"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, smiledfeebly, 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 gottoobig—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 andbrought 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."
"Howcould 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 fromthe area came the shrill voice of the Italian janitress: "Johnnie Smith! Johnnie Smith!"
That meant the postman. And the postman was an event, for he came not oftener than once in three months, this to fetch a long, official envelope that had to do with Grandpa's pension. But the pension was not due again for several weeks. So what did the postman have to leave?
Bursting with curiosity, excitement and importance, Johnnie very nearly broke his neck between his own door and the brick pave. And here was a letter addressed to himself: Johnnie Smith, in Mr. Thos. Barber's flat. Then the street and the number, the whole having been written on a typewriter.
"Why—! Why—! Who can it be from?" Johnnie muttered, turning the letter over and over, while heads popped out of windows, and sundry small fry gathered about Johnnie and the postman.
"Maybe you'd find out if you opened it," suggested the latter, who was curious himself.
Johnnie opened; and drew forth a single large page, white and neat, when it was unfolded. Upon it was written a short, polite note which read:
"Dear Johnnie, I'm going away for a few days. Cannot tell just when I shall be back. Take care of yourself. Yours very respectfully,—" Here One-Eye had signed his name.
The signature was hard to make out. Not only because it was badly written but because there was something the matter with Johnnie's eyes. "One-Eye's goin' away," he told the postman, not ashamed of the tears he wiped on the back of a hand. "Oh, my goodness!" He climbed the stairs with his square little chin on his breast.
Cis made him feel worse when she came home. Because instead of being equally cast down, she was full of criticism. "My! One-Eye never wrote that!" she declared. "A stenographer fixed that all up for him. Sure as you live."
This was too much. Johnnie jerked the letter out of her hand. He caught up Letitia by one dwindling arm and cast her headforemost into Cis's room. And there is no telling what else might not have happened if, at that moment, the janitress had not begun to call again, though this time it was Cis she wanted. And what she had for Cis was a heavy pasteboard box that was nearly as long as the table. In the box, wearing a truly gorgeous dress and hat and shoes, was—Edwarda.
"A Princess of a doll!" cried Cis, dancing with happiness.
Later on, when she had put Edwarda to bed for at least the tenth time, she came to comfort Johnnie. "Never mind," she said, "he'll be back. And while he's gone, you can play he's here." Then with a far-away look in her blue eyes, "What wouldIdo if I didn't pretendHEwas 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.
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 tabledrawer part way out, lay his open book in it, and read. It wasThe Last of the Mohicanswhich 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, whenThe Legends of King Arthurwere 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! Couldthisby any chance be Mr. J. J. Hunter?
When Barber came in, it was plain to Johnnie that the longshoreman knew instantly why the man had come. At least he showed no surprise at seeing him there. Also, he was indifferent—even amused. After nodding to the visitor, and flashing at him that dangerous white spot, he sat and pushed at first one cheek and then the other with his tongue.
"My name's Maloney," began the man, using a severe tone. "I'm here about this boy."
Johnnie started. The man's visit concerned himself! He felt sure now that it was about the book. He wondered if there would be a search.
Barber thrust out his lip. "You're a long time gittin' here," he returned impudently. And laughed.
At that the man seemed less sure of himself. "Don't know how I've missed him," he declared, as if troubled.
"Seein' he's been right here in this flat for five years," said the other, sneeringly.
Maloney rose, and Johnnie saw that he was angry. "You know the law!" he asserted. "This boy ought to be in school!"
School! Johnnie caught his breath. Mr. Maloney was here to help him! Had not Cis declared over and over that some day Big Tom would be arrested for keeping Johnnie home from public school? Mrs. Kukor had agreed. And now this was going to happen! And, oh, school would be Heaven!
"Sure," assented Big Tom, smoothly. "But who's goin't' sendhim? 'Cause I don't have t' doanythingfor 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—insteadof 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 itain'tfit 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 drawerof 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 flatforhim 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 amightysmart 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'she'sconcerned. But"—his voice hardened, his nosedarted sidewise menacingly—"ifyoustick 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' putthatin 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 thestreet?I guessnot!So if you and your Court want this kid t' go t' night school, out he gits fromhere. 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.
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 declaredto Cis more than once. "She looks like she's just standin' it."
"Why, Johnnie!" Cis had reproved, "And here you've always said thatIwas 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 wasmonthsago."
Cis denied that she had anything to do with One-Eye's staying away. She missed him, too; or, rather, she felt the loss of those almost nightly gifts of fruit and sweets. As for Barber, he had no more good cigars to smoke before his fellow longshoremen. And his lunch pail lacked oranges and bananas at noontime, and had to be filled with prunes. Altogether, the cowboy's failure to return worked a general hardship.
"Oh, why don't he write me again?" mourned Johnnie. These days he secretly enjoyed any glimpse of Edwarda, and would even steal into Cis's room sometimes to peep at her. She made him feel sure that One-Eye had really once been there with them—as did also the letter and the blue handkerchief.
Johnnie lightened his heart with all this testimony. For it was often difficult for him to feel any more certain about the cowboy than he did about his four millionaires, or Sir Galahad, say, or Uncas, or Goliath, or Crusoe. He could revel gloriously in make-believe, yes; but perhaps for this very reason he found himself terribly prone to doubt facts! And as each day went by, he came to wonder more and more about the reality of One-Eye, though the passing time as steadily added romantic touches to the figure of the Westerner.
Often at night Johnnie held long conversations with him, confessing how much he missed him, thanking him for past favors, begging him to return. "Oh, One-Eye,arey' mad at me?" he would implore. And if there were stars framed by the window, they would dance as the gray eyes swam.
Whenever he roved hither and thither, hunting for boxes, he was really hunting his friend. He kept close watch of the men who passed him, always hoping earnestly that one day he might catch sight of One-Eye.
He brought home only one box at a time. At first if some grocer gave him a large one, so that he had more wood than was needed to start the morning fire, he burned his surplus, so that he would have to go out again the following day. Later on he gave the extra sticks to Mrs. Kukor, tying them into a Robinson Crusoe bundle, like fagots, and sending them up to the little Jewish lady via the kitchen window when she let down a string. The two had a special signal for all this; they called it the "wood sign."
One morning as Johnnie was strolling along New Bowery, alert as ever for the sight of a pair of fur-faced breeches, his heart suddenly came at a jump into his throat, and his head swam. For just ahead of him, going in the same direction, was a tall man wearing a One-Eye hat!
Without a doubt in his mind that here was some one who knew his dear friend, Johnnie let fall a small box he was carrying under one arm and rushed forward, planting himself, breathless, in the man's way. "Oh, Mister!" he cried. "Oh, where's One-Eye? Would y' tell him for me that I want t' see him?—awfulbad! 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. "Onyour 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. "Youain't no real cowboy!" he declared. "Girl's hair! Girl's hair!"
But a pleasant experience came treading on the very heels of the unpleasant. This was under the Elevated Railroad in Second Avenue. At the moment, Johnnie chanced to be a great, champing war horse, grandly drawing, by a harness made all of the finest silk, a casket (that small box) filled with coins and bars of gold from Treasure Island. Being a war horse of Camelot, and, therefore, unused to New York and train tracks on stilts, he was prancing and rearing under his gay trappings in wild style when——
Up the stone-paved avenue they came, two and two, two and two, two and two, and behind those twos still others, all boys of Johnnie's own age, all dressed just alike, wearing clean khaki uniforms, new flat-brimmed hats of olive-drab, leggings, and polished brown shoes. What they were he did not know, though he guessed them to be rich, noting how proud was their carriage—chins up, backs straight. Beside them walked their leader, a grown young man, slender, and with a tanned face plentifully touched with red.
The war horse shrank into his rags. He would have darted out of sight so as not to be seen; would have hid behind a pillar of the Elevated, dreading looks of scorn, and laughter, and cat calls, but the sight of that marching column thrilled and held him. Once before he had seen a number of boys whom he had envied. They had had on sweaters and caps, the caps being lettered. They had carried baseball masks, and bats. But were such—a noisy, clamorous crew—worthy to be compared withtheseyoung gods?
Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!—they passed him, their look high. But the eyes of all were kind and friendly as they caught sight of Johnnie. Yet—could they know who he was? of his friendship with the great cowboy? Hardly. And still the column did not mock at him. There was not a taunt, not a hoot!
When they were gone, he stood staring after them, so entranced that he was in danger of being run down by a surface car, or an automobile. Presently, however, on being ordered off the rails by an irate truck driver, he made on homeward slowly, his yellow head lowered thoughtfully, the box scraping along behind him at the end of a piece of rope.
"Guess they're some kind of soldiers," he told himself,and reflected that they were small to have been sent to war.
A hand touched his shoulder, stopping him. He glanced up. And could scarcely believe his eyes. For here, as surprising as lightning out of a sunny sky, was that leader, that grown young man. "Say, boy!" he panted, breathing hard from a run. "I saw you just now as we went by. Would you like to be a scout?"
"A—a scout?" faltered Johnnie, and did not know whether or not he could trust his ears; because only recently he had come to know all about scouts, regarded them as far beyond even the most distinguished among men (always barring cowboys), and had decided that, next after being one of One-Eye's company, he would like to be a scout. And here——
"Yes. Would you?" What had brought the leader back was the look of heartrending yearning in the gray eyes of a tattered little boy. He smiled, seeing that look swiftly change to one of joy, of awe.
"A scout!" repeated Johnnie. Suddenly beside him there was standing a figure that was strange to Second Avenue. The figure was that of a sunburned, lanky individual wearing a hunting shirt of forest-green, fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been shorn of their fur. Under the smock-frock were leggings laced at the sides, and gartered above the knees. On his feet were moccasins. There was a knife in his girdle, and in his hands a long rifle. This was one of Johnnie's new friends, that slayer of bad Indians, that crack shot, the brave scout ofThe Last of the Mohicans. "And y' say I can be one? One just like Hawkeye?"
"Hawkeye?"—the young man was puzzled.
Johnnie was disappointed. "Oh, y' don't know him," he said. "But he's a scout."
"I mean a boy scout," explained the other, kindly."Like my troop there"—with a jerk of the head toward the khaki-clad column, now halted a block away on the edge of the sidewalk.
Now that radiant, sunlit look—the glowing eyes and the flashing teeth adding to the shine of hair and brows and lashes. "Boyscout!" 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,couldI? 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, andThe Mohicans, andTreasure Island, andKing ArthurandCrusoe!"
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 felloff, and hit a button of his tunic with a clear ring. "You—you read?" he inquired.
"I should say so!" returned Johnnie, cheeks going red with pride. "Most all the time! But I'm goin' t' write a lot next—goin' t' copy all my books out, 'cause Cis says that's the way I can learn t' spell the big words. And lookee!—the handkerchief One-Eye give me!"
"Did you say One-Eye or Hawkeye?" asked the young man, feeling of the handkerchief with evident respect for its appearance and quality.
"Oh, One-Eye!" declared Johnnie. "'Cause that's all the eyes he's got. But he owns miles and miles of land, and hunderds of cattle, and he's so rich that he rides ev'rywheres he goes in the city in a taxi, all the time!"
"Well! well!" exclaimed the leader. There was just the flicker of a smile in his eyes now (Johnnie noted that those eyes were exactly the color of ground coffee).
"I've got a dog, too,"—talking as fast as possible in order to get a great deal said. "But I jus' think him, like I do Mister Buckle, and Mister Astor, and Mister Rockefeller, and Mister Carnegie, and the Prince of Wales, and Mister Van——"
At that the leader laughed, but he patted Johnnie on the shoulder. "Tell me all about 'em when I come," he said. "I must go now. But I'll see you soon. Good-by!" As he backed, his hand went to the brim of his hat—in a salute!
"Goo-good-by!" Johnnie faltered. His own right hand moved uncertainly, for he would have liked to make the salute in return, only he did not know how.
The other started off at a run, following the rails up the Avenue, while some of that crowd turned away, scattering. What remained of the group began to aim questions at Johnnie, rooted to the pavement beside his box."Who's 'at, kid? What's he want? What y' goin' t' do?"
To answer, Johnnie had to lower himself down from the skies, to which he had been lifted by that salute. "You kids don't know One-Eye," he said, a trifle loftily. "Well, do y' know Aladdin? or Long John Silver? or—or Jim Hawkins? or Uncas? or King Arthur?"
The last name proved to be an error in selection. Instantly the half-dozen boys about Johnnie set up a derisive shout: "He knows a King! Aw, kids! He knows a King! Whee!"
A faint smile, betokening pity, curved Johnnie's lips. Oh, but theywereignorant! 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.
"BOY SCOUTS," explained Mrs. Kukor, "wass awful stylish. Say you wass a scout, so you go in beautiful gangs for makink picnic und seeink birds, mit eatinks from goot foods, und such comes healthy for you."
Cis added to that when she arrived home that evening. "Boy scouts help the police sometimes," she declared, "and march in parades, and hunt babies that get lost, and don't let bad boys hurt cats, or girls, and they do nice things for grown people—just the way Sir Gawain did, and Sir Kay. And I shouldn't wonder, at the Table Round, when King Arthur's knights were little, if they weren'tallboy scouts. But, oh, Johnnie, what wouldhesay if you told him when he gets in that you want to be a scout?"
Johnnie laughed. "He'd have a fit!" he declared, the thought of Barber's consternation and anger amusing him far more than it made him fearful.
He was still in this happy state of mind when Cis chanced to remark that there were girl scouts as well as boy scouts. At once he was shocked, and wrathy, and quite disgusted. For it spoiled the whole boy scout idea for him if girls could be scouts.
"Aw!" he cried, getting red with annoyance, "I don't believe it! How couldgirlsbescouts?If knights was scouts when they was little, well, anyhow girls never could be knights!"
Cis did not know how it was, only that it was so; and she reminded him, with appeal in the violet-blue eyes, that she was not a particle to blame for it. "Girls can march," she said; "and they can be kind to cats and people a lot better than boys can."
"One thing sure," Johnnie went on, firmly, "girls can't be cowboys." He determined to think twice before he became a scout since, apparently, the organization was not so exclusive as he had thought.
"Oh, but girls can be cowgirls," went on Cis. "I've seen pictures of cowgirlslotsof times. They wear divided skirts."
At that, Johnnie turned pale. "Well, I bet girls can't be pirate-killers," he retorted angrily, "like Jim Hawkins. Or a p'liceman on horseback, or a millionaire, or own islands all by theirselves, or ride el'phants like Aladdin, or poke other girls off horses with spears!"
As Big Tom now came scuffing into the kitchen, nothing more could be said on the subject. But later on Johnnie again complained to Cis about the intrusion of girls into ranks where they could not fail to be both unwelcome and unsuited. "They don't belong," he urged, "and they ought t' keep out! They spoilev'rything!"
"Well, men do the same things," she argued. "Just to-day I saw a man running asewing machine."
"But he's got t' do it for some reason," Johnnie declared, "like I have t' make vi'lets—and cook."
"But if all the boy scouts don't care because girls are girl scouts, why shouldyoucare?" she wanted to know, hurt at his attitude toward her sex. "You know you don't belong yet. And if that young man thinks it's all right, why it must be, and he'll think you're funny if you scold about it."
The next morning Johnnie had but one thought: The promised call of the leader. Naturally he did not take hisusual trip to search for One-Eye and bring home a box. Instead he made elaborate preparations looking toward the arrival of his visitor. With One-Eye, somehow it had not mattered how the flat appeared. Hero though he was, style counted little with the cowboy, who dwelt in a cellar along with horses. And anyhow One-Eye thought the flat was all right "far's it goes." Those had been his very words.
But with that leader, Johnnie felt it was different. He proceeded at once, mentally, to establish the gallant young stranger in a most luxurious apartment, with big windows, lace curtains, a figured carpet and shining morris chairs. And though across this attractive bachelor habitation he stretched a clothesline for the drying of expensive laundry, he was careful to think this line as a brand new one which was never used as a telephone, since right at hand was the genuine instrument.
How Johnnie went to work! When all of the duties of the flat were done, he pulled off the apron and hid it in the wash boiler. He did not want that leader to catch him wearing any garment that belonged to a woman. Neither did he want his newest friend even to guess that he (Johnnie) did any sort of girl's work—in particular any cooking.
"My goodness!" he exclaimed to himself. "If he was t' know what I do—well, maybe he wouldn't ask me t' be one of his scouts!"
Now he went at himself. He washed his face so that it glistened. He scrubbed his neck and ears till they were scarlet. And still using the soap liberally, even contrived to get rid of a coal smudge of long standing, situated down along his thin left calf.
But the morning passed, and the afternoon went by, and—no one came.
No one, that is, but Mrs. Kukor, who looked in towardfive o'clock. In amazement she noted the neatness of the kitchen and the cleanliness of his face. "Ach, Levi!" she exclaimed. "How you gits a runnink jump mit yourselluf!"
"Prob'ly that gentleman, he's been awful busy to-day," said Johnnie, "and so he'll be here first thing in the mornin'."
"Pos-i-tivvle!" comforted Mrs. Kukor.
But late that night, when the whole flat was abed, he admitted to himself not only his disappointment but his keen chagrin. And he said to himself, independent now, that perhaps, after all, he did not care to be a scout!—there were so many other wonderful things he could be.
This is how it came about that, lying in the dark, he thought a most curious thing—one that had to do with the years ahead—the future that would find him grown-up.
The thing was this: he held himself away from himself to look at himself—precisely as he might have looked at Cis, or Big Tom, or Grandpa. But this was not all. For he did not look at himself as he was, in the big, old clothes; and he did not look at himselfsingly. He looked atsix himselves, all ranged in a wonderful row!
Remembering what Cis had said about girl scouts and cowgirls, there was no Johnnie Smith either in khaki or in fur-trimmed breeches. The first Johnnie Smith of the row was a policeman (mounted!); the second, a millionaire, wearing his fur on his collar; then there was a Johnnie Smith dressed like Jim Hawkins, and he had two pistols in his belt; beside this pirate-slaying Johnnie was a Johnnie who inhabited a lonely island with a gentleman who owned a parrot and had a man Friday; and not too close to the Johnnie who was Crusoe's friend was a Johnnie who rode about with Aladdin on a great fighting elephant covered with blankets of steel which could turn the arrowsof all enemies; last of the six, and perhaps the most glorious, too, was Sir Johnnie Smith, helmeted, and in knightly dress, sitting a curveting gray, lance and shield in hand.
Which of them all would he be?
There was plenty of time to decide. A thin cheek cupped in a too-large hand, he slept, dreaming that the leader was at the hall door, knocking, knocking, knocking, but that for the life of him, Johnnie could not move to answer the knock, being fixed to the floor, and helpless. He called to the young man, though, with his whole might, which woke Big Tom and Cis, and Cis woke Johnnie, by telling him to turn over, for he was having a nightmare.
Next morning, hope buoyed Johnnie up from the moment he opened his eyes. He rose joyously; and by nine o'clock everything was in readiness for the coming of the leader, and Johnnie was waiting eagerly, ears cocked.
But when, shortly before noon, he realized that a stranger was climbing the tenement stairs, not his ears but his small nose gave him the information. Charging the air from the hall was perfume so strong and delightful that, sniffing it in surprise and pleasure, he hastened to open the door and glance up and around in the gloom for what he felt sure would be like a smoke.
He saw nothing; but heard lively breathing, and aswish, swish, swish;next, a weak, mewlike cry. Then here was Mrs. Kukor herself, dropping down volubly, step by step, from her floor, aided by the banisters. "Eva?" she cried as she came; "wass it mine Eva?"
Now, coming up the stairs to Johnnie's level, appeared a young lady with red cheeks on a marvelously white face. She had on a silk dress (it was the silk which was doing the swishing), a great deal of jewelry, and a heavy fur coat fairly adrip around its whole lower edge with dozens of little tails.
But this was not all. Slung under one arm, she carrieda fat baby!—and what a rosy, what a spotlessly clean, baby!
The baby was Mrs. Kukor's grandson, the lady was Mrs. Kukor's daughter, for "Mama!" cried the young mother; and as they met just in front of Johnnie there was an explosive outburst of talk in a strange tongue, and much of what Johnnie afterwards described to Cis as "double kissin'," that is, a kissing on both cheeks, the baby coming in for his share and weeping over it forlornly.
Greeting done, Mrs. Kukor introduced Johnnie. "Eva," she beamed, "from long you have hear Mama speakink over Chonnie Schmitt. Und—here wass!"
Fortunately Johnnie's right hand was clean. So was his smiling face. "Oh, Mrs. Reisenberger, I thank you for the tel'phone-d'rect'ry," he began gratefully, as the two shook hands.
Mrs. Reisenberger was staring at his rags. Also, she was now holding the baby well up and back. "Oh, I don't like it that my Mama should live down here," she declared. "She can live swell in the Bronx with Jake and me."
Now Johnnie stared—miserably. For her words were like a sickening blow. What if Mrs. Kukor were to leave? What would he do without her?
"I like I should live always by mine own place," asserted Mrs. Kukor. And to Johnnie, as she plucked a bit of Mrs. Reisenberger's skirt between a thumb and finger, "Look, Chonnie! All from silks!"
Then she led the way higher, while heads popped out of doors all up and down the house; and Mrs. Reisenberger puffed after her, like some sort of a sweet-smelling, red-and-white engine. "Oh, Mama," expostulated the other between breaths as she toiled to that last floor, "how I wish you should come to live with Jake and me!"
Mrs. Reisenberger was excitement enough for one day. But on the day following nothing happened, nor on theday after that. And gradually Johnnie's hope began to lessen, his faith to ooze.
By the end of a week, the young man with the eyeglasses scarcely seemed real, so that when Cis gently suggested that Johnnie had never met any leader, he was hardly able to protest that he had. By the end of a fortnight, his newest friend merged with that unsubstantial company made up of David, Aladdin, Uncas and all the rest. Then Johnnie took to telephoning him over the clothesline. Also, when Cis was home, the scout leader had a part in all those elaborate social functions she enjoyed, such as dances, and calling, and shopping.
These days, Johnnie again wore the apron, and neglected the soap and the comb and the brushing. Ah, it had all been too good to come true!
Two or three times, with a nubbin of chalk, he tried to draw the face of the young man on that handy bit of kitchen wall where the smooth plaster showed. But what unpracticed hand could trace such a splendid countenance? and what bit of white crayon could give any idea of a cheek all tan and red? It was one thing, and easy, to suggest Big Tom, with his bulging eyes, his huge, twisted nose, his sloping chin and his Saturday night bristles. But regular features were quite another matter.
Then one morning as he stood writing the big word "landscape" on the plaster, this word being out ofThe Last of the Mohicans, which he held in his left hand, his attention was caught by a sound in the hall. Some one seemed to be walking about aimlessly, as if uncertain where to knock.
Johnnie dropped his book into the big shirt, reached the door in a few long jumps, jerked it wide, and—looked straight into a smiling, ruddy face.
HE was real! He had come! In a uniform, too, and boots, and a hat!—looking, in fact, even more wonderful than he had under the Elevated.
"Oh!" breathed Johnnie, so glad and proud all at once that he forgot the apron and his hair, or that the table was still strewn with the breakfast dishes. He fell back a step. "Oh, Mister Leader!"
The young man entered, lifting his hat from his head as he came, and displaying short, smooth, dark hair that glistened even in that poorly lighted room. "How are you, Johnnie!" he said heartily. They shook hands.
"I'm fine!" answered Johnnie, smiling his sunniest.
"Good!" The other gave a swift glance round. And certainly he was neither shocked nor delighted with the kitchen, for he acted as if he was seeing the sort of place he had expected to see—until he spied the wheel chair. Then he seemed surprised, and greatly interested. He laid his hat among the breakfast cups and crossed the room softly to look down at the little old man crumpled, sleeping, in the folds of the moth-eaten coat, the doll on one arm.
"Grandpa Barber," explained Johnnie, speaking low. "I took him on a long trip down the Miss'sippi this mornin', and he's awful tired."
The young man nodded. A curious wrinkle had come between his brows, as if some thought were troubling him.Also, even his forehead was red now. Suddenly he took out a handkerchief, turned, and walked to the window, where he used the handkerchief rather noisily, shaking his head. When he came about once more, and emerged from behind the square of white linen, not only did he look as if he were blushing violently, but even his eyes were a little red.
"Are you going to ask me to sit down?" he asked, smiling.
"Oh, I am! I do! Oh, what's the matter with me t'day! I forgit ev'rything!"
The young man chose the morris chair.
It was then that Johnnie realized how untidy the kitchen was, remembered that he had not washed the old soldier's face, or his own, or got rid of that apron. With fumbling fingers and mounting color, he slipped the apron strings over his tangled hair. "How'd I come t' havethisthing on!" he exclaimed, and looked at the apron as if he had never seen it before.
The young man seemed not to notice either Johnnie's confusion or the soiled badge of girlish service. "You can call me Mr. Perkins, if you like," he said pleasantly. "And tell me—what've you been doing with yourself since I saw you?"
Again sunlight focused upon Johnnie's face. "Well, mostly," he replied, "—mostly, I been jus' waitin' for you." He seated himself on the kitchen chair.
"Now, you don't mean it!" cried Mr. Perkins, blushing again. "Well, bless your heart, old fellow! Waiting for me! I wish I could've come sooner. But I've been, pretty busy—up to my ears!"
"Oh, that's all right," Johnnie assured him. "'Cause I filled in the wait good 'nough. I jus' kept thinkin' you here, and ev'ry mornin' Grandpa and me'd have you 'long with us when we went t' Niaggery, or anywhereselse; and ev'ry night, Cis'd take you with us, callin' on the Queen, or buyin' at the stores, or goin' t' grand balls."
After that, Mr. Perkins did not have anything to say for as much as a whole minute, but sat looking earnestly at his small host, and blinking a good deal. Then, "I see," he said finally. "That's nice. Mighty nice. I'm glad. And—and I hope I conducted myself all right."
"Oh, you was fine! Always!" declared Johnnie, his voice breaking, he was so emphatic. "Cis never could dance with One-Eye, and not jus' 'cause he wears spurs, neither. No, she thinks One-Eye's too homely to dance, or go callin', or take t' Wanamaker's. But, oh, she says you're jus' fine! Maybe not as grand as the Prince of Wales, she says, but then she's awful silly about him."
More steady looking; more blinking. "Well,—er—what did you say the little girl's name is?"
"Her full name's Narcissa Amy Way," answered Johnnie. "It's pretty long, ain't it? And if Grandpa and me called her that, Big Tom'd think we was wastin' time, or tryin' t' be stylish, and he hates ev'rything that's stylish—I don't know why. So round the flat, for ev'ry day, we call her Cis—C-i-s."
"Well, Miss Narcissa is right about me," said Mr. Perkins. "I'mnotas grand as the Prince of Wales—not by a good deal! But now suppose you tell me all about yourself, and—and the others who live here."
Johnnie did so. And since he spoke low, and evenly, Grandpa did not wake, to interrupt. At the end of an hour, Mr. Perkins knew all that Johnnie was able to tell—about himself, his parents, his Uncle and Aunt, Mike Callaghan, the policeman, and the Fifty-fifth Street millionaire; about Cis and her mother, Barber and his father, Mrs. Kukor, One-Eye and the other cowboys, Buckle, Boof, David, Goliath (mingling the real, the historical, the visionary and the purely fictional), youngEdward of England, that Prince's numerous silk-hatted friends, the four millionaires, the janitress, Mrs. Reisenberger and her baby, the flea-bitten mare, the postman, Edwarda (he showed the new doll), then, in quick succession, his favorite friends out of his five books.
Mr. Perkins listened, sitting on the small of his back, with his elbows on the arms of the morris chair, and his fingers touching. And when Johnnie came to the end of his story (with King Arthur, and those three Queens who kneeled around the king and sorely wept and wailed), all the visitor said was, "Good boy! And now tell me more about your reading."
Johnnie's eyes danced. He stood up, fairly quivering with happy excitement. Enthusiastically he explained that directly under Mr. Perkins was his oldest book, whereat Mr. Perkins got up, lifted the old chair cushion, and discovered the telephone directory. However, astonishing as it may seem, he had one just like it, so Johnnie did not lift the big book out to show its chief points of interest. Instead, he brought forth from Cis's closet his other treasures in binding, laying them very choicely on the table, and handing them over one by one—the best-looking of the lot first.
The books were put away again very soon, Johnnie explaining why. "But y' can keep the newspaper out," he declared. "Big Tom's seen it, and didn't try even t' tear it up."
"That was nice of him!" asserted Mr. Perkins, as he noted the date on the paper. "But what about school?"
"Oh, gee! I forgot all about Mister Maloney!" regretted Johnnie. He filled in the gap promptly, including night school, and the matter of his not having suitable clothes. "But when Mister Maloney heard how I can read," he concluded, "he seen I didn't need t' go t' school the way other kids do. Or anyhow"—remarking a curious light in those coffee-colored eyes—"that's what Big Tom says. And I can write good. Watch me, Mister Perkins! I'll write for you on the plaster—big words, too!"
"Oh, I'm sure you write well," Mr. Perkins agreed. "So I'd rather you'd talk. Tell me this: what do you eat?"
Johnnie answered, and as correctly as possible, being careful all the while not to give so much as a hint of the shameful truth that he, himself, did most of the cooking. As he talked, he kept wishing that the conversation would swing round to scouts and uniforms. He even tried to swing it himself. "Mrs. Kukor says that scouts make picnics," he said, "and have awful good things t' eat."
But Mr. Perkins passed that over, hint and all. He wanted to know whether or not Johnnie got plenty of milk.
"Oh, the milk we buy is all for Grandpa," Johnnie protested. "A big kid like me——"
Mr. Perkins interrupted. "I take a quart a day," he said quietly, "and I'm a bigger kid than you are; I'm twenty-one. Milk's got everything in it that a man needs from one end of his life to the other. Don't forget that."
"No, sir,"—fixing upon his visitor a look that admitted he was wrong. "I wish I could drink a lot of milk," he added regretfully.
"And what about exercise? and baths? Out-door exercise, I mean," said Mr. Perkins.
"I hang out o' the window 'most ev'ry mornin' that I don't go after boxes," answered Johnnie, so glad that he could give a satisfactory account of the matter of fresh air. "And bathin', well, I bathed ev'ry day when I was at my Aunt Sophie's, but down here——"
"Yes?" Mr. Perkins smiled encouragement.
"We ain't got no tub," said Johnnie, "so my neck's 'bout as far as I ever git."
Then the moment for which he had been waiting: "And you think you'd like to be a scout?" inquired Mr. Perkins.
"Oh, gee!" sighed Johnnie. He relaxed from sheer excess of feeling. His head tipped back against his chair, and he wagged it comically. "Wouldn't I jus'! And wear clothes like yours, and—and learn t' s'lute!"
Mr. Perkins laughed, but it was a pleasant, promising laugh. "We'll see what can be done," he said briskly. "And to begin with, how old are you?"
Johnnie opened his mouth—but held his tongue. He guessed that age had something to do with being a scout. But what? Was he too old? But the boys who had marched past him were as tall as he, if not taller. Then was he too young? Taken unaware, he was not able quickly to decide what the trouble might be. But he had not lived five years at Tom Barber's without learning how to get himself out of a tight corner. This time, all he had to do was tell the absolute truth. "I don't 'xac'ly know," he answered.
"Mm!" Mr. Perkins thought that over. Presently, adjusting his glasses, he looked Johnnie up and down, while anxious swallows undulated Johnnie's thin neck, and about his knobs of knees the long fringe of the big trousers trembled. "But we can find out how old you are, can't we?" Mr. Perkins added, with a sudden smile.
"I guess I'm ten goin' on 'leven," capitulated Johnnie.
"Ten going on eleven! That's splendid! It's the best age to begin getting ready to be a scout! The very best!"
"Gee! I'm glad!"
"So am I! You see, it takes some time to be a scout. It'll take every spare minute you've got to get ready. It's something that can't be done in a hurry. But here you've got more than a year to prepare yourself."
"More'n a—ayear?"
"All scouts are twelve."
"Oh!" A shadow clouded the gray eyes.
"But a year means that you can get yourself in dandy condition. And would you mind showing me how fit you are now?"
Johnnie spread out his hands deprecatingly. "That's the trouble," he declared, looking down at his big, old clothes. "They don't fit."
But when he understood just what Mr. Perkins meant, in a twinkling he had slipped Barber's shirt over his head and was standing bared to the waist, all his little ribs showing pitifully, and—as he faced square about—his shoulder blades thrusting themselves almost through a skin that was a sickly white. "Ain't I fine?" he wanted to know. "Don't I look good'n strong?"
The glasses came tumbling off Mr. Perkins's nose. He coughed, and pulled out the white handkerchief again, and fell to polishing the crystal discs. "Fair," he said slowly. "But there's room for improvement."
Johnnie sensed a compassionate note in the answer. "Course I ain't fat," he conceded hastily. "But when Mrs. Kukor gives me filled fish I can see a big diff'rence right away!"
"Fat isn't what a boy wants," returned Mr. Perkins. "He wants good blood, and strong muscles, and a first-class pair of lungs!"
"Oh!" Raising the big shirt on high, Johnnie disappeared into it, fixing upon Mr. Perkins as he went a look that was full of anxiety. As he emerged, his lip was trembling. "You—you don't think I look all right, do you?" he asked. "Maybe you think I can't ever—you mean I—I can't be——"
"Oh, nothing of the kind!" laughed Mr. Perkins. "Fact is, Johnnie, you're way ahead as far as your mind is concerned. I'm mighty pleased about your reading. Icertainly am, old fellow! And in no time you can get some blood into your cheeks, and cultivate some muscle, and straighten out your lungs. Once there was a boy who was in worse shape than you are, because he had the asthma, and could hardly breathe. And what do you suppose he did?"
"Et lots?" hazarded Johnnie.
"He said he would make over his own body, and he made it over."
"But, Mister Perkins, I'll do it, too! I'll make mine over! Tell me how!"
"Fresh air, proper breathing, exercises—day after day, that boy never stopped. And when he grew up, he found himself a strong man even among very strong men. That was the great American, Theodore Roosevelt."
"Oh, I know about him!" cried Johnnie. "He was President once, and he was a soldier. Cis knows a girl, and the girl's father, he worked in a big, stylish hotel, and once he carried Mister Roosevelt's trunk on his own back! Cis could name the girl, and prove it!"
But Mr. Perkins had no doubt as to the truth of the account. "The motto of the Boy Scouts is Be Prepared," he went on. "That means, be ready—in mind and body—to meet anything that happens. Now, as I said a bit ago, Johnnie, you've got a good brain. And when your body's strong, it'll not only be a promise of long life for you, but you can defend yourself; better still, you can protect others."
"Yes, sir!" Johnnie was bubbling with eagerness. "Please let me start now. Can I? What'll I do first?"
"Bathe," answered Mr. Perkins. "Every day. Scrub yourself from head to foot. Give your skin a chance to breathe. You'll eat better and sleep better. You'll pick up."
One, two, three, and the dishes were cleared from thetable. Then with the hall door locked as a precaution, Johnnie spread the oiled table-cloth on the floor (though Mr. Perkins demurred a little at this), planted the washtub at the center of the cloth, half filled the tub from the sink spigot, warmed the water with more from the teakettle, and took a long-deferred, much-needed rub down. It was soapy, and thorough. And he proved to himself that he really liked water very much—except, perhaps, in the region of his neck and ears!
When he was rinsed and rubbed dry, and in his clothes again, Mr. Perkins took off his own coat. Under it was a khaki-colored shirt, smart and clean and soldierly, that seemed to Johnnie the kind of shirt most to be desired among all the shirts of the world. Mr. Perkins pushed up the sleeves of it, planted his feet squarely, and fell to shooting his arms up and out, and bending his solid figure this way and that. Next, he alternately thrust out his legs. And Johnnie followed suit—till both were breathless and perspiring.
"To-morrow, exercise first and bathe afterward," instructed Mr. Perkins. "To-night, be sure to sleep with that window open. And now I'll give you a lesson in saluting."
It was then that Grandpa wakened. And perhaps something about the lesson stirred those old memories of his, for he insisted upon saluting too, and tossed poor Letitia aside in his excitement, and called Mr. Perkins "General."
When the latter was gone, with no pat on the head for Johnnie, but a genuine man-to-man hand shake, and a promise of his return soon, the boy, for the first time in his short life, took stock of the condition of his own body. Slipping out of the big shirt once more, and borrowing Cis's mirror, he contrived, by skewing his head around, chinning first one shoulder, then the other, to geta meager look at his back. He appraised his spindling arms and legs. He thumped his flat chest.
"Gee! Mister Perkins is dead right!" he admitted soberly. "I'm too skinny, and too thin through, and my complexion's too good." In the back of his head, always, was that dream of leaving the flat some day, never to return. "But like I am, why, I couldn't work hard 'nough, or earn good," he told himself now, and very earnestly. "So I'll jus' go ahead and make my body over the way Mister Roosevelt did."
While he was doing his housework he stopped now and again to shoot out an arm or a leg, or to bend himself from the waist. His skin was tingling pleasantly. His eyes were bright. A new urge was upon him. A fresh interest filled his heart. His hopes were high.
Cis, when she was told that the leader had actually called, not only believed the statement but shared Johnnie's enthusiasm. Realizing how much his training to be a scout would help him, she even tried to do away with that certain objection of his. "Maybe they don't have girl scouts any more," she suggested.
"Aw, I don't care a snap 'bout girl scouts!" he answered. "Cis, he called me 'old fellow'—I like it! And he's twenty-one. And you just ought t' see the shirt he wears!—not with little flowers on it, like Mike Callaghan's. And, oh, Cis, he never even s'pected that I cook, or wash, or do anything like that! And while he was here I took a bath!"
"No!" Her enthusiasm went. She was horrified. "Oh, Johnnie! Oh, my!" She grew pink and pale by turns. "And you so dirty!"
"Well, I did! What's the matter with y'! I wouldn't need t' bathe if I wasn't dirty!"
"Oh,"—tears of mortification swam in the violet-blue eyes—"but you were extra dirty!"
"Oh, I don't know," returned Johnnie, refusing to get panic-stricken.
"I'd like to see your bath water," she persisted. "Where is it?"
"Gone down the sink."
"How did it look! Pretty bad? Dark? Just how?"
"Well, it looked kind of riley if you got under the soap that was floatin' on top," Johnnie admitted. "'Cause I give myself a dandy one! Oh, a lot of skin come off!"
"Oh, my! And did he see under the soap? And what did you use for a towel?"
Johnnie had used a pillowcase. "'Cause what elsecouldI use?" he implored.
But Cis did not answer, for she was in tears. And she would not look up even to see him salute.
Big Tom had his turn at being appalled—this at the supper table, when he observed Johnnie's appetite. "As you git bigger," pointed out Barber, "you eat more and more. So, understand me, y' got t'makemore—workmore."
"Yes," agreed Johnnie, helping himself to fried mush and coffee for the third time, and breaking open his second baked potato. But to Cis, later on, he confided his intention to work no harder, yet to "stuff." "I can't make myself over jus' on fresh air," he declared.
She warmly upheld his determination. Yet she flatly refused to take Mr. Perkins shopping with them, pleading that she felt ashamed.
"About what?" Johnnie asked, irritated. "About your cryin'?"
"About that bath you took," she answered. "Oh, gracious!"
He was not in the least bothered about it. And when the rest of the household were asleep, he had a splendid think about himself. He was twenty-one, and tall andstrong, so that he was able to ignore Big Tom. He was well-dressed, too, and did no more girl's work. Instead, he was the head and front of some great, famous organization which numbered among its members all the millionaires in New York. Just what this organization was all about, he did not pause to decide. But he had his office in a building as large as the Grand Central Station, and was waited upon by a man in a car-conductor's cap.
Cis had once peeped into the huge dining rooms of the Waldorf Astoria, this while walking along Fifth Avenue. She had described to Johnnie the lofty, ornate ceilings, and the rich, heavy hangings, which description thereafter had furnished him with a basis whenever he transformed the kitchen for one of his grandest thinks. Upon his new office he lavished, now, a silver ceiling, velvet curtains, a marble desk and gold chairs.
The thing finished, he rose, shed his clothes, and, standing on his mattress, white and stark against the black of the stove, filled his lungs from the open window, wielded his arms, bent his torso, and kicked up his heels.
In due time, by faithfully following Mr. Perkins's instructions, he would be plump, well-muscled, red-faced, and rounded as to chest. Then in a beautiful uniform and a broad hat, with his right hand at salute, he would burst, as it were, upon the neighborhood—the perfect scout!