CHAPTER XXVIII

ANOTHER STORY

THE first Sunday in September was a day that Johnnie was never to forget. Big Tom, Grandpa, Cis, and he—all were gathered about the kitchen table for the noon meal when Father Pat and One-Eye came in, the Father without his usual cheery greeting, though there was nothing downcast in his look or manner. On the contrary, something of pride was in his step, slow as that step was, and also in his glance, which instantly sought out Johnnie. The face of the cowboy, however, was stern, and that single eye, greener than either—or both—of the Father's, was iron-hard and coldly averted.

As the hall door shut at their backs, the priest raised his right hand in a gesture which was partly a salutation, partly a blessing. "Barber," he began solemnly (the longshoreman, having given the visitors a swift and surly look, had gone on busily with his eating), "we've come this mornin' about the Blake matter."

Startled, Big Tom threw down his knife and rose, instantly on the defensive; and Johnnie and Cis, watching, understood at once that "the Blake matter" was one known to the longshoreman, not welcomed by him, though most important. "Oh, y' seen that guy, Davis, eh?" he demanded.

"Not one hour ago," answered the priest, quietly.

"Tuh!"—it was an angry sneer. "And I s'pose he whined 'bout me takin' the kid?—though he could do nothin' for Johnnie. Sophie was dead, and the kid was too little t' be left alone."

"Ye took the lad the day Albert Davis was half crazed over his wife," charged the Father; "—hurried him off without a word or a line! A bad trick altogether! Oh, Davis guessed ye had the boy—the wee Johnnie he loved like a father. But he had small time t' hunt, what with his work. And at last he had t' give up."

All that told Johnnie a great deal. He shot a look at Cis. Barber had taunted him often with his Uncle Albert's indifference—with the fact that not even a post card had ever come from the rich man's garage to the lonely little boy in the area building. But how could Uncle Albert send a post card to some one if he did not know that some one's address?

Barber kicked the morris chair out of his way. "That's the thanks I git for supportin' a youngster who ain't no kin t' me!" he stormed.

Father Pat drew himself up. The red stubble on his bare head seemed stiff with righteous wrath. "Then I'll ask ye why ye kidnapped the lad?" he cried. "No kin t' ye, eh? And ye knew it, didn't ye? Then! So why didn't ye leave the boy with Davis?—Because ye wanted his work!"

"Work!" repeated Barber, and broke into a shrill laugh. "Why, he wasn't worth his feed! I took him jus' t' be decent!"

"Barber," returned the Father, firmly, "the tellin' o' a lie against annybody is always a bad thing. But there's another kind o' lie that's even worse, and that's lying t' yerself—that ye was thinkin' o' his good when ye rushed him away, and not o' yer own pocket!" Then, nodding wisely as he took the chair Big Tom booted aside, "If ye wanted t' be so decent, why didn't ye take the lad when his father and mother died? Ha-a-a! He was too tiny t' be useful then, wasn't he? So ye let Sophie Davis bring him up; ye let his uncle support him."

"Oh, all right," rejoined the longshoreman, resentfully. "I guess when y've made up your mind about a man, there ain't no use talkin' t' y', is there?"

"No use, Mr. Barber," answered the other. "And this very mornin', while I've still got the breath and the strength t' do it, I mean t' tell the lad the truth!"

"I been intendin' t' tell him myself," asserted Barber. "But up t' now, it wasn't no story t' be tellin' a little kid—leastways, not a kid that's got a loony way o' seein' things, and worryin' over 'em. And I warn y'! Y're likely as not t' make him sick!"

The priest chuckled. "Y' ought t' know about that," he agreed. "Seein' that ye've made him sick yerself, often enough."

At that, with a backward tip of his head, so that the wide hat fell off, and with the strangest, rasping, strangling sound in his skinny throat (his great, hairy Adam's-apple leaping, now high, now low), One-Eye began to laugh, at the same time beginning a series of arm-wavings, slapping first one thigh and then the other. "Har! har! har!" he ejaculated hoarsely.

With a muttered curse, Big Tom walked to the door. "Go ahead!" he cried. "But I don't set 'round and listen t' the stuff!" Black, fuming, he slammed his way out.

One-Eye pointed out the kitchen chair to Cis; and when she was seated, got the wood box and set it on its side. "Come and roost along with me," he bade Johnnie, the single eye under the wet-combed, tawny bang smiling almost tenderly at the boy.

When they were all comfortably settled, "Our good friend here got most o' the information," informed Father Pat. "So, One-Eye, wouldn't ye like t'——"

"Oh, not me! Not me!" the Westerner answered quickly. "I ain't no hand for tellin' nothin'! No, Father! Please! I pass!"

"Johnnie," began the priest, "it's likely ye've guessed, after hearin' all I said t' Mr. Barber, that ye was (what I'll be bold enough t' call) stolen from yer Uncle, who wasn't ever able t' locate ye again."

"Yes, sir,"—with a pleased smile. His Uncle Albert was not more than an hour away. That was the best of news!

"And ye noted me use the name o' Blake," continued the other. "Well, it happens t' be yer own name."

"Blake!" Cis was amazed.

"Y' mean—y' mean my name ain't Smith," faltered Johnnie, who had, for a moment, been too stunned by the news to speak.

"Smith was the first name Mr. Barber could think up," explained Father Pat, "when he made up his mind t' take ye, Mr. Davis bein' gone t' the hospital."

One-Eye burst out. "Never liked the name!" he declared. "Knowed a feller oncet—Jim Smith—a snake! a bald-haided buzzard! a pole-cat!"

Johnnie was staring at the floor. "John Blake!" he said under his breath. "O' course! Me! 'Cause it sounds all right, some way, and Smith never did!—Not John Smith, but John Blake!"

"Johnnie," went on the Father, "I told the dear two o' ye the story o' Edith Cavell. And ye thought that story grand, which it is. But t'day I'm tellin' ye another—one which, in its way, is equally grand. But this time the story's about a man—a wonderful man, gallant and brave, that ye'll love from this hour on."

"Please, what does he look like?" asked Johnnie, wanting a definite picture in his mind.

"A proper question!—And, see! The old gentleman's asleep again! Good! Wheel him a mite away, would ye mind, Miss Narcissa? He'll dream a bit better if he isn't under me voice. Thanks!—Well, then, first o' all, I'll have ye take note o' this man's general appearance, like. He was young, as men go, bein' only thirty-one; though"—with a laugh and a shake of the head—"ye think him fairly old, don't ye? Ha! But the day'll come when thirty-one'll seem t' ye like a baby right out o' the cradle! Yes, indeed!—But t' go back t' the man: thirty-one he was——"

"Was?" inquired Johnnie. "Is he dead? Or—or maybe now he's thirty-two?"

"He'll be thirty-one," said Father Pat, "to the very end o' time. For he is dead, lad dear, though God knows I wish I could tell ye otherwise, but we'll not be questionin' His mercy nor His judgment. And when all is said and done, his brave death is somethin' t' give thanks for, as ye'll admit fast enough when ye've heard.—Well, thirty-one, he was, and about me own height. But not me weight. No, he was a lighter-weighing man. He had sandyish hair, this gentleman, and a smooth face. His eyes were gray-and-blue. And from what I hear about him, he smiled a good deal, and was friendly t' ev'rybody, with a nice word and cheery how-dy-do. His skin was high-colored like, and his chin was solid and square, and he had a fine straight nose, and—but have ye got it all?"

"Yes, sir!" Johnnie scarcely remembered that any one else was with them. "Slim, and light-haired (like me), and no whiskers, and kind of gray eyes, and all his face nice. But I can't see it 'xac'ly as I'd like t', 'cause maybe what I see and what he looked like ain't just the same."

"In that case," replied the Father, "it's a good thing, I'm thinkin', that I brought along a photograph!"

There it was in his hand. He held it (small and round, it was) cupped by a big palm; and Johnnie, leaning forward, studied the pictured countenance carefully. "That's right," went on the priest; "look at it close—close!"

"I—I like him," Johnnie said, after a little. "And I'm awful sorry he's dead.—But please go on, Father Pat. I want t' hear 'bout him. Though if the story's very sad, why, I'm 'fraid that Cis'll cry."

"I won't," promised Cis. "But—but if the story tells how he died, I don't think I'll look at the picture—not just yet, anyhow."

The priest laid the photograph, face down, upon the table. "It isn't that Miss Narcissa'll cry," he argued; "but, oh, what'll we say t' this young lady when she sees us weep?—for, little lad dear, this is a tale—" He broke off, then and there, as if about to break down on the spot. But coughed, and changed feet, thus getting control of himself once more, so that he was able to go on.

"This young man I'm tellin' about lived in Buffalo," continued the Father. "Now that city is close t' the noble Falls that ye're so fond o' visitin' with Grandpa. Well, one day in the Spring——"

"Scuse me! Last spring?" Johnnie interrupted.

"Eight long springs ago," answered the Father. "Which would make ye about two years o' age at the time, if me arithmetic is workin' fairly well t'day."

"Two is right," declared Johnnie, with the certainty of one who has committed to memory, page by page, the whole of a book on numbers.

"But as ye were all o' four years old at the time," corrected the priest, "eight springs ago would make ye twelve years old at this date——"

"Twelve?"

"Ha-ha-a-a-! Boy scout age!" reminded the Father.

At that, Johnnie, quite overcome by the news, tumbled sidewise upon One-Eye's hairy knees, and the cowboy mauled the yellow head affectionately. When the Westerner set Johnnie up again, "So ye see Mr. Barber shoved yer age back a bit when ye first came here," explained the priest. "And as ye was shut in so much, and that made ye small for yer years, why, he planned t' keep ye workin' for him just that much longer. Also, it helped him in holdin' ye out o' school."

One-Eye's mustache was standing high under the brown triangle of his nose. The single eye was burning. "Oh, jes' fer a good ex-cuse!" he cried. "Fer a chanst! Fer a' openin'! And—it'll come! It'll come! I ain't goin' t' leave Noo York, neither, till I've had it!"

If Cis caught the main drift of all this, Johnnie did not. "I'd like t' be able t' send word t' Mister Perkins!" he declared. "Oh, wouldn't he be tickled, though!—Cis, I can be a scout—this minute!" Then apologetically, "But I won't int'rrupt y' again, Father Pat. I know better, only t' hear what you said was so awful fine!"

"Ye're excused, scout dear," declared the priest. "Shure, it's me that's glad I can bring a bit o' good news along with the sad—which is the way life goes, bein' more or less like bacon, the lean betwixt the fat. And now I'll go on with the story o' the young man and his wife, and——"

"There's a lady in the story?" asked Cis.

"A dear lady," answered the Father. "Young and slim, she was—scarce more than a girl. With brown hair, I'm told, though I'm afraid I can't furnish ye much more o' a description, and I'm sad t' say I've got no photograph."

"Guess I won't be able t' see her face the way I do his," said Johnnie.

"She must've been very sweet-lookin' in the face," declared Father Pat. "And bein' as good as she was good-lookin', 'tis not hard t' understand why he loved her the way he did. And that he did love her, far above annything else in the world, ye'll understand when ye've heard it all. So think o' her as beautiful, lad dear, and as leanin' on him always, and believin' in what he said, and trustin'. Also, she loved him in the same way that he loved her, and we'll let that comfort us hereafter whenever we talk about them—the strong, clean, fine, young husband, and the bit o' a wife.

"Well, it was Spring, and they, havin' been kept in all winter, had a mind one day t' visit the Falls. That same day was lovely, they tell me, sunny and crisp. And she wore a long, brown coat over her neat dress, and a scarf of silk veilin' about her throat. And he wore his overcoat, there bein' some snap in the air.

"Quite a lot o' folks was goin' out upon the ice below the Falls, for the thawin' and the breakin' up was not goin' forward too much—they thought—and a grand view was t' be had o' the monster frozen floor, and the icicles high as a house. So this gentleman and his wife——"

"My father and mother!" cried Johnnie. "Oh, Father Pat, y're goin' t' tell me how they both got drownded!"

"Now! now! now!" comforted One-Eye, with a pat or two on a shoulder. "Y' want t' know, don't y'? Aw, sonny, it'll make y' proud!"

Johnnie could only nod. The Father went on: "They went out upon the ice with all the others, and stood gazin' up at the beautiful sight, and talkin', I'll venture t' say, about how wonderful it was, and sayin' that some day they'd bring the boy t' see it."

"Me,"—and Johnnie drew closer to One-Eye.

"Only a bit o' a baby, ye was, lad dear, safe at home with yer Aunt Sophie, but big enough t' be put into ev'ry one o' their dreams and plans. —So when they'd looked long, and with pleasure, at the fairy work o' the frozen water, they turned and watched downstream. There was a vast floor o' ice in that direction, all covered still with snow. At the far edge o' the floor showed open water, flowin' in terrible wildness, so that no boat ever rides safely in it, nor can anny man swim through it and live.

"The rapids lay below there, but these were a long way off from the sightseers at the Falls. They could see the tumblin', perhaps, and maybe hear the roar. But what was under their feet was firm as the ground, and they felt no fear."

"But—but was it safe?" Johnnie faltered. "Oh, Father Pat, I'm 'fraid it wasn't!"

"Where they stood, it was," declared the Father. "But all at once, a smart puff o' wind caught that pretty wisp o' veilin' from the young wife, and wafted it away. And as quick as the wind itself after it she darted; but when she was close to it, up and off it whirled again, and she followed it, and he after her, and—shouts o' warnin' from all!"

Johnnie took his underlip in his teeth. By that power of his to call before him vividly the people and places and things he heard, or read, about, and to see everything as if it were before him, now he was seeing the snow-covered flooring of the river, the hastening figure headed toward danger, and the frightened one who pursued, while the sun shone, and voices called, and the river roared below.

"There was good reason t' shout," continued the priest. "For by a bitter chance the ice had cracked clear across 'twixt where the two were hastenin' and where they had stood before."

Now Johnnie suddenly grew white, and his lip quivered out from its hold. "But they must go back, Father Pat!" he cried, his breast heaving. "Oh, they must go back!"

"They can't," answered the Father, speaking very low. "Oh, dear lad, they're cut off from the shore. There's a big rift in the ice now, and it's growin' each moment bigger, and they're on the wrong side o' it, and—floatin' down river."

One-Eye slipped an arm about Johnnie, drawing the bright head to a shoulder. "Are y' all right, sonny?" he asked huskily. "Can y' hear the rest? Or——"

"Yes,"—but it was scarcely a whisper, and the flaxen lashes were shuttering the gray eyes tight. "I—I ought t' be able t' stand just hearin' it, if—if they could stand the really thing."

"I don't want t' break the wee heart o' ye," protested the Father, tenderly. "And so maybe we'll wait?"

"No, sir." Johnnie opened his eyes. "I'm goin' t' feel b-bad. But please don't mind me. I'm thinkin' of Edith Cavell, and that'll help."

"God love the lad!" returned the Father, choking a little. "And I'll go on. For I'm thinkin' it's better t' hear the truth, even when that truth is bitter, than t' be anxiously in doubt." Then, Johnnie having assented by a nod, "That rift grew wider and wider. As they stopped runnin' after the veil, and turned, they saw it, the two o' them. 'Tis said that the young wife gave a great cry, and ran back towards the Falls, and stood close t' the rim o' the ice, and held out her two hands most pitiful. But all who were on the ice had scattered, the most t' hurry t' do somethin' which would help."

"Oh, they must hurry!"—it was Cis this time, the pointed chin trembling.

"Ropes—they got ropes, for there was a monster bridge below, which the two will pass under before long, as the ice-cake floats that far. And the ropes must be ready, and let down t' save 'em.—Yes, rods o' rope were lowered, as fast as this could be managed, and as close as possible t' where the men on the bridge judged the pair on the ice would go by. There was a big loop in the end that trailed t' the river. But long as that rope was, shure, it wasn't long enough, though the man was able t' catch it—and what a shout o' joy went up!—and he could've slipped it over his own head as easy as easy, but he would not do it—no, not without her. But, oh, as he leaned to drop the big loop around her (another rope was comin' down at the same time for him), she weakened, and fainted in his arms, and lay there in the snow.

"He lifted her—quick! But before he could pass the loop over her head, the current swept her on. Now there was still time for him t' spring back and save himself—save her, he could not. But he would not leave her lyin' there and save himself, and so—and so——"

"Oh, has he got t' die?" pleaded Johnnie, brokenly.

"Johnnie," went on the Father, gently, "we're not on this earth just t' have a good time, or an easy time,—no, or a safe time. We're here t' do our duty, and this is how yer father thought. Lad, dear, some day ye'll come t' a tight place yerself. And ye'll have t' decide what ye're t' do: go this way, which is the easiest, or that, which is the hard path o' duty, a path which'll take all the pluck ye've got, but the right one, nevertheless—the fine, true way. And when such a time comes, shure, ye'll remember what he did that day——"

Johnnie's eyes were closed again. From under his shining lashes the tears were beginning to creep, finding their way in long letter S's down his pale cheeks. "I'll think o' what my father did!" he answered. "Oh, I will, Father Pat! My fine, wonderful father!"

"Could he have chosen t' be saved, and leave the young wife there? O' course, he could not—if ever he wanted t' have a peaceful thought again, or the respect o' men and women. But maybe he didn't even think o' all this, but just did the brave act naturally—instinctively. No, he would not be saved without her. And—the ropes were both out o' reach, now, and the ice cake was floatin' swifter, and swifter, and, dear! dear! breakin' at one side.

"His wife in his arms, he faced about, holdin' the slim, brown figure against his heart. He was talkin' to her then, I'll be bound, sayin' all the tender, lovin' things that could ease her agony, though as, mercifully enough now, she was limp in his hold, likely she could not even hear."

"Oh, I hope so!" said Cis. "Then she wouldn't be suffering!"

"From the shore the people watched them, and from the bridge. But manny could not watch, for, ah, 'twas a tragic sight. Some o' these prayed; some hid their faces. But others shouted—in encouragement, maybe, or just terror. Annyhow, the young husband, hearin' the calls, lifted his face t' that high bridge. And 'twas then he called—just once, but they heard. And what he called was a single name, and that name was—Johnnie."

Down went Cis's head then, and she wept without restraint. But Johnnie was somehow uplifted now, as by pride. "I can see him!" he cried. "My father! Just as plain!" He sat up straight again, though his eyes were still shut. "I can see his face, smilin', and his light hair! Why, it's as if he was lookin' straight at me!" Then trembling again into One-Eye's hold, "But I can't see my mother's face, 'cause it's turned away, hidin' on my father's shoulder. I can see just her back. Oh, my—poor—m-mother!"

"He was thinkin' o' the baby he was leavin' behind," went on the priest, "in that last moment o' his life. And if she was, too, then it's no wonder the gentle thing couldn't lift her head."

"Oh! Oh, Father Pat!"—while One-Eye stroked the yellow hair he had ruffled, and whispered fondly under that dun mustache.

"The ice was near the rapids now, so there isn't a great deal more t' tell," continued the Father. "He put up one hand, did yer father, wavin' it in a last salute—thankin', maybe, the men who had worked so hard with the ropes.—O God o' Mercy, wast Thou not lookin' down upon Thy servant as he gave his life cheerfully just t' comfort hers one minute longer?

"The agony was short. The rapids caught the cake, which whirled like a wheel—once. Then it tipped, breakin' again, crumblin' t' bits under them, and they sank. There was just a glimpse, a second's, o' his head, shinin' in the sun. Then they were gone—gone. God rest his soul—his brave, brave soul! And God rest her soul, too!" The Father crossed himself.

After awhile, having wiped his own eyes, he went on once more: "Behind them swayed the rope as the men on the bridge slowly dragged it up and up. And the people everywhere turned away, and started slowly home. Not alt'gether sadly, though. For they'd seen a beautiful thing done, one which was truly sublime. And later in yer life, lad dear, when ye hear tell, manny a time, how this boy or that has had somethin' left t' him by his father—land, maybe, or a great house, or money—then don't ye fail t' remember what was left t' yerself! For yer father left ye more than riches. He left ye the right t' be proud o' him, and t' respect and honor him, and there's no grander inheritance than that! And the sweetness which was yer mother's, along with the bravery o' yer father, all are yer own, comin' t' ye in their blood which courses through yer own veins. Inheritance! What a lot is in the word! Manny's the time I've wondered about ye—how ye love what's decent and good—good books, and right conduct, and t' be clean, and all the rest o' it. But now I understand why. Come t' me, little son o' a good mother! Little son o' a brave father!" The priest held out his hand.

As Johnnie came, Father Pat took from a pocket a leather case which, when opened, disclosed—was it a piece of money? or an ornament? Johnnie could not decide. But it was round, and beautiful, and of gold. Taken from its case, it was heavy. On the obverse side it bore the likeness of a man as old, nearly, as Grandpa; on the reverse, cut in a splendid circle, were the words, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. In the center, in lasting letters of metal, were other words: Awarded to William Blake.

"'Tis a medal," explained the Father, "and 'twas awarded to that husband who would not save himself if he could not save his wife."

"Is—is that my father's picture?" Johnnie asked, under his breath.

"No, lad dear. 'Tis Andrew Carnegie, that—the founder of the Carnegie Hero Fund. He was a poor boy when he came to America from Scotland. And, Johnnie, dear, books was what he loved, and when he was a little telegraph messenger, he'd read when he could, in betwixt scamperin' here and there with messages. He lived to make a fortune, and much of that fortune he spent in buildin' libraries for those who can't afford to buy their own books. And he did manny other things, and one o' 'em was—t' leave an educational award t' the wee son o' a certain hero I could name, so that the lad, as soon as he was big enough, could go t' school and college. Now, who d' ye think I mean?"

Johnnie knew; yet it was all so sudden that he could not wholly realize it. "Money for school, lad dear," repeated the priest. "It's been waitin' for ye this long time. But Mr. Tom Barber didn't happen t' know about it, and we'll not be sayin' a word t' him just yet. No; I'm thinkin' the news would be the end o' the dear man—so much money in the family, and him not able t' put his hands on a cent!"

When Father Pat was gone, One-Eye with him, he left behind, not a sorrowing little boy, who blamed Fate for having robbed him of both father and mother in one terribly tragic hour, but a boy who was very proud. There was this about him, too: he did not feel fatherless and motherless any longer, but as if the priest had, somehow, given him parents.

"And, oh, wasn't it a beautiful story?" Cis asked, as they put the medal in a pocket of the new scout coat. (The picture Father Pat had carried away to have copied.) "Johnnie, I feel as if I'd been to church! It's like the passing of Arthur—so sad, but so wonderful! Oh, Johnnie Blake, think of it! You're twelve! and you can go to school! and you're the son of a hero!"

"Yes," said Johnnie. As he had not done the work which he knew Big Tom expected of him that Sunday, now he got out the materials for his violet-making and began busily shaping flowers. "And I'm goin' t' be a scout right off, too," he reminded. "So I mustn't shirk, 'r they won't give me a badge!"



CHAPTER XXIX

REVOLT

"'TAKE two cupfuls of milk,'" read Johnnie, who was bent over his newest possession, a paper-covered cookbook presented him only that morning by his good friend overhead; "'three tablespoonfuls of sugar, one-half saltspoonful of salt' (only, not havin' a saltspoon, I'll just put in a pinch), 'one-half teaspoonful of vanilla' (and I wonder what vanilla is, and maybe I better ask Mrs. Kukor, but if she hasn't got any, can I leave vanilla out?), 'the yolks of three eggs'—" Here he stopped. "But I haven't got any eggs!" he sighed. And once more began turning the pages devoted to desserts.

This sudden interest in new dishes had nothing whatever to do with the Merit Badge for Cooking. The fact was, he was about to make a pudding; and the pudding was to be made solely for the purpose of pleasing the palate of Mr. Tom Barber.

Johnnie had on his scout uniform. And it was remarkable what that uniform always did for him in the matter of changing his feelings toward the longshoreman. The big, old, ragged clothes on, the boy might be glad to see Barber go for the day, and even harbor a little of his former hate for him; but the scout clothes once donned, their very snugness seemed to straighten out his thoughts as well as his spine, the former being uplifted, so to speak, along with Johnnie's chin! Yes, even the buttons of the khaki coat, each embossed with the design of the scout badge, helped him to that state of mind which Cis described as "good turny." Now as he scanned the pages of the cookbook, those two upper bellows pockets of his beloved coat (his father's medal was in the left one) heaved up and down proudfully at the mere thought of to-day's good deed.

He began to chant another recipe: "'One pint of milk, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, two heapin' tablespoonfuls of cornstarch'——"

Another halt. The cupboard boasted no cornstarch. Nor was there gelatine in stock, with which to make a gay-colored, wobbly jelly. As for prune souffle, he could make that easily enough. But—the longshoreman did not want to lay eyes on another prune souffle before Washington's Birthday, at least, and the natal anniversary of the Father of His Country was still a long way off.

Apple fritters, then? But they took apples. And brown betty had the boldness to demand molasses on top of apples!

He turned more pages.

Then he found his recipe. He knew that the moment his eye caught the name—"poor man's pudding." He bustled about, washing some rice, then making the fire. All the while he hummed softly. He was especially happy these days, for only the week before he had been visited by his Uncle Albert, looking a trifle changed after these five years, but still the kindly, cheerful Uncle Albert of the old days in the rich man's garage.

He fell to talking aloud. "I got milk," he said, "and I got salt, and sugar, and the rinds o' some oranges. They're dry, but if I scrape 'em into the puddin', Mrs. Kukor says they'll make it taste fine! I'll give Mister Barber a bowl t' eat it out of. My! how he'll smack!"

At this point, the wide, old boards of the floor gave a telltale snap. It was behind him, and so loud that it shattered his vision of Big Tom and the pudding bowl. Some one was in the room! Father Pat? Mrs. Kukor? One-Eye?

He turned a smiling face.

What he saw made him even forget that he had on the beloved scout suit. In the first shock, he wondered how they could have come up and in without his hearing them; and, second, if he was just thinking one of his thinks, and had himself lured these two familiar shapes into the kitchen. For there, in arm's length of him, standing face to face, were—Big Tom and Cis.

They were real. In the next breath, Johnnie knew it. No think of his would show them to him looking as they now looked. For Barber's heavy, dark countenance was working as he chewed on nothing ferociously; while Cis—in all the past five years Johnnie had never before seen her face as it was now. It was set and drawn, and a raging white, so that the blue veins stood out in a clear pattern on her temples. Her hat hung down grotesquely at one side of her head. Her hair was in wild disarray. And her eyes! They were a blazing black!

What had happened?

"Let go of me!" Cis demanded, in a voice that was not hers at all. Barber had hold of her arm. With a sudden twist she freed herself.

"Here!" Her stepfather seized her again, and jerked her to a place beside him. "And none o' y'r loud talk, d' y' understand?"

"Yes, I understand!" she answered defiantly, yet without lowering her voice. "But I don't care what you want! I'll speak the way I want to! I'll yell—Ee-e-e——"

But even as she began the shriek, one of his great hands grasped the whole lower half of her face, covering it, and stopping the cry.

The next moment she was gasping and struggling as she fought his hold. She tried to pull backward. She dragged at his hand as she circled him.

It was a strange contest, so quiet, yet so fierce. It was not like something that Johnnie was really seeing: it was like one of those thinks of his—a terrible one. Bewildered, fascinated, paralyzed, he watched, and the matches dropped, scattering, from his hands.

The contest was pitifully unequal. All at once the girl's strength gave out. Her knees bent under her. She swayed toward Big Tom, and would have fallen if he had not held her up—by that hand over her mouth as well as by the grasp he had kept on her elbow. Now those huge, tonglike arms of his caught her clear of the floor and half threw, half dropped, her upon the kitchen chair.

"You set there!" commanded Barber.

Too spent for speech, but still determined not to obey him, Cis tried to leave the chair, and drew herself partly up by grasping the table. But she could not stand, and sank back. At one corner of her mouth showed a trickle of blood, like a scarlet thread.

The sight of it brought Johnnie to her in an agony of concern. "Oh, Cis!" he implored.

With one flail-like swing of a great arm, Barber swept the boy aside. "Stay where y' are!" he said to Cis (he did not even look at Johnnie). Then he crossed to the hall door, which was shut, and deliberately bolted it. The clash between him and Cis had been so quiet that Grandpa had not even been wakened. Now Barber went to the wheel chair, and gently, slowly, began to trundle it toward the bedroom. "Time t' go t' s'eep, Pa," he said coaxingly. "Yes, time for old man t' go s'eepy-s'eepy." When the chair was across the sill, he closed the door upon it.

Meanwhile, Johnnie had again moved nearer to Cis. Now was his chance to get away in his uniform and change into his old clothes; to gather up his old, big shirt and trousers from where they lay on the morris chair, unbolt the door, and make for that flight of stairs leading up to the roof. But—he did not even think of going, of leaving her when she needed him so. He wanted to help her, to comfort. "Oh, Cis!" he whispered again.

She seemed not to hear him, and she did not turn her burning eyes his way. Breathing hard, and sobbing with anger under her breath, she stared at Barber. Her lip was swelling. Her face was crimson from her fight. Drops of perspiration glistened on her forehead.

Barber's underlip was thrust out as he came back to her. "Y' ain't got the decency t' be quiet!" he charged, "in front o' that poor old man!"

Now she had breath to answer. She straightened in her chair, and met him with a boldness odd when coming from her. "Grandpa isn't the only person in this flat to be considered," she returned.

"Jus' the same"—Big Tom shook a finger in her face—"he's the first one that's goin' t' be considered!"

"Johnnie and I have our rights!" she cried.

As she spoke his name, Johnnie's heart leaped so that it choked him—with gratitude, and love, and admiration.

"Never mind y'r rights!" the longshoreman counseled. "I begin t' see through you! Y're a little sneak, that's what y' are! Look at the crazy way y're actin', and I thought y' was a quiet girl! Y' been pretty cute about hidin' what y're up to!"

"Hiding!" she answered, resentful. "What do I have to hide from you? What I do is none of your business! I'm not a relation of yours! and I'm seventeen! And from now on——"

"Oh, drop that!" interrupted Barber. "Y' waste y'r breath!" Then with another shake of the finger, "What I want t' know—and the truth, mind y'!—is how long has this been goin' on?" He leaned on the table to peer into her eyes.

Going on? Johnnie's look darted from one to the other. Had Cis been staying away from the factory? Had she been taking some of her earnings to see a moving-picture? or——

"I don't have to tell you!" Cis declared.

"I'm the man that feeds y'!" Barber reminded. "Jus' remember that!"

"You've taken my earnings," she returned. "You've taken every cent I've ever got for my work! And don't you forget that!"

"Ev'ry girl brings home her wages," answered the longshoreman. "And don't y' forgit that I fed y' many a year before y' was able t' work——"

"While my mother was living, she earned my food!" Cis cried. "And I've worked, just as Johnnie has, ever since I was a baby!"

"Have y'? Bosh! Y' been a big expense t' me, that's what y' been, for all these past ten years! And now, jus' when y're old enough t' begin payin' me back a little, here y' go t' actin' up! Well, you was left in my hands. I'm only stepfather to y'. All right. But I'm goin' t' see that y' behave y'rself."

"You've got nothing to say about me!" she persisted.

"No? I'll show y'! But what I want t' know now is, how many times have you met this dude at the noon hour?"

Then Johnnie understood what had happened.

"Ha-a-a-a!" Cis threw back her head with a taunting laugh. "Dude! So he's a dude, is he? But I notice, big as you are, that you didn't let Mr. Perkins know you'd been watching us! You didn't come up to the bench and speak to him! No! You waited till he was gone! You were only brave enough to do your talking in front of a lot of girls! Ha-a-a-a!" Then her anger mounting, "You talk about sneaking! That's because you've sneaked and followed us!"

"Y're too young t' have any whipper-snapper trailin' 'round with y'—noons, 'r any other time," declared Barber.

"My mother married when she was seventeen!" retorted Cis.

"It'll be time enough for y' t' be thinkin' o' beaus when y're twenty," went on Big Tom, quietly.

She stood up. "You hate to see anybody happy, don't you?" she asked scornfully. "You're afraid maybe Mr. Perkins will like me, and want me to marry him, and give me a good home!"

"You can put that Perkins out o' y'r head," commanded the longshoreman. "When y're old enough, o' course, y're goin' t' marry; but I plan t' have y' marry a man."

"Mr. Perkins is a man," she answered, not cowed or frightened in the least.

"Not my notion o' a man," said Big Tom.

"I like him all the better for that!" she returned—an answer which stung and angered him anew, for he caught her roughly once more and hurled her back into her chair.

She stayed there for a moment, panting. Then, "I'm going to marry Mr. Perkins," she told him. "To-morrow—if I live!"

"T'morrow!" He shouted the word. "What're y' talkin' about? I'll kill y' first! I'll——"

"Oh, don't!" As Barber reached to seize Cis again, Johnnie dragged at his sleeve.

But the longshoreman did not notice him. It was Cis who cried out to Johnnie, still defying Big Tom. "Oh, let him do what he wants!" she said. "Because he won't have a chance even to speak to me after to-day! Let him! Let him!"

Barber shook her, and stepped back. "After t'-day," he told her, "y'll work right here at home!"

"Home! Home!" She laughed wildly. "Do you call this a home?"

"I'll see that y' behave y'rself!" he vowed.

"You'd better see that you behave yourself!" she retorted. "Because Johnnie doesn't belong to you—you haven't any rights over him! And he's gone once, and he'll go again—after I go! And I'm going the minute I can stand on my feet! I've stayed here long enough! Then you can try it alone for a change!"

"Oh, can I?"

"I'll never do another thing for you!" she went on; "—in this flat or out! No, not in all the rest of my life! Oh, I'm not like Johnnie! I can't pretend it's beautiful when it's awful! and imagine good clothes, and decent food, and have my friends driven away, and insulted! I won't stand it! I know what's wrong! I see things the way they are! And I'm not going to put up with them! No girl could bear what you ask me to bear! This flat! My room! The way I have to work—at the factory, and then here, too! And no butter! No fruit! And the mean snarling, snarling, snarling! And never a cent for myself!"

It had all come pouring out, her voice high, almost hysterical. And if it surprised Johnnie, who had never before seen Cis other than quiet and gentle and sweet, modest, wistful and shrinking, it appalled Barber. Those eyes of his bulged still more. His great mouth stood wide open.

Presently, he straightened and looked up and around. "Well, I guess I see what's got t' be done," he remarked casually.

The strap—it was Johnnie's first thought; Barber was getting ready to whip Cis! Never before had the boy seen her threatened, and the mere idea was beyond his enduring. "Oh, Mister Barber!" he protested. "Oh, what y' goin' t' do?"

For an answer, the longshoreman swung a big arm over his own head and gave such a mighty pull at the clothesline that it came loose from its fastening at either end.

"Cis! He'll kill y'!" cried the boy, suddenly terror-stricken.

Girls could be brave! Father Pat had said it, and Edith Cavell had proved it. Cis was proving it, too! For now she rose once more, and though she was trembling, it was only with anger, not with fear. "He can kill me if he wants to!" she cried defiantly. "But he can't make me mind him, and he can't make me stay in this flat!"

Then Johnnie knew what he must do: bear himself like the scout he was so soon to be. Also, was he not the son of his father? And his father had been braver than any scout. So he himself must be extra brave. He flung himself against Barber, and clung to him, his arms wound round one massive leg. "Oh, Mister Barber!" he entreated. "Don't hurt Cis! Lick me! Lick me!"

But Barber could not be easily diverted from his plan. "You git out o' my way!" he ordered fiercely. A heave of one big leg, and he slung the boy to one side—without even turning to look at him as he fell. Then again he turned to Cis.

"You keep your hands off of me!" she warned. "If you touch me, you'll be sorry!—Oh, I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"

Barber laughed. "So y' hate me, do y'?" he demanded. "And y' ain't goin' t' stay one more night! Well, maybe y'll change y'r mind! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" Then suddenly his look hardened. With a grunt of rage, rope in hand, he swooped down upon her.

"You brute! You brute!"

It was not till then that Johnnie understood what Big Tom meant to do. Crying out to him, "Oh, y' mustn't! Y' mustn't!" he rushed across to catch at the rope, and clung to it with all his might.

Barber caught him up, and once more he threw him—so that Johnnie struck a wall, and lay for a moment, half stunned. Meanwhile, with his other hand, the longshoreman thrust Cis down into her chair. Then growling as he worked, he wound her in the rope as in the coils of a serpent, and bound her, body, ankles, and arms, to the kitchen table.

Johnnie came crawling back, bruised, but scarcely knowing it; thinking only of Cis, of saving her from pain and indignity. "No, Mister Barber!" he pleaded. "Not Cis, Mister Barber! Please! It's all my fault! I fetched Mister Perkins here! I did! So blame me!"

Barber straightened. He was breathing hard, but there was a satisfied shine in his bloodshot eyes. "All right, Mister Johnnie," he answered. His voice was almost playful, but still he did not look at the boy. "It's y'r fault, is it? Well, I guess maybe it jus' about is! So y' needn't t' worry! I'll attend t' y'—no mistake!"



CHAPTER XXX

DISASTER

BARBER took his time. He even prepared to have a smoke before "attending" to Johnnie. He fumbled through his coat pockets to find his pipe, grinning all the while at Cis.

Being bound had not subdued her. She looked back at him, her face quivering, her cheeks streaming with angry tears. "Oh, yes, he'll go after you!" she sobbed. "You needn't be afraid he won't! He likes to take somebody that's little and weak, and abuse him, just as he's abused me, because I'm a girl! You don't think, Johnnie, that he'd ever take anybody his own size!"

"That'll do!" warned Big Tom. He had found the pipe, and now came a step nearer to her. "Y'd better keep y'r mouth shut, young lady!"

"Don't talk, Cis! Don't!" begged Johnnie, half whispering.

"I will talk!" she declared. "All the years I've been here I've wanted to tell him what I think of him. And now I'm going to!—I am a young lady. You great, big coward!"

He struck her with the flat of one heavy hand. But as she instantly struggled, and frantically, throwing herself this way and that, and almost overturning the table upon herself, the longshoreman thought better of continuing the punishment, and crossed to the sink to empty his pipe.

Again Cis fell to sobbing, and talking as she wept. "I'm going to see that Father Pat knows about this," she threatened. "And everybody in the whole neighborhood, too! They'll drive you out of this part of town—you see if they don't! And, oh, wait till One-Eye knows, and Mr. Perkins!"

It was just then, as she paused for breath, that something happened which was unexpected, unforeseen, and terrible in its results. The longshoreman, to empty his pipe, rapped once on that pipe leading down into the sink from Mrs. Kukor's flat—then twice more—then once again.

It was the book signal!

Johnnie gasped. And Cis stopped crying, turning on him a look that was full of frightened inquiry. He tipped back his head, to stare at the ceiling as if striving to see through it, and he held his breath, listening. During the quarrel, he had not thought of Mrs. Kukor, nor heard any sound from above. Was she at home? Oh, he hoped she was not! or that she had not heard!

But she was at home, and was preparing to obey the raps. Her rocking steps could be heard, crossing the floor.

"Johnnie!" warned Cis. She forgot herself now, in remembering what might be threatening.

They heard the scrape of the book basket as it left the upper sill. Johnnie got to his feet then, watching Barber, who was leaning over the sink, cleaning out the bowl of the pipe with the half of a match. Oh, if only the longshoreman would leave the window now, before—before——

Almost gayly, and as jerkily as always, the basket with its precious load came dropping by quick inches into full view, where it swung from side to side, waiting to be drawn in. And as it swung, Big Tom caught the movement of it, faced round, and stood staring, seeing the books, but not comprehending just yet how they came to be outside his window, or for whom they were intended. And Johnnie, his face distorted by an agony of anxiety, kept his eyes on Barber.

"Ha-a-a-a!" Cis broke in, scornfully. "He's been asking old Grandpa questions, Johnnie! He's been spying on you, too! He ought to make a fine detective! All he does is spy!"

It was this which told Barber that the books belonged in his flat, and to Johnnie. "So-o-o-o!" he roared triumphantly, and grabbed the four strings. But now his anger was toward Mrs. Kukor.

His jerk at the basket had told her something: that all was not right down below. And the next moment she was pulling hard at the strings, dire amazement, and alarm, and dismay in her every jerk.

Big Tom, holding firmly to the basket, leaned out to call. "Hey, there!" he said angrily.

"Vot?"

"I say, what y' sendin' books down here for?"

An exclamation—in that strange tongue which she spoke—smothered and indistinct, but fervent! Then more jerks.

"Oh, yes!" called out Cis. "Now abuse her! Insult that poor little thing! She's only a woman!"

Barber had no time to answer this. He was pulling at the strings, too, trying to break them. "Let go up there!" he shouted.

"It wass my basket!"

With a curse, "I don't care whose basket it is! Let go!" he ordered, and gave such a wrench at the strings that all parted, suddenly, and the basket was his. "Y' think y're pretty smart, don't y'?" he demanded, head out of the window again; "helpin' this kid t' neglect his work!"

"I pay you always, Mister Barber," she answered, "if so he makes his work oder not!"

"Yes, and he knows it, Mrs. Kukor!" Cis called out.

"Don't you ever set foot in this here flat again!" ordered Big Tom.

"That's right!" retorted Cis, as fearless as ever. "Drive her away!—the best friend we've ever had!"

"You been hidin' these here books for him!" Barber went on, his head still out of the window, so that much of what Cis was saying was lost upon him.

"Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja!"

"Don't y' yaw me!"

But Mrs. Kukor's window had gone down.

Now every other window in the neighborhood was up, though the dwellers round about were hidden from sight. However, they launched at him a chorus of hisses.

"A-a-a-a!" triumphed Cis. "You see what people think of you? Good! Good! Why don't you go out and get hold of them? why don't you throw them around?—Oh, you're safe in here, with the children!"

Still Barber did not notice her. Leaning farther out across the window sill, he shook a fist into space. "Bah!" he shouted. "Ain't one o' y' dares t' show y'r face! Jus' y' let me see who's hissin', and I'll give y' what for! Geese hiss, and snakes! Come and do y'r hissin' where I can look at y'!"

More hisses—and cat calls, yowls, meows, and a spirited spitting; raucous laughter, too, and a mingling of voices in several tongues.

"Wops!" cried Big Tom again. "Wops, and Kikes, and Micks! Not a decent American in the whole lot—you low-down bunch o' foreigners!"

Cis laughed again. She was like one possessed. It was as if she did not care what he did to her, nor what she said to him; as if she were taunting him and daring him—even encouraging him—to do more. "Decent Americans!" she repeated, as he closed the window and came toward her, the books in his hands. "Do you think you're a decent American? But they're foreigners! Ha! And you call them names! But they don't treat children the way you've always treated us! You'd better call yourself names for a change!"

"And I s'pose that dude left these!" Barber had halted at the table. Now he turned to Johnnie, looking directly at him for the first time. The next moment, an expression of mingled astonishment and rage changed and shadowed his dark face, as he glared at the uniform, the leggings, the brown shoes. Next, "Where did y' git them?" he demanded, almost choking. He leveled a finger.

Johnnie swallowed, shifting from foot to foot. To his lips had sprung the strangest words, "There's people that're givin' these suits away—to all the kids." (The kind of an explanation that he would have made promptly, and as boldly as possible, in the days before he knew Father Pat and Mr. Perkins.) But he did not speak the falsehood; he even wondered how it had come into his mind; and he asked himself what Mr. Roosevelt, for instance, would think of him if he were to tell such a lie. For a scout is trustworthy.

Once more Cis broke in, her voice high and shrill. "Oh, now he's got something else to worry about! A second ago he was mad because he found out you had a few books! But here you've got a decent pair of shoes to your feet—for once in your life! and a decent suit of clothes to your back—so that you look like a human being instead of the rag bag! And you've got the first hat you've had since you were five years old!"

The hat was lying on the floor—to one side, where it had fallen from Johnnie's head when Barber had thrown the boy off. Now the latter went to pick it up, and hold it at his side. Then, standing straight, his sober eyes on the longshoreman, he waited.

"Where'd y' git 'em?" questioned Barber. He slammed the books on the table.

The big-girl hands worked convulsively with the hat for a moment. Then, "The suit was—was give t' me," Johnnie faltered.

"Gi-i-ive?" echoed Big Tom, as if this were his first knowledge of a great and heinous crime.

"Think of it!" shrilled Cis. "Johnnie's got a friend that's willing to spend a few dollars on him! Isn't that a shame!"

Barber did not look at her; did not seem to know that she was talking. "Who give it?" he persisted.

"It—it was One-Eye," said Johnnie.

"Oh, was it!" exclaimed the longshoreman. His tone implied that in all good time he would reckon with the Westerner.

"Yes, One-Eye!" cried Cis. "So you can take your temper out on him! Only you better look out! One-Eye's a man—not just a kid! And cowboys carry pistols, too! So you better think twice before you go at him! You'll be safer to stick to abusing children!—Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"

While he was waiting for silence, Barber fell to examining the scout uniform, article by article—the hat, the coat, the trousers, the leggings, the shoes, his look full of disgust, and fairly withering. When he was done, he sank leisurely into the morris chair, a big hand on each knee, and the flat back of his head rested against the old soiled cushion. And now he concentrated on Johnnie's countenance. "So Mister One-Eye fitted y' out," he resumed, and his mouth lifted at one corner, showing a brown, fanglike tooth worn by his pipe stem.

"Y—yes, sir," replied Johnnie.

"Oh, be sure to sir him!" mocked Cis. "He deserves politeness!"

Big Tom showed all of his teeth. But not at what Cis had been saying; it was evident that some new and pleasant thought had occurred to him. He nodded his head over it. "I thought maybe it was that dude again," he remarked cheerfully. "But it was One-Eye fitted y' out! Hm! And when I'm off at work, instead o' doin' what y' ought t', y' fix y'rself up, don't y'?—soldier boy stuff!"

"I—I do my work in these," pleaded Johnnie. "I do! Honest! See how nice the place is! I don't shirk nothin'! 'Cause y' see, a scout, he——"

Big Tom let him get no further. "Take them rags off!" he commanded. The last trace of that smile was gone. The bulging eyes looked out through slits. That underlip was thrust forward wrathfully.

"Take your suit off, Johnnie," counseled Cis. "Don't you see he hates to have you look nice?"

"My—my scout suit!" faltered the boy. The light in those peering, bloodshot eyes told him that the longshoreman would mistreat that beloved uniform; and Johnnie wanted to gain time. Something, or some one, might interrupt, and thus stave off—what?

Barber straightened. "Take—it—off," he said quietly, but with heat; and added, "Before I tear it off."

Johnnie proceeded to carry out the order. He put the beautiful olive-drab hat on the table. Next he unfastened the neat, webbed belt, and unlaced the soldierly leggings. The emblemed coat came off carefully. The khaki shirt followed. Last of all, having slipped his feet out of the wonderful shoes, he pulled off the trousers, and stood, a pathetic little figure, in an old undershirt of Grandpa's, the sleeves of which he had shortened, and a pair of Grandpa's underdrawers, similarly cut—to knee length.

Barber stared at the underclothes. "Who said y' could wear my old man's things?" he asked.

"N—nobody."

"They're too small for Grandpa," declared Cis, stoutly. "Johnnie might as well wear them. If he didn't, I'd throw them away, or use them for dishcloths."

Barber did not notice the girl. "Nobody," he repeated. "But y' go ahead and use the scissors on 'em!"

"Your shirts 're so big," reminded Johnnie; "and the pants, too. And if I didn't wear nothin', why, I'd dirty the new uniform, wearin' it next my skin, and so——"

"Fold that truck up!" came the next command.

Under Grandpa's old, torn undershirt, Johnnie's heart began to beat so hard that he could hear it. But quietly and dutifully he folded each dear article, and placed all, one upon another, neatly, the hat topping the pile. Finished, he stood waiting, and his whole body trembled with a chill that was not from cold or fear, but from apprehension. Oh, what was about to happen to his treasured uniform?

Cis was silent now, refraining from angering Big Tom at a time when it was possible for him to vent his rage on Johnnie's belongings. But she watched him breathlessly as he rose and went to the table, and reached to take the books.

"So y' keep 'em upstairs?" he said to Johnnie.

"Yes, sir,"—it was a whisper.

"She's accommodatin', ain't she, the old lady?"

"She—she—yes."

"A-a-ah!" The longshoreman placed the books atop the olive-drab hat, crushing it flat with their weight.

"Oh! Oh, don't hurt 'em!" pleaded Johnnie. He put out a hand.

"Oh, I won't hurt 'em," answered Big Tom. But his tone was far from reassuring.

"I won't ever read 'em 'cept nights," promised the boy. "Honest, Mister Barber! And y' know y' like me t' read good. When—when Mister Maloney was here, why, y' liked it. And y' can lock 'em all away in the bedroom if y' don't b'lieve me!"

Big Tom leered down at him. "Oh, I'll lock 'em up, all right," he said. "I'll do it up so brown that there won't be no more danger o' this scout business 'round the place, and no more readin'." With that, he took up both the books and the suit and turned.

At the same moment Cis and Johnnie understood what was impending—the same terrible moment; and they cried out together, the one in renewed anger, the other in mortal pain:

"NO!"

For Barber had turned—to the stove.

Johnnie rushed to the longshoreman and again clung to him, weeping, pleading, promising, asking to be whipped—oh, anything but that his treasures be destroyed. And at the table, Cis wept, too, and threatened, calling for help, striving to divert Big Tom from his purpose, trying to lash him into a rage against herself.

"Oh, Mister Barber, y' wouldn't!" Johnnie cried. "They're ev'rything I got in the world! And I love 'em so! Oh, I'll stay forever with y' if y' won't hurt 'em! I'll work so hard, and be so good——!"

Barber uncovered the fire—that fire which Johnnie had built for the baking of Big Tom's pudding.

"The medal!" Cis shouted, straining at the rope which bound her. "Don't let him burn that! Johnnie! Johnnie!"

Johnnie caught at the coat. "In a pocket!" he explained. "My father's! Look for it! Let me!"

"A—what?" inquired Big Tom, lifting books and uniform out of the boy's reach. "What're y' talkin' about?"

"Don't you dare burn it!" Cis stormed. "They'll arrest you! See if they don't! You give it to Johnnie! If you don't, I'll tell the police! I will! I will!"

"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" laughed Barber. Holding everything under one arm, he took off a second stove lid, as well as the hour-glass-shaped support between the two front lids. The whole of the firebox was uncovered. It was a mass of coals. As the longshoreman hung over the fire, his dark face was lit by it. And now lifted in a horrid smile!

Cis's voice rose again. Nothing could save Johnnie's books and suit: there was no need to keep silent. "He's a devil!" she cried. "He isn't a man at all! Look! He's enjoying himself! He's grinning! Oh, Johnnie, look at his face!"

Johnnie fell back. And into his own face, twisted and wet with grief, there came an expression of a terrible wonder—the wonder that Big Tom, or any one, could be so cruel, so heartless, so contemptible. And there flashed into his mind something he had once heard Father Pat say: "There's not so many grown-up people in the world; there's plenty of grown-up bodies, but the minds at the top o' them, they're children's minds!" And, oh, how true it was! For Barber was like that—had a mind younger than Johnnie's own—the boy knew it then. Further, it was as mean and cruel and little as the minds of those urchins who shouted "old clothes," and "girl's hair." Yes, Barber had a man's body, but the brain of an ignorant, wicked boy!

"Look at my face all y' want t'!" he was saying now. "But there's one thing sure: after this we'll know who's boss 'round here!"

"This is the only place you can boss!" retorted Cis, turning wild, defiant eyes upon him. "A crippled old man, and a couple of young folks! But you bet you mind Furman!"

"A-a-a-a-a-ah!"

The cry was wrung from Johnnie. For with another loud laugh, Big Tom had dropped the scout hat upon the flames.

"Coward!" charged the girl, again writhing in her ropes. "Low, mean coward!"

It was beyond Johnnie's strength to watch what was happening. He threw up an arm to shut out the sight of Big Tom, and faced the other way. "Oh, don't!" he moaned weakly. "Oh, don't! Don't!" A strange, unpleasant odor was filling the room. He guessed that was the hat. Smoke came wafting his way next—a whole cloud of it—and drifted ceilingward. "Oh, Cis! Cis!" he moaned again.

Some one was in the hall—Mrs. Kukor, for the steps rocked. "Chonnie?" she called now. "Chonnie! Talk sometink!"

It was Big Tom who talked. "Oh, you go home, y' busybody!" he answered.

"Mrs. Kukor! Mrs. Kukor! He's burning everything of Johnnie's!" shouted Cis.

"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" burst out Barber, as if this had delighted him. Into the fire he thrust the khaki breeches and the coat, poking them down upon the coals with a hand which was too horny to be scorched by the fire.

"The medal!" mourned the girl. "Oh, I hope they'll punish you for that! And there's something you don't know, but it's the truth, and it'll mean a lot that you won't like!"

"Ye-e-e-eah?" Barber was waiting for the breeches and coat to burn.

"Yes! Johnnie's rich! He's got money! Lots of it! You'll see! You won't have so much to say to-morrow!"

Big Tom laughed. "T'morrow," he said good-humoredly, "I'm goin' t' have y'r brain examined." The room was half full of smoke now; he fell to coughing, and went over to pull down the upper half of the window. When he came back he thrust the leggings into the stove.

Peering round through the smoke, Johnnie saw that. "Oh!" he whispered. "Oh!" He went forward a few steps, weakly; then all his strength seemed suddenly to go out of him, and he dropped to his knees beside a wall, brushing it with his hands as he went down. There he stayed, his forehead pressed against his knuckles.

Once more Cis began to weep, in pity for his suffering. "Oh, don't you feel so bad!" she pleaded. "Just try to remember that we're going away, Johnnie! Mr. Perkins'll take us both, and Big Tom'll never see us again! And I love you, Johnnie, and so does Mrs. Kukor, and Father Pat, and One-Eye, and Mr. Perkins!"

"I know!" groaned the boy. "I—I'll try t' think."

"Mister Perkins!" scoffed the longshoreman. "Who cares about that tony guy? If he ever pokes his head into this flat again, I'll stick him into the stove!" The shirt followed the leggings, after which, with a dull clanking of the stove lids, he covered the firebox.

"But my jacket's burnin'," Johnnie sobbed. "My nice jacket! And the medal! Oh, the beautiful medal!"

"He'll pay for it!" vowed Cis. "You'll see! I know one person that'll make him pay!—for hitting me, and tying me up, and burning your things! Just you wait, Johnnie! It'll all come out right! This isn't over yet! No, it isn't!"

Barber was laughing again. The top of the stove was a reddening black. Upon it now he threw all the books; whereupon little threads of smoke began to ascend—white smoke, piercing the darker smoke of the burning hat and uniform.

As the books struck the stove, Johnnie had once more turned his head to look, and, "Oh, my Robinson Crusoe!" he burst out now. "Oh, Aladdin! And dear Galahad!" This was more than the destruction of stories: this was the perishing of friends.

"Never mind, dear Johnnie! Never mind!" The voice of the comforter was strong and clear.

Once more a stove lid rattled. Big Tom was putting the first book upon the fire. It was the beloved Last of the Mohicans. Johnnie's tearful eyes knew it by the brown binding. He groaned. "Oh, it's Uncas!" he told Cis. "Oh, my story! I'll never read y' again!"

"He'll wish a hundred times he'd never done it!" declared Cis. "It'll cost him something, I can tell you! He'll pay for them all, over and over!"

"Is that so?" Barber was amused. Now he threw the other books after the first. After that, he lounged to and fro, waiting till it was certain that even no part of the volumes would fail to be consumed. As he sauntered, he found his sack of smoking tobacco and refilled that pipe which had been the innocent cause of all Johnnie's misfortune.

With Big Tom away from the stove, the boy rose and crossed the room. They were turning into ashes, all his books and the other things, and he wanted one last look at them before they were wholly gone. He picked up the poker, lifted a lid, and gazed down.

"Don't y' touch anythin'!" warned the longshoreman, fussing with the matches as he strolled.

"I won't." Layers of curling black leaves were lying uppermost in the stove. And they were moving, as if they were living and suffering things. On some of the leaves Johnnie could see lettering. But as, at the sight, his tears burst forth again, the force of his breath upon those blistered pages broke them, and they crumbled.

He covered the stove and stumbled away. An odd thought was in his tortured brain: What Scout Law of the Twelve covered the burning of a uniform? of the books that all scouts should love? "Trustworthy," he repeated aloud; "loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient——"

"Oh, shut up!" ordered Barber.

"Yes, shut up, Johnnie," advised Cis. "Because those are all things this man doesn't know about—he's never heard, even, of anybody's being kind, or friendly." Then as there came from the stove a sudden snapping and blowing, she turned her face toward the longshoreman, and it was strangely unlike her face, so changed was it by hate. "Oh, you vile, vile thing!" she cried.

"Now I guess that'll about do," said Barber. "Understand me. I've heard enough."

"Nothing'll do," she returned firmly. "You won't ever stop my talking again! I sha'n't ever obey you again—no, about anything! And there are some things I'm going to tell about you. You think I don't know them—or that I've forgot. But my mother told me what she knew about you, and I remember it all. And to-morrow I'm going to hunt a policeman, and——"

In one long step he was beside her. "You—you—you!" he raged, choking. His face was blue, and working horribly, and there was fear in the bulging eyes. "What're y' talkin' about? Have y' gone clean crazy?" With a half-bend, he caught up a length of the clothesline from the floor and doubled it. "You open your mouth to anybody," he told her, fiercely, "and I'll break ev'ry bone in y'r body!"

"Cis!" Johnnie rushed to her, clung to her bound arms, and warned her to silence.

But she would not be still. She was triumphant, seeing how afraid he was of her threat. She straightened, moving the table as she moved, and broke into a shout of defiance. "Break my bones!" she challenged. "Kill me, if you want to! But I'm going to tell—tell—TELL!"

"I will kill y'!" he vowed, and doubled the rope into a short, four-ply whip.

Johnnie forgot everything then but Cis's danger. Once more he came to put himself, thinly clad though he was now, between her and Big Tom. "Oh, don't y' see she's half crazy?" he cried to the latter. "She don't know what she's sayin'! Oh, Mister Barber! Mister Barber!"

"They'll arrest him! They'll send him to jail! To the chair!" Cis was shouting, almost joyously, remembering only that now she was torturing their tormentor. "But I'll tell! I'll tell!"

Barber did not answer her. "Git out o' my way!" he growled to Johnnie. "'R I'll lick you, too!"

Facing Barber, Johnnie leaned back against Cis, half covering her body with his own. "Lick me," he begged. "Oh, but don't touch her!"

Barber bared his teeth, turning a look of hate upon the boy. "You!" he cried, and cursed. "I'll lick y', all right! I'll lick y' so's it'll be a week before y' leave y'r bed!" Taking a firmer hold of the looped strands, he swung them above his head; then with a deep breath, and with all the power of his right arm, brought them down.

A shriek—from Cis.

But Barber had not struck her. The blow had reached only the upraised face and breast of the boy, driving him against Cis with terrible force. Even in his agony Johnnie knew that, as he was pressing against her, she might be inadvertently struck as Big Tom struck at him; so, staggering sidewise, his arms held, crossed, above his head to keep the rope from his eyes, he got away from the table and the bound girl. But as he went he continued to clutch with all of his fingers at the rope which was now descending with awful regularity.

Shrieking, Cis covered her eyes by laying her head upon the table; and now she tried to cover one ear, then the other, to shut out the sound of the blows. And to her screams was added the voice of old Grandpa, whimpering in the bedroom, while he beat feebly at the door.

Johnnie, however, made no sound. Each stinging blow of the rope whip knocked the breath out of him, sending him farther and farther away from the table. Sometimes he reeled, sometimes he spun, so that as Barber drove him with lash after lash, he went as if performing a sort of grotesque dance. And all the while his face was purpling in two long stripes where had fallen that first cruel scourge.

With each swing of the strands Barber gasped out a word: "There!—Now!—Take!—Lazy!—Sneak!" Sweat dripped from among the hairs on his face. That white spot came and went in his left eye like an evil light.

Some one fell to pounding upon the hall door, and some one else upon a dividing wall. Then, with a crash, a bottle came hurtling through a pane of the window.

But Big Tom was himself half crazed by now, and seemed not to hear. "I'll learn y'!" he shouted, and rained blow after blow—till the small figure, those old undergarments almost in rags as the rope strands cut into his back, could stand up to no more punishment. Of a sudden, with an anguished sigh, the boy half pivoted, and a score of red bands showing angrily upon his bare, thin arms, gave a lurch, bent double, and went down, his limp body in a half circle, so that his yellow head touched his knees.

A hoarse shriek of terror and grief from Cis; she tried to rise, and dragged the table part way across the kitchen, her chair with it, striving to get to Johnnie. "Oh, you've killed him!" she cried. "You've killed him!"

Outside in the hall, the stairs creaked to the steps of several. Voices called. Doors opened and shut. Windows went up and down. From top to bottom the old building was astir.

Big Tom strode to the door and listened. Gradually, as quiet prevailed in the Barber flat, the other flats fell into silence, while the watchers in the hall stole away. Presently the longshoreman gave a chuckle. Nobody cared to interfere with him. He came sauntering back to Johnnie.

The boy was lying prone now, his eyes shut, his breast heaving. As Big Tom stood over him, his whole little ragged figure shivered, and he sucked in his breath through his clenched teeth.

"Ha-a-a!" laughed Barber. "So y' will stick in y'r nose! Well, I'll learn y'!" Catching Johnnie up in one big hand, he carried him to the table and laid him over its edge, arms outstretched, the yellow head between them, and the thin legs hanging down toward the floor. Then taking up that length of rope with which he had beaten the boy, he tied the spent body beside that of the well-nigh fainting girl.

"Now there the two o' y'll stay till mornin'," he announced when he was done. "Then maybe y' won't be so fresh about runnin' this place."

The sun was now below the tops of the houses to the west, and the kitchen was beginning to darken. Big Tom got down the lamp, lighted it, and carried it to the bedroom. "All right, Pa," he said cheerfully, "I'm comin' t' put y' t' bed now. Y' want y'r milk first, don't y'? Well, Tommie'll git it for y'." He returned to the cupboard for the milk bottle, gave a smiling look at the two heads leaned on the table, and disappeared to bed.

Presently some one tapped timidly on the hall door; but as there was no reply, the caller went softly away. A bit later, a gruff voice was heard on the landing, speaking inquiringly, and there were whispered answers. But the gruff voice died away on the stairs, along with heavy footsteps. Then only the distant rumble of the Elevated Railroad could be heard occasionally, or the far, seaward whistle of some steamer, or the scrape and screak of a street-car.

And so night settled upon the flat.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE VISION

AS life came back into his body, Johnnie's first thought was a grateful one: how cool to his cheek was the old, crackled oilcloth on the table if he rested that cheek a moment, now here, now there! His second thought, too, was one of thankfulness: How good it was to be lying there so quietly after those rending blows which had driven the breath out of his lungs!

He would have liked to tug at his hair; but as his hands were tied fast together, and held a little way beyond where lay his head, being secured almost immovably by a length of clothesline which came up to them from around a farther leg of the table, he could not comfort himself with his old, odd habit.

Presently, "Cis!" he whispered. "Cis!"

A moan, feeble and pitiful, like the complaint of a hurt baby.

It was pitch dark in the kitchen, and though he turned his look her way, he could not see her. Yet all at once he knew that this was not the wild, fighting, bold Cis, with the strange, changed face, who had stormed at the longshoreman; this was again the Cis he knew, gentle, wistful, leaning on him, wanting his affection and sympathy. "Aw, Cis!" he murmured fondly.

"Oh, Johnnie, I want a drink! I'm thirsty!"

He pulled at his hands. But Big Tom had done his tying well, and Johnnie could not even loosen one of them. "I wish I could bring you some water," He answered. "But my legs 're roped down on this side, and he's got my hands 'way over my head on the other, so the most I could do would be t' fall sideways off the table, and that wouldn't help y' one bit."

"Oh!" she mourned. "Oh!"

"Can't you git loose?" he asked.

"No! I'm tied just as tight!"

Then for a little they were quiet, while Johnnie tried to study out a way of helping her. But he failed. And soon she began to fret, and move impatiently, now sobbing softly, as if to herself, again only sighing.

He strove to soothe her. "It won't be long till mornin'," he declared. "If y' could make b'lieve y' was in bed, and count sheep——"

"But the ropes hurt me!" she complained. "I want them off! They hurt me awfully, and I feel sick!"

"Well," he proposed, "let's pretend y're so sick y' need a nurse, and——"

But she would not wait for the rest of his plan. "Oh, that kind of thinking won't help me!" she protested. "And I don't want anybody but my mother!" Then sobbing aloud, "Oh, I want my mother! I want my mother!"

The cry smote his heart, bringing the tears that had not come when Barber was beating him. Never before, in all the years he had known her, had she cried out this longing. Saying scarcely anything of that mother who was gone, leaving her so lonely, so bereft, always she herself had been the little mother of the flat.

"Course y' do!" he whispered, gulping. "Course y' do!"

"If she'd only come back to me now!" she went on. "And put her arms around me again!"

"Don't, Cis!" he pleaded tenderly. "Oh, please don't! Ain't y' got me? That's pretty nice, ain't it? 'Cause we're t'gether. Here I am, Cis! Right in reach, almost. Close by! Don't cry!"

But she was not listening. "Oh, Mother, why did you go and leave me?" she wept. "Oh, Mother, I want you so much!"

Johnnie began to argue with her, gently: "But, Cis, think how Mister Perkins likes y'! My! And he wants t' marry y'! And y'll have such a nice place t' live in. Oh, things'll be fine!"

That helped a little; but soon, "I want to lie down!" she complained. "Oh, Johnnie, it hurts to sit like this all the time! Can't you reach me? Oh, try to untie me!"

"Cis, I can't," he protested, once more. "But it'll be mornin' before y' know it! W'y, it's awful late in the night right now! I betcher it's twelve—almost. So let's play a game, and the time'll pass so quick!"

"I can't wait till morning for a drink!" she cried. "I'm so thirsty! And I want to lie down!"

"Now," he started off cheerily, "—now, we'll play the way we used t' before y' got grown-up. Remember all the nice things we used t' do? Callin' on the Queen, and dancin' parties, and——"

"My back hurts! Awful!"

"Let's try t' think jus' o' all our nice friends," he coaxed. "Mister Perkins, and One-Eye, and Mrs. Kukor, and——"

"Let's call to Mrs. Kukor!" she pleaded. "Let's try to make her hear!"

"He'll whip us again if we do!" Johnnie cautioned. "And, Cis, I don't think I could stand any more whippin'. Oh, don't holler, Cis. Let's rest—jus' rest!" A weakness came over him suddenly, and he could not go on.

But she was sobbing again. "I'm thirsty!" she lamented. "I'm thirsty! I'm thirsty! I'm thirsty!"

Presently he roused himself, and remembered his faithful Buckle. He summoned the latter now, speaking to him in that throaty, important voice which he used when issuing commands. "Mister Buckle," he said, "bring the young lady a lemon soda jus' chock-full o' ice."

"No! No!" Cis broke in petulantly. "Oh, that makes it all the harder to bear!—Oh, where's Mrs. Kukor? She knows something's wrong! Why hasn't she helped us?" She fell to weeping irritably.

At his wits' end, Johnnie racked his brain for something to tell her—something which might take her thoughts from her misery. But his own misery was now great, for the clothesline was cutting into his wrists and ankles; while across the front of his body, the edge of the table was pressing into him like the blade of a dull knife. "But I'll stand it," he promised himself. "And I'll try t' be cheerful, like the Handbook says."

However, there was no immediate need for his cheerfulness, for Cis had quieted. A few moments, and he heard her deep breathing. He smiled through the dark at her, happy to think that sleep had come to help her over the long night hours. As for himself, he could not sleep, weak as he was. His heart was sore because of what he had lost—his new, wonderful uniform, and all his dear, dear books. What were all these now? Just a bit of gray dust in the cooling stove! Gone! Gone forever!

Ah, but were they! The suit was. Yes, he would not be able ever again to wear that—not actually. But the books—? They were also destroyed, as completely as the khaki uniform. And yet—had Big Tom really done to them what he wanted to do? Had he wiped them out?

No!

And as Johnnie answered himself thus, he realized the truth of a certain statement which Father Pat had once made to him: "The only possessions in this world that can't be taken away from ye, lad dear, 're the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge that ye've got in yer brain." And along with his sudden understanding of this there came a sense of joyous wonder, and a feeling of utter triumph. His precious volumes were burned. True enough. Their covers, their pictures, their good-smelling leaves, these were ashes. But—what was in each book had not been wiped out! No! The longshoreman had not been able to rob Johnnie of the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge which had been tied into those books with the printed letter!

"I got 'em yet, all the stories!" he cried to himself. "The 'stronomy, too! And the things in the Handbook! They're all in my brain!"

And the people of his books! They were not destroyed at all! Fire had not wiped them out! They were just as alive as ever! As he lay, stretched over the table edge, they took shape for him; and out of the black corners of the room, from behind the cupboard, the stove, and the chairs, they came trooping to him—Aladdin, the Sultan, the Princess Buddir al Buddoor, Jim Hawkins, Uncas, King Arthur, Long John Silver, Robinson Crusoe, Lincoln, Heywood, Elaine, Galahad, Friday, Alice, Sir Kay!

"Oh!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "Oh, gee, all my friends!" Oh, yes, the people in stories did live on and on, just as Father Pat had said; were immortal because they lived in the minds of all who loved them!

His eyes were shut. But he smiled at the group about him. "He didn't hurt y'!" he said happily—but whispering as before, lest he disturb Cis. "Say! He didn't hurt y' a teeny-weeny bit!"

Pressing eagerly round him, smiling back at him fondly, those book people whom he loved best replied proudly: "Course he didn't! Shucks! We don't bother 'bout him!"

"Oh, fine! Fine!" answered Johnnie.

Next, he understood in a flash why it was that Father Pat could feel so satisfied about Edith Cavell. That general (whose name was like a hiss) could shoot down a brave woman, and hide her body away in the ground, but he could not destroy her! No! not with all his power of men and guns! She would live on and on, just as these dear ones of his lived on! And the fact was, her executioner had only helped in making her live!

Yes, and here she was, right now, standing in white beside scarlet-clad Galahad! In the darkness her nurse's dress glimmered. "I'm better 'cause I know you," Johnnie said to her. His tied right hand closed as if on the hand of another, and he bent his head on the oilcloth, as if before a Figure. "Oh, thank y' for comin'!"

Then came another wonderful thought: what difference did it make—really—whether he was on his back on his square of old mattress, or here on his face across the table if he wished to think some splendid adventure with all these friends? "Not a bit o' difference!" he declared. "Not a bit!" Big Tom had been able to tie fast his feet and hands; but in spite of that Johnnie could go wherever he pleased!

His wound-darkened, tear-stained face lit with that old, radiant smile. "Big Tom can't tie my thinks!" he boasted. He was out of his body now, and up on his feet, looking into the faces of all those book friends. "So let's take a ship—your ship, Jim Hawkins! Ye-e-eh, let's take the Hispaniola, and sail, and sail! Where? The 'Cific Ocean? 'R t' Cathay? 'R where?" Then he knew! "Say! we'll take a 'stronomy trip!" he announced.

In one swift moment how gloriously arranged it all was! Halfway across the kitchen floor, here were wonderful marble steps—steps guarded on either side by a stone lion! The steps led up to a terrace that was rather startlingly like Father Pat's description of the terrace below the great New York Public Library; yet it was not the Library terrace, since there was no building at the farther side of it. No, this wide, granite-floored space was nothing less than a grand wharf.

Up to it Johnnie bounded in his brown shoes—and a new think-uniform fully as handsome as the one Big Tom had thrust into the stove. On the step next to the top one, some one was waiting—a person dressed in work-clothes, with big, soiled hands, and an unshaven face. This individual seemed to know that he was out of place and looking his worst, for his manner was apologetic, and downcast. He implored Johnnie with sad eyes.

It was Big Tom!

How beautiful the terrace wharf was, with its balustrades, and its fountains, and its giant vases, these last holding flowers which were as large as trees! And how deliciously cool was the breeze that swept against Johnnie's face from the vast air ocean stretching across the roofs! At the very center of the terrace was the place of honor. There Johnnie took his stand.

He glanced round at the longshoreman. "No, we don't want y' on this trip," he said firmly. He felt in a pocket for a five-cent piece, found it, and tossed it to Barber. "Go and buy y'rself a lemon soda," he bade kindly. "Hurry and git away, 'cause some folks is comin'."

Poor Barber! In spite of all he had done, it was almost pitiful to observe how disappointed he was at this order, for he yearned to be included in the approaching, and thrilling, adventure. He got to a knee, holding out both hands. "Johnnie," he said, "I'll work! I'll do the loadin' and unloadin'!" (The cargo hook was round his thick neck.)

"Nope," answered Johnnie, carelessly. "Don't need y'. Got Aladdin's slaves." He waved a hand, motioning the suppliant off.

Below Big Tom scores of Johnnie's friends were waiting—his book friends, his real friends, and his think-acquaintances. Ignoring the longshoreman, Johnnie called down to them. "Come on up!" he invited. "Come ahead! The wind's fine! The ship, she's headin' this way!"

Music sounded, for just that second Johnnie had ordered a band. With the music there was plenty of dandy drumming—Rumpety! rumpety! rump! rump! rump!

Then, ushered by Buckle, the guests began to stream up the steps. One-Eye was first, attended by all of his fellow cowboys; and there was some yip-yipping, and ki-eying, in true Western fashion, Johnnie saluting each befurred horseman in perfect scout style. On the heels of all these came Long John Silver, stumping the granite with his wooden leg, and bidding his fellow buccaneers walk lively. Of course Jim Hawkins was of this party, carrying the pieces-of-eight parrot in one hand and leading Boof with the other.

David and Goliath were the next, and each was so pleasant to the other that no one would have guessed they had ever waged a fight. The two, like all who had gone by before, gave Barber a withering look as they passed the drooping figure, after which Mr. Buckle, acting as a sort of Grand Introducer, planted himself squarely in front of Big Tom, turning upon him that gorgeous red-plush back, and wholly cutting off his view.

"Glad t' see y'!—It's fine y' could come!—How-d'y'-do!" Johnnie's hand went from side to hat brim like a piston.

Another parrot! This was Crusoe's, borne by the Islander's servant, Friday, who strode in the wake of his master along with any number of man-eating savages, all, however, under perfect control. And on the heels of these, having just alighted from mammoth, armored and howdahed elephants, advanced Aladdin, escorting his Princess and her father, the Sultan, and accompanied by fully a hundred slaves, all fairly groaning under trays of pearls and rubies, diamonds and emeralds. The slaves and the savages mingled with one another in the friendliest fashion; and as Uncas and his painted and feathered braves now appeared, yelling their war cry and swinging their tomahawks, there was, on hand, as Johnnie remarked to Mr. Buckle, quite an assortment of kitchen and other help for the voyage.

"But y're the boss o' 'em all," Johnnie hastened to add. "So don't y' let one o' 'em run y'."

Of course Mr. Perkins could not be left out of this extraordinary voyage. He came with Cis, the latter wearing such a pretty pink dress. Grandpa walked with them, looking straight and strong and happy. The first two, as might have been expected, paid not the slightest attention to the longshoreman beyond making a slight detour in passing him. But the old veteran shook a stern head at his son.