But of course there could be no turning back—not now. They must go in. And quickly, for a few of the curious had followed them up from the area and were making too much noise in the halls. So One-Eye bent and scooped Johnnie up in his arms, holding him in a horizontal position—yellow head hanging down to one side, both feet ditto to the other, body limp, the bandaged arm well forward, the eyes closed, all toes still, and—most important—an expression of bravely endured pain.

"Look as pale as ever y' can!" whispered One-Eye.

All this preparation was the work of a moment. Then One-Eye gave the door a vigorous and imperative kick. At the same time he began to talk to Johnnie, anxiously, soothingly: "It's all right, sonny! It's all right! Keep a stiff upper lip! 'Cause y're home now. Pore kid! My! That was a lucky 'scape!"

This last was spoken into the kitchen, for Cis had sped to answer the kick, and swung the door wide.

And now Johnnie, eyes tight closed, but with ears cocked, waited for that expected burst of greeting—that mingling of glad cries and so forth. But—there was dead silence.

In astonishment up went the flaxen lashes. And Johnnie saw that while Cis was looking with all her might, it was not at him! And Grandpa, mouse-still, was not looking at him either! Nor was Big Tom, putting down his pipe at the table.

Furthermore there were no tears from any quarter, and no pitying glances, and not a sign of relief! The trio before him, in what seemed to be amazed fascination, were staring at One-Eye!

It was Big Tom who spoke first. His face, after its Sunday shave, wrinkled into a really bright smile. "Well, by thunder!" he cried.

"Oh, my!"—this was Cis, whose hands were clasped in what to Johnnie seemed a very silly way. And she was wearing her exalted, Prince-of-Wales expression.

He was irritated, and resentful, and stung to the quick. What was the matter with them? Oh, none of them cared! They were acting precisely like that crowd around the taxi! And, oh, there would be no pop! And, oh, what—what would One-Eye think.

Johnnie burst into tears.

One-Eye was already thinking. With Johnnie held tight in his arms, he had been staring at each of the trio in turn, that single eye getting harder and harder, till it looked as if it were made of glass; till it resembled a green marble; and his mustache, as he puckered up his mouth in astonishment, had been lifting and falling, lifting and falling.

But as Johnnie's sobs came, One-Eye half turned, as if to go, then spied the kitchen chair, and sat heavily, in sheer disgust. "Wal, I'll be jig-sawed!" he vowed. "The kid's right? And I might 'a' knowed it!"

But things got better. For now there swelled forth a high, thin wail from old Grandpa, whose pale eyes had been roving in search for the one who was weeping, had discovered Johnnie, and was echoing his grief.

"Oh, shut up, Pa!" ordered Barber harshly; while Cis, for fear the neighbors would hear, unwittingly shut the hall door in the face of Mrs. Kukor, who had come out of her own place at One-Eye's kick to see what was happening.

"I'll be stop-watched and high-kaflummoxed!" continued One-Eye. Round and round rolled that green marble, gathering fire with each revolution. In fact it looked to be more fiercely glowing than any two eyes—as single eyes have the habit of looking.

Big Tom was beaming at the stranger again, unaware of One-Eye's temper. "Say, I never had a' idear of meetin' one of you," he declared heartily, "But I'm glad to, I'll say that. Yes, sir, I'm glad to! By thunder!" His look traveled up and down One-Eye, not missing a detail.

"Look-a-here!" returned One-Eye with insulting coldness. "This boy's hurt! Hurt bad! Y' savvy? Weak, too—weak's a cat! And sick! Done up! Sore! Wore out!" He paused, glaring.

"Boo-hoo!"—Johnnie's heart was wrung by the pitiful description.

It was now that something of the effect Johnnie had pleasantly imagined was finally gained. With a distressful "Oh!" Cis came to him, while Grandpa began to shrill "Johnnie! Johnnie!" and tried to get away from Big Tom, who held back the chair by a wheel as he, too, gave a thought to the patient.

"What happened to the kid?" he wanted to know.

One-Eye aimed his one orb at Big Tom as if it were a bullet. "What?" he repeated. "Y' ask, do y'? Wal, it was a hoss. It was a kick." Then to Johnnie, "Could y' shift weight, sonny?" (One of the five books was stabbing One-Eye in the side.)

"I want t' know!" marveled Big Tom. "Any bones broke?" He leaned to feel of the unwrapped part of Johnnie's hurt arm.

The indifferent tone, the hated, ungentle touch, and the nearness of the longshoreman, all worked to unman Johnnie, who gave way again. He did not fear a whipping any longer. It was, as Mrs. Kukor might have put it, "somethink yet again." Over him had swept the realization that soon this kind, free-handed, lovable One-Eye would be taking his leave, and with him would go—well, about everything!

Oh, his dear millionaire! His soul of generosity! The giver of the best supper ever! A man who could command such respect that he had struck the whole of the East Side dumb! The source of one boy's sweet glory!

And how Johnnie hated the thought of being left behind! He blamed himself for returning. "O-o-o-o-oh!" he moaned miserably. How mean and greedy and cruel and awful Big Tom seemed now, measured alongside this superb stranger!

Yet what Johnnie did not guess was that Barber was overjoyed at his return; was more relieved at having an excuse for not whipping than Johnnie was over not being whipped, since punishment might decide the latter, on some future occasion, to stay away. Indeed, Big Tom had had a scare.

"Not a bone!" answered One-Eye, almost proudly. "Neat a kick as ever I seen. Reckon the bucket took up most of it. But it's bad enough. Yas, ma'am. And it'll be a week afore he oughta use it."

"I want my bed!" quavered Johnnie, remembering that part of the plan.

Cis brought the bedding, and her own snowy pillow, fragrant with orris root. As she straightened out the clothes and plumped the pillow, Big Tom stayed in front of the visitor, staring as hard as ever, his great underlip hanging down, and that big nose taking a sidewise dart every now and then.

"Well! well! I'm glad y' happened t' bring the kid home," he began again. "Must be grand country out where you come from. How far West d' y' live, anyhow? And I'd like your name."

"This is Mister One-Eye," introduced Johnnie, his well arm twined proudly about the stranger's leathery neck. It was plain that the longshoreman was powerfully impressed. And Johnnie realized better than ever that he had brought home a real personage.

"Yep, call me One-Eye and I'll come," declared the personage. "But now the bed's ready, sonny." He rose and gently deposited Johnnie upon the pallet. "Now keep quiet," he advised kindly, "so's t' git back some strength." And to Cis, "Reckon we better give him a swaller o' tea."

Mrs. Kukor, who had been waiting all the while in the hall, and could stand it no longer, now came rocking in, her olive face picked out with dimples, it was working so hard, and all her crinkly hair standing bushily up.

"Is that you, Mother?" cried old Grandpa. "Is that you?"—which misled One-Eye into the belief that here was another member of the family, one whom Johnnie had omitted to mention. So the green eye focused upon the mattress in sorrowful reproof.

But the next instant a burst of dialect set Johnnie right in his new friend's eye. "Ach, Chonnie!" cried the little Jewish lady. "Vot iss? Vot iss?"

Her concern pleased One-Eye. He sat down, crossed his knees, and swung a spur.

Mrs. Kukor had not yet seen him. She had stationed herself at the foot of Johnnie's bed, from where she looked down, her birdlike eyes glistening with pity, her head wagging, her hands now waving, now resting upon a heart that was greatly affected by the sight of Johnnie in pain.

But Johnnie, looking up at her, knew that his hurt arm was not the whole of her grief; knew that she was thinking how much to blame she was herself for all that had happened. Guilt was on her round face, and remorse in her wagging. That book! That Alattin! Ach, that she had never given him that present. Oy! oy! oy!

Big Tom was making conversation. "Guess all of you work pretty hard out where you live," he declared, "—even if you do jus' set on a horse. But you bet you'd find my job harder. I tell y', I do my share when it comes to the heavy work." His tongue pushed out one cheek, then the other, a habit of his when boasting. "Why, there ain't a man workin' with me that can do more'n two-thirds what I do! They all know it, too. 'Barber's the guy with the cargo-hook,' is what they say. And Furman admits himself that I'm the only man's that's really earnin' that last raise. Yes, sir! 'Tom Barber's steel-constructed,' is what he tells the boys."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kukor, still unaware of a strange presence, had been whispering excitedly with Cis, from whom she had got the facts concerning the wound. But even as she had listened, she had been aware that Barber was talking, quietly, politely, good-naturedly. Surprised, she came half-about ("goin' exac'ly like a spud with tooth-pick laigs," as One-Eye said afterwards, though not unkindly), and took a look in the longshoreman's direction. And—saw the visitor.

Her hands dropped, her eyes fixed themselves upon those fur-faced breeches, her bosom stopped heaving as she held her breath. Then, "Ach!" she cried. "Could I believe it if so I did-ent saw it?—Mister Barber, how comes here a cowpoy?"

A cowboy?

Then it was Johnnie who experienced sensations: Surprise—bewilderment—doubt—staggering belief—awe—joy—more joy—pride—triumph!

He sat up.

Now he understood why the shaggy breeches had struck him as somehow familiar. Of course! He had seen just such a pair pictured on the billboard across from the millionaire's garage. Now he realized how he had seared the sight of his enemies as he and the Great One arrived side by side in a taxicab!—Yet no one must ever know that he had been in the dark! "Why, yes, Mrs. Kukor!" he cried. "My goodness! This is a reg'lar one!" (At which One-Eye colored, blending his bronze with a bashful purple.)

"A cowpoy!" whispered Mrs. Kukor, as if in a daze. "Pos-i-tivvle! Mit furs on hiss pants, und everythink!"



CHAPTER XII

A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP

LEANING on his well elbow, Johnnie related to Mrs. Kukor and Cis and Grandpa the whole story of what had happened to him; and they paid such rapt attention to him that at the most they did not interrupt him more than fifteen or twenty times. "And, oh, didn't everything turn out just fine?" he cried in ending. "T' be found by a cowboy and fetched home in a' auto! and—all?"

Mrs. Kukor vowed that she dass-ent to deny how everytink about it wass both stylish und grand!

Next, he had to hear what had transpired after his departure; how every one had taken his going, especially Big Tom—now gone out to escort One-Eye to the taxi.

"I tells to him, 'Sure does Chonnie go for sometink'," declared Mrs. Kukor. But Barber had known better, and contradicted her violently. "Und so I tells to him over that, 'Goot! Goot! if he runs away! In dis house so much, it ain't healthy for him!' Und I shakes my fingers be-front of hiss big nose!"

Mrs. Kukor had to go then, remembering with a start that she had a filled fish cooking. She rushed out at a thumping gallop. Then the whole adventure was told a second time, Johnnie sitting up with Grandpa's hat cocked over one eye, and drawling in fine imitation of their late guest.

When Barber came back, he was not able to let matters pass without a brief scolding for Johnnie, and a threat. "Y' go and git yourself laid up," he complained, coming to stand over the pallet on the floor; "so's you can't do your work, and earn your keep. Well, a good kick was the right pay for runnin' away. And now let me tell y' this, and I mean it: if y' ever run away again, y' won't git took back. Hear me?"

"Yes," answered Johnnie, almost carelessly.

Barber said no more, realizing that if Johnnie could run away once he could again. Even without grumbling the longshoreman helped Cis to put the wash to soak in the round, galvanized tub that stood on its side under the dish cupboard—a Sunday night duty that was Johnnie's, and was in preparation for the hated laundry work which he always did so badly of a Monday.

Late that night, in the closet-room, with the door shut and a stub of candle lighted, Johnnie heard Cis's story of what had happened in the flat following her return from the factory, her lunch still in its neat camera-box.

"I—I just couldn't believe it was so!" she whispered, ready to weep at the mere recollection of her shock and grief. "And, oh, promise me you won't ever go away again!" she begged, brown head on one side and tears in her eyes; "and I'll promise never to leave you—never, never, never, never!"

Johnnie would not promise. "I'm goin' to be a cowboy," he declared calmly; "but after I go, why, I'll come back soon's as I can and take you. And maybe, after the Prince is married, you'll forget him, and like a cowboy."

Cis shook her head. Hers was an affection not lightly bestowed nor easily withdrawn from its dear object. "I saw HIM go into the Waldorf-Astoria by the floor on the Thirty-third Street side," she recalled tenderly. Recollection brought a sweet, far-away look into those violet-blue eyes.

Johnnie took this moment to fish from his shirt his five books, laying them one by one on the bed-shelf at Cis's feet, from where she caught up the new ones, marveling over them.

"I thought there was something funny about your looks," she declared. "I kept still, though.—Oh, Johnnie Smith, have you been robbing somebody?"

When he had enjoyed her excitement and anxiety to the full, she was told all about the book shop and the millionaire, and the lady, and the book with the dollar bill, after which he again showed those books which he had purchased with the money.

"Oh, you silly!" she cried. "You didn't do anything of the kind! They bought 'em for you—all those nice people!"

It was hard to convince him, but at last she did, this by pointing out to him the price marked in each book, a sum that took his breath away. Three dollars and a half apiece they were! More than ten altogether! ("Und in kesh-money!" Mrs. Kukor marveled afterward, when she knew.) His eyes got a far-away expression as he thought about the generosity of those strangers. Oh, how good strangers were to a person! It almost seemed that the less you knew somebody— But, no, that was not true, because Mrs. Kukor——

"Tell me more about Mr. One-Eye," whispered Cis. "But what a name for a man! He can't be called just that! How could you write him a letter? Don't you know the rest of it, Johnnie? It's One-eye What?"

"Just One-Eye," returned Johnnie. "That's what they all called him. Maybe cowboys don't have two names like common men. What's the good of two names, anyhow?"

Cis was shocked. "Everybody has to have two names," she told him, severely. "The first is yours, and is your mother's fav'rite, and the other shows who your father is. Or maybe, if you're a second child, your mother allows your father to name you. But it's civilized to have two names, and not a bit nice if you don't—unless you're a dog or a horse."

Johnnie lifted an inspired finger, pointing straight at her. "Everybody?" he asked. "Well, what about the Prince of Wales? His name is Eddie. Eddie What?"

"Why—why—" She was confused.

"Horse or dog!" scoffed Johnnie. "Don't you b'lieve it? You mean Princes and cowboys!"

Cis had to admit herself wrong.

"When I heard One-Eye speak, that first time," he informed her, "I was afraid he was J. J. Hunter, come for Aladdin."

They laughed at that, fairly rocking. After which they returned to the more personal aspects of One-Eye. "What makes him keep his hat on?" she wanted to know. "That isn't good manners at all. I just know the Prince wouldn't do it. Why, every time I saw the Prince he kept taking his hat off. My!"

"Cowboys always keep their hats on," Johnnie asserted stoutly. "Maybe if they didn't, their horses wouldn't know 'em. Anyhow, they all do. Don't I know? I saw dozens!"

Well, if they did, then Cis thought them a strange lot. "And do all of them chew tobacco?" she persisted. "Because I'm sure he does."

Johnnie was insulted. He denied anything of the kind. He grew heated, resenting this criticism of one who held that cowboys were noble. One-Eye smoked—even when signs said he might not. And could any man smoke and chew at the same time? He did not believe it, though he was willing to admit that if any man could perform these two feats simultaneously, that man was certainly the incomparable One-Eye.

"Anyhow, he's awful homely," continued Cis, who could be as irritating as most girls at times.

Johnnie rose then, cold and proud. "Honest, Cis, you make me sick!" he told her. "Homely! Huh!" He would have liked to cast an aspersion upon a certain Royal countenance, just to get even, but feared Cis might refuse to hide his books for him. However, he decided that he would never again be as nice as formerly to King George's son. He left the tiny room, nose in air.

She did not follow him with apologies. And presently he stole back to her door and moved the knob softly. "Cis!" he whispered. "What's a vallay?"

She peeped out. "What's a what?"

"A v-a-l-l-a-y?"

"Oh!—A valley's a scoopy place between two hills."

A scoopy place between two hills! How like a girl's was the answer! Her candle was out, her tone sleepy. He did not argue. Flat upon his pallet once more, with both hands under his yellow head, he smiled into the black of the kitchen, telling himself that he would not change places with any boy in the whole of the great sleeping city.



CHAPTER XIII

CHANGES

IT was a blue Monday. In fact, it was the bluest Monday that Johnnie had ever spent in the flat. The urge of unrest was upon him. He had been out once, and far into the great world. And, oh, how he yearned to go out again! And just wander up Broadway to Fifth Avenue, the morning sun on his back, and the wind in his hair, while he gave more strangers an opportunity to do those pleasant and generous things which it seemed the privilege of strangers to do. A second trip, and there was no telling but that he might come back to the flat fairly bowed under a load of things!

He took a peep at his books; but he could not settle down to read. And he was able to get through with a hasty trip to Chickamauga by forcing himself to be patient with Grandpa. Also, that morning was a bad one for millionaires. He called up none of the four. If a millionaire had chanced by and offered to adopt him, Johnnie would have said a flat No. Cowboys! Rivals, these were, of the famous quartette. And the moment Grandpa was asleep, Johnnie got on the telephone, called up one of the larger stores, and ordered a complete cowboy outfit—from hat to spurs. And having received his order with lightning rapidity, he put it on at once, and began to stride to and fro, gesturing and talking bad grammar in his best possible imitation of One-Eye. He ended this fascinating game by trying to pinch his eye in the door.

Naturally the door led to the idea of taking a walk.

And the walk made him think of the dog. He had seen a handsome dog while he was riding in the truck—a black dog with a brown spot over each eye. At once he determined to have one like it. "Here! Boof! Boof!" he called. And the dog came to him across the kitchen, wagging a bushy tail, and was warmly greeted, and fed. A fine, shining dog collar was then ordered and presented, after which Johnnie made a hasty toilet by splashing his face with his well hand and drying it on the cup towel, and the two started off.

There was no fire in the stove, and Johnnie told himself that there was nothing to worry about in leaving Grandpa behind for a little while. Without haste, this time, and without even a thought of Big Tom, Johnnie sallied forth, the dog at his side.

He had no misgivings as to the treatment he would receive from the boys of the neighborhood. The question of his social standing had been settled. He even got ready to whistle a tune, so that if any boy's back was turned, and there was danger of Johnnie's not being seen, he could call attention to himself—he, the intimate friend of a real cowboy.

But every one saw him. That was because he took his time. On the other hand, he saw no one; but paid the closest attention to signs, and windows, to carts, and the contents of shops, and he halted to pet an occasional horse, or to shy a bit of brick at a water plug. Thus he traveled the four sides of his block. Whenever he met boys, they were too impressed to be saucy. He sauntered past them, his hands in his big pockets, his chin in the air.

"Well, y' see how it is," he observed to Boof as they turned homeward. And he swaggered.

Back in his area, he found a small gathering—several children, a few women, and one old man. He blushed out of sheer happiness, believing them to be drawn up to see the Friend of a Cowboy pass in. And he climbed the stairs, whistling as he went, and smiling to himself in the dusk of the poorly lighted halls.

Entering the flat, he found One-Eye. At first he could not trust his eyes, for his new dog had followed in, and was wagging a black tail, and he could see the dog as plainly as he could see his friend. But noting that Grandpa was playing with a red apple, he knew that the cowboy was really there.

So that was why there had been a crowd in the area!

But he did not rush to One-Eye. For some reason or other his feet were stone, and he felt shame—and guilt. He said a low-spoken Hello!

There was no warmth in One-Eye's greeting, either. "Knocked," informed the Westerner. "Got no answer. Then I heard the ole gent kinda whinin', and so I come in." While he talked, that single green eye was peering out of the kitchen window. The tanned face wore a curious, stern look.

"Yes, sir," said Johnnie, swallowing. "He always is like that if I go out t' walk a little." His heart was sorer than ever. He felt helpless, and forlorn. A wall had risen between himself and his wonderful friend. And he wished that One-Eye would burst out at him as Barber would have done, and give him a piece of his mind—oh, anything but this manner so polite yet so full of cool displeasure!

However, One-Eye had a second apple, which he presented to Johnnie, and this helped to clear the air. And the latter, hoping to win back One-Eye's good opinion, wiped off a table knife, halved the apple, and scraped it, giving the juicy scrapings to the toothless old soldier.

At once One-Eye became less absent-minded. "Wal, how's the arm?" he asked. "The boys tole me t' shore find out."

"Oh, it hurts a little," declared Johnnie, "but I don't mind. Say, how's the cross horse?" One half of the apple scraped, Johnnie ate the red shell of it. "And have y' been to the rest'rant again? And I s'pose all them white-dressed men and ladies, they can eat all they want to of ev'ry kind of de-licious things!"

One-Eye 'lowed they could. That lone orb of his was roving about the flat as if he was looking for some one. And presently, clearing his throat, "The young lady, she don't seem t' be at home," he observed, with studied carelessness.

"Not till six," reminded Johnnie. "She works."

It was then that One-Eye drew from a pocket under those furry trousers a third, and a mammoth, apple. "Wal, when she comes," he suggested, "y' might jes' give her this."

"Oh, gee!" cried Johnnie. It was the largest apple he had ever seen. "She'll like it. And she thinks you're grand!"

This proved to be such a master stroke of diplomacy as Johnnie had not imagined. One-Eye glowed under the compliment, and went various shades of red, and blew smoke from his cigar furiously. Now the last trace of hardness went from the weathered countenance, the drooping mustache lifted to show toothy gaps, and even the marble of that eye softened. "Now, say!" exclaimed the cowboy. "Y' ain't stringin' me, are y'? She said that? Wal, this world is a shore funny place! Right funny! Jes' recent I paid a lady here in town six-bits t' read the trails in my hands. And she tole me, 'Y're going t' meet a high-toned gal.' And now——!"

He said no more after that, only smoked, and stared at Johnnie's sky patch, and twiddled a spurred boot. The cigar finished, he rose and shook hands solemnly, first with Grandpa, who giggled like a delighted child; then with a somewhat subdued Johnnie.

"My!" breathed the latter as the clump, clump of the spurred boots died away on the stairs. He felt more regret and sorrow over being found lacking by One-Eye than ever he had felt over a similar discovery made by Big Tom. He realized that he would do more to win just the smile of the one than he would to miss the punishment of the other. And there was a sting in his little interior, as if some one had thrust a needle into him, and left a sore spot; or as if he had swallowed a crust or a codfish bone, and it had lodged somewhere.

He gave over thinking about wearing a cattleman's outfit, and began once more to turn his thoughts inward upon the flat. He sought out Aladdin from the precious pile of books and opened it at the page he had been reading when One-Eye's voice had fallen for the first time upon his ears. And at once he was again living with the Chinese boy that story of stories.

The day sped. Whenever Grandpa interrupted him, Johnnie would go to look at Cis's apple. He would take it up, and turn it, and smell it. He looked at it affectionately, remembering who had bought it, had had it in his hands, and carried it. It brought that dear one close.

"Good One-Eye!" murmured Johnnie, and first making certain that even Grandpa was not watching, he laid the apple against one of his pale cheeks. Somehow it comforted him. He pictured Cis's surprise and joy when, having been told to shut her eyes and put out her hands, she would see the crimson-skinned gift.

About this he received a cruel shock. For when Cis came slipping in, with an anxious look around, as if she feared Johnnie might not be there, and had gone through the—to her—annoying preliminary of shut eyes and outstretched palms, there was plain disappointment on her face as she saw what Johnnie had to give her. And when he told her whose gift it was, far from changing her attitude, and showing the pride he expected, what she did was to burst into peals of laughter!

It was like a slap in the face. He stared at her, not able to comprehend how she could belittle a present from such a source. And all at once he felt himself more in sympathy with Big Tom than he did with her, for Big Tom at least held One-Eye in high honor, and considered his visit to the flat a compliment.

Now she added insult to injury. "What a funny thing to give a girl!" she cried. Then daintily taking a whiff of the fruit, "But then it'll scent up my box fine." She went to tuck it among her belongings.

Not a word of gratitude! And she was crossness itself when, her dress changed, she sallied forth to set to work on the wash. That this task had something to do with her lack of sweet temper never occurred to Johnnie, whose opinion of girls had received another setback. As he watched her drag forward the tub and fall to rubbing, he half-way made up his mind to wait his chance, take the apple out of that old box, and eat it! He sat at the window, counting the stars as they came into his rectangle of faded blue, and was glad that he now had a dog. A girl around the house was so unsatisfactory!

Next day, with Cis's wash swinging overhead in a long, white line, he finished Aladdin and took up Robinson Crusoe. And with the new book there opened to him still another life. Swiftly the palaces of Cathay melted away. And Johnnie, in company with several fighting men, was pacing the deck of a storm-tossed ship, with a savage-infested shore to lee. Gun in hand, he peered across the waves to a spit of sand upon which black devils danced.

By nightfall, what with fast reading, and by skipping many a paragraph which was pure description, the oilcloth table was a lonely island inhabited by no human being, the morris chair was the good ship stranded, with all on board lost except Crusoe and Johnnie, who, while the seas dashed over them, roaring, breathlessly salvaged for their future use (Johnnie's hurt arm was out of its sling all this time) the mixed contents of the kitchen cupboard.

Big Tom interrupted this saving of provender. And Crusoe's friend was curtly ordered to wash some potatoes for supper, and lay the plates, and not leave everything for Cis to do. The order was accompanied by that warning flash of white in Barber's left eye. It brought to an end Johnnie's period of convalescence.

That night he did more pondering as he lay on his mattress beside the cookstove, his eyes looking far away to the three stars framed by the window sash, and the dog asleep at his side. He had always done much thinking, being compelled to it by loneliness. Now he took stock of himself, and came to the conclusion that he was not like other boys.

Being the only blond-haired boy in the area building had something to do with it. Having to do housework had more. Then he had none of the possessions which the other boys of his own age treasured—bats, and balls, "scooters," roller skates, yes, even water pistols.

Being different from other boys, he could not, he decided, do as they did. They had freedom: he was shut in. Once he had thought that this shut-in condition was due to the strange views of Big Tom. But now, all at once, he realized that One-Eye agreed with the longshoreman. So did the Chinese tailor, Mustapha!

He made up his mind that hereafter he would stay close to home.

He spent nearly the whole of the next day most contentedly with Robinson Crusoe. It was ironing day, but when he had finished the small pieces, Mrs. Kukor took the rest upstairs. Then Johnnie, dressed from head to toe in peltry, moored at his elbow that lonely isle. And for him the wrecked ship gave up the last of its stores, cannibals danced, beacons were lighted, stockades built, and there swept in upon that East Side kitchen a breeze that was off the Southern Seas.

Shortly after the evening meal a night or two later, One-Eye knocked, finding Johnnie up to his elbows in the dishpan, while Barber smoked and Cis dried the supper plates. The cowboy seemed much embarrassed just at first, and avoided Cis's smiling look as she thanked him for the apple. Her little speech over, however, he soon warmed into quite a jovial mood.

"Jes' had t' see sonny, here, t'night," he declared. "Y' know it's so seldom a feller meets up with a kid that's worth botherin' about. Now this one strikes me as a first-class boy"—praise that instantly and completely wiped out that hurt somewhere in Johnnie's interior.

One-Eye had not come empty-handed. He had cigars for Big Tom, a paper bag of pears for every one, and a carefully wrapped box tied with glistening string which turned out to be candy. As a chorus of delight greeted all these gifts, he became by turns the leathery saffron which, for him, was paleness, and the dark reddish-purple that made onlookers always believe that he was holding his breath. "Aw, shucks!" he cried to the thanks. "It ain't nuthin'. Don't mention it. It's all right. Eat!"

Then happened the almost unbelievable: Big Tom, who never made visitors welcome, and never wasted kerosene, actually lifted down the lamp and lighted it, and would not hear of One-Eye's taking an early departure. The cowboy's importance was making him welcome; also, his gifts. For greed was the keynote of Barber's character. The latter haw-hawed at everything One-Eye said. And Johnnie gazed in amazement at the unusual spectacle of Big Tom's face wrinkled by laughter.

He talked about himself. He had been moving barrels all day; doing prodigious things. Furman had all but fallen dead when he surveyed what that one pair of hands had accomplished. "And he bet me I couldn't take up two barrels at a time," he boasted. Then pushing out his cheeks, "But say! It was duck-soup!"

"Barrels of duck-soup?" One-Eye wanted to know. And the kitchen resounded with such unwonted laughter that a window or two went up outside, to right or left, some neighbor thinking a row was under way.

Hearing the noise, Barber stalked to his own window, flung it high, leaned out, and glared about. The other windows went down then, and Big Tom slammed his own shut, begrudging any family in the building the sound of One-Eye's voice. "That Gamboni!" he growled. "Can't mind his business t' save his life! But you bet he didn't open his mouth when he seen me lookin'! No, sir! They all shut up their sass when they spy yours truly! Ha-ha-a-a-a! I could break 'em in two!"

Johnnie felt a chill travel down his spine. He compared One-Eye to his foster father again. Oh, what would have happened if these two had not met on friendly terms? had on his account come to blows? How would it have fared with the cowboy in the grasp of those hands which were steel-constructed?

"Y' look consider'ble strong," admitted One-Eye, rolling the green marble the length of Barber appraisingly. "But I ain't such a slouch myself. Can throw my steer yet, slick as that!" Which was going far for One-Eye in the boasting line.

He came to the flat often after that—and never again found Johnnie away, though occasionally Big Tom was. He always brought cigars for the longshoreman, and fruit or candy, or both, for the others. He never had a great deal to say, but being something more than a common man, he would dry dishes if there were dishes to dry, or help split kindling for the morning fire; and once he scrubbed the sink.

If he said little, nevertheless he inspired others to talk. For some reason he was anxious to get from Johnnie the story of the boy's past life, which was not so complete as One-Eye would have liked, since Johnnie had forgotten the surname of his Aunt Sophie. He remembered her as a tall woman with big teeth and too much chin who wore plaid-gingham wrappers and pinched his nose when she applied a handkerchief to him.

He remembered Aunt Sophie's living rooms above the rich man's garage—rooms warm, clean, and brightly lighted, with pictures, and crisp curtains, and a thick, rose-patterned rug in the parlor. In her kitchen was a great cookstove called "The Black Diamond," which seemed like some live thing, for it had four claw-shaped feet, and seven isinglass eyes ranged in a blazing row upon a flat face. Under the eyes were toothlike bars forming a grate. These seemed always to be grinning hotly. Often when the stove was fed with the ebony lumps that Aunt Sophie said it loved, its burning breath was delicious. Then Johnnie's aunt, half doubled above it, drew out of it rich, brown roasts, and pies that oozed nectar; or ladled up fragrant soups and golden doughnuts.

Johnnie described how grandly he had lived at Aunt Sophie's. He had slept in soft, white night clothes. Always, when he waked, Aunt Sophie had pulled him out of these and dropped him into a big tub of warm water, then rubbed him pink with a large, shaggy towel. Sometimes Uncle Albert took him for a run in one of the millionaire's huge, glistening cars.

His last memory of the garage had to do with the clanging ambulance that took Aunt Sophie to the hospital. Johnnie never saw her again, for she died there; and it was after her death that Tom Barber clambered up the straight, steep flight of stairs that led from the street door. When he went down it, Johnnie was with him, clinging to one of Big Tom's thumbs.

"Then I reckon Mister Barber's a relative," said One-Eye.

"Only by marriage," declared Cis. She was certain of that.

"But why'd he bother takin' a kid that is no relation?" persisted the Westerner.

Cis smiled wisely. "Work," she answered laconically.

One-Eye understood. "And who was the rich gent?" he asked.

Johnnie could not remember the name. "But once," he told proudly, "he left a' orange for me, and I used it like a ball till the skin busted."

"Y' know what street that was on, don't y'?" inquired the cowboy.

Yes, Johnnie knew that. The street was West Fifty-fifth.

"And what about your mother?" One-Eye wanted to know.

"Well, I had one—once," declared Johnnie. "I'm sure of that. And she's dead." Also at one time he had possessed a father, who was dead, too. "My father and my mother," he informed the cowboy, "died the same day."

That single eye opened wide at this news. "The same day?" One-Eye demanded.

"Drownded," said Johnnie. Though how and where he could not tell, and did not even know his father's name, which Cis felt sure was not Smith.

"I thought as much!" remarked their visitor, wisely. "And what about your Paw and Maw?" he inquired of Cis, who knew names and dates and facts about her parents, but was completely in the dark as to the whereabouts of any living kinspeople. She had lived in a flat in the next block till her father died. When her mother married Tom Barber, she had moved out of her birthplace and into the area building. And that was all there was to tell, except that her own full name was Narcissa Amy Way.

"Cute!" declared One-Eye, going a beet-red.

"Have you got a mother?" asked Cis.

"Both dead," answered One-Eye, knowing that the two would understand what he meant.

"Three orphans," returned Cis. The blue eyes misted, and the pointed, pink chin quivered. And the others knew what she meant.

Indeed, at the sight of her brimming eyes One-Eye felt so keenly that, without warning, he put his head back in a most surprising fashion, opened his mouth, shut that one eye, and broke into a strange plaint. The others concluded that One-Eye was making a curious, hoarse noise ceilingward for some reason. Presently, however, Cis made out that the noise was a tune: a tune weird but soul-stirring. Music, as Cis could see, was One-Eye's medium of expressing his emotions. And then and there it became her firm conviction that he was bearing a great and secret sorrow.

It was Johnnie who first learned the words of the tune. And when he could repeat them to Cis, both realized how appropriate they had been under the circumstances, for they ran:

"Oh, blame me not for weepin', Oh, blame me not, I say! For I have a' angel mother, Ten thousand miles away!"

Having got to the end of a verse, One-Eye sat up, smiled feebly, darted a bashful glance at Cis, and went on with his questions. "What was Uncle Albert's name?" he wanted to know.

But as Johnnie could not remember Aunt Sophie's name, naturally enough he could not remember his Uncle Albert's, both names being one and the same. His Uncle was a figure that this small nephew had greatly admired—straight, be-capped like a soldier, and soldierly, too, in his smart, dark livery.

"They's somethin' mysterious about the hull proposition!" pronounced One-Eye.

That night when One-Eye was about to leave, he asked Cis what he might buy her for Christmas. Cis was shy about answering, and declared that he need not buy her anything: he had bought her so much candy, and that was enough—more than enough. But One-Eye pressed the question. "Aw, name somethin'!" he pleaded. "Can't y' think of a pritty that y'd like awful?"

Cis thought. And having taken some time to turn the suggestion over, while One-Eye watched her, and Johnnie mentally made up a long list of possible gifts, "I'd like very much," she faltered, "if I could have a nice doll."

What was there about the request that seemed to stagger One-Eye? Looking at him, Johnnie saw that big Adam's-apple move convulsively, while the green eye swam, and the lantern jaw fell. "A—a doll?" the cowboy repeated feebly.

Cis knew that somehow she had said the wrong thing, and hastened to ease the situation. "Oh, just a teeny, weeny one," she compromised. "You see, Mr. One-Eye, I've never had but one, and I thought before I got too big—because I've seen small dolls that were so sweet!—and I—and I——"

But there she stopped, blushing painfully. To cover her embarrassment, she dashed into her closet room and brought out Letitia, ragged dress and all, as if the sight of the poor beloved would speak for her more eloquently than she could for herself.

Which proved to be the case. For One-Eye stared at Letitia till that single eye fairly bored through her sawdust frame. Next he took her up and turned her about, his lips shut tight. His mustache stood up, he gulped, and his hand trembled.

Then suddenly he rose. "Got t' go," he announced.

He went. He forgot to shake hands. He pulled the big hat far down across his forehead. He stubbed his toe on the doorsill.

Cis and Johnnie hung out of the window a long time after, talking low together, so as not to be overheard by the Gambonis, for the early December night was surprisingly warm, and the building had all its windows up. They speculated upon One-Eye's conduct. Johnnie was distressed—and on two scores: first, that One-Eye should have gone so abruptly; second, that Cis, when given a chance to ask for something, had not named a gift worth having, such as another book.

"But you've got more books now than you've had time to read!" she protested. "And anyhow One-Eye is sure to give you a Christmas present." She was not cast down, but smiled at the sky, and talked of the new doll, which she intended to name—Edwarda.

"Should think you'd name her after One-Eye," went on Johnnie; "long's he's givin' her to you."

"How could I name her after him?" she retorted. "What would I call her?—Two-Eyes? I'm not going to spoil her by giving her a crazy name." Eager to have her dreams to herself, she forsook the window for her own room, and shut the door.

The next morning, while Johnnie and Grandpa were returning from the field of Gettysburg, here, ascending from the area came the shrill voice of the Italian janitress: "Johnnie Smith! Johnnie Smith!"

That meant the postman. And the postman was an event, for he came not oftener than once in three months, this to fetch a long, official envelope that had to do with Grandpa's pension. But the pension was not due again for several weeks. So what did the postman have to leave?

Bursting with curiosity, excitement and importance, Johnnie very nearly broke his neck between his own door and the brick pave. And here was a letter addressed to himself: Johnnie Smith, in Mr. Thos. Barber's flat. Then the street and the number, the whole having been written on a typewriter.

"Why—! Why—! Who can it be from?" Johnnie muttered, turning the letter over and over, while heads popped out of windows, and sundry small fry gathered about Johnnie and the postman.

"Maybe you'd find out if you opened it," suggested the latter, who was curious himself.

Johnnie opened; and drew forth a single large page, white and neat, when it was unfolded. Upon it was written a short, polite note which read:

"Dear Johnnie, I'm going away for a few days. Cannot tell just when I shall be back. Take care of yourself. Yours very respectfully,—" Here One-Eye had signed his name.

The signature was hard to make out. Not only because it was badly written but because there was something the matter with Johnnie's eyes. "One-Eye's goin' away," he told the postman, not ashamed of the tears he wiped on the back of a hand. "Oh, my goodness!" He climbed the stairs with his square little chin on his breast.

Cis made him feel worse when she came home. Because instead of being equally cast down, she was full of criticism. "My! One-Eye never wrote that!" she declared. "A stenographer fixed that all up for him. Sure as you live."

This was too much. Johnnie jerked the letter out of her hand. He caught up Letitia by one dwindling arm and cast her headforemost into Cis's room. And there is no telling what else might not have happened if, at that moment, the janitress had not begun to call again, though this time it was Cis she wanted. And what she had for Cis was a heavy pasteboard box that was nearly as long as the table. In the box, wearing a truly gorgeous dress and hat and shoes, was—Edwarda.

"A Princess of a doll!" cried Cis, dancing with happiness.

Later on, when she had put Edwarda to bed for at least the tenth time, she came to comfort Johnnie. "Never mind," she said, "he'll be back. And while he's gone, you can play he's here." Then with a far-away look in her blue eyes, "What would I do if I didn't pretend HE was here!"

Johnnie groaned. The idea of her bringing up the Prince in the face of such grief as his! It made him sick. He pinned the letter inside his shirt. He dragged out the mattress and flung himself down. He would not let her light the lamp. He yearned for the dark, where he could hide his tears.

Oh, everything was swept away! Everything!

And even the dog, crowding close against him comfortingly, could not lessen his pain.



CHAPTER XIV

THE HEAVEN THAT NEARLY HAPPENED

JANUARY came in furiously, peppering with sleet, bombarding with hail, storming with snow-laden winds. Day after day the sun refused to show himself, and the kitchen was so dark that, whenever work had to be done, the lamp was lighted.

In such weather Johnnie was cut off from the outside world; was almost like another Crusoe. Having no shoes and no overcoat, he would not venture out for a walk with his dog. Fuel was so costly that he could not even open the window to take his taste of the outdoors. His feet were wrapped up in bits of blanket, and his thin arms were covered by footless, old stockings of Cis's, which he drew on of a morning, keeping them up by pinning them to the stubby sleeves of the big shirt.

Many a day Big Tom stayed at home, dozing away the time on his bed. Such days were trying ones for Johnnie. Seated at the kitchen table, his large hands blue with the cold, hour upon hour he twisted cotton petals on wire stems to make violets—virtually acres of them, which he fashioned in skillful imitation, though he had never seen a violet grow. Violet-making tired him, and often he had a stabbing pain between his shoulder blades.

But when Barber was away, the gloomiest hours passed happily enough. He would finish his housework early, if none too well, scatter the oilcloth with petals and stems, as if this task were going forward, then pull the table drawer part way out, lay his open book in it, and read. It was The Last of the Mohicans which claimed all of his interest during the first month of that year. And what the weather was outside mattered not a jot to him. He was threading the woods of spring with Cora and Alice, Uncas and Heyward.

It was later on, during February, when The Legends of King Arthur were uppermost in Johnnie's mind, that the flat had a mysterious caller, this a bald-headed, stocky man wearing a hard black hat, a gray woolly storm coat, and overshoes. "You Johnnie Smith?" he asked when the door was opened to his knock.

"Yes, sir."

The man came in, sat without waiting to be asked, and looked around him with a severe eye. Johnnie was delighted at this unusual interruption. But Grandpa was scared, and got behind Johnnie. "Is that the General?" he wanted to know, whispering. "Is that the General?"

"Is your father home?" asked the strange man finally.

"My father's dead," replied Johnnie.

"Ah. Then Mr. Barber's your uncle, eh?"

"He ain't no relation," declared Johnnie, proudly.

The clock alarm announced the hour of five. Johnnie fed the fire and put the supper over. Still the man stayed. Once he got up and walked about, stared into the blackness of Big Tom's bedroom, and held the lamp so that he might have a look at Cis's closet. He grumbled to himself when he put the lamp down.

All this made Johnnie uneasy. He could think of only one reason for such strange and suspicious conduct. The books! Could this by any chance be Mr. J. J. Hunter?

When Barber came in, it was plain to Johnnie that the longshoreman knew instantly why the man had come. At least he showed no surprise at seeing him there. Also, he was indifferent—even amused. After nodding to the visitor, and flashing at him that dangerous white spot, he sat and pushed at first one cheek and then the other with his tongue.

"My name's Maloney," began the man, using a severe tone. "I'm here about this boy."

Johnnie started. The man's visit concerned himself! He felt sure now that it was about the book. He wondered if there would be a search.

Barber thrust out his lip. "You're a long time gittin' here," he returned impudently. And laughed.

At that the man seemed less sure of himself. "Don't know how I've missed him," he declared, as if troubled.

"Seein' he's been right here in this flat for five years," said the other, sneeringly.

Maloney rose, and Johnnie saw that he was angry. "You know the law!" he asserted. "This boy ought to be in school!"

School! Johnnie caught his breath. Mr. Maloney was here to help him! Had not Cis declared over and over that some day Big Tom would be arrested for keeping Johnnie home from public school? Mrs. Kukor had agreed. And now this was going to happen! And, oh, school would be Heaven!

"Sure," assented Big Tom, smoothly. "But who's goin' t' send him? 'Cause I don't have t' do anything for him."

"You'll have to appear before a magistrate," declared the other. "For I'm going to enter a complaint."

Barber began to swell. With a curse, he rose and faced Maloney. "Look here!" he said roughly. "This kid is nothin' t' me. I fetched him here when his aunt died. I didn't have t'. But if I hadn't, he'd 've starved, and slept in the streets, or been a cost t' the city. Well, he's been a cost t' me—git that, Mister Maloney? T' me! A poor man! I've fed him, and give him a place t' sleep—instead of takin' in roomers, like the rest of the guys do in this buildin'."

Again the man looked about him. "Roomers?" he repeated. "Why, there's no ventilation here, and you get no sun. This flat is unfit to live in!"

"You tell that t' the landlord!" cried Big Tom, his chest heaving. "He makes me pay good rent for it, even if it ain't fit t' live in!"

Maloney shook his head.

"Oh, yes, I know all about your city rules," went on the longshoreman. "But the Dagoes in this tenement pack their flats full. I don't. Jus' the boy sleeps in this kitchen. And if it wasn't for me, where'd he be right now? Out in the snow?"

Maloney shrugged, sat down, and leaned back, thinking. And in the pause Johnnie thought of several matters. For one thing, now he had a new way of considering his being in the flat. Sure enough, if Barber had not fed and housed him where would he have been? With Uncle Albert? But Uncle Albert had never come down to see him; had not—as Big Tom had often taken the pains to point out—even written Johnnie a postcard. Now the boy suddenly found himself grateful to Barber.

Mr. Maloney's manner had lost much of its assurance. "But the boy must be taught something," he declared. "He's ignorant!"

Ignorant! Johnnie rose, scarcely able to keep back a protest.

Barber whirled round upon him. "Ignorant!" he cried. "Y' hear that, Johnnie? This gent thinks you don't know nothin'!—That's where you're off, Maloney!—Johnnie, suppose you read for him. Ha? Just show him how ignorant y' are!"

Johnnie made an involuntary start toward the drawer of the table, remembered, and stopped. "What—what'll I read?" he asked.

The man looked around. "Exactly!" he exclaimed. "What'll he read? What have you got in this flat for him to read? Where's your books? or papers? or magazines? You haven't a scrap of printed matter, as far as I can see."

"Give us that paper out of your overcoat," suggested Big Tom, ignoring what the other had said. "Let the kid read from it."

As Johnnie took the paper, he was almost as put out at the man as was Barber. "I've read ever since I was a baby," he declared. "Aunt Sophie, she used to give me lessons." Then he read, easily, smoothly, pausing at commas, stopping at periods, pronouncing even the biggest words correctly.

"All right," interrupted Maloney, after a few paragraphs. "That'll do. You read first rate—first rate."

"And I know dec'mals," boasted Johnnie; "and fractions. And I can spell ev'ry word that was in Cis's spellin' book." Yes, and he knew much more that he dared not confess in the hearing of Barber. He longed to discourse about his five books, and all the wonderful people in them, and to say something about the "thinks" he could do.

"There y' are!" exclaimed the longshoreman, triumphant. "There y' are! D' y' call that ignorant? for a ten-year-old boy?"

Maloney looked across at Johnnie and smiled. "He's a mighty smart lad!" he admitted warmly.

"Knows twice as much as most boys of his age," went on Barber. (He had come to this conclusion, however, in the past five minutes.) "And all he knows is good. He behaves himself pretty fair, too, and I don't have much trouble with him t' speak of. So he's welcome t' stay on far's he's concerned. But"—his voice hardened, his nose darted sidewise menacingly—"if you stick your finger in this pie, and drag me up in front of a Court, I'm goin' t' tell y' what'll come of it, and I mean just what I say: I'll set the kid outside that door,"—indicating the one leading to the hall, "and the city can board and bed him. Jus' put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

Evidently Mr. Maloney did not smoke, for though Johnnie watched the visitor closely, the latter drew out no pipe. "Wouldn't know where I could send him," he confessed, but as if to himself rather than to Big Tom; "not just now, anyhow. But"—suddenly brightening—"what about night school?"

"Have him chasin' out o' nights?" cried Barber, scandalized. "Comin' in all hours off the street? I guess not! So if you and your Court want this kid t' go t' night school, out he gits from here. And that's my last word." He sat down.

Mr. Maloney got up, a worried expression on his face. "I'll have to let the matter stand as it is for a while," he admitted quietly. "This year the city's got more public charges than it knows what to do with—so many men out of work, and so much sickness these last months. And as you say, the boy isn't ignorant."

When he went, he left the paper behind; and that evening Johnnie read it from the first page to the last, advertisements and all. Big Tom saw him poring over it, but said nothing (the boy's reading on the sly had proved a good thing for the longshoreman). Johnnie, realizing that he was seen, but that his foster father did not roar an objection, or jerk the paper from his hands, or blow out the light, was grateful, and felt suddenly less independent.

But what he did not realize was that, by reading as well as he had, he had hurt his own chances of being sent to public school.



CHAPTER XV

SCOUTS

WHEN, toward the latter part of March, the days were so warm that Johnnie was able once more to take short, daily walks, he never went without bringing home a box to split up for kindling. The box was an excuse. And he wanted the excuse, not to ease his conscience about leaving Grandpa alone, but to save himself should Big Tom happen home and find him gone.

So far as Grandpa was concerned, the feeble veteran scarcely seemed to know any more whether he was alone or not, there being small difference between the flat without Johnnie and the flat with Johnnie if Johnnie had a book. But also Grandpa always had some one else with him now—some one who comforted his old heart greatly. This was Letitia.

Grandpa had always shown much fondness for the old doll. And one day—soon after Cis received the new one—when Johnnie chanced to give Letitia into the hands of the old man, the latter was so happy that Johnnie had not taken Letitia away, and Cis had not. Instead, she gave the old doll to Grandpa. And so it came about that Letitia shared the wheel chair, where she lay in the crook of Grandpa's left arm like a limp infant (she was shedding sawdust at a dreadful rate, what with the neglect she was suffering of late), while her poor eyes fixed themselves on distance.

"She don't look like she's happy," Johnnie had declared to Cis more than once. "She looks like she's just standin' it."

"Why, Johnnie!" Cis had reproved, "And here you've always said that I was silly about her!"

"Who's silly?" Johnnie had demanded, defensive, and blushing furiously.

"Grandpa's tickled to have her," Cis had continued.

There the matter was dropped. Nevertheless, Johnnie had then formed a certain firm conviction, which he continued to hold. It was that Cis was lacking in loyalty to the old doll (forgetting that only recently he had hurled Letitia headfirst into the tiny room).

By the end of March Johnnie had begun to fret about One-Eye. He missed the cowboy sadly; and what made the latter's absence seem all the harder to bear was the belief that his friend was back in New York again, yet was not visiting the flat because he was, for some reason, displeased. With Cis?—about that new doll—or what?

"He's mad about somethin',"—Johnnie vowed it over and over. "He said he'd be gone a few days. But that was months ago."

Cis denied that she had anything to do with One-Eye's staying away. She missed him, too; or, rather, she felt the loss of those almost nightly gifts of fruit and sweets. As for Barber, he had no more good cigars to smoke before his fellow longshoremen. And his lunch pail lacked oranges and bananas at noontime, and had to be filled with prunes. Altogether, the cowboy's failure to return worked a general hardship.

"Oh, why don't he write me again?" mourned Johnnie. These days he secretly enjoyed any glimpse of Edwarda, and would even steal into Cis's room sometimes to peep at her. She made him feel sure that One-Eye had really once been there with them—as did also the letter and the blue handkerchief.

Johnnie lightened his heart with all this testimony. For it was often difficult for him to feel any more certain about the cowboy than he did about his four millionaires, or Sir Galahad, say, or Uncas, or Goliath, or Crusoe. He could revel gloriously in make-believe, yes; but perhaps for this very reason he found himself terribly prone to doubt facts! And as each day went by, he came to wonder more and more about the reality of One-Eye, though the passing time as steadily added romantic touches to the figure of the Westerner.

Often at night Johnnie held long conversations with him, confessing how much he missed him, thanking him for past favors, begging him to return. "Oh, One-Eye, are y' mad at me?" he would implore. And if there were stars framed by the window, they would dance as the gray eyes swam.

Whenever he roved hither and thither, hunting for boxes, he was really hunting his friend. He kept close watch of the men who passed him, always hoping earnestly that one day he might catch sight of One-Eye.

He brought home only one box at a time. At first if some grocer gave him a large one, so that he had more wood than was needed to start the morning fire, he burned his surplus, so that he would have to go out again the following day. Later on he gave the extra sticks to Mrs. Kukor, tying them into a Robinson Crusoe bundle, like fagots, and sending them up to the little Jewish lady via the kitchen window when she let down a string. The two had a special signal for all this; they called it the "wood sign."

One morning as Johnnie was strolling along New Bowery, alert as ever for the sight of a pair of fur-faced breeches, his heart suddenly came at a jump into his throat, and his head swam. For just ahead of him, going in the same direction, was a tall man wearing a One-Eye hat!

Without a doubt in his mind that here was some one who knew his dear friend, Johnnie let fall a small box he was carrying under one arm and rushed forward, planting himself, breathless, in the man's way. "Oh, Mister!" he cried. "Oh, where's One-Eye? Would y' tell him for me that I want t' see him?—awful bad! I'm Johnnie—Johnnie Smith!"

The man had long hair that covered his collar like Grandpa's. Also he plainly had a temper much like Big Tom's. For after staring down at the boy for a moment, he kicked out at him. "On your way!" he ordered angrily. "Ske-daddle!—you little rat!"

Johnnie obeyed. He was stunned—that any man having on a One-Eye hat could act so bad. His pride was hurt, too, at being kicked at in public, and called a rat—he, the intimate of the famous Westerner. And his sense of justice was outraged; he had done nothing to deserve attack and insult.

This was not a matter for one of those "think" revenges. He might never see the man again, and whatever he did must be as plain to all passersby as had been the other's performance. So when Johnnie was well out of reach of the long-haired man, he halted to call back at him. "You ain't no real cowboy!" he declared. "Girl's hair! Girl's hair!"

But a pleasant experience came treading on the very heels of the unpleasant. This was under the Elevated Railroad in Second Avenue. At the moment, Johnnie chanced to be a great, champing war horse, grandly drawing, by a harness made all of the finest silk, a casket (that small box) filled with coins and bars of gold from Treasure Island. Being a war horse of Camelot, and, therefore, unused to New York and train tracks on stilts, he was prancing and rearing under his gay trappings in wild style when——

Up the stone-paved avenue they came, two and two, two and two, two and two, and behind those twos still others, all boys of Johnnie's own age, all dressed just alike, wearing clean khaki uniforms, new flat-brimmed hats of olive-drab, leggings, and polished brown shoes. What they were he did not know, though he guessed them to be rich, noting how proud was their carriage—chins up, backs straight. Beside them walked their leader, a grown young man, slender, and with a tanned face plentifully touched with red.

The war horse shrank into his rags. He would have darted out of sight so as not to be seen; would have hid behind a pillar of the Elevated, dreading looks of scorn, and laughter, and cat calls, but the sight of that marching column thrilled and held him. Once before he had seen a number of boys whom he had envied. They had had on sweaters and caps, the caps being lettered. They had carried baseball masks, and bats. But were such—a noisy, clamorous crew—worthy to be compared with these young gods?

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!—they passed him, their look high. But the eyes of all were kind and friendly as they caught sight of Johnnie. Yet—could they know who he was? of his friendship with the great cowboy? Hardly. And still the column did not mock at him. There was not a taunt, not a hoot!

When they were gone, he stood staring after them, so entranced that he was in danger of being run down by a surface car, or an automobile. Presently, however, on being ordered off the rails by an irate truck driver, he made on homeward slowly, his yellow head lowered thoughtfully, the box scraping along behind him at the end of a piece of rope.

"Guess they're some kind of soldiers," he told himself, and reflected that they were small to have been sent to war.

A hand touched his shoulder, stopping him. He glanced up. And could scarcely believe his eyes. For here, as surprising as lightning out of a sunny sky, was that leader, that grown young man. "Say, boy!" he panted, breathing hard from a run. "I saw you just now as we went by. Would you like to be a scout?"

"A—a scout?" faltered Johnnie, and did not know whether or not he could trust his ears; because only recently he had come to know all about scouts, regarded them as far beyond even the most distinguished among men (always barring cowboys), and had decided that, next after being one of One-Eye's company, he would like to be a scout. And here——

"Yes. Would you?" What had brought the leader back was the look of heartrending yearning in the gray eyes of a tattered little boy. He smiled, seeing that look swiftly change to one of joy, of awe.

"A scout!" repeated Johnnie. Suddenly beside him there was standing a figure that was strange to Second Avenue. The figure was that of a sunburned, lanky individual wearing a hunting shirt of forest-green, fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been shorn of their fur. Under the smock-frock were leggings laced at the sides, and gartered above the knees. On his feet were moccasins. There was a knife in his girdle, and in his hands a long rifle. This was one of Johnnie's new friends, that slayer of bad Indians, that crack shot, the brave scout of The Last of the Mohicans. "And y' say I can be one? One just like Hawkeye?"

"Hawkeye?"—the young man was puzzled.

Johnnie was disappointed. "Oh, y' don't know him," he said. "But he's a scout."

"I mean a boy scout," explained the other, kindly. "Like my troop there"—with a jerk of the head toward the khaki-clad column, now halted a block away on the edge of the sidewalk.

Now that radiant, sunlit look—the glowing eyes and the flashing teeth adding to the shine of hair and brows and lashes. "Boy scout!" cried Johnnie. Hawkeye was gone. Another vision stood in his place. It was Johnnie himself, gloriously transformed. "Oh, gee! Oh, my goodness! Oh, Mister! Oh, could I? I'm crazy to! Crazy!"

The usual crowd of the curious—boys mostly—was now pressing about the leader and Johnnie, the two or three grown people in it peeping over the heads of the younger ones. But the young man seemed not to mind; and as for Johnnie, if honors were coming his way on the open street, what could be better than to have a few onlookers?

"Of course you'll be one," declared the leader, heartily. He produced a pencil and a businesslike notebook. There was a pair of glasses hanging against his coat on a round, black cord. These he adjusted. "Name and address?" he asked; "—then I'll drop in to see you, and we'll talk it all over with your father."

Johnnie gave the information. "Only I ain't got a father," he corrected, as the pencil traveled. "But y' can tell the boy scouts, if y' want t', that I got a cowboy friend named One-Eye, and he lives in a garden that's down in a terrible big cellar, and wears fur all up his pants in front, and a bigger hat'n yours, and spurs. And I got five books—Aladdin, and The Mohicans, and Treasure Island, and King Arthur and Crusoe!"

The crowd listened, ready to laugh if the young man did, which was what the young man did not. On the contrary, what Johnnie had said seemed to have wrought the considerable effect Johnnie had desired. For the young man opened his eyes so big at Johnnie that the glasses fell off, and hit a button of his tunic with a clear ring. "You—you read?" he inquired.

"I should say so!" returned Johnnie, cheeks going red with pride. "Most all the time! But I'm goin' t' write a lot next—goin' t' copy all my books out, 'cause Cis says that's the way I can learn t' spell the big words. And lookee!—the handkerchief One-Eye give me!"

"Did you say One-Eye or Hawkeye?" asked the young man, feeling of the handkerchief with evident respect for its appearance and quality.

"Oh, One-Eye!" declared Johnnie. "'Cause that's all the eyes he's got. But he owns miles and miles of land, and hunderds of cattle, and he's so rich that he rides ev'rywheres he goes in the city in a taxi, all the time!"

"Well! well!" exclaimed the leader. There was just the flicker of a smile in his eyes now (Johnnie noted that those eyes were exactly the color of ground coffee).

"I've got a dog, too,"—talking as fast as possible in order to get a great deal said. "But I jus' think him, like I do Mister Buckle, and Mister Astor, and Mister Rockefeller, and Mister Carnegie, and the Prince of Wales, and Mister Van——"

At that the leader laughed, but he patted Johnnie on the shoulder. "Tell me all about 'em when I come," he said. "I must go now. But I'll see you soon. Good-by!" As he backed, his hand went to the brim of his hat—in a salute!

"Goo-good-by!" Johnnie faltered. His own right hand moved uncertainly, for he would have liked to make the salute in return, only he did not know how.

The other started off at a run, following the rails up the Avenue, while some of that crowd turned away, scattering. What remained of the group began to aim questions at Johnnie, rooted to the pavement beside his box. "Who's 'at, kid? What's he want? What y' goin' t' do?"

To answer, Johnnie had to lower himself down from the skies, to which he had been lifted by that salute. "You kids don't know One-Eye," he said, a trifle loftily. "Well, do y' know Aladdin? or Long John Silver? or—or Jim Hawkins? or Uncas? or King Arthur?"

The last name proved to be an error in selection. Instantly the half-dozen boys about Johnnie set up a derisive shout: "He knows a King! Aw, kids! He knows a King! Whee!"

A faint smile, betokening pity, curved Johnnie's lips. Oh, but they were ignorant! and had no stylish friends! "That gent, he come back t' ask me t' be a scout," he explained calmly. "Didn't y' hear what he said? And maybe I'll be one—that is till I go out West t' be a cowboy."

The shouting and the laughter broke forth again, redoubling. "And he's goin' t' be a cowboy!" they yelled. "Look at 'im! Old rags! Yaw!"

Johnnie put the rope over a shoulder and again started for home. He scarcely heard the screeching urchins. And he did not heed them. He was in khaki and leggings now, and had on a wide hat held in place by a thong which came just short of his chin. A haversack was on his back, hanging from lanyards that creased a smart coat. He was also equipped with a number of other things the names of which, as yet, he did not know.

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!—he was as military as a major-general.



CHAPTER XVI

HOPE DEFERRED

"BOY SCOUTS," explained Mrs. Kukor, "wass awful stylish. Say you wass a scout, so you go in beautiful gangs for makink picnic und seeink birds, mit eatinks from goot foods, und such comes healthy for you."

Cis added to that when she arrived home that evening. "Boy scouts help the police sometimes," she declared, "and march in parades, and hunt babies that get lost, and don't let bad boys hurt cats, or girls, and they do nice things for grown people—just the way Sir Gawain did, and Sir Kay. And I shouldn't wonder, at the Table Round, when King Arthur's knights were little, if they weren't all boy scouts. But, oh, Johnnie, what would he say if you told him when he gets in that you want to be a scout?"

Johnnie laughed. "He'd have a fit!" he declared, the thought of Barber's consternation and anger amusing him far more than it made him fearful.

He was still in this happy state of mind when Cis chanced to remark that there were girl scouts as well as boy scouts. At once he was shocked, and wrathy, and quite disgusted. For it spoiled the whole boy scout idea for him if girls could be scouts.

"Aw!" he cried, getting red with annoyance, "I don't believe it! How could girls be scouts? If knights was scouts when they was little, well, anyhow girls never could be knights!"

Cis did not know how it was, only that it was so; and she reminded him, with appeal in the violet-blue eyes, that she was not a particle to blame for it. "Girls can march," she said; "and they can be kind to cats and people a lot better than boys can."

"One thing sure," Johnnie went on, firmly, "girls can't be cowboys." He determined to think twice before he became a scout since, apparently, the organization was not so exclusive as he had thought.

"Oh, but girls can be cowgirls," went on Cis. "I've seen pictures of cowgirls lots of times. They wear divided skirts."

At that, Johnnie turned pale. "Well, I bet girls can't be pirate-killers," he retorted angrily, "like Jim Hawkins. Or a p'liceman on horseback, or a millionaire, or own islands all by theirselves, or ride el'phants like Aladdin, or poke other girls off horses with spears!"

As Big Tom now came scuffing into the kitchen, nothing more could be said on the subject. But later on Johnnie again complained to Cis about the intrusion of girls into ranks where they could not fail to be both unwelcome and unsuited. "They don't belong," he urged, "and they ought t' keep out! They spoil ev'rything!"

"Well, men do the same things," she argued. "Just to-day I saw a man running a sewing machine."

"But he's got t' do it for some reason," Johnnie declared, "like I have t' make vi'lets—and cook."

"But if all the boy scouts don't care because girls are girl scouts, why should you care?" she wanted to know, hurt at his attitude toward her sex. "You know you don't belong yet. And if that young man thinks it's all right, why it must be, and he'll think you're funny if you scold about it."

The next morning Johnnie had but one thought: The promised call of the leader. Naturally he did not take his usual trip to search for One-Eye and bring home a box. Instead he made elaborate preparations looking toward the arrival of his visitor. With One-Eye, somehow it had not mattered how the flat appeared. Hero though he was, style counted little with the cowboy, who dwelt in a cellar along with horses. And anyhow One-Eye thought the flat was all right "far's it goes." Those had been his very words.

But with that leader, Johnnie felt it was different. He proceeded at once, mentally, to establish the gallant young stranger in a most luxurious apartment, with big windows, lace curtains, a figured carpet and shining morris chairs. And though across this attractive bachelor habitation he stretched a clothesline for the drying of expensive laundry, he was careful to think this line as a brand new one which was never used as a telephone, since right at hand was the genuine instrument.

How Johnnie went to work! When all of the duties of the flat were done, he pulled off the apron and hid it in the wash boiler. He did not want that leader to catch him wearing any garment that belonged to a woman. Neither did he want his newest friend even to guess that he (Johnnie) did any sort of girl's work—in particular any cooking.

"My goodness!" he exclaimed to himself. "If he was t' know what I do—well, maybe he wouldn't ask me t' be one of his scouts!"

Now he went at himself. He washed his face so that it glistened. He scrubbed his neck and ears till they were scarlet. And still using the soap liberally, even contrived to get rid of a coal smudge of long standing, situated down along his thin left calf.

But the morning passed, and the afternoon went by, and—no one came.

No one, that is, but Mrs. Kukor, who looked in toward five o'clock. In amazement she noted the neatness of the kitchen and the cleanliness of his face. "Ach, Levi!" she exclaimed. "How you gits a runnink jump mit yourselluf!"

"Prob'ly that gentleman, he's been awful busy to-day," said Johnnie, "and so he'll be here first thing in the mornin'."

"Pos-i-tivvle!" comforted Mrs. Kukor.

But late that night, when the whole flat was abed, he admitted to himself not only his disappointment but his keen chagrin. And he said to himself, independent now, that perhaps, after all, he did not care to be a scout!—there were so many other wonderful things he could be.

This is how it came about that, lying in the dark, he thought a most curious thing—one that had to do with the years ahead—the future that would find him grown-up.

The thing was this: he held himself away from himself to look at himself—precisely as he might have looked at Cis, or Big Tom, or Grandpa. But this was not all. For he did not look at himself as he was, in the big, old clothes; and he did not look at himself singly. He looked at six himselves, all ranged in a wonderful row!

Remembering what Cis had said about girl scouts and cowgirls, there was no Johnnie Smith either in khaki or in fur-trimmed breeches. The first Johnnie Smith of the row was a policeman (mounted!); the second, a millionaire, wearing his fur on his collar; then there was a Johnnie Smith dressed like Jim Hawkins, and he had two pistols in his belt; beside this pirate-slaying Johnnie was a Johnnie who inhabited a lonely island with a gentleman who owned a parrot and had a man Friday; and not too close to the Johnnie who was Crusoe's friend was a Johnnie who rode about with Aladdin on a great fighting elephant covered with blankets of steel which could turn the arrows of all enemies; last of the six, and perhaps the most glorious, too, was Sir Johnnie Smith, helmeted, and in knightly dress, sitting a curveting gray, lance and shield in hand.

Which of them all would he be?

There was plenty of time to decide. A thin cheek cupped in a too-large hand, he slept, dreaming that the leader was at the hall door, knocking, knocking, knocking, but that for the life of him, Johnnie could not move to answer the knock, being fixed to the floor, and helpless. He called to the young man, though, with his whole might, which woke Big Tom and Cis, and Cis woke Johnnie, by telling him to turn over, for he was having a nightmare.

Next morning, hope buoyed Johnnie up from the moment he opened his eyes. He rose joyously; and by nine o'clock everything was in readiness for the coming of the leader, and Johnnie was waiting eagerly, ears cocked.

But when, shortly before noon, he realized that a stranger was climbing the tenement stairs, not his ears but his small nose gave him the information. Charging the air from the hall was perfume so strong and delightful that, sniffing it in surprise and pleasure, he hastened to open the door and glance up and around in the gloom for what he felt sure would be like a smoke.

He saw nothing; but heard lively breathing, and a swish, swish, swish; next, a weak, mewlike cry. Then here was Mrs. Kukor herself, dropping down volubly, step by step, from her floor, aided by the banisters. "Eva?" she cried as she came; "wass it mine Eva?"

Now, coming up the stairs to Johnnie's level, appeared a young lady with red cheeks on a marvelously white face. She had on a silk dress (it was the silk which was doing the swishing), a great deal of jewelry, and a heavy fur coat fairly adrip around its whole lower edge with dozens of little tails.

But this was not all. Slung under one arm, she carried a fat baby!—and what a rosy, what a spotlessly clean, baby!

The baby was Mrs. Kukor's grandson, the lady was Mrs. Kukor's daughter, for "Mama!" cried the young mother; and as they met just in front of Johnnie there was an explosive outburst of talk in a strange tongue, and much of what Johnnie afterwards described to Cis as "double kissin'," that is, a kissing on both cheeks, the baby coming in for his share and weeping over it forlornly.

Greeting done, Mrs. Kukor introduced Johnnie. "Eva," she beamed, "from long you have hear Mama speakink over Chonnie Schmitt. Und—here wass!"

Fortunately Johnnie's right hand was clean. So was his smiling face. "Oh, Mrs. Reisenberger, I thank you for the tel'phone-d'rect'ry," he began gratefully, as the two shook hands.

Mrs. Reisenberger was staring at his rags. Also, she was now holding the baby well up and back. "Oh, I don't like it that my Mama should live down here," she declared. "She can live swell in the Bronx with Jake and me."

Now Johnnie stared—miserably. For her words were like a sickening blow. What if Mrs. Kukor were to leave? What would he do without her?

"I like I should live always by mine own place," asserted Mrs. Kukor. And to Johnnie, as she plucked a bit of Mrs. Reisenberger's skirt between a thumb and finger, "Look, Chonnie! All from silks!"

Then she led the way higher, while heads popped out of doors all up and down the house; and Mrs. Reisenberger puffed after her, like some sort of a sweet-smelling, red-and-white engine. "Oh, Mama," expostulated the other between breaths as she toiled to that last floor, "how I wish you should come to live with Jake and me!"

Mrs. Reisenberger was excitement enough for one day. But on the day following nothing happened, nor on the day after that. And gradually Johnnie's hope began to lessen, his faith to ooze.

By the end of a week, the young man with the eyeglasses scarcely seemed real, so that when Cis gently suggested that Johnnie had never met any leader, he was hardly able to protest that he had. By the end of a fortnight, his newest friend merged with that unsubstantial company made up of David, Aladdin, Uncas and all the rest. Then Johnnie took to telephoning him over the clothesline. Also, when Cis was home, the scout leader had a part in all those elaborate social functions she enjoyed, such as dances, and calling, and shopping.

These days, Johnnie again wore the apron, and neglected the soap and the comb and the brushing. Ah, it had all been too good to come true!

Two or three times, with a nubbin of chalk, he tried to draw the face of the young man on that handy bit of kitchen wall where the smooth plaster showed. But what unpracticed hand could trace such a splendid countenance? and what bit of white crayon could give any idea of a cheek all tan and red? It was one thing, and easy, to suggest Big Tom, with his bulging eyes, his huge, twisted nose, his sloping chin and his Saturday night bristles. But regular features were quite another matter.

Then one morning as he stood writing the big word "landscape" on the plaster, this word being out of The Last of the Mohicans, which he held in his left hand, his attention was caught by a sound in the hall. Some one seemed to be walking about aimlessly, as if uncertain where to knock.

Johnnie dropped his book into the big shirt, reached the door in a few long jumps, jerked it wide, and—looked straight into a smiling, ruddy face.



CHAPTER XVII

MR. PERKINS

HE was real! He had come! In a uniform, too, and boots, and a hat!—looking, in fact, even more wonderful than he had under the Elevated.

"Oh!" breathed Johnnie, so glad and proud all at once that he forgot the apron and his hair, or that the table was still strewn with the breakfast dishes. He fell back a step. "Oh, Mister Leader!"

The young man entered, lifting his hat from his head as he came, and displaying short, smooth, dark hair that glistened even in that poorly lighted room. "How are you, Johnnie!" he said heartily. They shook hands.

"I'm fine!" answered Johnnie, smiling his sunniest.

"Good!" The other gave a swift glance round. And certainly he was neither shocked nor delighted with the kitchen, for he acted as if he was seeing the sort of place he had expected to see—until he spied the wheel chair. Then he seemed surprised, and greatly interested. He laid his hat among the breakfast cups and crossed the room softly to look down at the little old man crumpled, sleeping, in the folds of the moth-eaten coat, the doll on one arm.

"Grandpa Barber," explained Johnnie, speaking low. "I took him on a long trip down the Miss'sippi this mornin', and he's awful tired."

The young man nodded. A curious wrinkle had come between his brows, as if some thought were troubling him. Also, even his forehead was red now. Suddenly he took out a handkerchief, turned, and walked to the window, where he used the handkerchief rather noisily, shaking his head. When he came about once more, and emerged from behind the square of white linen, not only did he look as if he were blushing violently, but even his eyes were a little red.

"Are you going to ask me to sit down?" he asked, smiling.

"Oh, I am! I do! Oh, what's the matter with me t'day! I forgit ev'rything!"

The young man chose the morris chair.

It was then that Johnnie realized how untidy the kitchen was, remembered that he had not washed the old soldier's face, or his own, or got rid of that apron. With fumbling fingers and mounting color, he slipped the apron strings over his tangled hair. "How'd I come t' have this thing on!" he exclaimed, and looked at the apron as if he had never seen it before.

The young man seemed not to notice either Johnnie's confusion or the soiled badge of girlish service. "You can call me Mr. Perkins, if you like," he said pleasantly. "And tell me—what've you been doing with yourself since I saw you?"

Again sunlight focused upon Johnnie's face. "Well, mostly," he replied, "—mostly, I been jus' waitin' for you." He seated himself on the kitchen chair.

"Now, you don't mean it!" cried Mr. Perkins, blushing again. "Well, bless your heart, old fellow! Waiting for me! I wish I could've come sooner. But I've been, pretty busy—up to my ears!"

"Oh, that's all right," Johnnie assured him. "'Cause I filled in the wait good 'nough. I jus' kept thinkin' you here, and ev'ry mornin' Grandpa and me'd have you 'long with us when we went t' Niaggery, or anywheres else; and ev'ry night, Cis'd take you with us, callin' on the Queen, or buyin' at the stores, or goin' t' grand balls."

After that, Mr. Perkins did not have anything to say for as much as a whole minute, but sat looking earnestly at his small host, and blinking a good deal. Then, "I see," he said finally. "That's nice. Mighty nice. I'm glad. And—and I hope I conducted myself all right."

"Oh, you was fine! Always!" declared Johnnie, his voice breaking, he was so emphatic. "Cis never could dance with One-Eye, and not jus' 'cause he wears spurs, neither. No, she thinks One-Eye's too homely to dance, or go callin', or take t' Wanamaker's. But, oh, she says you're jus' fine! Maybe not as grand as the Prince of Wales, she says, but then she's awful silly about him."

More steady looking; more blinking. "Well,—er—what did you say the little girl's name is?"

"Her full name's Narcissa Amy Way," answered Johnnie. "It's pretty long, ain't it? And if Grandpa and me called her that, Big Tom'd think we was wastin' time, or tryin' t' be stylish, and he hates ev'rything that's stylish—I don't know why. So round the flat, for ev'ry day, we call her Cis—C-i-s."

"Well, Miss Narcissa is right about me," said Mr. Perkins. "I'm not as grand as the Prince of Wales—not by a good deal! But now suppose you tell me all about yourself, and—and the others who live here."

Johnnie did so. And since he spoke low, and evenly, Grandpa did not wake, to interrupt. At the end of an hour, Mr. Perkins knew all that Johnnie was able to tell—about himself, his parents, his Uncle and Aunt, Mike Callaghan, the policeman, and the Fifty-fifth Street millionaire; about Cis and her mother, Barber and his father, Mrs. Kukor, One-Eye and the other cowboys, Buckle, Boof, David, Goliath (mingling the real, the historical, the visionary and the purely fictional), young Edward of England, that Prince's numerous silk-hatted friends, the four millionaires, the janitress, Mrs. Reisenberger and her baby, the flea-bitten mare, the postman, Edwarda (he showed the new doll), then, in quick succession, his favorite friends out of his five books.

Mr. Perkins listened, sitting on the small of his back, with his elbows on the arms of the morris chair, and his fingers touching. And when Johnnie came to the end of his story (with King Arthur, and those three Queens who kneeled around the king and sorely wept and wailed), all the visitor said was, "Good boy! And now tell me more about your reading."

Johnnie's eyes danced. He stood up, fairly quivering with happy excitement. Enthusiastically he explained that directly under Mr. Perkins was his oldest book, whereat Mr. Perkins got up, lifted the old chair cushion, and discovered the telephone directory. However, astonishing as it may seem, he had one just like it, so Johnnie did not lift the big book out to show its chief points of interest. Instead, he brought forth from Cis's closet his other treasures in binding, laying them very choicely on the table, and handing them over one by one—the best-looking of the lot first.

The books were put away again very soon, Johnnie explaining why. "But y' can keep the newspaper out," he declared. "Big Tom's seen it, and didn't try even t' tear it up."

"That was nice of him!" asserted Mr. Perkins, as he noted the date on the paper. "But what about school?"

"Oh, gee! I forgot all about Mister Maloney!" regretted Johnnie. He filled in the gap promptly, including night school, and the matter of his not having suitable clothes. "But when Mister Maloney heard how I can read," he concluded, "he seen I didn't need t' go t' school the way other kids do. Or anyhow"—remarking a curious light in those coffee-colored eyes—"that's what Big Tom says. And I can write good. Watch me, Mister Perkins! I'll write for you on the plaster—big words, too!"

"Oh, I'm sure you write well," Mr. Perkins agreed. "So I'd rather you'd talk. Tell me this: what do you eat?"

Johnnie answered, and as correctly as possible, being careful all the while not to give so much as a hint of the shameful truth that he, himself, did most of the cooking. As he talked, he kept wishing that the conversation would swing round to scouts and uniforms. He even tried to swing it himself. "Mrs. Kukor says that scouts make picnics," he said, "and have awful good things t' eat."

But Mr. Perkins passed that over, hint and all. He wanted to know whether or not Johnnie got plenty of milk.

"Oh, the milk we buy is all for Grandpa," Johnnie protested. "A big kid like me——"

Mr. Perkins interrupted. "I take a quart a day," he said quietly, "and I'm a bigger kid than you are; I'm twenty-one. Milk's got everything in it that a man needs from one end of his life to the other. Don't forget that."

"No, sir,"—fixing upon his visitor a look that admitted he was wrong. "I wish I could drink a lot of milk," he added regretfully.

"And what about exercise? and baths? Out-door exercise, I mean," said Mr. Perkins.

"I hang out o' the window 'most ev'ry mornin' that I don't go after boxes," answered Johnnie, so glad that he could give a satisfactory account of the matter of fresh air. "And bathin', well, I bathed ev'ry day when I was at my Aunt Sophie's, but down here——"

"Yes?" Mr. Perkins smiled encouragement.

"We ain't got no tub," said Johnnie, "so my neck's 'bout as far as I ever git."

Then the moment for which he had been waiting: "And you think you'd like to be a scout?" inquired Mr. Perkins.

"Oh, gee!" sighed Johnnie. He relaxed from sheer excess of feeling. His head tipped back against his chair, and he wagged it comically. "Wouldn't I jus'! And wear clothes like yours, and—and learn t' s'lute!"

Mr. Perkins laughed, but it was a pleasant, promising laugh. "We'll see what can be done," he said briskly. "And to begin with, how old are you?"

Johnnie opened his mouth—but held his tongue. He guessed that age had something to do with being a scout. But what? Was he too old? But the boys who had marched past him were as tall as he, if not taller. Then was he too young? Taken unaware, he was not able quickly to decide what the trouble might be. But he had not lived five years at Tom Barber's without learning how to get himself out of a tight corner. This time, all he had to do was tell the absolute truth. "I don't 'xac'ly know," he answered.

"Mm!" Mr. Perkins thought that over. Presently, adjusting his glasses, he looked Johnnie up and down, while anxious swallows undulated Johnnie's thin neck, and about his knobs of knees the long fringe of the big trousers trembled. "But we can find out how old you are, can't we?" Mr. Perkins added, with a sudden smile.

"I guess I'm ten goin' on 'leven," capitulated Johnnie.

"Ten going on eleven! That's splendid! It's the best age to begin getting ready to be a scout! The very best!"

"Gee! I'm glad!"

"So am I! You see, it takes some time to be a scout. It'll take every spare minute you've got to get ready. It's something that can't be done in a hurry. But here you've got more than a year to prepare yourself."

"More'n a—a year?"

"All scouts are twelve."

"Oh!" A shadow clouded the gray eyes.

"But a year means that you can get yourself in dandy condition. And would you mind showing me how fit you are now?"

Johnnie spread out his hands deprecatingly. "That's the trouble," he declared, looking down at his big, old clothes. "They don't fit."

But when he understood just what Mr. Perkins meant, in a twinkling he had slipped Barber's shirt over his head and was standing bared to the waist, all his little ribs showing pitifully, and—as he faced square about—his shoulder blades thrusting themselves almost through a skin that was a sickly white. "Ain't I fine?" he wanted to know. "Don't I look good'n strong?"

The glasses came tumbling off Mr. Perkins's nose. He coughed, and pulled out the white handkerchief again, and fell to polishing the crystal discs. "Fair," he said slowly. "But there's room for improvement."

Johnnie sensed a compassionate note in the answer. "Course I ain't fat," he conceded hastily. "But when Mrs. Kukor gives me filled fish I can see a big diff'rence right away!"

"Fat isn't what a boy wants," returned Mr. Perkins. "He wants good blood, and strong muscles, and a first-class pair of lungs!"

"Oh!" Raising the big shirt on high, Johnnie disappeared into it, fixing upon Mr. Perkins as he went a look that was full of anxiety. As he emerged, his lip was trembling. "You—you don't think I look all right, do you?" he asked. "Maybe you think I can't ever—you mean I—I can't be——"

"Oh, nothing of the kind!" laughed Mr. Perkins. "Fact is, Johnnie, you're way ahead as far as your mind is concerned. I'm mighty pleased about your reading. I certainly am, old fellow! And in no time you can get some blood into your cheeks, and cultivate some muscle, and straighten out your lungs. Once there was a boy who was in worse shape than you are, because he had the asthma, and could hardly breathe. And what do you suppose he did?"

"Et lots?" hazarded Johnnie.

"He said he would make over his own body, and he made it over."

"But, Mister Perkins, I'll do it, too! I'll make mine over! Tell me how!"

"Fresh air, proper breathing, exercises—day after day, that boy never stopped. And when he grew up, he found himself a strong man even among very strong men. That was the great American, Theodore Roosevelt."

"Oh, I know about him!" cried Johnnie. "He was President once, and he was a soldier. Cis knows a girl, and the girl's father, he worked in a big, stylish hotel, and once he carried Mister Roosevelt's trunk on his own back! Cis could name the girl, and prove it!"