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Title: The Rich Little Poor Boy

Author: Eleanor Gates

Release Date: February 21, 2008 [EBook #24663]

Language: English

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[i]

THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
ELEANOR GATES

[ii]
[iii]

WHAT HE SAW THERE HELD HIM SPELLBOUND IN HIS CHAIR

THE RICH
LITTLE POOR BOY

[iv]

BY

ELEANOR GATES

[v]

[vi]

[vii]

CONTENTS

[ix]

THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
ELEANOR GATES

[1]

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[2] 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.[3]

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[4] 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[5] 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[6] 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[7] 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.[8]

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."[9]

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[10]—

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,[11] 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)[12] 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[13] 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.[14] 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[15] 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[16] 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!"[17]

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[18] 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[19] 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'[20] 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[21] 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,[22] 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!"[23]

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.[24]

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.[25]

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[26] 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[27] 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[28]!

"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[29] 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[30] 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.[31] 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[32] 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[33] 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[34] 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[35] 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![36]

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,[37] 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,[38] 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[39] 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![40] 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[41] 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,[42] 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[43] 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[44] 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?"[45]

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[46] 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[47] 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[48] and forth, as if he were a baby in a carriage. And all the while the boy sang softly, improvising a lullaby:

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[49] 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[50] 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[51] 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!"[52]

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[53] 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:

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[54] 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[55] 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,[56] 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[57] 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[58] 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,[59] 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.[60]

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;[61] 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.[62]

"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.[63]

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[64] 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[65] 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[66] 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[67] 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.[68]

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,[69] 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[70] 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[71] 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[72] 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.[73]

"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?"[74]

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[75] 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.[76] 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?[77] 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[78] 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!"[79]

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[80] 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,[81] 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[82] 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[83] 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[84] 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[85] 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 mo[86]ment, 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.[87] 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.[88]

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.[89]

"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 di[90]rection. 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[91] 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[92] 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 repentant. 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?"[93]

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[94] 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.[95]

"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 him[96]self. 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[97] 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,[98] 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.[99]

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."[100]

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[101] 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[102] 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[103] 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[104] 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[105] 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?[106]

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?[107]

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![108]

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 ex[109]clamation 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 tuck[110]ered. 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[111] 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[112] 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,[113] 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[114] 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."[115]

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'[116] 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!"[117]

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[118] 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. Recollec[119]tion 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,"[120] 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[121] 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.[122]

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.[123]

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[124] 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."[125]

"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[126] 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[127] 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 oil[128]cloth 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[129] 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[130] 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[131] 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 clang[132]ing 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,[133] 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:

Having got to the end of a verse, One-Eye sat up, smiled[134] 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[135] 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[136] 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 criti[137]cism. "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.[138]

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[139] 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 visi[140]tor, 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[141] 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[142] 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[143] 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.[144]

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[145] 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.[146]

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![147]

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—[148]—

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,[149] 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.[150] "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[151] 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.[152] "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.[153]

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!"[154]

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'rything!"

"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[155] 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[156] 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[157] 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[158] 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[159] 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.[160]

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.[161] 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[162] 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[163] 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 curi[164]ous 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."[165]

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?"[166]

"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[167] 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[168] 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[169] 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!"[170]

"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[171] 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.[172]

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,[173] 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[174] 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[175] 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!"[176]

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[177] 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[178] 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[179] 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.[180]

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.[181]

"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[182] 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![183]

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 cheese[184]cloth 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[185] 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[186] 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[187] 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[188] 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[189] 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.[190]

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[191] 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[192] 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. Re[193]lieved 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,[194] 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[195] 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'[196] 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.[197]

"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!"[198]

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[199] 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.[200]

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."[201]

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[202] 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[203] 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.[204] 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[205] 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[206] 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[207] 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[208] 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.[209]

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[210] 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[211] 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!"[212]

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!"[213]

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[214] 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[215] 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-[216]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!"[217] 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.[218]

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![219]

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[220] 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[221] 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.[222]

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[223] 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[224] 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[225] 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.[226]

"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?"[227]

"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,[228] 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[229] 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."[230]

"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[231] 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[232] 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."[233]

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[234] 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 an[235]swer, 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,[236] 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[237] 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?"[238] 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 big[239]ger 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 chat[240]ter 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.[241]

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[242] 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[243] 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[244] 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.[245] 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[246] 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.[247]

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 Grand[248]pa'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[249] 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[250] 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."[251]

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.[252] "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[253] 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,[254] 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.[255]

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[256] 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,[257] 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.[258]

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[259] 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[260] 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[261] 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[262] 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[263] 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[264] 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[265] 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[266] 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,[267] 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,[268] 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,[269] 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 ap[270]pearance. 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[271] 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[272] 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[273] 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 b