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!"
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.
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:
 
"Oh, Grandpa, now go to s'eepy-s'eep,
'Cause you're awful tired.
And Johnnie wants t' see what Mrs. Kukor
Is goin' to s'prise him about——"
Grandpa dozing, Johnnie did not pause to eat the cold potato and bread spread with the grease of bacon trimmings which made his usual noon meal. Curiosity dulled his hunger. Gently he tapped upon that convenient pipe—once, then twice, then once again.
 
As he leaned at the window to wait, his small nose curled in a grin. There was no movement up above. He half suspected a joke. But he had got off easy with Big Tom. Also, the housework was done, and in fine style. Except for a little violet-making—not too much—more than a whole half-day still lay ahead of him. And what an automobile trip he could take with Mr. Astor! Idly he followed the changing contours of a cloud in an otherwise empty sky.
 
Then of a sudden something came dropping between him and the cloud. He started back. It was a shallow basket, suspended from each of its four corners by a string. As it lowered inch by inch, he stood up in the rope coils; and what he saw in it fairly took his breath. For there on the bottom of the basket was—a book!
 
"Gee!" he gasped.
 
He brought the basket to a safe landing. Then, forgetting that some one was at the other end of the four strings, he slipped to the floor, turned on the water in the sink, and, like a Moslem holy man who is about to touch his Koran, washed both grimy hands.
 
To look at, it was not much of a book. In the first[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:
 
"Oh, I got a book! I got a book! I got a book!
Oh, Mrs. Kukor, she give it t' me!
And it's awful grand!
Once it was a man's, and his name was Hunter—
I wonder if he lost it, or maybe somebody sold it on him.
I'm goin' t' read it till I know ev'ry word!
I'm goin' t' read it ev'ry day—ev'ry day!
Go t' sleep, 'cause I want t' read some more!
Go t' sleep! Go t' sleep! Go t' sleep!"
On and on he caroled, like a bird on a branch. At last Grandpa, after some mild protesting, was lulled by the rhapsody, and dozed once more; when Johnnie adroitly tapered off his song, brought the chair to a cautious stop, drew the book from its warm hiding place, sank into the morris chair, and again there swept into the kitchen, as[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.
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.
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!"
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!"
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.
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:
 
"Oh, blame me not for weepin',
Oh, blame me not, I say!
For I have a' angel mother,
Ten thousand miles away!"
Having got to the end of a verse, One-Eye sat up, smiled[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.
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.