
+windy--or the door. But I'll not go by me own choosin'. I'm not lastin'
+long annyhow, so ye can drop me into the court if ye like. Then the law
+will take ye out o' the way o' these dear children."
+
+Barber clenched and unclenched his fists, yearning to strike, yet not
+daring. "Go home and mind y'r own affairs," he counseled.
+
+"Me own affairs is exactly what I'm mindin'," retorted the Father. Then,
+mournfully, "Oh, if only I had me old strength! If me lungs wasn't as
+full o' holes as a sieve! I'd say, 'Tom Barber, come ahead!' And as
+God's me witness, I'd thrash ye within' a inch o' yer black life!" And
+he shook a finger before the longshoreman's nose.
+
+Mrs. Kukor was giving Johnnie some milk. He whispered to her, fearing
+from the look in her dark eyes that she was blaming herself bitterly for
+what had happened to his books. "Don't y' worry," he pleaded; "it
+wasn't nobody's fault. And if y' hadn't kept 'em upstairs long as y'
+did, he'd 've burned em 'fore ever I learned 'em."
+
+"Chonnie!" she gasped. Concerned for the safety, yes, even the lives, of
+the two she loved, she had forgotten to inquire the fate of that
+basketful. Now she knew it! "Oy! oy! oy! oy!"
+
+"Aw, shut up y'r oy-oy's," scolded Big Tom.
+
+Father Pat had heard Johnnie, and understood him. "But we'll not be
+carin' about anny crazy destruction," he announced cheerfully; "for,
+shure, and there's plenty more o' 'em on sale in this town."
+
+Johnnie stared up, trying to comprehend the good news. "The _'xact_ same
+ones?" he asked.
+
+"Little book lover, I'll warrant there's a thousand o' each story--if a
+man was t' take count."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The Father knelt. "Lad, dear!" he exclaimed tenderly. "Faith, and did ye
+think that ye owned the only copies in the _world_ o' them classics?"
+
+Now Johnnie fully realized the truth. "Oh, Father Pat!" he cried, and
+fell to laughing aloud in sheer joy.
+
+"God love the lad!" breathed the priest, ready to weep with happiness at
+restoring that joy. "Was there ever such another? Why, in one hour, and
+without spendin' a penny, I could be readin' all seven o' yer books!
+Yes, yes! In that grand book temple I told ye about--the one with the
+steps that lead up (oh, but they're elegant), and the lions big as
+horses."
+
+"I know," said Johnnie. "I remember. I--I was there 'way late last
+night--in a think."
+
+"Why, little reader dear, in that temple, and out o' it, shure and
+there's enough Aladdins t' pave half a mile o' Fifth Avenue! and it's
+likely ye could put up a Woolworth Building with nothin' but Crusoes and
+Mohicans!"
+
+"I'm so glad! So glad! _My!_"
+
+"And Father Pat's glad," added the priest. As he stood once more, he
+lifted a smiling face to the ceiling; and up past the kitchen of the
+little Jewish lady he sent a prayer of gratitude to his Maker for the
+blessing of that instrument of man's genius, the printing press.
+
+Then he fell to pacing the floor, now glancing at the clock, again
+taking out his watch and clicking its cover. Between these silent
+inquiries regarding the time, he played impatiently with the cross which
+hung against his coat on a black ribbon. It was plain that he was
+expecting some one.
+
+Big Tom understood as much, and finally was moved to speech. "Y' won't
+bring no doctor in here," he announced. "I won't have no foolishness o'
+that kind."
+
+Father Pat ignored him. But to Mrs. Kukor, "Shure, and ye could boil a
+leg o' mutton while ye wait for that gentleman," he observed.
+
+After that, for a while, the kitchen was quiet. Mrs. Kukor left on an
+errand to her own flat, coming back almost at once with two eggs
+deliciously scrambled on toast, and some stewed berries, tart and tasty.
+These delicacies had a wonderfully reviving effect upon both Cis and
+Johnnie, and the latter even found himself able to sit up to eat.
+
+"Now I'm so weak," he told Father Pat, "wouldn't this be a' awful fine
+time t' play shipwreck with Crusoe, and git washed on shore more dead'n
+alive?"
+
+"Now, then, it just would!" agreed the priest. "But as ye've been near
+dead once this day, shure, ye'd best think o' stayin' alive for a
+change."
+
+The last bit of egg was eaten, the last nibble of toast, too, and the
+fruit. "Oh, yes, I'm too tired t' think 'bout a wreck," admitted
+Johnnie.
+
+"Rest, lad dear! Rest!" The quilt was tucked round the weary limbs.
+
+One of those big-girl hands reached up and drew the priest's head lower.
+"I guess where I been is on the danger line, all right," Johnnie
+whispered. "And the Handbook said a scout don't flinch in the face o'
+danger, and this time, gee, I didn't!"
+
+A rest and some good food had made Cis feel like her former self by now.
+Presently she walked into the little room, lit a nubbin of candle, and
+changed into her best clothes. While she was gone, Johnnie drew on his
+old, big trousers, and donned Barber's shirt, then moved to the morris
+chair. As for Mrs. Kukor, she was gone again, her face very sober, and
+the line of her mouth tight and straight. As she teetered out, it was
+plain that she was all but in a panic to get away.
+
+For evidently things were to happen in the flat before long. The air of
+the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he
+stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or
+when a footfall sounded beyond the hall door.
+
+All at once a loud tramping was heard on the stairs--a determined
+tramping, as if half a dozen angry men were setting down their feet as
+one. Doors flew open, voices hailed one another up and down the
+building, and Mrs. Kukor could be heard pattering in a wide circle
+beyond the ceiling. All of this disturbance brought Cis out of her tiny
+room, pink-faced once more, and eager-eyed.
+
+The next moment, with a stomp and a slam, and without knocking, One-Eye
+made a whirlwind entrance into the kitchen, and halted, his wide hat
+grotesquely over one ear, a quid of tobacco distending that cheek which
+the hat brim touched, a score of questions looking from that single eye,
+and every hair on the front of those shaggy breeches fairly standing out
+straight.
+
+"Wal?" he demanded, banging the door so hard behind him that all the
+dishes in the cupboard rattled. He had on gauntlets. Their cuffs reached
+half-way to his elbows. These added mightily to his warlike appearance.
+
+"A-a-a-a-h!" greeted Father Pat, joyously.
+
+So this was the person whose arrival had been awaited! Nonchalantly Big
+Tom shifted his weight from foot to foot, and chuckled through the
+stubble of his beard.
+
+"One-Eye!" cried Cis. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come! Oh, One-Eye, he tied
+us to the table all night! And he whipped Johnnie with the rope!"
+
+That lone green eye began to roll--to Cis's face, seeing the truth
+written there, and the story of her long hours of suffering; to the
+countenance of the priest, to ask, dumbly, if any living man had ever
+heard anything more outrageous than this; then, "By the Great Horn
+Spoon!" he breathed, and again stomped one foot, like an angry steer.
+
+Big Tom's smile widened.
+
+Now, the Westerner crossed to Johnnie, bent, and with gentle fingers
+held under the boy's chin, studied those welts across the pale cheeks.
+"Crimini!" he murmured. "Crimini! _Crimini!_"
+
+"Look at his chest, and his back!" Cis advised.
+
+The cowboy lifted Johnnie forward in the morris chair, and held away the
+big shirt from breast and shoulders. What he saw brought him upright
+like a pistol shot, his face suddenly scarlet, his mustache whipping up
+and down, and that eye of his glowering at the longshoreman ferociously.
+"Caesar Augustus, Philobustus, Hennery Clay!" he burst out. "Bla-a-ack
+a-a-and _blu-u-ue_!"
+
+"And, oh, listen what _else_ he did!" Cis went on. "The uniform you gave
+to Johnnie----"
+
+"Yas?"
+
+"_He put it in the stove!_"
+
+One-Eye stared. "He put it in the _stove_?" he repeated, but as if this
+really was quite beyond belief.
+
+"My--my scout suit," added Johnnie, who was too worn out to weep.
+
+"The priceless brute!" announced Father Pat.
+
+"Yes, and all of Johnnie's books, he burned them, too," Cis added.
+
+But One-Eye's mind dwelt upon the uniform. "He put it in the stove!" he
+drawled. "That khaki outfit I give t' the boy! He burned it! And it
+fresh outen the store!"
+
+"The medal, too, One-Eye! Johnnie's father's medal! It was in the coat.
+So all that's left is the shoes!"
+
+"All that's left is the shoes," growled One-Eye. "He burned the hat, and
+the coat, and--and all. After I'd paid good money fer 'em! The _gall_!
+The _cheek_! The _impydence_!" He drew a prodigious breath.
+
+"Go ahead! Sing about it!" taunted Barber.
+
+One-Eye was in anything but a singing mood. Spurred by that taunt, of a
+sudden he began to do several startling things: with a gurgle of rage,
+he snatched off the wide hat, flung it to the floor with all his might,
+sprang upon it, ground it into the boards with both heels; jerked off
+his gauntlets and hurled them down with the hat; next wriggled out of
+his coat and added it to the pile under his boots; then ran his hands
+wildly through his hair, so that it stood up as straight as the hair on
+his breeches stood out; and, last of all, fell to pushing back his
+sleeves.
+
+Fascinated the others watched him. Was this the good-natured, shy,
+bashful, quiet One-Eye, this red-faced, ramping, stamping madman?
+
+He addressed Barber: "Oh, y' ornery, mean, low-down, sneakin' coyote!"
+He took a long, leaping step over the things on the floor--a step in the
+direction of the longshoreman. As he sprang, he shifted his tobacco quid
+from one cheek to the other. "Say! I'm plumb chuck-full o' y'r
+goin's-on! I'm stuffed with y'r fool pre-_form_-ances! I'm fed up t' the
+neck with 'em! and _sick_ o' 'em! and right here, _and_ now, you and me
+is a-goin' t' have this business O-U-T!"
+
+"He knows how t' spell it," remarked Barber, facetiously.
+
+"Heaven strengthen the arm o' ye!" cried the Father.
+
+Head ducked, hands out like a boxer, One-Eye again began an advance
+toward Big Tom, doing a sort of a skating step--a glide. And as he came
+on, Barber threw back his head and guffawed. "Oh, haw! haw! haw! haw!
+haw!" he shouted. "Y' don't mean y're goin' t' _finish_ me! Oh, haw!
+haw! haw!"
+
+"A haw-haw's aig in a hee-hee's nest!" returned One-Eye, and spat on his
+hands. "Finish y' is what I aim t' do! I been waitin' _and_ waitin'!"
+(The cowboy was saying more in these few minutes, almost, than he had
+during all of his former visits to the flat!) "I've waited since the
+first time I clapped my eye on y'! I'm the mule that waited seven years!
+I been storin' up my kick! And now it's growed to a humdinger! Y've
+whaled this here boy, and tied up this here girl! His face is cut, and
+his back is black, and raw, and bleedin'! Wal, it's Tom Barber's turn t'
+git a hidin'!--the worst hidin' a polecat ever did git! So! Where'll y'
+take it? In this house, 'r outside?" The question was asked with a
+final, emphatic stomp, an up-throw of the disheveled head, a spreading
+outward of both gartered arms.
+
+"That's the way t' talk!" vowed the Father. "Shure, a coward needs his
+own punishment handed t' him!--Take yer whippin', Tom Barber, and take
+it like a man! For it's a whippin' that's justly comin' t' ye this
+mornin', as all the neighborhood'll agree!"
+
+"Where?" One-Eye insisted, for the longshoreman had not replied to the
+question. "Let's don't lose no time! I'm a-goin' t' hand y' a
+con-vul-sion! That's it! A con-vul-sion! I'm goin' t' pull the last,
+livin' kink outen y'! Two shakes o' a lamb's tail, and I'll show y' a
+civy-lized massacree! Yip-yip-yip-_yee-ow_!"
+
+"Goin' t' wipe me out, eh? Goin' t' put me t' bed?" Barber laid down his
+pipe.
+
+"Goin' t' ship y' t' the Hospital!" Side gliding to the stove, the
+cowboy delivered up his quid.
+
+"Hee! hee!" giggled the longshoreman. "Guess I'll jus' knock that other
+eye out!"
+
+One-Eye was waltzing back. "Don't count y'r chickens 'fore they're
+hatched!" he warned. "'Cause here y're gittin' a man o' y'r own size, y'
+great, big, overbearin' lummox!"
+
+Barber held up a hand. "This ain't no place t' fight," he protested.
+"The old man'd hear."
+
+"Y' can't git outen it that-a-way!" shouted One-Eye, arms in the air.
+"They's miles o' room outside! Come down into the yard! Mosey! Break
+trail! Vamose!" He waved the other out.
+
+Buoyed up by so much excitement, Johnnie managed to stand for a moment.
+"One-Eye!" he cried, all gratitude and pride; and, "One-Eye!" Cis
+echoed, her palms together in a dumb plea for him to do his best.
+
+The Westerner gave her a look which promised every result that lay in
+his power. Then with a jerk of the head at Father Pat, and again
+"Yip-yipping" lustily, he bore down upon the grinning longshoreman, who
+was filling the hall doorway.
+
+They met, and seized each other. Big Tom took One-Eye by either
+shoulder, those great baboon hands clamping themselves over the top
+joints of the Westerner's arms. The latter had Barber by the front of
+his coat and by an elbow. For a moment they hung upon the sill. Then,
+pivoting, they swung beyond it. As Father Pat closed the door upon them,
+at once there came to the ears of the trio in the kitchen, the sounds of
+a rough-and-tumble battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+ONE-EYE FIGHTS
+
+
+THOSE sounds of combat which penetrated to an anxious kitchen were deep,
+rasping breathings, muttered exclamations and grunts, a shuffling of
+feet that was not unlike a musicless dance, a swish-swishing, as if the
+Italian janitress were mopping up the hall floor, and a series of soft
+poundings.
+
+Yet the battle itself was not amounting to much. In fact, to speak
+strictly, no fight was going on at all.
+
+In the first place, the hall was narrow, and gave small scope for a
+contest on broad, generous lines--even had One-Eye and Big Tom known how
+to wage such a bout; and both men knew little concerning the science of
+self-defense. What happened--without any further abusive language--was
+this: the longshoreman and the cowboy (while using due caution against
+coming too close to the flimsy railing of the stairs) each set about
+throwing his antagonist.
+
+One-Eye sought to trip the longshoreman, but was unsuccessful, finding
+those two massive pillars, Big Tom's legs, as securely fixed to the
+rough flooring as if they were a part of the building itself. With his
+tonglike arms, Barber pressed down with all his might on the shoulders
+of the Westerner; and that moment in which One-Eye weakened the firmness
+of his own stand by thrusting out a boot to dislodge his enemy, the
+longshoreman had his chance; with a smothered voicing of his disgust
+(for One-Eye wished to make as little noise as possible in that
+semi-public place), down went the cowboy to his knees.
+
+Several brunette heads were thrust out of doors above and below.
+Melodious Italian voices exclaimed and questioned and replied, mingling
+with cries in Yiddish and East Side English. All the while One-Eye
+clasped Big Tom about the legs, and held on grimly, and received, on
+either side of his weather-beaten countenance, a score of hard slaps.
+
+These were skull-jarring, and not to be endured. So One-Eye thrust his
+head between Big Tom's spraddled legs; then, calling upon every atom of
+his strength, he forced his shoulders to follow his head, loosening the
+longshoreman's clutch; and with a grunt, down came the giant, falling
+upon the cowboy (which accounted for another grunt), and pinning him to
+the dusty floor.
+
+Sprawled, as it were, head and tail, a contest for upper place now
+began. One-Eye writhed like a hairy animal (this the swish-swishing).
+Being both slender and agile, he managed to wriggle out from beneath Big
+Tom, who instantly turned about and caught him, and once more laid upon
+him the whole of his great, steel-constructed bulk.
+
+The pair strained and rolled. After several changes of position, in
+which neither man was at all damaged except in his appearance, Barber
+came to the top and stayed there, like the largest potato in a basket.
+Then straddling the lighter man, who was blowing hoarsely, Big Tom
+cuffed him leisurely.
+
+As Father Pat listened to all this, leaned against the door with his ear
+cocked, he hoped with all his heart for the triumph of right over might.
+"And I can but stand by t' give consolation and bear witness!" he
+mourned, though how he was bearing witness was not apparent.
+
+"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" pleaded Cis, a hand over each ear, for her
+courage was lessening. "Oh, I'm afraid he's hurting One-Eye awful! Oh,
+Barber'll kill him, Father! And what good'll that do _us_?"
+
+Thus implored, the priest took a swift survey of the hall. But, "Oh,
+don't go!" Cis begged. "And shut it! Shut it!"
+
+"Who's on top?" Johnnie wanted to know.
+
+"They're wrastlin'," announced the Father. "So don't be alarmed. And Mr.
+Gamboni's out there, and he'll not see bloodshed!"
+
+"_I_ don't worry!" boasted Johnnie. "Cis, what makes y' talk the way y'
+do? Barber, _he_ can't lick a _cowboy_!"
+
+"Y' pesky critter!"--this from the hall, in unmistakable westernese.
+
+"Y' hear?" joyously demanded Johnnie, recognizing One-Eye's voice. "Y'
+hear, Father Pat? Oh, I don't have t' look! I know how it's goin'! I can
+_see_ it! One-Eye's got him down! He's hammerin' him good!--Oh, go for
+him, One-Eye! Go for him! _Go_ for him!"
+
+Slap! slap! slap!
+
+To judge from these sounds, the cowboy was carrying out Johnnie's wish.
+So with that rapt look, and that moving of the nostrils which betokened
+excited day-dreaming, Johnnie gladdened himself with a soul-satisfying
+picture of the contest: Big Tom prone on his face, spent, helpless,
+cowering, pleading, bleeding, while the dashing One-Eye rained blow
+after blow upon him--bing! bing! bing! ("Makin' a meal outen him," as
+the man from the West would say). Next, he saw the longshoreman
+stretched upon a bed of pain, admitting all of his shortcomings to
+Father Pat in weak whispers.
+
+It was all so real to Johnnie that he fell to pitying Big Tom!
+
+He pitied him more as the scene changed swiftly to that of a funeral
+(Barber's, of course), at which he--Johnnie--in a new suit, with Cis
+beside him, made one carriageful in an extended line of carriages, all
+rolling circumspectly along. That One-Eye's plight, under such
+circumstances, might be trying, to say the least, Johnnie forgot to
+consider, wholly passing over the small matter of an inquiry on the part
+of the police authorities! What he did anticipate, however, was a flat
+that, in the future, would be a peaceful, happy, quiet place--the home
+of just Grandpa, Cis, and himself.
+
+"Oh, Father Pat, by now One-Eye's dead!" wailed Cis. "Oh, why didn't
+some one stop them! Oh! Oh, dear!"
+
+This interruption to Johnnie's visioning was followed by a loud laugh,
+and the turning of the hall doorknob. Johnnie raised himself on an
+elbow, lifting a hopeful face. "One-Eye!" he cried. "Hooray! Hooray!"
+
+But it was Barber who strode into the room.
+
+He was grinning from one huge, outstanding ear to the other. "Ha! ha!
+ha! ha! ha!" he chortled triumphantly. "Guess I'll have t' go t' the
+Hospital! Look how I'm all beat up! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"
+
+As he stood laughing, his bristling face split across by the brown line
+that was his teeth, his bulging eyes shut with merriment, his wide, fat
+nose giving its sidewise jerk with each guffaw, Johnnie, staring up at
+him, thought of the terrible African magician: of the murderous, cruel
+Magua: of wicked Tom Watkins and all the man-eating savages whom the
+valiant Crusoe fought.
+
+Here was a man worse than them all! Also--there was no doubt of it--here
+was the victor!
+
+But what about One-Eye?
+
+"One-Eye!" wailed Johnnie, in terror. For suddenly his imagination
+furnished him with a new picture, this time of the Westerner. And, oh,
+it was a sadly different picture from that other! It showed the cowboy,
+torn, broken, beaten, stretched dead in his own lifeblood.
+
+"Oh, _Dio mio!_--Oy! oy! oy! oy! oy!--He oughta be pinched!"
+
+The opening door let in this much of the heated opinion of a portion of
+the building. The opening door also admitted the cowboy. Slowly,
+soberly, almost crawling, he came.
+
+He was mournfully changed. That single eye was puffing redly. His
+straw-colored hair was almost dark with sweat, and inclined to lie down.
+From either shoulder hung woefully a half of his vest, which had ripped
+straight down its back! And, yes, there was blood in evidence!--on the
+knuckles of both hands! This bright decoration was from a nose which
+dripped scarlet spots upon the front sections of the vest.
+
+"Oh, One-Eye!" moaned Cis, yet not without relief. At least he was
+alive--could stand--could walk!
+
+"Goodness!" Johnnie's exclamation had in it a note of pure chagrin. His
+cowboy had not won! "What did he do t' y'?" the boy wanted to know,
+almost blamefully.
+
+"Do?" repeated the cowboy, wrathfully. "Say! He went and busted my
+fountain pen!" He began feeling his way toward the stove. When he got as
+far as the mattress, he first hunted his handkerchief and applied it to
+the stopping of that nasal stream, then, grunting painfully, he lay
+down.
+
+"Git all y' wanted?" inquired the longshoreman.
+
+"My land!" returned the Westerner. "I got a hay-wagonful!"
+
+"Man dear!" gasped Father Pat, making for the wash basin.
+
+Johnnie felt suddenly heartsick. Would not the tale of One-Eye's defeat
+scatter in the neighborhood? and if it did, would not his own proud
+position be threatened along with the cowboy's? Whipped by Tom Barber!
+That was all right for a kid! But for a man who wore hair on his
+breeches----!
+
+The boy sank back in the morris chair. "I'd sooner Big Tom'd whip _me_
+again!" he declared under his breath.
+
+Barber was mocking One-Eye. "Yes, man dear!" he said. "Heaven didn't
+make y'r arm as strong as y' wanted it, eh?" He was very cocky, and
+pushed out either cheek importantly with his tongue.
+
+Father Pat was now washing a rapidly closing eye on a sadly battered
+countenance. "Shure, Heaven'll deal with ye in its own good time!" he
+promised, nodding a portentous head.
+
+Big Tom snorted. "He's been waitin' and waitin'," he observed; "--ever
+since he first met me. That's why he give me such a hidin'!"
+
+One-Eye, the stains of carnage wiped from lip and chin, peered up
+through a tiny slit between those puffing lids. "Big as a barn," he
+asserted, but without temper. "Big as a Poland Chinee pig! All beef! All
+fat!" And to Johnnie, sunk in his quilt, "Don't y' beller, sonny, _I_
+ain't got no grunt comin'. I done my best. But he's stronger'n me,
+that's all they is _to_ it, and heftier. But it all goes to show that if
+_I_ ain't no match for him, he's lower'n a sheep-eatin' greaser t' go
+hit a kid--'r a _girl_!" Before that eye slit closed, he crawled to
+where his hat, coat and gauntlets were, took them up, and fell to
+warping them into shape again. "But y'r time'll come, sonny!" he vowed.
+"Y'r time'll come! Jes' y' wait!"
+
+"Well, I didn't keep you waitin'," bragged Barber, with another loud
+laugh. "And if there's anybody else--" His look sought the priest. "Why,
+say! You're a fighter, ain't y', Father Pat? Wasn't y' in the trenches?
+I wonder y' don't lick me y'reself. Ho! ha! ha! ha! ha!"
+
+At that, the red anger spread itself among the stubble of the same hue
+on the Father's still unshaved jaws. "No," he answered grimly, speaking
+with the thicker brogue that always came into his English along with his
+wrath. "No, Oi can't give ye the dustin' that's comin' t' ye, Barber."
+
+"It'll take a man t' lick me," declared the longshoreman proudly. He
+thumped his chest. "Yes, sir, a reg'lar-sized man! Now, Furman, he says
+that, barrin' the World Champion, 'r some guy like that, there ain't a
+man standin' on two feet in this whole country that can down me!" He
+thrust out his lower lip.
+
+"Ha-a-a-a!" breathed the priest, scornful. He helped guide One-Eye to
+the kitchen chair. "Well, the man Oi once was, Oi presinted him t' me
+counthry. So here's what's left av me. But, Barber, punishment's comin'
+t' ye! Mar-rk me wor-r-rd!"
+
+Suddenly Big Tom gave a shout. "Say!" he cried. "Maybe _here's_ a gent
+that'd like t' try his hand at lickin' me!" For the hall door had opened
+again, and another visitor was entering--breathlessly, anxiously,
+swiftly. "What'd d' y' say, Mister Eye-Glassy, White-Spatty,
+Pinky-Face?"
+
+"Yes, sir! I'll try to do just that! In fact, that's why I've come.
+Can't have you strike a girl, you know, Mr. Barber, or a little chap
+like Johnnie; not without trying to punish you. So if you'll oblige
+me----"
+
+Thus, with one wave of a gloved hand, was Big Tom once more bidden to
+fight, this time by Mr. Perkins.
+
+"_Oblige?_" repeated the longshoreman, delighted. "Dear Mister Perkins,
+y're one person that I'm jus' achin' t' spank!" Then once more showing
+his pipe-stained teeth in a grin, "Oh, but I hate awful t' muss y' up! I
+hate t' spoil y', Perksie! Y' look so nice and neat and sweet! Almost
+like a stick o' candy! And, nobody'll want t' look at y' after I git
+done with y'!"
+
+Mr. Perkins was not ruffled by the longshoreman's attempt at humor.
+"Don't waste your breath on compliments, Mr. Barber," he advised; "you
+may need it." He laid a new, black bowler hat on the kitchen table, and
+proceeded to draw off his gloves.
+
+"God grant he will!" cried Father Pat, fervently. "For besides what he's
+done to these children, look how he's treated our poor friend from
+Kansas!" And the priest stepped from between the scoutmaster and
+One-Eye.
+
+The Westerner waved protesting hands. "Wy-o-ming!" he corrected, with
+more than a shade of irritation. "Not Kansas! Wy-o-ming!" He held up a
+countenance that was now wholly--if temporarily--blind.
+
+"Wyoming," repeated Father Pat, hastily. "And here's Mr. Perkins,
+One-Eye, and he's wishin' t' shake yer hand."
+
+At that, out shot the cowboy's right. It was still bloody over the
+knuckles, the Father having confined his washing to One-Eye's face. "Put
+'er there!" invited the sightless one.
+
+"How are you!" greeted Mr. Perkins, heartily; yet his tone carried with
+it just the right amount of sympathy.
+
+"Jes' so-so," answered One-Eye. "Look how he slapped me in the eye!"
+
+"Cis, my sweetheart, are you all right?" inquired Mr. Perkins.
+
+She ran to him, and he took her hands. "Oh, yes!" she cried happily.
+"But, oh, I'm so glad you've come!"
+
+As Father Pat said afterward, it was the sweetheart that did it. As
+those young hands met, of a sudden Barber's good humor went. "That'll
+do!" he ordered. "Jus' y' shut up on them pretty names!"
+
+"Ah! You don't believe in affection, do you?" rejoined Mr. Perkins. His
+countenance wore an exasperating smile.
+
+"I don't b'lieve in puppy love!" answered Big Tom. "I don't b'lieve in
+the soft, calf stuff! And I'd jus' like t' know how it happens that you
+two guys 're here at this time in the mornin'! How does it come? _Some
+one_ must 've fetched y'! And I'm _goin'_ t' know, 'r else I'm goin' t'
+break ev'ry last bone in y'r dude body!"
+
+"Oh, my goodness!" quavered Johnnie. He turned and twisted in the big
+chair. And he wished with all his might that he was having either a very
+bad think, or a torturing nightmare. Seeing this second friend come, he
+had felt an awful sinking of the heart. If the Westerner, rough and
+ready and leathery as he was, could not conquer Big Tom, what would the
+young scoutmaster be able to do?--and he so slender and light when
+compared to the giant longshoreman! And now the latter was working
+himself into a rage! Johnnie, head thrust from the folds of the quilt,
+told himself that the whole world was coming to an end.
+
+But Mr. Perkins did not seem to be disturbed by Barber's threats. "Fancy
+that!" he said calmly. "Every bone! But where will you take it, Mr.
+Barber?"
+
+"Take what?" asked the longshoreman.
+
+"Your whipping," answered Mr. Perkins; "--the good, sound, punching that
+I'm going to give you." He began to get out of his coat.
+
+A shout of laughter--from Big Tom, who next addressed the ceiling. "Oh,
+listen t' this cute baby boy!" he cried. "He thinks he can lick me!
+Me!--one o' the strongest men on the whole water front! One-Eye, tell
+him how far _you_ got! Oh, save his life, One-Eye! Save his life!"
+
+"Wisht I had a chunk o' fresh beefsteak fer this lamp!" declared the
+cowboy, too miserable to care about what was going forward.
+
+"Well," continued Mr. Perkins, "if you're so certain on the score of
+what you're going to do to me, Mr. Barber, then, of course, you'll be
+willing to make a bargain with me. Yes?"
+
+Barber was in fine spirits. "Go ahead! Course I'll bargain! Anything y'
+like! Git it out o' y'r system!" He sucked his teeth noisily.
+
+"If I come out winner," began the scoutmaster, very deliberately, "then
+I'm to have Narcissa for my wife--and you'll sign your consent. And we
+shall go at once--this morning--and be married."
+
+"So that's y'r bargain, is it?" said Big Tom. "Well, I'll say this: _if_
+y' can lick me, which y' can't, then I'll make y' a present o' Cis----"
+
+"Don't give away what isn't yours!" Cis interrupted sharply. "And please
+understand, bargain or no bargain, that I'm leaving here this morning.
+If I can't marry Mr. Perkins without your consent, then I'll just wait
+till I can."
+
+The longshoreman ignored her. "I stick by what I've jus' said, Perksie,"
+he went on, impudently. "BUT--if I lick _you_, and I'm goin' t', then
+out y' trot, and down, and y' lose her! Y' understand?"
+
+"I understand that I lose her until she is old enough to do as she
+chooses," amended Mr. Perkins.
+
+"After t'day, y' don't see her again," insisted Big Tom, "till she's
+growed up."
+
+"I'll see him every day!" cried Cis. "Every day!--Don't agree to that,
+Algy! The marriage part, yes, because we can't help ourselves. But he's
+not going to part us! I'm leaving, but wherever I am, I'm going to see
+you!"
+
+The longshoreman turned toward her now, and his look was full of hate.
+"I guess y'll do jus' about what I tell y' to," he said significantly.
+"Algy's goin' t' be too sick t' look after y'."
+
+Johnnie emitted a woeful little peep. "Oo-oo! Mister Perkins!" he
+pleaded. "Couldn't y' put off fightin' till--till some other time?"
+
+Johnnie's anxious demand amused Big Tom. It amused Cis, too, but for a
+wholly different reason. As they laughed together, each challenged the
+other with angry eyes.
+
+Johnnie, feeling fainter every moment, marveled as he stared at Cis.
+There was no question as to her perfect confidence regarding the outcome
+of the fight. And he marveled even more when he looked at Mr. Perkins.
+The latter was cheerful--even gay! He forgot nothing. First, he shook
+hands with Father Pat; next with One-Eye. "Maybe you'd like to have me
+put you into a taxicab before this row starts," he said to the cowboy.
+
+"Nope," was the answer. "I'm goin' t' stay fer the concert."
+
+Mr. Perkins went to Cis, took her fingers in his, bent gallantly, and
+kissed them. "Wish me good luck!" he bade her.
+
+"It won't be luck," she answered.
+
+"Ain't his hands nice and clean!" mocked Barber. "Ain't his nails
+shiny!" There was an ugly glitter in the bulging eyes once more. A
+moment later, as he found himself close to Mr. Perkins (for the latter
+had come to join him), he acted upon a sudden temptation. Reaching out,
+with an impudent grin he tweaked the younger man lightly by the nose.
+
+Biff!
+
+The blow was so sudden, so powerful and straight to its mark (which was
+a jaw), that Big Tom's breath went--as his toes tipped up, and he began
+to reel backward, fanning the air with both arms.
+
+"Ha-a-a-a!" cried the priest. "No wonder ye stand t' yer feet, Johnnie
+lad! Shure, that puts the faith into ye, don't it!"
+
+Barber was against a wall, choking, spluttering. "You--you--you--!" he
+panted. "The idear o' hittin' a man without warnin'!"
+
+"I know," agreed Mr. Perkins, good-naturedly. "Also, the idea of pulling
+a man's nose without warning."
+
+Now Big Tom was in the proper frame of mind for the fight. "You go on
+downstairs!" he ordered. "And let me tell y' this: When I git done with
+y', they'll pick y' up on a quilt! Git that?--on a _quilt_!"
+
+Mr. Perkins opened the hall door. "You lead the way downstairs," he
+said. "I trust you, Mr. Barber, but somehow I don't trust your feet."
+
+Then the two went out, the longshoreman trembling with rage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+SIR ALGERNON
+
+
+TO the right, at the rear end of the long, black hallway that connected
+the area with the street on the north, was a good-sized room which had
+once been used by a job printer--as proven by the rubbish in it: strips
+of wood, quantities of old type, torn paper, and ragged, inky cloths.
+The room had a pair of large windows looking out upon the brick
+pavement; but as these windows were smeared and dust-sprinkled, the
+place offered privacy. And Barber, leading the way down from his own
+flat, did not halt until he stood in the center of it.
+
+"I'm not goin' t' have no cop stop this fight," he declared grimly.
+
+Mr. Perkins, entering, shut the door at his back. "Neither am I," he
+answered quietly.
+
+There was a moment's pause, as the two men, separated by several feet,
+gazed at each other. Physically, the contrast between them was horrific.
+Slight, neat, dapper, showing even no ill-temper, Mr. Perkins seemed but
+a poor match for Barber, whose appearance was more gorillalike than
+usual (hair disheveled, heavy shoulders humped, teeth grinding savagely
+under puffed and bristling lips, huge hands at the ends of long, curving
+arms, spreading and closing with the desire to clutch and rend). Yet Big
+Tom was plainly not so cocksure of himself as he had been, while the
+scoutmaster wore an air of complete confidence.
+
+Suddenly, muttering a curse, the longshoreman lurched forward and
+reached for the younger man. In the same instant, Mr. Perkins clenched
+his own fists and held them before him on guard. But also he advanced,
+though elusively, slipping to one side of those great paws. As he side
+stepped, with a duck of the head he gathered himself together, snapped
+forward, and landed a jab square upon Barber's right eye.
+
+"Ow-oo!" It was a bellow, mingling surprise with rage and pain.
+Involuntarily, the longshoreman fell back a pace, and lifted a hand to
+his face. As he did so, with another down-jerk of the chin, and another
+leap, once more the scoutmaster rammed him--upon the left eye. And
+followed this up with a lightning stroke on that big, twisted nose.
+
+At this, Big Tom made a rush. So far, the fight was not of the kind he
+had waged with One-Eye--a rough-and-tumble affair in which brute
+strength and weight counted in his favor. But pounds, combined with lack
+of training, slowness, and awkwardness, put him at a sad disadvantage
+when facing this smaller, lighter man who had speed, and science, and
+was accustomed to bouts. Since Barber could not change his own method of
+fighting, he understood that he must change the tactics of his
+adversary; must grab the scoutmaster, bear him to the floor, and beat
+him. This he determined to do. Wildly he churned the air with those
+knuckles of steel.
+
+"If I git my hands on y'," he stormed, "I'll tear y' in _two_!" The
+taste of his own blood was in his mouth now, for a warm stream of it was
+spreading from his nostrils to his lips and chin.
+
+"You won't get your hands on me," promised Mr. Perkins. He dodged nimbly
+from side to side as the longshoreman came on, and kept just beyond the
+latter's grasp. Watching his chance, he darted in and landed a fourth
+blow--under an eye; then got away again, carefully preserving himself
+against being struck while doing the greatest amount of damage possible
+to the enemy.
+
+All the time he watched to see that he was not cornered. A moment, and
+the junction of two walls came over close to his back; so under one of
+those flesh-and-blood flails he slipped; and, coming up behind Big Tom,
+struck the latter a whanging blow on an ear. "You're going to spank me,
+are you?" he taunted. "Well, come on and do it! Come on!"
+
+More maddened than ever, and swearing horribly, the longshoreman whirled
+and started a second pursuit. He blew the blood from his lips, the
+better to breathe, spattering the scarlet countenance of Mr. Perkins
+with scores of dots which were a deeper red. And as he blew, he cut the
+air with his arms, hitting nothing.
+
+"Why don't y' stand up and fight!" he raged. "Stop that jumpin' 'round!"
+
+"Oh, you want to wrestle, don't you!" mocked Mr. Perkins. "But this time
+you've got to box!"
+
+"Y' won't git ev'rything y'r own way!" vowed Big Tom, panting curses,
+and still whirling his arms like the fans of a windmill.
+
+Changing his steps like a dancer, the scoutmaster fell back. But now he
+was at a disadvantage, for his face was toward those windows, and the
+light was in his eyes. As he flitted and shied, tiring Barber and
+shortening the big man's wind, he watched his chance to bolt under and
+by as before. Foot on foot the space between him and the rear wall of
+the room lessened. He sprang, now right, now left, on the alert for his
+opening. It came. He shot forward----
+
+A staggering clout from a heavy hand hurled him against a side wall like
+a battering-ram. The breath was driven out of his lungs. Dizzily he
+plunged forward to his hands and knees among the debris on the floor.
+
+"Ha-a-a-a-a!" It was a shout of triumph from the longshoreman.
+
+But that wallop, hard as it was, had been delivered accidentally. And as
+Barber, whose eyes were now swelling from the scoutmaster's initial
+blows, scarcely knew where his opponent was, he failed to seize Mr.
+Perkins, who was up like a cat, and on, and facing round.
+
+"Now I'll git y'!" cried Barber. As he, in turn, faced about, he began
+to kick out furiously, now with one foot, now with the other.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Each moment was passing in painful anxiety to the group in the Barber
+flat. Mrs. Kukor made one of that group, having teetered in directly Big
+Tom and Mr. Perkins were gone. Now her hat was off and her apron on;
+with the latter she constantly fanned a face which, its color sped, was
+a sickly shade of tan. All the while she murmured strange words under
+her breath, only breaking out every now and then with an "Ach! poor poy!
+Poor poy!" As she did not look at either Johnnie or One-Eye, it was
+evident that she had Mr. Perkins in mind.
+
+As for Father Pat, he complained about himself. "If I only had me
+lungs!" he mourned. To and fro he walked, to and fro. "If only I could
+do annything except talk! Dear! dear! dear! dear!"
+
+The cowboy, blinder than ever, comforted himself with praising the
+absent scoutmaster. "That young feller's O. K.," he asserted. "I can
+tell it by the way he grabbed my paw. Yas, ma'am! I liked the way he
+shook hands. He'll come out better'n me. Watch if I ain't right! I ain't
+worryin'!"--this though the sweat of concern was even then dampening his
+countenance!
+
+Johnnie, listening and watching, curled himself farther and farther into
+his quilt, and feebly groaned. He was seeing, seeing, seeing, and what
+he saw was agonizing. "Oh, Mister Perkins'll be licked!" he faltered.
+"Oh, I wish I could've went along. But I'm weak! Oh, Father Pat, the
+next time I git licked, I'll keep it t' myself!"
+
+"Oh, don't be silly!" admonished Cis, apprehensive, but calm, being
+buoyed up by hope based upon solid information. "Didn't I tell you,
+Johnnie, to 'wait till Mr. Perkins finds out'? Well, we waited, tied to
+the table like two thieves, or something. And Mr. Perkins _has_ found
+out, and he's giving Tom Barber a sound thrashing! So _I'm_ not
+worrying!"
+
+"I can see y' ain't," declared One-Eye, admiringly. He was back at the
+sink once more, allowing Niagara to lave that injured eye, now a shining
+purplish-black. "Bully fer the gal! That's the stuff! Y' got backbone!
+And spirit, by thunder! And sand! Jes' paste _that_ in yer sunbonnet!
+But, Cis, w'y don't y' skedaddle right _now_? Go whilst the goin's good!
+Gosh, I'm 'feard that some one's likely t' git hurt pretty bad, and it
+won't be Barber! So whoever it is will need t' be nursed."
+
+"Oy! oy! oy! oy!" lamented Mrs. Kukor.
+
+"I'll nurse him!" cried Johnnie, hardly able to keep back the tears.
+"I'll go with him, and take care of him, and cook for him."
+
+"Don't you understand, Johnnie? _I'm_ going with him! I'm to be Mrs.
+Perkins! And--I'll be right here when Algy comes in."
+
+"But--but--!" whispered Johnnie. What he was thinking made allowance for
+no such charming event as a wedding; rather for the same sort of doleful
+procession he had pictured before, only now Big Tom was in the carriage
+with him, while poor Mr. Perkins----!
+
+One-Eye had something of the sort in his own mind, for as he forsook
+the sink, Mrs. Kukor leading him, he shook a rumpled head at her.
+"Barber's bigger'n a barn!" he observed grimly.
+
+"Pos-i-_tivvle_!"
+
+Cis laughed, tossing her head. "_I_ don't care how big he is," she
+declared, "or how mad! Algy can take care of himself."
+
+Looking at her, Johnnie felt both pity and disgust--pity for the grief
+she would undoubtedly suffer soon, disgust for her girl's lack of
+understanding. Was not the young, boyish, slender scoutmaster fighting
+this very moment for his life, and that with a steel-constructed giant?
+"Aw, jus' look at One-Eye!" he counseled argumentatively, and groaned
+again.
+
+"Wait for Algy," returned Cis, crossing to slip an affectionate arm
+about Mrs. Kukor's shoulders. "And don't fret. Because Algy's the
+amateur light-heavyweight champion of his club, and it's an athletic
+club, and----!"
+
+"What-a-a-at?" roared Father Pat. "He's the--he's the--oh, say it
+again!"
+
+But even as Cis opened her lips to speak, swift steps were heard on the
+stairs outside. She knew them. She rushed to the door and flung it wide.
+And the next moment, fairly bouncing in, and looking as pink-faced, and
+white-spatted, and dapper as ever, was none other than Mr. Perkins.
+
+The dude had whipped his man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+GOOD-BYS
+
+
+A CHORUS of happy cries greeted him: "Dearest!"--"Oh, gee!"--"Satan's
+defeated!"--"Goli'th wass licked, und David wass boss!"--"Whoopee!"
+
+Then, great excitement. Cis ran to Mr. Perkins, laughing, "Oh, you're
+safe! You're safe!" Whereupon he kissed her fingers again; and Johnnie,
+on his feet now, felt that here, indeed, was a young knight come from
+defending his lady. And he asked himself why he had ever thought that
+Mr. Perkins was too much of a gentleman to be awe-inspiring.
+
+Meanwhile, Father Pat and Mrs. Kukor were shaking hands like mad, and
+mingling their broken English in a torrent of gratitude. To their
+voices, Grandpa, out of sight beyond the bedroom door, added his, not
+knowing what the celebration was about, yet cackling hilariously.
+
+As for One-Eye, his conduct was extraordinary. Suddenly showing new
+life, once more he took off his coat, found his hat and gauntlets, flung
+all under him, and upon them did a grotesque dance of joy. And "Yip!
+yip! yip! yip!" he shouted. "Y' tole him he'd need his breath! Oh,
+peaches-'n'-cream! Oh, cute baby boy! Oh, who's on the quilt _now_?"
+
+"One-Eye, did ye ever see annything like it in Kansas?" demanded the
+Father triumphantly.
+
+"Wy-o-ming! Wy-_o_-ming!" roared the cowboy. "Yip! yip! yip! yee-ow!"
+
+Johnnie was no less delighted, but he was still too weak to do very
+much. He contented himself with taking a turn up and down the room,
+walking like Mr. Perkins, holding his head like Mr. Perkins (so that an
+imaginary _pince-nez_ should not fall off), and talking to himself in
+true scoutmaster style--"To insure a long life, to defend oneself, to
+protect others. Training, that's the idea! Be prepared!"
+
+Next, he lost himself in a glorious think. This time it was far in the
+future. He was big and strong and brown. And he saw himself rising
+quietly in the very teeth of some stalwart villain to say that the
+matter of the beautiful young lady concerned (dimly she was a larger,
+but a perfect, copy of the little girl on the fire escape) would be
+taken up downstairs, where a fight would not disturb poor, old Mr. Tom
+Barber.
+
+At that he fell to doing his exercises; first, the arm-movements--up,
+down! up down! then the leg--out, back! out, back! adding a bend or two
+of his sore body by way of good measure, and resolving to do better and
+better along these lines every morning of his life from now on.
+
+Mr. Perkins was the only person who was perfectly calm. He found his
+coat and put it on; he adjusted his glasses. In fact, the scoutmaster,
+returned unscathed from his battle, might have been taken as a model for
+all victors. For he did not smile exultantly, did not swagger one step,
+but was grave and modest. "Put on your hat, sweetheart," he said to Cis.
+His voice was deep and tender.
+
+At once there was hurry and bustle. Mrs. Kukor gave one prodigious
+doll-rock which turned her square about, and she disappeared into the
+tiny room, evidently to help with the packing. "Oh, but I'm all ready!"
+declared Cis, following the little Jewish lady. "And, Father Pat, you
+won't mind coming with us?" asked Mr. Perkins. "I'll do that with
+pleasure," answered the priest, heartily.
+
+Johnnie felt a touch on his arm. "Sonny!" One-Eye whispered. "Can't y'
+hear somethin'? Listen!"
+
+All listened. From the area below unmistakable cheers were rising, and
+taunting shouts. They came booming through the kitchen window. Barber
+was crossing the brick pavement to the door of the building, and his
+neighbors were triumphing in his defeat.
+
+Father Pat came to Johnnie. "Lad dear," he said, "tell me: as ye hear
+'em yell at him, and all on account o' what he did t' Cis and yerself,
+and because they're glad he's been whipped,--tell me, scout boy, how d'
+ye feel towards him in yer own heart?"
+
+"We-e-ell,--" began Johnnie; "we-e-ell--" and stopped. Countless times
+he had punished Big Tom in his own way; and had looked ahead to the hour
+when, grown-up, and the longshoreman's physical equal, he could measure
+out to the latter punishment of a substantial kind. Yet now that Mr.
+Perkins had done just this, where was the overwhelming satisfaction? He
+was glad, of course, that Mr. Perkins had come out victor, and had not
+been beaten as One-Eye had been beaten; but so far as he himself was
+concerned, the truth was that Big Tom's mortification was dust in his
+mouth, and ashes, though, somehow, he shrank from admitting it. "Well,
+Father Pat," he added faintly, "I--I guess I--I'm not--er--what y'd call
+_glad_."
+
+"Ah, me grand lad!" exclaimed the priest. "Ye feel like I want ye t'
+feel! Because that's how a fine, decent lad _ought_ t' feel! Not glad!
+Not gloryin' over a bully that's had his desert! Not holdin' on t' hate
+once the fight is done! Lad dear, ye don't ever disappoint Father Pat!
+And, oh, he thanks God for it!"
+
+Johnnie felt boyishly shy and awkward then, looking at the floor and
+wriggling his toes, and taking back into his cheeks quite a supply of
+color in the form of blushes.
+
+One-Eye also broke forth with commendations. "That's the ticket!" he
+cried. "No crowin'! Aw, Johnnie, y're a blamed white kid!" Whereupon,
+feeling around close to the floor till he located one of Johnnie's
+ankles, he made his way up to those narrow--and sore--shoulders, and
+gave them such a hearty slap of approbation that tears started in a
+certain pair of yellow-gray eyes.
+
+"I'm glad, too, that you feel as you do about it," said Mr. Perkins,
+earnestly. "And, Johnnie, have you done your good turn yet to-day?"
+
+"No, sir," answered Johnnie, apologetically. "But y' see, I been tied t'
+the table, and also I jus' only come to, and----"
+
+"I understand," broke in the scoutmaster quickly. "But perhaps when Mr.
+Barber comes in--his face, you know. Could you wash it up a bit?"
+
+"Ye-e-e-es, sir,"--reluctantly; for young as he was, Johnnie realized
+that whatever his own feelings toward the longshoreman might be, they
+were no gauge of the feelings of the longshoreman toward him. However,
+dutifully he went to find the wash basin, and fill it; and he accepted
+from Mr. Perkins a most immaculate wash cloth, this one of those
+wonderful handkerchiefs which had colored borders.
+
+He was prepared for his good turn not a moment too soon. For the stairs
+outside were creaking under slow and heavy steps. "The conq'rin' hero!"
+announced One-Eye, with a blind, but sweepin' bow in the general
+direction of the on-comer.
+
+"Sh!" cautioned Mr. Perkins.
+
+One-Eye did a comical collapse upon the mattress, his reinhand, as he
+chose to term his left, well stuffed into his mustached mouth. The
+others were silent, too--as the door opened and Big Tom came crawling
+in.
+
+This was a woefully changed Big Tom. His great, hairy face was darker
+than usual, what with the battering it had received, and the blood
+which was drying upon it. There was a scarlet gap across one of those
+prominent ears, the lobe of which was as red as if set with a ruby. As
+he swung the door and advanced unsteadily, he tried to keep his face
+averted from those in the room, and hitched petulantly at a sleeve of
+his shirt, which had been ripped from end to end by a blow. Spent, bent,
+beaten, half-blind, puffing pink foam from his mouth at each breath, he
+stumbled toward the bedroom. The back of one hand was cut and raw, where
+he had driven it with all his might against a side of the old printing
+shop, hoping to strike the scoutmaster. From it fell drops which made
+small, round, black spots on the dusty floor.
+
+At sight of the big man, so cowed and helpless, "God save us!" breathed
+Father Pat, astounded, and sat down.
+
+"Mister Barber!" It was Johnnie, timidly. Yet he forced himself to go
+close to the longshoreman, and held the brimming basin well forward.
+"Can I--will y' let me wash y'r face?"
+
+"Lemme _alone_!" almost screamed Big Tom. With a curse, and without
+turning his head, he made one of those flail-like sweeps with an arm,
+struck the basin, and sent it full in the face of the boy. It drenched
+the big, old shirt, emptied out the wet handkerchief, and whirled to the
+floor with a clatter.
+
+Then, mumbling another curse, the longshoreman spat, and a large, brown
+tooth went skipping across the room. Its owner lumbered against the
+bedroom door, bumping it with knees and forehead, opened it awkwardly
+against himself, half fell upon the wheel chair as he crossed the sill,
+swore louder than ever, and slammed the door at his heels, shutting from
+the sight of the others his wounds and his injured pride.
+
+For a little, no one said anything. Johnnie, with the water dripping
+from his yellow hair, was no longer in that generous, good-scout state
+of mind. On the contrary, he was enjoying some satisfaction over Big
+Tom's plight. How like a bully was his foster father acting!--bellowing
+with delight when he overcame a man smaller than himself, and one who
+had poor sight; and raging when a second smaller man met and bested him
+in a fair fight. But Johnnie made no comment as he picked up the
+handkerchief and the basin, wrung out the linen square and methodically
+hung it up to dry, and put away the pan.
+
+"Man dear," whispered Father Pat to the scoutmaster, "don't ye ever be
+visitin' here agin! For, shure, Barber'll kill ye!"
+
+"Oh!"--Johnnie was frightened. "And maybe he'll have y' 'rested!"
+
+"No, old fellow," said Mr. Perkins, reassuringly. "He's lost out, and
+he's not likely to advertise it. --But I'm sorry about that tooth." He
+hunted it, found it, and examined it carefully. "It's a front tooth,
+too." He dropped it into the stove.
+
+"Too-ooth?" drawled One-Eye, suddenly sitting up. Not being able to see,
+he had not been able to note the effect of the scoutmaster's art upon
+Big Tom. But now, understanding a little of the damage Mr. Perkins had
+done, the cowboy began to giggle like a girl, wrapped his arms about his
+fur-covered knees, laid his head upon them, and set his body to rocking
+hilariously. "Oh, gosh, a tooth!" he cried. "Oh! Ouch! And he begged me
+t' save this young feller's life!"
+
+Mrs. Kukor came stealing out of the tiny room. "He wass fierce!" she
+declared, under her breath. "Nefer before wass he soch-like!"
+
+"Oh, Mister Perkins, hurry up and git away!" begged Johnnie. (Suppose
+Big Tom should come bursting out of the bedroom to renew the trouble?)
+"It's been awful here ever since yesterday and it seems like I jus'
+couldn't stand no more!"
+
+"All right, scout boy." Mr. Perkins took a paper from an inner pocket of
+his coat, and from another a fountain pen which Barber had not damaged.
+He handed both to Father Pat, who rose at once and boldly entered the
+bedroom. "That's the consent," the scoutmaster explained to Johnnie. He
+got One-Eye into a chair and bandaged his swollen eye in the masterly
+manner one might logically expect from the leader of a troop. This
+addition to the cowboy's already picturesque get-up gave him an
+altogether rakish and daring touch.
+
+By the time the bandaging was done, here was Father Pat again, all wide,
+Irish smiles. "Signed!" said he. "And, shure, Mr. Perkins, he paid ye a
+grand compliment! Faith, and he did! It was after he scratched his name.
+'That dude,' said he, 'if he was t' work on the docks,' said he, 'would
+likely out-lift the whole lot of us.' Think o' it! Those were his very
+words!"
+
+Cis came forth from her room now, hatted, and carrying what she was
+taking--a few toilet articles and one or two cherished belongings of her
+mother's, all carefully wrapped in a shoe box. That it was pitiful, her
+having to go with so little, occurred neither to her nor to Johnnie. But
+it was just as well that they did not understand, as the older people in
+the kitchen did, how tragic that shoe box was.
+
+She was carrying something which she was not taking: Edwarda, until
+recently so treasured and beloved. She laid the doll upon the oilcloth,
+glanced at One-Eye, and put a finger to her lips. "You can give it to
+some little girl, Johnnie," she said; "--some real poor little girl."'
+
+"All right." (He had decided on the instant who should have Edwarda!)
+"But I'd go 'long fast, if I was you," he added, with a fearsome look
+toward the bedroom.
+
+Cis came to him. "Mrs. Kukor'll be right upstairs," she reminded (the
+little Jewish lady was trotting out and away, not trusting herself to
+look on at their farewells).
+
+"And I'll drop in often," interposed Father Pat; "--please God!"
+
+One-Eye divined what was going forward. He got up uneasily. "Dang it, if
+I ain't sorry I'm goin' West so soon again!" he fretted. "But I'll tote
+y' back with me some day, sonny--see if I don't! Also, I'll peek in
+oncet 'r twicet afore I go--that is, if my lamp gits better."
+
+"All right," said Johnnie again. He had but one idea now: to get every
+one safely away. So he was not sad.
+
+"You--you can have my room now," Cis went on, swallowing, and trying to
+smile.
+
+"Thank y'."
+
+They shook hands, then, both a little awkwardly. Next, she bent to kiss
+him. Boylike, he was not eager for that, with Father Pat and Mr. Perkins
+looking on. So he backed away deprecatingly, and she succeeded only in
+touching her lips to a tuft of his bright hair. But at once, forgetting
+manly pride, he wound his arms about her, and laid his hurt cheek
+against her shoulder; and she patted his sore back gently, and dropped a
+tear or two among the tangles brushing her face.
+
+When he drew away from her, he saw that neither Father Pat nor Mr.
+Perkins were watching them. The former had a hand across his eyes (was
+he praying, or just being polite?); while the scoutmaster, hands behind
+him, and chin in air, was staring out of the window.
+
+"I'm ready, Algy,"--Cis tried to say it as casually as if she were going
+only to the corner. She joined Father Pat and One-Eye at the door.
+
+Now it was Mr. Perkins's turn. He came over and held out a hand. "Well,
+John Blake," he said (he had never used "John" before), "you'll be in
+our thoughts every hour of the day--you, and Grandpa. You know you're
+not losing a sister; you're gaining a brother."
+
+They shook hands then, as men should. But a moment later, by an impulse
+that was mutual, each put his arms about the other in a quick embrace.
+
+"My little brother!"
+
+"My--my big brother!"
+
+"Hate to leave you, scout boy."
+
+"Aw, that's all right. Y' know me, Mister Perkins. I don't mind this old
+flat. 'Cause,--well, I don't ever have t' stay in it if I don't want t'.
+I mean, I can be wherever I want t' be. And--and I'm with Aladdin most
+o' the time, 'r King Arthur. And this next day 'r so, I'm plannin' t'
+spend on Treasure Island." All this was intended to make them feel more
+cheerful. Now he smiled; and what with the shine of his tow hair, his
+light brows and his flaxen lashes, combined with the flash of his
+yellow-flecked eyes and white teeth, the effect was as if sunlight were
+falling upon that brave, freckleless, blue-striped face.
+
+The four went then, the Father guiding One-Eye, and Cis with Mr.
+Perkins. They went, and the door closed upon them, and a hard moment was
+come to test his spirit--that moment just following the parting.
+Fortunately for him, however, Grandpa demanded attention. Beyond the
+bedroom door the little, old soldier, as if he guessed that something
+had happened, set up a sudden whimpering, and tried to turn the knob and
+come out.
+
+Johnnie brought him, giving not a glance to the great figure bulking on
+Barber's bed, and shutting the door as soft as he could. He fed the old
+man, talking to him cheerily all the while. "Cis is goin' t' be
+married," he recounted, "and have, oh, a swell weddin' trip. And then
+some day, when she gits back, she'll pop in here again, and tell us
+a-a-all about it! So now you go s'eepy-s'eepy, and when y' wake,
+Johnnie'll have some dandy supper f'r y'!"
+
+His boy's spirit buoyed up by this picture of great happiness for
+another, he began to sing as he wheeled Grandpa backward and forward--to
+sing under his breath, however, so as not to disturb Big Tom! He sang
+out of his joy over the joy of those two who were just gone out to their
+new life; and he sang to bring contentment to the heart of the little,
+old soldier, and sleep to those pale, tired eyes:
+
+        "Oh, Cis, she's goin' t' be Mrs. Algernon Perkins,
+         And live in a' awful stylish flat.
+         There's a carpet and curtains in the flat,
+         And a man 'most as good as Buckle t' do all the work.
+         And she's goin' t' have a velvet dress, I think, maybe,
+         And plenty o' good things t' eat all the time--
+         Butter ev-ry day, I guess, and eggs, too,
+         And nice, red apples, if she wants 'em----"
+
+And so, caroling on and on, he put old Grandpa to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But how his song would have died in his throat if he could have guessed
+that, of the four who had just left,--those four whom he loved so
+sincerely--one, and oh, what a dear, dear one, was never to pass across
+the threshold again!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+LEFT BEHIND
+
+
+EMPTY!
+
+He did not enter the tiny room. Now, all at once, it seemed a sacred
+place, having for so long sheltered her who was sweet and fine. And he
+felt instinctively that the blue-walled retreat was not for him; that he
+should not stretch himself out in his soiled, ragged clothes on that
+dainty couch-shelf where she had lain.
+
+He stood on the threshold to look in. How beautiful it was! From to-day
+forward, would she truly have another any handsomer? The faint perfume
+of it (just recently she had acquired a fresh stock of orris root) was
+like a breath from some flower-filled garden--such a garden as he had
+read about in _The Story of Aladdin_. And yes, the little cell itself
+was like one of Aladdin's caskets from which had been taken a precious
+jewel.
+
+Just now it was a casket very much in disarray, for Cis had tumbled it
+in wind-storm fashion as she made ready to leave, carelessly throwing
+down several things that she had formerly handled delicately: the paper
+roses, the sliver of mirror, the pretty face of a moving-picture
+favorite. As for that box flounced with bright crepe paper, it was
+ignominiously heaved to one side. And that cherished likeness of Mr.
+Roosevelt was hanging slightly askew.
+
+But Johnnie did not set straight the photograph of his hero, or stoop to
+pick anything up. He could think of just one thing: she was gone!
+
+And she would never come back--never, never, never, never! He began to
+repeat the word, as he and Cis had been wont to repeat words, trying
+hard to realize the whole of their meaning: "Never! never! never!
+never." And once more there came over him that curious lost feeling that
+he had suffered after Aunt Sophie was gone in the clanging ambulance.
+Once more, too, he grew rebellious. "Oh, why does ev'rything have t' go
+'n' bust up!" he questioned brokenly, voicing again the eternal protest
+of youth against an unexpected, pain-dealing shift in Life's program.
+
+That time he had run away, she had promised that she would never leave
+_him_!--had said it with many nevers. "And she ain't ever before stayed
+out in the evenin' like this," he told himself. No, not in all the years
+he had been at the Barber flat.
+
+However, he felt no resentment toward her for going. How could he? Now
+that she was away, she seemed unspeakably dear, faultlessly perfect.
+
+But, left behind, what was he? what did he have? what would become of
+him? To all those questions there was only one answer: Nothing. He was
+alone with a helpless, childish, old man and that other. "And I've tried
+'n' tried!" he protested (he meant that he had tried to please Barber,
+tried to do his work better, tried to deserve more consideration from
+the longshoreman). And this was what had come of all his striving: Cis
+had been driven away.
+
+"Oh, nothin' worse can happen t' me!" he declared despairingly.
+"Nothin'! nothin'!" What a staff she had always been, and how much he
+had leaned upon that staff, he did not suspect till now, when it was
+wrenched from under his hand. He had a fuller understanding, too, of
+what a comfort she had steadily been--she, the only bright and beautiful
+thing in the dark, poor flat! And to think that, boylike, he had ever
+shrunk out from under her caressing fingers, or fled from her proffered
+kiss! O his darling comrade and friend! O little mother and sister in
+one!
+
+"Cis!" he faltered. "Cis!"
+
+An almost intolerable sense of loss swept him, like a wave brimming the
+cup of his grief. His forehead seemed to be bulging, as if it would
+burst. His heart was bursting, too. And something was tearing, clawlike,
+at his throat and at his vitals. Just where the lower end of his
+breastbone left off was the old, awful, aching, gnawing, "gone" feeling.
+Much in his short life he had found hard to bear; but never anything so
+appalling as this! If only he might cry a little!
+
+"Sir Gawain, he c-cried," he remembered, "when he found out he was
+f-fightin' his own b-brother. And Sir G-Gareth, he c-cried too." Also,
+no law of the twelve in the Handbook forbade a scout to weep.
+
+His eyes closed, his mouth lengthened out pathetically, his cheeks
+puckered, his chin drew up grotesquely, trembling as if tortured; then
+he bent his head and began to sob, terribly, yet silently, for he feared
+to waken Grandpa. Down his hurt face streamed the tears, to fall on the
+big, old shirt, and on his feet, while he leaned against the door-jamb,
+a drooping, shaking, broken-hearted little figure.
+
+"Oh, I can't git along without her!" he whispered. "I can't stand it!
+Oh, I want her back! I want her back!"
+
+When he had cried away the sharp edge of his grief, a deliciously sad
+mood came over him. In _The Legends of King Arthur_, more than one
+grieving person had succumbed to sorrow. He wondered if he would die of
+his; and he saw himself laid out, stricken, on a barge, attended by
+three Queens, who were putting to sea to take him to the Vale of
+Avilion.
+
+The picture brought him peace.
+
+There followed one of his thinks. He brought Cis back into the little
+room, seated her on her narrow bed, with her slender shoulders leaned
+against the excelsior pillow which once she had prized. In her best
+dress, which was white, she showed ghostily among the shadows. But he
+could see her violet eyes clearly, and the look in them was tender and
+loving.
+
+He held out his arms to her.
+
+Somewhere, far off, a bell rang. It was like a summons. The wraith of
+his own making vanished. He wiped his eyes, now with one fringed sleeve,
+now with the other, stooped and felt round just inside the little room
+for his scrap of mattress and the quilt, took them up, softly shut the
+door, and turned about.
+
+That same moment the hall door began slowly to open, propelled from
+without by an unseen hand. "St!" came a low warning. Next, a dim hand
+showed itself, reaching in at the floor level with a large yellow bowl.
+It placed the bowl to one side, disappeared, returned again at once with
+a goodish chunk of _schwarzbrod_, laid the bread beside the bowl,
+traveled up to the outside knob, and drew the door to.
+
+He knew that the dim hand was plump and brown, and that it belonged to
+the little Jewish lady, who never yet had been forgetful of him, who was
+always prompt with motherly help. He knew that; and yet, as he watched
+it all, there was something of a sweet mystery about it, and he was
+reminded of that wonderful arm, clothed in white samite, which had come
+thrusting up out of the lake to give the sword Excalibur to great King
+Arthur.
+
+He did not go to get what had been left (noodles, he guessed, tastily
+thickening a broth). Grandpa was already fed for the night, and asleep
+in the wheel chair, where Johnnie intended to leave him, not liking to
+rap on the bedroom door and disturb Big Tom. As for his own appetite, it
+seemed to have deserted him forever.
+
+Noiselessly he put down his bedding beside the table. And it was then
+that he made out, by the faint light coming in at the window, the two
+dolls, Letitia and Edwarda, huddled together on the oilcloth. Letitia,
+small, old, worn out in long service to her departed mistress, had one
+sawdust arm thrown across Edwarda. And Edwarda, proud though she was,
+and beautiful in her silks and laces, had a smooth, round, artfully
+jointed arm thrown across Letitia. It was as if each was comforting the
+other!
+
+Johnnie picked up the old doll. Somehow she seemed closer and dearer to
+him than the new one. Perhaps--who knew?--she, also, was mourning the
+absent beloved. (If there was any feeling in her, she had been
+inconsolable this long time, what with being cast aside for a grander
+rival.) "Well, Letitia," he whispered, "here we are, you and--and me!"
+
+It was growing dark in the kitchen. Besides, no one was there to mark
+his weakness and taunt him with it. He put his face against faithful
+Letitia's faded dress--that dress which Cis herself had made, pricking
+her pink fingers scandalously in the process, and had washed and ironed
+season after season. That was it! He loved the old doll the better
+because she was a part of Cis.
+
+"Oh, dear Letitia!" he whispered again, and strained the doll to his
+heart.
+
+Then he took up Edwarda, who opened her eyes with a sharp click.
+Edwarda, favorite of her young owner, smelled adorably--like the tiny
+room, like the birthday roses, like apples. And her dainty presence,
+exhaling the familiar scent of the dressing-table box, brought Cis even
+nearer to him than had Letitia. With a choking exclamation, he caught
+the new doll to him along with the old, and held both tight.
+
+Then dropping to the mattress, he laid the pair side by side before
+crumpling down with them, digging his nose into one of Edwarda's
+fragrant sleeves. The instant her head struck the bed, Edwarda had
+clicked her eyes shut, as if quite indifferent to all that had happened
+that day (not to speak of the previous night), and had fallen asleep
+like a shot. Not so the sterling Letitia, who lay staring, open-eyed, at
+the ceiling.
+
+But Johnnie, worn with emotion, weak from yesterday's whipping, sick and
+weary from last night's long hours across the table edge, sank into a
+deep and merciful and repairing sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+UPS AND DOWNS
+
+
+HE awoke a changed boy. How it had come about, or why, he did not try to
+reason; but on opening his gray eyes at dawn, he felt distinctly two
+astonishing differences in himself: first, his sorrow over Cis's going
+seemed entirely spent, as if it had taken leave of him some time in the
+night; second, and more curious than the other, along with that sorrow
+had evidently departed all of his old fear of Big Tom!
+
+The fact that Johnnie no longer stood in dread of Barber was, doubtless,
+due to the fact that he had seen the giant outmatched and brought to
+terms. He hated him still (perhaps even more than ever); yet holding him
+in contempt, did not indulge in a single revenge think. He understood
+that, with Cis away, the longshoreman needed him as he had never needed
+him before. So Barber would not dare to be ugly or cruel again, lest he
+lose Johnnie too. "If I followed Cis where'd he be?" the boy asked
+himself. "Huh! He better be careful!"
+
+As to Cis, now that he had had a good rest, it was easy for him to see
+that this change which had come into her life was a thing to be grateful
+for, not a matter to be mourned about. After her trouble with Barber,
+she could not stay on in the flat and be happy. Granting this, how
+fortunate it was that she could at once marry the man she loved. (And
+what a man!)
+
+He saw her in that splendid, imaginary apartment in which he had long
+ago installed Mr. Perkins. And was he, John Blake, wishing that she
+would stay in a tiny, if beautiful, room without a window?
+
+"Aw, shucks, no!" he cried. "I don't want y' back! I miss y', but I'm
+_awful_ glad y'r gone! And I don't mind bein' left here."
+
+He felt hopeful, ambitious, independent.
+
+He rose with a will. He was stiff, just at first, but strong and steady
+on his feet. As in the past he had never made a habit of pitying
+himself, he did not pity himself now, but took his aches and pains as he
+had taken them many a time before, that is, by dismissing them from his
+mind. He was hungry. He was eager for his daily wash. He wanted to get
+at his morning exercises, and take with them a whiff of the outdoors
+coming in at the window. By a glance at his patch of sky he could tell
+that this whiff would be pleasant. For how clear and blue was that bit
+of Heaven which he counted as a personal belonging! And just across the
+area the sun was already beginning to wash all the roofs with its
+aureate light.
+
+Three sparrows hailed him from the window ledge, shrilly demanding
+crumbs. Crumbs made him think of Mrs. Kukor's stealthy gift. Sure
+enough, the yellow bowl held soup. In the soup was spaghetti--the wide,
+ribbony, slippery kind he especially liked, coiled about in a broth
+which smelled deliciously of garlic. As for the black bread, some
+nibbling visitor of the night had helped himself to one corner of it,
+and this corner, therefore, went at once to the birds.
+
+"My goodness!" soliloquized Johnnie. "How the mice do love Mrs. Kukor's
+bread!" And he could not blame them. It _was_ so good!
+
+Then, a trifle startled, he noted that the wheel chair was not in the
+kitchen; but guessed at once that Barber had quietly rolled Grandpa into
+the bedroom at a late hour. Next, his roving glance dropped back to the
+old mattress, and he caught sight of the dolls. Forgetting what a
+comfort they had been to him the evening before, this while feeling
+boyishly ashamed and foolish at having had them with him, in a panic he
+caught them up and flung them, willy-nilly, out of sight upon Cis's
+couch; after which, looking sheepish, and wondering if Big Tom had, by
+any chance, seen them, he put away his bedding, filled the teakettle,
+and reached down the package of oatmeal.
+
+It was not till he started to build a fire that he remembered! In the
+fire box still was all that remained of his uniform, his books, and the
+Carnegie medal. He lifted a stove lid; then as a mourner looks down into
+a grave that has received a dear one, so, for a long, sad moment, he
+gazed into the ashes. "Oh, my stories!" he faltered. "Oh, my peachy suit
+o' clothes!"
+
+But it was the medal he hunted. On pressing the ashes through into the
+ash-box, something fell with a clear tinkle, and he dug round till he
+found a burned and blackened disk. Fire had harmed it woefully. That
+side bearing the face of its donor was roughened and scarred, so that no
+likeness of Mr. Carnegie survived; but on the other side, near to the
+rim, several words still stood out clearly--_that a man lay down his
+life for his friends_.
+
+After more poking around he found all the metal buttons off the uniform,
+each showing the scout device, for, being small, the buttons had dropped
+into the ashes directly their hold upon the cloth was loosened by the
+flames, and so escaped serious damage. Also, following a more careful
+search, he discovered--the tooth.
+
+The clock alarm rang, and he surmised that Big Tom had wound it when he
+came out for Grandpa.
+
+"John!"
+
+Somehow that splintered bit of Barber's tusk made Johnnie feel more
+independent than ever. With it between a thumb and finger, he dared be
+so indifferent to the summons that he did not reply at once. Instead, he
+took the buttons to the sink and rinsed them; rinsed the tooth, too.
+Then he put the medal into the shallow dish holding the dead rose
+leaves, filled a cracked coffee cup with the buttons, and tossed the
+tooth into the drawer of the kitchen table.
+
+"John!"--an anxious John this time, as if the longshoreman half feared
+the boy was gone.
+
+"I'm up."
+
+"Wish y'd come here."
+
+Johnnie smiled grimly as he went. That "wish" was new! Always heretofore
+it had been "You do this" and "You do that." Evidently something of a
+change had also been wrought in Big Tom! The bedroom door was ajar an
+inch or two. Through the narrow crack Johnnie glimpsed Grandpa, in his
+chair, ready to be trundled out. But Barber was lying down, his face
+half turned away.
+
+"Wheel the old man into the kitchen," said the latter as he heard
+Johnnie. He spoke with a lisp (that tooth!), and his voice sounded weak.
+"And then bring me somethin' t' eat, will y'?"
+
+Having said Yes without a Sir, Johnnie wagged his head philosophically,
+the while he steered the chair skilfully across the sill. "Plenty o'
+good turns t' do now," he told himself; "and all o' 'em for _him_!"
+
+But--a scout is faithful. He built the fire and cooked a tasty
+meal--toast, with the grease of bacon trimmings soaking it, coffee, and
+rolled oats--and placed it on Grandpa's bed, handy to the longshoreman.
+Then he shut the bedroom door smartly, as a signal that Big Tom was to
+have privacy, and returned to his own program.
+
+He scampered downstairs for Grandpa's milk and his own, taking time to
+exchange a grin with the janitress, to whom Barber's defeat of yesterday
+was no grief. Then back he raced, washed, combed and fed the little,
+old soldier, helping him to think the gruel a "swell puddin'," and the
+service Buckle's best. After that there was a short trip to Madison
+Square Garden where, despite all facts to the contrary, a colossal
+circus had moved in. Johnnie summoned lions before the wheel chair, and
+tigers, camels, Arab steeds and elephants, Cis's room serving admirably
+as the cage which contained these various quadrupeds. And, naturally,
+there was a deal of growling and roaring and kicking and neighing, while
+the camels barked surprisingly like Boof, and the elephants conversed
+with something of a Hebrew accent. All of which greatly delighted
+Grandpa, and he cackled till his scraggly beard was damp with happy
+tears.
+
+When he was asleep there was sweeping to do (with wet, scattered tea
+leaves, and a broom drenched frequently at Niagara falls, all this to
+help keep down the dust). A few dishes of massy gold needed washing,
+too. The stove--that iron urn holding precious dust--called for the
+polishing rag. Of all these duties Johnnie made quick work.
+
+Then, without a thought that Big Tom might come forth, see, and seeing,
+disapprove, Johnnie switched to the floor that square of oilcloth which
+so often covered the Table Round, rolled the wash-tub into place at the
+cloth's center, and partly filled it. At once there followed such a
+soaping and scrubbing, such a splashing and rinsing! Whenever the cold
+water struck a sore spot there were gasps and ouches.
+
+A close attention to details was not lacking. Ears were not forgotten,
+nor the areas behind them; nor was the neck (all the way around); nor
+were such soil-gathering spots as knee-knobs and elbow-points; nor even
+the black-and-blue streaks across an earnest face. And presently, the
+drying process over, and Cis's old toothbrush laid away, a pink and
+glowing body was bending and twisting close to the window, and shooting
+out its limbs.
+
+When Johnnie was dressed, and stood, clean and combed and straight on
+his pins, his chest heaving as he glanced around a kitchen which was
+shipshape, and upon his aged friend, who was as presentable as possible,
+it occurred to him that when a caller happened in this morning--Mrs.
+Kukor, Father Pat, or Cis; or when he, himself, fetched King Arthur, or
+Mr. Roosevelt, or Robinson Crusoe, no excuses of any kind would have to
+be made. He and his house were in order.
+
+Mrs. Kukor. So far he had not noticed a sound from overhead. When the
+brown shoes were on, he rapped an I'm-coming-up signal on the sink pipe.
+There was no answer. He rapped it again, and louder, watching the clock
+this time, in order to give the little Jewish lady a full minute to rise
+from her rocking chair. But she did not rise; and no steps went
+doll-walking across the ceiling. At this early hour could Mrs. Kukor be
+out? He went up.
+
+Another surprise. Another change. Another blow. At her door was her
+morning paper, with its queer lettering; on the door, pinned low, was
+what looked like a note. Feeling sure that it had been left for him,
+Johnnie carried it half-way to the roof to get a light on its message,
+which was sorry news indeed:
+
+_Der Jony my rebeka has so bad sicknus i needs to go by hir love Leah
+Kukor._
+
+He was so pained by the explanation, so saddened to learn that his
+devoted friend would be gone all day, that he descended absentmindedly
+to the flat directly below Barber's, where he walked in unceremoniously
+upon nine Italians of assorted sizes--the Fossis, all swarmed about
+their breakfast in a smoke-filled room.
+
+With a hasty excuse, he darted out; then, his heart as lead, climbed
+home. Poor Mrs. Kukor! Poor daughter Rebecca! Poor baby, whose mamma
+had a "bad sicknus!" And, yes, poor husband, Mr. Reisenberger!--even
+though he was "awful rich."
+
+The broom had swept from under the stove those lengths of clothesline.
+With more philosophical wags of the head, Johnnie fastened them end to
+end with weaver's knots, and rehung the rope, knowing as he worked that
+he could never again bear to telephone along that mended line.
+
+"Gee! Barber spoils ev'rything!" he declared.
+
+After the rope was up he felt weak. He sat down at the table, thin legs
+curled round the rungs of the kitchen chair, clean elbows on the
+restored oilcloth, a big fist propping each cheek; and presently found
+himself listening, waiting, his eyes on the hall door. At every noise,
+he gave a start, and hope added its shine to that other shine which soap
+had left on his face.
+
+And so the long morning passed. Shortly after noon, he carried dinner in
+to Big Tom, and took away the breakfast dishes. Grandpa went as far as
+the door with him, and opened grave, baby eyes at sight of his prostrate
+son. "Oh, Tommie sick!" he whispered, frightened. "Poor Tommie sick!"
+
+"Shut up!" growled "poor Tommie," roughly, and Grandpa backed off
+quickly, with soft tap-taps.
+
+"Maybe y' better have a doctor," essayed Johnnie, practically, and as
+calmly as he might have said it to Cis.
+
+"You mind your business."
+
+The afternoon was longer than the morning. Johnnie sat at the table
+again. His face was hot, and he kept a dipper of water in front of him
+so that he could take frequent draughts. Sometimes he watched his patch
+of sky; sometimes he shut his eyes and read from the burned books, or
+looked at their pictures; now and then he slept--a few minutes at a
+time--his head on his arms.
+
+Toward evening, though rested physically, he found his spirits again
+drooping. Bravely as he had started the day, its hours of futile waiting
+had tried him. (Could it be possible that grief was a matter of the
+clock?) As twilight once more moved upon the city it brought with it the
+misery, the loneliness and the pain which had been his just twenty-four
+hours before. Oh, where, he asked himself, was the light step, the
+tender voice, the helpful hand of her who had hurried home to him every
+nightfall of the past?
+
+He understood then what a difference there could be between bodily
+suffering and mental suffering. His whipping, severe as it had been, was
+over and done, and all but forgotten. But this sorrow--! "Gee!" he
+breathed, marveling; "how it sticks!"
+
+No; he had not realized when Cis left how hard it would be to stay on at
+the flat without her. And ahead of him were how many days like this one?
+He seemed there to stay for a time that was all but forever!
+
+That night it was Boof who shared the mattress with him. He whispered to
+the dog for a long while, recounting his troubles. Afterward, he said
+over the tenth law, that one having to do with bravery. "Defeat does not
+down him" the Handbook had said; and he was not downed. He thought of
+every valiant soul he knew--Aladdin, Heywood, Uncas, Jim Hawkins,
+Lancelot, Crusoe. He fought the tears. But he felt utterly stricken,
+wholly deserted.
+
+--By all save Polaris, now risen above the roofs. "Oh, you can see
+ev'rything!" Johnnie said to the star, enviously. "So, please, where is
+Father Pat?"
+
+But Polaris only stared back at him. Bright and hard, calm and
+unchanging, what difference did it make to so proud a beacon--the woe of
+one small boy?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Joy cometh with the morning. This time Joy wore the disguise of a cowboy
+who had a black eye, a bag of apples, a newspaper, and two cigars. Also
+he carried a couple of businesslike packages, large ones, well wrapped
+in thick brown paper and wound with heavy string.
+
+The excitement and happiness that One-Eye roused when he shuffled in
+came very nearly being the end of Johnnie, who could not believe his own
+eyes, but had to take hold of a shaggy trouser leg in order to convince
+himself that this was a real visitor and not just a think.
+
+The Westerner appeared to have changed his mind about Big Tom in much
+the same way that Johnnie had changed his (and, doubtless, for the same
+reason). Dropping all of his packages, and fishing the cigars from a top
+vest-pocket, he stalked boldly into the bedroom. "Say!" he began,
+"here's a couple o' flora dee rope. Smoke you' blamed haid off!" Then,
+as Barber, grunting, reached a grateful hand for the gift, "An', say!
+I've brung the kid some more of all what y' burned up. So tell me--right
+now--if y' got any objections."
+
+"No-o-o-o!"--crossly.
+
+"If y' have, spit 'em out!"
+
+"Gimme a match!"
+
+It was a victory!
+
+"That feller's lost his face!" One-Eye confided to Johnnie when the
+bedroom door was shut. He winked emphatically with that darkly colored
+good eye.
+
+"L--lost his face?" cried Johnnie, aghast. "What y' mean, One-Eye? But
+he had it this mornin'! I _saw_ it!"
+
+"Aw, y' little jay-hawk!" returned the cowboy, fondly.
+
+Then, excitement! In a short space of time which the Westerner described
+as "two shakes o' a lamb's tail," Johnnie was garbed from hat to
+leggings in a brand-new scout uniform, and was gloating and gurgling
+over another _Robinson Crusoe_, another _Treasure Island_, another _Last
+of the Mohicans_, another _Legends of King Arthur_, and another
+_Aladdin_. Each had tinted illustrations. Each was stiff with newness,
+and sweet to the smell. "And the sky-book, 'r whatever y' call it, and
+the scout-book, w'y, they'll come t'morra, 'r the day after, I don't
+know which. --Wal, what d' y' say?"
+
+"I say 'Thanks'--with _all_ of me!" Johnnie answered, trembling with
+earnestness. They shook hands solemnly.
+
+"Oh, our books!" cried Grandpa. "Our nice, little soldier!" To him, the
+cowboy's presents were those which had gone into the stove.
+
+There was something in that newspaper for Johnnie to read. It was a
+short announcement. This had in it no element of surprise for him, since
+it told him nothing he did not already know. Nevertheless, it took his
+breath away. In a column headed "_Marriages_" were two lines which read,
+"_Perkins-Way: April 18, Algernon Godfrey Perkins to Narcissa Amy Way_."
+
+"It's so!" murmured Johnnie, awed. "They're both married!" Seeing it in
+print like that, the truth was clinched, being given, not only a
+certainty, but a dignity and a finality only to be conveyed by type.
+"One-Eye, it's _so_!"
+
+One-Eye 'lowed it was.
+
+"And, my goodness!" Johnnie added. "Think o' Cis havin' her name in the
+paper!"
+
+They sat for a while without speaking. Grandpa, having been generously
+supplied by the cowboy with scraped apple, slept as sleeps a fed baby.
+Johnnie stacked and restacked his five books, caressing them, drawing in
+the fragrance of their leaves. One-Eye studied the floor and jiggled a
+foot.
+
+"Sonny," he said presently (it was plain that he had something on his
+mind); "y' won't feel too down-in-the-mouth if I tell y'--tell
+y'--er--aw--" The spurred foot stopped jiggling.
+
+"What? Oh, One-Eye, y're not goin' away right off?"
+
+"T'night."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"But, shucks, I'll be sailin' back East again in no time! These Noo York
+big-bugs is jes' yelpin' constant fer my polo ponies."
+
+"I'm glad." But there was a shadow now upon a countenance which a moment
+before had been beaming. Things were going wrong with him--everything--all
+at once. It was almost as if some malign genie were working against him.
+"Mrs. Kukor's away, too," he said. "And with Cis gone--" He swallowed
+hard.
+
+One-Eye began to talk in a husky monotone, as if to himself. "They's
+nobody else jes' like her," he declared; "that's a cinch! She's shore
+the kind that comes one in a box! Whenever I'd look at her, I'd allus
+think o' a angel, 'r a bird, 'r a little, bobbin' rose." He sighed,
+uncrossed his shaggy knees, crossed them the other way, shifted his quid
+of tobacco to the opposite cheek, and pulled down the brim of the wide
+hat till it touched his leathery nose. "Such a slim, little figger!" he
+added. "Such a pert, little haid! And--and a cute face! And she was
+white! _Plumb_ white!"
+
+Johnnie, as he listened, understood that the cowboy was talking of
+Cis--no one else. He was not mourning his own departure, nor regretting
+the fact that a small, lonely boy was to be left behind. Which gave that
+boy such a pang of jealousy as helped him considerably to bear this new
+blow.
+
+"Wal," went on One-Eye, philosophically, "I never was a lucky cuss. If
+the sky was t' rain down green turtle soup, yours truly 'd find himself
+with jes' a fork in his pocket."
+
+What was the cowboy hinting? How had luck gone against him, who was
+grown-up, and rich, and free to travel whither he desired? And, above
+all, what connection was there between Cis and green turtle soup?
+
+Johnnie could not figure it out. With all his power of imagination,
+there was one thing he never did understand--the truth concerning
+One-Eye's feeling toward a certain young lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+ANOTHER GOOD-BY
+
+
+JOHNNIE could hear a fumbling outside in the hall, as if some one was
+going slowly to and fro, brushing a wall with gentle, uncertain hands.
+Cautiously he tiptoed to his own door and listened, his heart beating a
+little faster than the occasion warranted, this because he had just been
+scooting about the deck of the _Hispaniola_ again with Jim Hawkins,
+eluding that terrible Mr. Hands; and he was still more or less close in
+to the shore of Treasure Island, rather than in New York City, and
+hardly able to realize that in the gloomy, old kitchen he was reasonably
+safe from a pirate's knife.
+
+The noise in the hall traveled away from the Barber door to another on
+the same floor. Johnnie concluded that the Italian janitress was giving
+the dark passage its annual scrub. As he had no wish to exchange words
+with her, much preferring the society of the rash, but plucky, Jim, he
+stole back to the table, and once more projected himself half the world
+away.
+
+Three days had passed since One-Eye's departure. They had been quiet
+days. Mrs. Kukor was still gone. Big Tom ventured forth from his
+self-imposed imprisonment only late at night. Cis and Mr. Perkins, save
+for a cheery greeting scribbled on a post card that pictured the Capitol
+at Washington, seemed utterly to have cut themselves off from the flat.
+As for Father Pat, of course he had not forgotten Johnnie, not forsaken
+a friend; nevertheless, there had been no sign of him.
+
+But having again his seven beloved books (the two extra ones had arrived
+by parcel post), Johnnie had not fretted once. What time had he for
+fretting? He was either working--cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning,
+waiting on the longshoreman or the aged soldier, going out grandly in
+his scout uniform to fetch things from the grocer's, smartening
+Grandpa's appearance or his own--or else he was reading. And when he was
+reading, his world and all of its cares dropped magically away from him,
+and the clock hands fairly spun.
+
+One-Eye bidden a brave good-by, one of Johnnie's first jobs had been the
+rearranging of Cis's closet room. Though he still felt that he could not
+take over for his own use the little place which was sacred to her,
+nevertheless he had considered it a fit and proper spot in which to
+enshrine his seven volumes. So he had set the dressing-table box back
+against the wall, straightened its flounces, and placed the books in a
+row upon this attractive bit of furniture, flanking them at one end with
+the lamp, at the other with the alarm clock. Then he named the tiny room
+the library.
+
+The lamp was for use at night, so that he could prolong his hours of
+study and enjoyment, seated on his mattress which, folded twice, made a
+luxurious seat of just the right height to command a good view of Mr.
+Roosevelt. The clock, on the other hand, was for daylight use only. When
+he was seated at the kitchen table, an elbow at either side of a book,
+his head propped, and his spirit far away, the clock (having been set
+with forethought, but wound only one turn) sounded a soft, short tinkle
+for him, calling him from Crusoe's realm, or from those northern forests
+through which he followed after Heywood, or from China, from Treasure
+Island, from Caerleon; and warning him it was time to prepare Big Tom a
+meal.
+
+The fumbling about the hall door began again. Next, the knob was
+turned, slowly and uncertainly, as if by a child. Once more cutting
+short that enthralling hunt for gold, Johnnie hurried back to the door
+and opened it--and looked into the beady, bright black eyes of an
+exceedingly old lady.
+
+She had on a black dress which was evidently as old as herself, for in
+spots it was the same rusty color as the few faded hairs, streaked with
+gray, which showed from under her ancient headshawl. In one shaking hand
+she held a stout cane; in the other, a slip of paper. This latter she
+offered him. And he found written on it his own name and Barber's, also
+brief directions for locating the building in the area.
+
+"What's this for?" asked Johnnie. "What d' y' want me t' do? I can't
+give y' anything 'cept a cup o' tea. I'm sorry, but I'm broke."
+
+"Mm-mm-mm-mm," mumbled the old lady; then showing a double line of gums
+in a smile, she plucked at his sleeve. "Father Mmmmm!" she said again.
+"Ah-ha? ah-ha? ah-ha?" With each ah-a, she backed a step invitingly, and
+nodded him to come with her.
+
+Father Mungovan! A shiver ran all down him. For instantly he knew why
+she had come. Running to the stove, he wet down the fire with some hot
+water out of the teakettle, put away his book, brought out his own quilt
+to cover Grandpa's knees, swiftly laid Big Tom's place at the table, cut
+some bread, made the tea, then knocked on the bedroom door to explain
+that supper was ready on the oilcloth, but that he had to go out.
+
+If Barber made any reply or objection to that, Johnnie did not hear it.
+"Father Mungovan's sick?" he asked the old lady as he followed her, a
+step at a time, down the three flights.
+
+"Sick," she assented, nodding the shawled head. "Ah-ha! ah-ha! ah-ha!"
+
+She hobbled, and even on the level sidewalk her pace was slow. He tried
+to help her, but she would not have his hand under her elbow, pulling
+away from him, muttering, and pointing ahead with her stick.
+
+"Where d' we go t'?" he asked, for it was in his mind to set off by
+himself at a run. However, he could not understand what she replied; and
+soon gave up trying, feeling that, after all, a boy who intended to be a
+scout should not leave such a weak, aged soul behind, all alone, but
+should stay to help her over the crossings. "I'm 'xac'ly like that
+picture in the Handbook!" he reminded himself.
+
+But it was little assistance the old lady needed. At every crossing she
+went stumping boldly forward, her cane high in the air and shaken
+threateningly, while she looked neither to the right nor the left,
+paying no attention to on-coming vehicles, whether these were
+street-cars, motors or teams, only warning each and all with a piping
+"Ah-ha! ah-ha! ah-ha!"
+
+People smiled at her. They smiled also, and admiringly, at the freshly
+uniformed, blond-haired boy scout striding beside her, whose face, by
+the fading marks upon it, indicated that lately he had accidentally
+bumped into something.
+
+But Johnnie saw no one, so completely were his thoughts taken up. Of
+course Father Pat was sick. That was why he had not been back to the
+flat. Was there, the boy wondered, anything a scout could do for the
+beloved priest? Johnnie thought of all those instructions in the
+Handbook which concerned the aiding and saving of others. "Oh, I want t'
+help him!" he cried, and in his eagerness forged ahead of the old lady,
+whereupon she poked him sharply with the stick.
+
+"Slow! Slow!" she ordered, breathing open-mouthed.
+
+The distance seemed endless. Johnnie began to fear that he might not
+reach the Father before he died. "Oh, all that fightin' was bad for
+him!" he concluded regretfully. "That's what's the matter! It wore him
+out! I wish Mrs. Kukor didn't go for him! But, oh, he mustn't die! He
+mustn't! He _mustn't_!"
+
+And yet that was precisely what Father Pat was about to do. When Johnnie
+had climbed the steps of a brownstone house and been admitted by a
+strange priest; and between long portieres had entered a high, dim room
+where there was a wide, white bed, he realized the worst at once. For
+even to young eyes that had never before looked upon death, it was plain
+that a great, a solemn, and a strangely terrible change had come into
+that revered, homely, kindly face. Its smile was not gone--not
+altogether; but still showed faintly around the big, tender Irish mouth.
+But, ah, the dear, red hair was wet with mortal sweat, and lay in thin,
+trailing wisps upon a brow uncommonly white.
+
+Yes, Father Pat had been right; the bridges made for him by the elderly
+dentist "who needed the work" were to outlast the necessity for them.
+And the big, young, broad-shouldered soldier-priest was going out even
+before little, feeble, old Grandpa!
+
+"Father Pat!" whispered the boy.
+
+The green eyes, moving more slowly than was their wont, traveled
+inquiringly from place to place till they found their object, then fixed
+themselves lovingly upon Johnnie's face. Next, out stole a hand, feebly
+searching for another.
+
+"Little--golden--thing!"
+
+Ah, how hard he was breathing! "If I could jus' give him _my_ breath!"
+thought Johnnie; "'r my lungs!" He took the searching hand, but turned
+his face away. There was a small, round table beside the bed. Upon it
+were some flowers in a glass, a prayer book, a rosary, a goblet of
+water, a fan. Mechanically he counted the things--over and over. He was
+dry-eyed. He felt not the least desire to weep. The grief he was
+enduring was too poignant for tears. It was as if he had been slashed
+from forehead to knees with a sword.
+
+"I'm not actin' like a scout," he thought suddenly. And forced himself
+to turn again to that friend so heart-rendingly changed. Then aloud, and
+striving to speak evenly, "Father Pat, y're not goin' t' die, are y'?
+No, y're not goin' t' die!"
+
+He felt his hand pressed. "Die?" repeated the Father, and Johnnie saw
+that there was almost a playful glint in the green eyes. "Shure, scout
+boy,"--halting with each word--"dyin's a thing we all come t', one time
+or another. Ye know, ev'ry year manny a man dies that's never died
+before."
+
+"I couldn't have y' go," urged the boy. "Oh, Father Pat, Cis, she's
+gone, but I can stand it, 'cause she's happy. But you--you--_you_--!"
+Words failed him.
+
+"Lad dear,"--and now the Father's look was grave and tender--"God's will
+be done."
+
+"Oh, yes! I--I know. But, oh, Father Pat, promise me that--that y'
+won't--_go far_!"
+
+"Ah!"--the dimming eyes suddenly swam in pity.
+
+"Jus' t' the nearest star, Father Pat! Jus' t' the nearest star!"
+
+"Little star lover!" Then after a pause for rest, "Johnnie, ye've loved
+Father Pat a good bit?"
+
+"Oh, so much! So much!"
+
+"And I've loved the little poet--the dreamer! And I've faith--in him--as
+I go."
+
+Johnnie knelt--yes, the same Johnnie who had always felt so shy when any
+one spoke of God, or prayer, or being religious. How natural the act of
+kneeling was, now that he was face to face with this tragedy which no
+earthly power could avert! It was quite as the Father had once
+predicted: "Ah, when the day comes, lad dear, that ye feel bad enough,
+when grief fair strikes ye down, and there's nobody can help ye but God,
+then ye'll understand why men pray." Well, that day had come. Now
+everything was in His hands.
+
+Yet Johnnie could not shape a prayer--could only beg dumbly for help as
+he clung to Father Pat's hand, and laid his cheek against it.
+
+It was while he was kneeling that he saw, entering between those
+portieres, some one dressed in white--a woman. White she wore, too, upon
+the silky white of her hair. The snowy headdress framed a face pale, but
+beautiful, with the beauty that comes from service and self-sacrifice
+and suffering.
+
+The instant Johnnie glimpsed that face, and looked into the sad, brave
+eyes, he knew her!--knew her though she wore no red cross upon her
+sleeve. Of course, among all the souls in the great universe, she would
+be the one to come now, just when he, Johnnie, needed the sight of her
+to make him more staunch!
+
+He remembered how she had stood before the firing-squad, not shrinking
+from her fate, not crying out in terror of the cruel bullets. And now
+how poised she was, how fearless, in this room where Death was waiting!
+Awe-struck, adoring her, and scarcely daring to breathe lest she vanish,
+he got slowly to his feet.
+
+"Edith Cavell!" he whispered.
+
+"Edith--Cavell!" echoed Father Pat. "'Twas her dyin'--that
+helped--manny----"
+
+"It's time to go," she said softly. "Tell the Father good-by."
+
+Dutifully he turned to take that last farewell. But now that he had the
+martyred nurse at his side, he determined to endure the parting
+manfully. He knelt again, and tried to smile at the face smiling back at
+him from the pillow. He tried to speak, too, but his lips seemed stiff,
+for some reason, and his tongue would not obey. But he kept his bright
+head up.
+
+He heard a whisper--Father Pat was commending this scout he loved to the
+mercy of a higher power. Next, he felt himself lifted gently and guided
+backward from the bed. He did not want to go. He wanted to keep on
+seeing, seeing that dear face, to hold on longer to that weak hand. "Oh,
+don't--don't take me!" he pleaded.
+
+The dying eyes followed, oh, how affectionately, the small, khaki-clad
+figure. "God's--own--child!" breathed the priest, and there was tender
+pride in the faint tones. "God's--blessed--lad!"
+
+"Father!"
+
+Then the folds of the portieres brushed Johnnie's shoulders, and fell
+between his eyes and the wide, white bed.
+
+He had taken his last look.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was nearly home when he discovered the letter--a thick letter in a
+long envelope. It was in his hand, though he could not remember how it
+came to be there. But it was undoubtedly his, for both sides of it bore
+his name in Father Pat's own handwriting: _John Blake_.
+
+He did not open it. He could not read it just yet. Thrusting it into a
+coat pocket, he stumbled on. Had he complained and cried just because
+Cis was to live in another part of this same city? Had he actually
+thought the loss of a suit and some books enough to feel bad and bitter
+about? Was it he who had said, after Cis went, that nothing worse could
+happen?
+
+Ah, how small, how trivial, all other troubles seemed as compared to
+this new, strange, terrible thing--Death! And how little, before this,
+he had known of genuine grief!
+
+Now something really grievous had happened. And it seemed to him as if
+his whole world had come suddenly tumbling down in pieces--in utter
+chaos--about his yellow head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE LETTER
+
+
+"LAD DEAR, I was saying to myself the other day, 'Patrick Mungovan, when
+you go home to God, what will you be leaving--you that haven't a red
+cent to your name--to that mite of a boy, John?' 'Well,' Patrick
+Mungovan answered back, 'to be truthful, I've nothing to leave but the
+memory of a sweet friendship and, maybe, a letter.'
+
+"So down I sat, and started this. Just at the beginning of it, where it
+can help to ease any pain in your heart, let me say a word about my
+going, for I want you to be happy always when you're thinking of me. So
+believe what I say: though we can't sit and talk together, as we have,
+still we'll never be parted. No! For the reason that I'll live on, not
+only in the spirit, but also in that fine brain of yours! And whenever
+you'll be wanting me, you'll think me with you, and there I'll be, never
+a day older, never a bit less red-headed, or dear to your loving eyes.
+So! We're friends, you and I, as long as memory lasts!
+
+"Lad dear, I called you rich once. You didn't understand all I meant by
+it, and I'm going to explain myself here. And I'll start the list of
+your riches with this: though you've been shut in, and worked hard, and
+fed none too well, and dressed badly, and cheated by Tom Barber out of
+the smiles, and the decent words of praise, and the consideration and
+politeness that's every child's honest due--in spite of all this, I say,
+you've gone right on, ignoring what you couldn't help, learning what
+you could, improving yourself, preserving your sense of humor (which is
+the power to see what's funny in everything), and never letting your
+young heart forget to sing.
+
+"'But,' you'll ask, 'how is it that not caring too much about food and
+clothes may be counted as a valuable possession?' And I'll answer, 'That
+man is strong, John, whose appetite is his servant, not his master. And
+that man is stronger yet if, wearing ragged, old clothes, all the same
+he can keep his pride high. For "Is not the life more than meat, and the
+body than raiment?" Well, that's how it's been with you!
+
+"Some of your riches consist of things which you haven't got--now that
+sounds strange, does it not? And I don't mean the scarlet fever which
+you haven't, or a hair lip, or such like. No. You're rich in not being
+morbid, for instance,--in not dwelling on what's unpleasant, and ugly.
+Also because you don't harbor malice and ill-will. Because you don't
+fret, and sulk, and brood, all these goings-on being a sad waste of
+time.
+
+"And now let's count over the riches that you've got in your character.
+In the back of your Handbook, Mr. Roosevelt, writing about boy scouts,
+named four qualities for a fine lad: unselfish, gentle, strong, brave.
+They're your qualities, lad dear. And you proved the last one when you
+took that whipping with the ropes--ah, is a boy poor when he's got the
+spunk in him? He is not! Well, along with those four qualities I can
+honestly add these others: you're grateful, you're clean (in heart and
+in mouth, liking and speaking what's good), you're merciful, you're
+truthful, you're ambitious, you've got decent instincts--inherited, but
+a part of your riches, just the same.
+
+"As for the way you like what helps you (and queer as it may seem, too
+many boys _don't_ like what helps them), that has astonished and
+pleased me many a day. I remember your telling me once that you got
+tired of prunes and potatoes. And I said to you, 'Prunes are good for
+you, and nothing could be better than baked potatoes,'--I knowing how
+you relished them mashed! Well, after that, never another mashed potato
+dared to show its eyes! And, oh, how you did make away with the prunes!
+
+"It's the good things you've got in your character, and the bad things
+that you haven't got, which explain how it comes that you're loved the
+way you are--by Narcissa, and Grandpa (ah, it's handsome, is that old
+soldier's love for you! it's grand!), and Mrs. Kukor, and the Western
+gentleman, and Mr. Perkins, and me! With so much love as all that, could
+you ever think of yourself as poor? Now you just couldn't!
+
+"And then consider the way you love each of us in return! And no lad can
+say he's poor when he's got the power to love in him! and the sweet
+sacrifice! And you know the kind of love that all sound young hearts
+give to the crippled and the helpless and the dumb. Grandpa would say
+Yes to that if he could. And so would the sparrows on the window sill!
+
+"But, of course, we'll not be forgetting that you've got your youth, and
+most precious it is, and two rows of teeth which don't need bridging!
+Also, you're as good-looking as any boy ought to be, you're improving in
+strength, and you're healthy. Why, there's many a millionaire who'd give
+his fortune if he had that grand little tummy of yours, which can digest
+the knobs off the doors!
+
+"Already--at twelve!--you've got the habit of work, and, oh, what a
+blessing that habit is, and what an insurance against Satan! And you've
+got the book habit, a glorious one, since it gives you information,
+entertains you, and teaches you to think, to argue things out for
+yourself. Yes, it's reading which makes a lad strong in himself. You
+don't need racket, and the company of other lads, in order to have a
+good time. And, John, you know how to listen, and that's uncommon, too.
+
+"But thinking is your greatest blessing. You get your joy, not out of
+what you _have_, for God in His wisdom knows how little that is, but out
+of what you _think_. If there's something you haven't, you go ahead and
+supply it with your thoughts, creating beauty where there isn't any,
+building a world of your own. Never before have I met a lad who could
+dream as you can dream. Ah, and what it's done for you--in that dark,
+dirty, little flat!
+
+"Dreams! Behind every big thing that's ever happened was a dream! The
+Universe itself was first of all just an idea in the mind of Almighty
+God. In His wisdom and love He left it to man to work out other plans
+less grand. And who's ever been great that didn't dream? First you dream
+a thing; then you do it. Take Samuel Morse, for instance. He had a
+wonderful thought. Next, with his telegraph, he'd constructed the nerves
+of the world! And there's Mr. Marconi. Not so long ago, they'd have
+burned him as a gentleman witch!
+
+"Imagination! I've no doubt you've often envied Aladdin his wonderful
+lamp? (They're not making so many of those lamps these days!) But, boy
+dear, every lad's got a lamp that's just as wonderful! The lamp of
+knowledge. Get knowledge, John. Then--_rub it with your imagination_.
+
+"And look at all the marvels that lie about you waiting to help! The
+books, the paintings, the schools, the churches, the universities, the
+music, the museums, the right kind of plays--they're all right here in
+New York City. Why, lad dear, even the shops are an education, with
+their rugs, and their fine weaves, and furniture, and crystal, and
+china, and all the rest of it. Think of having such a city just to go
+out and walk around in! And you'll not cast aside a single opportunity!
+
+"So what of your future? Here! Take Father Pat's hand, and shut your
+eyes, and we'll go on an Aladdin trip together, this to see what became
+of certain other poor little boys. Here's a wonderful office, and a man
+is sitting at his desk. He heads one of the biggest concerns in the
+world, he's cultured, and generous, and a credit to his country. Suppose
+we go back with him thirty years. Oh, look, lad! _He's selling
+newspapers!_
+
+"We're off again. We're in a room that's lofty and grand. And looking at
+a man in a solemn mantle. He's high in our nation's counsels, he's
+honored, and known by the whole world. He's a Justice of the Supreme
+Court of the United States of America. Let's go back with _him_ thirty
+years. Dear! dear! what do we see! A poor, little, tattered youngster
+who's driving home the cows!
+
+"Ah, Johnnie, lads don't get on by having things soft. Give a lad a
+hundred thousand dollars, and it's likely you'll ruin him. Let him
+_make_ a hundred thousand, _honestly_, and--you've got a man!
+
+"Seldom do the sons of rich men distinguish themselves. Theodore
+Roosevelt did (he that said, 'Don't go around; go over--or through').
+And, yes, I recall another--that fine gentleman who was a great
+electrical engineer, Peter Cooper Hewitt. But most of the big men in
+this country were _poor boys_. Having to struggle, they grew strong.
+
+"For instance, there were the Wright brothers, who turned men into
+eagles! Their sister was called 'the little schoolma'am with the crazy
+brothers!' Robert Burns, the Scotch poet, was the son of a laboring man.
+Charles Dickens earned money by sticking labels in a shoe-blacking
+factory. William Shakespeare's father made gloves. Benjamin Franklin was
+the son of a candlemaker. Daniel Defoe, who wrote that _Robinson Crusoe_
+you love so much, helped his father around the butcher shop. John
+Bunyan was a traveling tinker. And Christopher Columbus was the son of a
+wool comber, and himself worked before the mast.
+
+"They're gone, but their thoughts live on, as busy as ever, whirling
+about us like the rain out of Heaven. Each of them dreamed, and what
+they dreamed is our heritage. When such men pass, we must have lads who
+can take their places. And I believe that you are one of these lads. For
+nobody can tell me that the power you have of seeing things with your
+brain--things you've never seen with your eyes--won't carry you far and
+high among your fellowmen. And some day, you'll be one of the greatest
+in this dear land. And it'll be told of you how you lived in the East
+Side, in a scrap of a flat, where you were like a prisoner, and took
+care of a weak, old soldier, and did your duty, though it came hard, and
+began the dreaming of your dreams.
+
+"Thinking about the big ones that won out against long odds will help
+you--will give you the grit to carry on. And grit makes a good, solid
+foundation, whether it's for a house or a lad. And when you've
+accomplished the most for yourself, then I know you'll remember that
+doing for yourself is just a small part of it; the other part--the grand
+part--is what you can do for your fellowmen.
+
+"There's a true saying that 'God helps them who help themselves.' But,
+suppose you lived where it wasn't possible for you to help yourself? And
+there are countries just like that. But here, in the United States, you
+_can_ help yourself! Ah, that's a great blessing, my yellow-head! Oh,
+Johnnie, was there ever a land like this one before? Boy dear, this
+United States, _this_ is the Land of Aladdin!
+
+"Young friend, as I close I want to thank you for what you've done for a
+smashed-up priest--gladdened his last days with the sight of a grand
+lad, a good scout. And I've got just a single warning for you, and it's
+this: Watch your play! For it's not by the work that a man does that you
+can judge him. No; I'll tell you what a man is like if you'll tell me
+_how he plays_.
+
+"One thing more: do you remember the vow the knights used to take in the
+old days?--'live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the king.' Father
+Pat knows he can trust John Blake to keep that vow. And his last wish,
+and his dying prayer is, O little, little lad, that you put your trust
+in God--just that, and everything else will come right for you--put your
+trust in God.
+
+                                                  "PATRICK MUNGOVAN."
+
+Thus it ended. There the hand of that faithful friend had stopped. But
+below the name, separated from it and the body of the letter, was a
+short paragraph which was a prayer:
+
+"I entreat the Saints to watch over him, to guard him and keep him all
+the days of his life, and when that life is ended, to bring him in
+joyful safety to the feet of Almighty God."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+"THE TRUE WAY"
+
+
+JOHNNIE went through his regular duties in the flat, but he went through
+them in a daze. Whenever his work was done, he sat down. Then, his body
+quiet, his brain registered sounds--a far-off voice, the slam of a door,
+the creak of the stairs, whistles, bells. But his thoughts fixed
+themselves upon nothing. Aimlessly they moved from one idea to another,
+yet got nowhere, like chips on currentless water. If he remembered about
+Father Pat, that memory was dull--so dull that he could not recall the
+Father's face; and he did not even dream about him at night. He endured
+no suffering. As for his tears, they seemed to have dried up.
+
+The truth was that, within the last week, he had had a great deal too
+much to bear, and was all but prostrated from shock. When that condition
+bettered, and he began to feel again, he was nervous and jumpy. In the
+night, the drip of a faucet, or the snap of a board, would set his heart
+to bounding sickeningly. And, even by day, every little while his body
+would shake inside that new uniform.
+
+No Father Pat left in the world! The realization came next, and with it
+a suffocating sense of loss. His friend was gone, never to return, just
+as Johnnie's father and mother were gone, just as Aunt Sophie was gone.
+From the cupboard shelf he took down that bowl of rose leaves, and
+pondered over them. "Roses die," he told himself, "and people die."
+There was an end to everything.
+
+"A dove," Cis had told him once, "if its feathers 're all pulled out, or
+it's got a lead shot in its breast, just the same it doesn't make a
+sound. It stands the pain." And that was how it was with Johnnie. He was
+wounded--sorely; but with quiet resignation he bore his anguish.
+
+He began to do things outside his daily round of tasks. This followed a
+second reading of the letter, a reading which soothed and strengthened
+him, made him resolute, and awakened his habit of work. His first extra
+proceeding was the burning of the old, big clothes, by which he added
+their ashes to ashes far dearer; his second was the presenting of
+Edwarda to the little fire escape girl with the dark hair.
+
+The new doll concealed in a pillowcase (he could not bear to crumple and
+tear for his purpose that precious marriage newspaper), he made his way
+to the door of the little girl's home. "This is yours," he told her,
+stripping off the case and holding out the gift. She heard him, but
+looked only at Edwarda. "_Gratzia!_" she gasped, seizing the doll in
+both hands. He lifted the scout hat, faced about, and marched home.
+
+He found that he did not want to read anything but the letter--that he
+could not concentrate on story or star book. But he did not sit and tug
+at his hair. Action--he fairly craved it. And continued those
+out-of-the-ordinary jobs. The cupboard shelves had not been cleaned this
+long time. He scrubbed them, and turned Cis's fancifully scissored
+shelf-papers. He washed the chairs, including the wheeled one.
+
+Each day, he worked till dark, then went to the roof. There, as he
+walked about, taking the air, he invariably thought about Cis. But that
+thought did not make him unhappy. She did not seem farther away than the
+Fifth Avenue bookstore, or Madison Square Garden. And he amused himself
+by trying to pick out the very roof under which she was, among all the
+roofs that stretched away and away toward the west and the north.
+
+Soon he was down in the flat again, because he was physically tired, and
+ready for sleep. However, long before dawn he was awake once more, and
+watching the small, dark, ticking thing which was the clock he had
+formerly hated. Now of a morning it did not tick fast enough to suit
+him! When the light crept in, up he got, brushed his teeth and his
+uniform, took his bath and his exercises, dressed, and had a few minutes
+of outdoors across the window sill, where he re-read his letter, and
+remembered to be glad that he was living in the Land of Aladdin.
+
+After that he ate an extra large helping of prunes, and put potatoes
+into the oven to bake. Then came good turns--Grandpa, Big Tom, the
+sparrows, and, yes, even Letitia, whose clothes he washed and ironed and
+mended. On the heels of the good turns, work again. "Lads don't get on
+by having things soft," and he would not live one soft day.
+
+Thus, by degrees, he put together his shattered world.
+
+One afternoon, as he sat stringing beads, he heard a familiar rap.
+Before he could reach the hall door, it opened, and there stood Mr.
+Perkins, looking happy, yet grave. He entered on tiptoe. He spoke low,
+as if not to disturb Big Tom.
+
+"How are you, Johnnie?" holding out an eager hand.
+
+"I'm all right."
+
+"Narcissa sends her love."
+
+How modest Mr. Perkins was!--he, the strongest man, almost, in the whole
+world! And how he lighted, and filled, the room! New life and hope and
+interest surged into Johnnie at the mere sight of him.
+
+Mr. Perkins spoke of Father Pat. "We came the moment we heard," he
+explained. "The account of his death was in the papers." He had a
+newspaper with him, and spread it out upon the table. "The Father gave
+his life for his country," he added proudly, "so they gave him a
+military funeral. It's told about right here. Would you like--that is,
+could you bear to read about it?"
+
+Johnnie could not; instead, he opened the drawer of the table and
+slipped the paper out of sight along with that other one--and the tooth.
+
+"But you'll want to wear this in mourning for him," went on the
+scoutmaster. Now out of a pocket he took a wide, black, gauzy band. "On
+your left sleeve, Johnnie." And he pinned the band in place.
+
+It was Johnnie's turn to be proud. "It'll show 'em all that he belonged
+t' me," he said.
+
+"He did! He did!"
+
+The letter came next. Mr. Perkins took it to the window to read it.
+"I'll get you a blank book," he announced when he came back, "and we'll
+paste the letter into it carefully, so that you can keep it always. And
+that book will be your best, Johnnie. Say, but that's a letter to
+treasure!"
+
+"And there was somethin' else wonderful happened," the boy declared. And
+told about Edith Cavell. "She was jus' like she was alive! All in white.
+And white hair. Only I couldn't see where she'd been hit by the
+bullets."
+
+"No, dear old fellow," returned Mr. Perkins. "That wasn't Edith Cavell.
+That was the trained nurse, or maybe a Sister of Mercy--anyhow, some one
+who was waiting on the Father."
+
+"Oh!" To recall that which had moved and grieved and shocked made
+Johnnie's face so white that those fading marks showed plainly upon it.
+And there was a look of pain and strain in the gray eyes.
+
+"I'm afraid you've been alone too much," said the scoutmaster anxiously.
+
+"Maybe. Still, y' remember, Robinson Crusoe, he was, too, for a long
+time, but it all turned out fine for him."
+
+"Things are turning out better for you right now," asserted Mr. Perkins.
+"To begin with, Narcissa and I have worked out a plan that will make it
+possible for you to leave here to-morrow."
+
+"Leave?" But Johnnie did not yet comprehend what the other meant.
+
+"Yes, for good and all," added the scoutmaster. "Go away--just as
+Narcissa has gone--to stay."
+
+Johnnie wavered to his feet dizzily. "Me--go," he repeated. "Away--to
+_stay_." Then as the full meaning of it swept over him, "Oh, Mister
+Perkins! Oh! _Oh!_" That old, dear dream of his--to put behind him the
+ugly, empty, sunless flat: the tiring, hateful, girl's work: the fear,
+the mortification, the abuse, the wounded pride, and, yes, Big Tom: to
+go, and stay away, never, never coming back--that dream had suddenly
+come true!
+
+Leaning on the table, weak from the very excitement and joy of it,
+slowly he looked around the kitchen. "My!" he breathed. "My!"
+
+"The Carnegie money is ready for you now," Mr. Perkins went on. "I went
+to Pittsburgh to see about it."
+
+"It is? Father Pat, he says in the letter that I'm rich. But he didn't
+count in that Carnegie money at all."
+
+"You can go to a good school," continued the scoutmaster; "and have the
+books and clothes that you need. Before school starts, there's the
+country--you ought to go into it for a few weeks, then to the seashore.
+Of course, when vacation is over, Narcissa and I want you to live with
+us. There's a room all ready for you.--Johnnie, you're holding your
+breath! Don't! It isn't good for you."
+
+Half-laughing, half-crying, Johnnie bent his head to the table. "Oh,
+gee!" he gasped. "School! And new books! And the country! And the beach!
+And then with both of you! _And my own room!_"
+
+"And a bed--not the floor."
+
+Johnnie was seeing it all. But particularly was the vision of his new
+home clear to him. "I'll take my father's medal with me, too," he
+declared; "and Mister Roosevelt's pitcher. Oh, it's goin' t' be fine!
+Fine! And I'll be ready, Mister Perkins! I'll be ready earl----"
+
+_Tap! tap! tap! tap!_
+
+He straightened; and stood as rigid as a little statue; and once more he
+held his breath. While the flushed and happy look on his face
+faded--faded as did his vision of peace and happiness and luxury. He
+stared wide-eyed at Mr. Perkins, questioning him dumbly, pathetically.
+Then every atom of strength began to leave him. It went out of his
+ankles, under those smart and soldierly leggings; and out of his knees.
+Slowly, and with a wobble, he sank into his chair.
+
+Old Grandpa!
+
+Now another picture: the dark, little, dismal flat, locked from the
+outside, deserted within; on the kitchen table, where Big Tom's
+breakfast dishes are strewn about, is the milk bottle and a cup; the
+beds are unmade, the sink piled high, and circling the unswept floor
+wheels Grandpa, whimpering, calling softly and pleadingly, "Johnnie!
+Little Johnnie! Grandpa wants Johnnie!" And tears are dimming the pale,
+old eyes, and trickling down into the thin, white beard.
+
+"Oh!" breathed the boy. Old Grandpa forsaken! He, so dear, so helpless!
+Old Grandpa, who depended upon his Johnnie! And--what of that "kind of
+love that all sound young hearts give to the crippled and the
+helpless?"
+
+He began to whisper, hastily, huskily: "That time I run away and met
+One-Eye, I felt pretty bad when I was layin' awake in the horse
+stall--so bad I hurt, all inside me. And in the night I 'most cried
+about Grandpa, and how he was missin' me."
+
+"I see."
+
+"And, oh, Mister Perkins, that was before I knew anything about scouts.
+But, now, I am one, ain't I? And so I got t' _act_ like a scout. And a
+scout, would he go 'way and leave a' old soldier? I got t' think about
+that." He began to walk. Presently, he halted at the door of the tiny
+room, and looked in, then came tiptoeing back. "He's in there," he
+explained. "He went in t' see if Cis wasn't home yet, and he fell
+asleep. He misses her a lot, and she wasn't here much when he was awake.
+But that jus' shows how he'd miss me."
+
+Before the scoutmaster could reply, Johnnie went on again: "I'm thinkin'
+ahead, the same way I think my thinks. When y're ahead, why, y' can look
+back, can't y'?--awful easy! Well, I'm lookin' back, and I can see
+Grandpa alone here. And it's a' awful mean thing t' see, Mister
+Perkins--gee, it is! And I'd be seein' it straight right on for the rest
+of my life!"
+
+"But I wouldn't have old Grandpa left alone here," protested Mr.
+Perkins. "You see, there are institutions where they take the best care
+of old people--trained care, and suitable food, and the attention of
+first-class doctors. In such places, many old gentlemen stay."
+
+"But Grandpa, would he know any of the other old gentlemen?"
+
+"He would soon."
+
+Johnnie shook his head. "He'd feel pretty bad if he didn't have me."
+
+"You could go to see him often."
+
+"He'd cry after me!" urged Johnnie. "And go 'round and 'round in
+circles. Y' see, he's used t' me, and if I was t' let him go t' that
+place, he'd miss me so bad he'd die!"
+
+Mr. Perkins looked grave. "Narcissa and I would be only too glad to have
+him with us," he said, "but his son wouldn't let us."
+
+"Big Tom wouldn't let Grandpa go away nowheres," asserted Johnnie. "I'm
+sure o' that. Why, Grandpa's the only person Big Tom cares a snap about!
+And if Grandpa stays here, and Big Tom's sure t' keep him, why, o'
+course, he can't stay--alone." He paused; then, "No, he can't stay
+alone." Perhaps never again in all his life would he meet a temptation
+so strong as this one--as hard to resist. "My! what'll I do?" he asked.
+"What'll I do?"
+
+"You must decide for yourself," said Mr. Perkins. How he felt, Johnnie
+could not tell. The face of the scoutmaster was in the shadow, and
+chiefly he seemed taken up with the polishing of his _pince-nez_.
+
+"Y' know, I thank y' awful much," Johnnie declared, "for plannin' out
+'bout me goin' and--and so on."
+
+"You're as welcome as can be!"
+
+Johnnie drew those yellow brows together. "I wonder what Mrs. Kukor
+would think I ought t' do," he continued. "And--and what would Mister
+Roosevelt do if he was me? And that boss of all the Boy Scouts----"
+
+"General Sir Baden-Powell."
+
+"Yes, him. What would he think about it, I wonder? And then Edith
+Cavell, what would _she_ say?"
+
+Mr. Perkins went on with his polishing.
+
+"Father Pat, he said somethin' once t' me about the way y' got t' act if
+y' ever want t' be happy later on, and have folks like y'. Oh, if only
+the Father was alive, and knew about it! But maybe he does know! but if
+he don't, anyhow God does, 'cause God knows ev'rything, whether y' want
+Him to or not. My! I wouldn't like t' have God turn against me! I'd--I'd
+like t' please God."
+
+Still the scoutmaster was silent.
+
+"You heard about my father, didn't y', Mister Perkins?" Johnnie asked
+presently. "He wouldn't be saved if my mother couldn't be, and jus'
+stayed on the ice with her, and held her fast in his arms
+till--till----" How clearly he could see it all!--his father, his feet
+braced upon the whirling cake, with that frailer body in his arms,
+drifting, drifting, swift and sure, toward destruction, but going to his
+death with a wave of the hand. His father had laid down his life; but
+his son would have to lay down only a small part of his.
+
+"It didn't take my father long t' make up _his_ mind about somethin'
+hard," Johnnie said proudly.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, bein' his boy, I'd like t' act as--as fine as I can."
+
+He pressed his lips tight together. He still felt his lot a bitter one
+in the flat; he still yearned to get away. But during these last few
+months a change had come over him--in his hopes, his aspirations, his
+thinks--a change fully as great as the change in his outward appearance.
+In a way, he had been made over, soul as well as body, that by taking
+in, by a sort of soaking process, certain ideas--of honor, duty,
+self-respect, unselfishness, courage, chivalry. And whereas once his
+whole thought had been to go, go, go, now he knew that those certain
+ideas were much more important than going. Also, there were the Laws.
+One of these came into his mind now--the first one. It came in a line of
+black letters which seemed to be suspended in the air between him and
+Mr. Perkins: _A scout is trustworthy_.
+
+The moment he saw that line he understood what he would do. This new-old
+tempting dream, he would give it up.
+
+"Mister Perkins," he began again, "I can't go 'way and leave old Grandpa
+here alone. I'm goin' t' stay with him till he dies, jus' like my father
+stayed with my mother. Yes, I must keep with Grandpa. He's a cripple,
+and he's old, and--he's a baby." His jaw set resolutely.
+
+And then--having decided--what a marvelous feeling instantly possessed
+him! What peace he felt! What happiness! What triumph! He seemed even
+taller than usual! And lighter on his feet! And, oh, the strength in his
+backbone! in those lead-pipe legs! (Though he did not know it, that look
+which was all light was on his face, while his mouth was turned up at
+both ends like the ends of the Boy Scout scroll.)
+
+"I'm not terrible bad off here no more," he went on. "I got this suit,
+and my books, and One-Eye's quart o' milk. Also, Mrs. Kukor, she'll be
+back 'fore long, and you'll bring Cis home t' see me, won't y'?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Things'll be all right. Evenin's, I'm goin' t' night school, like
+Mister Maloney said. And all the time, while I'm learnin', and watchin'
+out for Grandpa, why, I'll be growin' up--nobody can stop me doin'
+_that_."
+
+_Tap! tap! tap! tap!_--the wheel chair was backing into sight at the
+door of the tiny room.
+
+Johnnie began to whisper: "Don't speak 'bout Cis, will y'? It'd make him
+cry."
+
+Grandpa heard the whispering. He looked round over a shoulder, his pale
+eyes searching the half-dark kitchen. "Johnnie, what's the matter?" he
+asked, as if fearful. "What's the matter?"
+
+Johnnie went to him, walking with something of a swagger. "Nothin's the
+matter!" he declared stoutly. "What y' talkin' 'bout? Ev'rything's fine!
+Jus' _fine_!"
+
+The frightened look went out of the peering, old eyes. Grandpa broke
+into his thin, cackling laugh. "Everything's fine!" he cried. He shook a
+proud head. "Everything's fine!"
+
+Johnnie pulled the chair over the sill, this with something of a
+flourish. Then, facing it about, "Here's Mister Perkins come t' see y',"
+he announced, and sent the chair rolling gayly to the middle of the
+room, while Grandpa shouted as gleefully as a child, and swayed himself
+against the strand of rope that held him in place.
+
+"Niaggery! Niaggery!" he begged.
+
+"Sh! sh! Mister Barber's asleep!"
+
+"Sh! sh!" echoed the old man. "Tommie's asleep! Tommie's asleep!
+Tommie's asleep! That's what I always say to mother. Tommie's asleep!"
+
+Johnnie came to the wheel chair. Then, for the first time in all the
+years he had spent in the flat, the tender love he felt for Grandpa
+fairly pulled his young arms about those stooped old shoulders; and he
+dropped his yellow head till it touched the white one. Tears were in his
+eyes, but somehow he was not ashamed of them.
+
+Grandpa, mildly startled by the unprecedented hug, and the feel of that
+tousled head against his, stared for a moment like a surprised infant.
+Then out went his arms, hunting Johnnie; and the simple old man, and the
+boy who loved him past a great temptation, clung together for a long
+moment.
+
+If there are occasions, as Father Pat and Mr. Perkins had once agreed
+there were, when it was proper for a good scout to cry, Johnnie now
+understood that there are occasions when good scoutmasters may also give
+way to their feelings. For without a doubt, Mr. Perkins, grown man and
+fighter though he was (and a husband to boot!), was weeping--and
+grinning with all his might as he wept! It was a proud grin. It set all
+his teeth to flashing, and lifted his red-brown cheeks so high that his
+_pince-nez_ was dislodged, and went swinging down to tinkle merrily
+against a button of his coat; and his brimming eyes were proud as he
+fixed them upon Johnnie.
+
+"Great old scout!" he said.
+
+When Grandpa had had a glass of milk, and been trundled gently to and
+fro a few times, Johnnie stowed him away near the window. "He ain't much
+trouble, is he?" he asked, carefully tucking the feeble old hands under
+the cover. He nodded at the sleeping veteran, sunk far down into his
+blanket, his white head, with its few straggling hairs, tipped sidewise
+against the tangled, brown head of Letitia.
+
+"No," answered Mr. Perkins. "And you're going to be glad, Johnnie, when
+the day comes that Grandpa closes his eyes for the last time, that you
+decided to do your duty. And you'll never have anything selfish or sad
+or mean to try to forget." He held out his hand and gave Johnnie's
+fingers a good grip.
+
+With Mr. Perkins gone home to Cis, Johnnie stayed beside the wheel
+chair. Those yellow-gray eyes were still burning with earnestness, and
+the bright head, haloed by its hair, was held high. Dusk had deepened
+into dark. As he looked into the shadows by the hall door, he seemed to
+see a face--his father's. A moment, and he saw the whole figure, as if
+it had entered from the hall. It was supporting that other, and more
+slender, figure.
+
+"I'm your son," he told them. "I'm twelve, and I know what y' both want
+t' see me do. It's stick t' my job. It'll be awful hard sometimes, and
+I'll hate it. But I'm goin' t' try t' be jus' as brave as you was."
+
+It seemed to him that his father smiled then--a pleased, proud smile.
+
+At that, Johnnie straightened, his heels came together, and he brought
+his left arm rigidly to his side. Then he lifted his right to his
+forehead--in the scout salute.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+=_Novels for Cheerful Entertainment_=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+GALUSHA THE MAGNIFICENT
+
+_By Joseph C. Lincoln_
+
+_Author of "Shavings," "The Portygee," etc._
+
+The whole family will laugh over this deliciously humorous novel, that
+pictures the sunny side of small-town life, and contains love-making, a
+dash of mystery, an epidemic of spook-chasing--and laughable, lovable
+Galusha.
+
+
+THESE YOUNG REBELS
+
+_By Frances R. Sterrett_
+
+_Author of "Nancy Goes to Town," "Up the Road with Sally," etc._
+
+A sprightly novel that hits off to perfection the present antagonism
+between the rebellious younger generation and their disapproving elders.
+
+
+PLAY THE GAME
+
+_By Ruth Comfort Mitchell_
+
+A happy story about American young people. The appealing qualities of a
+brave young girl stand out in the strife between two young fellows, the
+one by fair the other by foul means, to win her.
+
+
+IN BLESSED CYRUS
+
+_By Laura E. Richards_
+
+_Author of "A Daughter of Jehu," etc._
+
+The quaint, quiet village of Cyrus, with its whimsical villagers, is
+abruptly turned topsy-turvy by the arrival in its midst of an actress,
+distractingly feminine, Lila Laughter; and, at the same time, an
+epidemic of small-pox.
+
+
+HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE
+
+_By Harold Bell Wright_
+
+Wright's greatest novel, that presents the life of industry to-day, the
+laughter, the tears, the strivings of those who live about the smoky
+chimneys of an American industrial town.
+
+        =NEW YORK    D. APPLETON & COMPANY     LONDON=
+
+
+
+
+=_Splendid Books for Girls_=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
+
+_By Eleanor Gates_
+
+This famous story is full of fancy and beauty. It tells how little
+Gwendolyn found the childhood happiness that she was denied as a rich
+little girl.
+
+
+GEORGINA OF THE RAINBOWS
+
+_By Annie Fellows Johnston_
+
+Georgina is a delicate-minded, inquisitive child who has amusing fancies
+and a delightful way with grownups.
+
+
+GEORGINA'S SERVICE STARS
+
+_By Annie Fellows Johnston_
+
+The girlhood of Georgina, when boarding school, dances, and romance
+among her girl friends, culminate in her own pretty story.
+
+
+EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE
+
+_By George Madden Martin_
+
+Emmy Lou might forget her prayers, spread whooping-cough, attend the
+circus instead of the Sunday School picnic, yet she remained a child who
+goes straight to the reader's heart.
+
+
+MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN
+
+_By Frances R. Sterrett_
+
+What Mary Rose found in the way of nice folks when she came to live in
+the stiff and formal city apartment house.
+
+
+MARY-'GUSTA
+
+_By Joseph C. Lincoln_
+
+A humorous and human story of a little girl who mothers her two Cape-Cod
+guardians, a bachelor and a widower, in spite of all their attempts to
+bring her up.
+
+        =_These Are Appleton Books_=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 2, "themelves" changed to "themselves" (reared themselves on)
+
+Page 9, "theadbare" changed to "threadbare" (heap of threadbare)
+
+Page 92, "repentent" changed to "repentant" (suddenly repentant)
+
+Page 94, "fasciniating" changed to "fascinating" (this fascinating crew)
+
+Page 103, "embarrasing" changed to "embarassing" (followed was
+embarassing)
+
+Page 108, "forsaw" changed to "foresaw" (He foresaw it all)
+
+Page 118, "recollectioin" changed to "recollection" (mere recollection
+of)
+
+Page 140, "t'send" changed to "t' send" (t' send him)
+
+Page 170, "sticken" changed to "stricken" (get panic-stricken)
+
+Page 174, "onnly" changed to "only" (only once a)
+
+Page 184, conscientously" changed to "conscientiously" (conscientiously
+counting the)
+
+Page 224, "inqured" changed to "inquired" (mean?" he inquired)
+
+Page 327, "Guinivere" changed to "Guinevere" (approaching with
+Guinevere)
+
+Page 361, text is missing and part was presumed. The original text read:
+
+        "But--but--!" whispered Johnnie. What he was
+        Johnnie? _I'm_ going with him! I'm to be Mrs.
+        Perkins! And--I'll be right here when Algy comes in."
+
+        "But--but--!" whispered Johnnie. What he was
+        thinking made allowance for no such charming event as
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rich Little Poor Boy, by Eleanor Gates
+
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