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THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
ELEANOR GATES
WHAT HE SAW THERE HELD HIM SPELLBOUND IN HIS CHAIR]
THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
BY
ELEANOR GATES
AUTHOR OF "THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL," "THE PLOW-WOMAN," "THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRAIRIE GIRL," "ALEC LLOYD, COW-PUNCHER," "PIGGIE," ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK :: MCMXXII :: LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
F. F. M.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. THE WICKED GIANT 1
II. PRIDE AND PENALTY 10
III. A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION 17
IV. THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 24
V. NEW FRIENDS 36
VI. THE DEAREST WISH 52
VII. A SERIOUS STEP 60
VIII. MORE TREASURES 68
IX. ONE-EYE 79
X. THE SURPRISE 93
XI. THE DISCOVERY 108
XII. A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP 117
XIII. CHANGES 122
XIV. THE HEAVEN THAT NEARLY HAPPENED 138
XV. SCOUTS 144
XVI. HOPE DEFERRED 153
XVII. MR. PERKINS 160
XVIII. THE ROOF 172
XIX. A DIFFERENT CIS 183
XX. THE HANDBOOK 190
XXI. THE MEETING 201
XXII. CIS TELLS A SECRET 212
XXIII. ROSES THAT TATTLED 219
XXIV. FATHER PAT 233
XXV. AN ALLY CROSSES A SWORD 241
XXVI. THE END OF A LONG DAY 247
XXVII. ANOTHER GIFT 255
XXVIII. ANOTHER STORY 275
XXIX. REVOLT 290
XXX. DISASTER 300
XXXI. THE VISION 318
XXXII. HELP 330
XXXIII. ONE-EYE FIGHTS 345
XXXIV. SIR ALGERNON 357
XXXV. GOOD-BYS 363
XXXVI. LEFT BEHIND 373
XXXVII. UPS AND DOWNS 379
XXXVIII. ANOTHER GOOD-BY 391
XXXIX. THE LETTER 400
XL. "THE TRUE WAY" 407
THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
ELEANOR GATES
CHAPTER I
THE WICKED GIANT
HE was ten. But his clothes were forty. And it was this difference inthe matter of age, and, consequently, in the matter of size, thatexplained why, at first sight, he did not show how thin-bodied he was,but seemed, instead, to be rather a stout little boy. For his faded, oldshirt, with its wide sleeves lopped off just above his elbows, and hispatched trousers, shortened by the scissors to knee length, were bothmany times too large for him, so that they lay upon him, front, back andsides, in great, overlapping pleats that were, in turn, bunched intoheavy tucks; and his kitchen apron, worn with the waistband about hisneck, the strings being tied at the back, also lent him--if viewed fromthe front--an appearance both of width and weight.
But he was not stout. His frame was not even fairly well covered. Fromthe apron hem in front, the two legs that led down to the floor werescarcely larger than lead piping. From the raveling ends of his shortsleeves were thrust out arms that matched the legs--bony, skinny arms,pallid as to color, and with hardly any more shape to them than therewas to the poker of the cookstove. But while the lead-pipe legs ended inthe sort of hard, splinter-defying boy's feet that could be met with onany stretch of pavement outside the tenement, the bony arms did not endin boyish hands. The hands that hung, fingertips touching halfway to theknee, were far too big for a boy of ten. They were red, too, as if allthe blood of his thin shoulders had run down his arms and through hiswrists, and stayed there. And besides being red, fingers, palms andbacks were lined and crinkled. They looked like the hands of ahard-working, grown girl. That was because they knew dish washing andsweeping, bed making and cooking, scrubbing and laundering.
But his head was all that a boy's head should be, showing plenty ofbrain room above his ears. While it was still actually--andnaturally--large for his body, it looked much too large; not onlybecause the body that did its bidding was undersized, but because hishair, bright and abundant, added to his head a striking circumference.
He hated his hair, chiefly because it had a hint of wave in it, but alsobecause its color was yellow, with even a touch of green! He had beentaunted about it--by boys. But what was worse, women and girls hadadmired it, and laid hands upon it--or wanted to. And small wonder; forin thick undulations it stood away from forehead and temples as if blownby the wind. A part it had not, nor any sort of neat arrangement. He sawstrictly to that. Whenever his left hand was not busy, which was lessoften than he could wish, he tugged at his locks, so that they rearedthemselves on end, especially at the very top, where they leaned invarious directions and displayed what appeared to be several cowlicks.At every quarter that shining mop was uneven, because badly cut by BigTom Barber, his foster father, whose name belied his tonsorial ability.
Below that wild shock of colorful hair was a face that, when clean,could claim attention on its own account. It was a square-jawed littleface over which the red was quick to come, though, unhappily, it did notstay. Its center was a nose that seemed a trifle small in proportion toits surroundings. But the top line of it was straight, and the nostrilswere well carved, and had a way of lifting and swelling whenever hisinterest was caught.
Under them was a mouth that was wide yet noticeably beautiful--not withthe soft beauty of a baby's mouth, or a girl's, and not because it couldboast even a touch of scarlet. It had been cut as carefully as his nose,the lips full yet firm, their lines drawn delicately, but with strength.It was sensitive, with a little quirk at each corner which betrayed itshumor. Above all things, its expression was sweet.
Colorless as were his cheeks and lips, nevertheless he did not seem apale boy, this because his brows were a misty yellow-white, and histhick lashes flaxen; while his eyes were an indescribable mixture ofglowing gray and blue plentifully flecked with yellow. Perfectlyadjusted were these straight-looking eyes, and set far apart. By turnsthey were quick, and bold, and open, and full of eager inquiry; or theywere thoughtfully half covered by their heavy lids, very still, and farsighted. And when he laughed, what with the shine of his hair and browsand light lashes, and the flash of his eyes and his teeth, the effectwas as if sunlight were upon his face--though the sun so seldom shoneupon him that he had not one boyish freckle.
Such was Johnnie Smith.
Just now he was looking smaller and less sunlit than usual. This wasbecause Big Tom bulked in front of him, delivering
the final orders forthe day before going down the three flights of stairs, out into thebrick-paved area, thence through a dank, ground-floor hall which boredits way from end to end of another tenement, and into the crowded EastSide street, and so to his work on the docks.
Barber was a huge-shouldered, long-armed slouch of a man, with aclose-cropped head (flat at the back) upon which great hairy ears stoodout like growths. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging, the left with anelusive cast in it that showed only now and then, when it testified tothe kink in his brain. His nose, uneven in its downward trend, was sofat and wide and heavy that it fairly sprawled upon his face; and itscavernous, black nostrils made it seem to possess something that, toJohnnie, was like a personality--as if it were a queer sort of snakishthing, carefully watched over by the bulging, bloodshot eyes.
For Barber's nose had the power of moving itself as Johnnie had seen noother nose move. Slowly and steadily it went up and down whenever Barberate or talked--as even Johnnie's small, straight nose would often do.But whenever Big Tom laughed--sneeringly or boastfully or in uglytriumph--the nose would make a sudden, sidewise twist.
But something besides its power to move made it seem a live and separatething: the longshoreman troubled himself to shave only of a Sundaymorning, when, with all the stiff, dark growth cleared away to right andleft--for Barber's beard grew almost to his eyes--his nose, though bentand purplish, was fairly like a nose. But with Monday, again the nosetook on that personality; and seemed to be crouching and writhing at thecenter of its mat of stubble.
But Barber's mouth was his worst feature, with its great, pushed-outunderlip, which showed his complete satisfaction in himself. So big wasthat lip that it seemed to have acquired its size through the robbing ofthe chin just beneath--for Big Tom had little enough chin.
But his neck was massive, and an angry red, sprinkled with long, wiryhairs. It fastened his flat-backed head to a body that was like agorilla's, thick and wide and humped. And his arms gave an added touchof the animal, for they were so long that his great palms reached to hisknees; and so sprung out at the shoulder, and so curved in at the wrist,that when they met at the fingers they formed a pair of mammoth,muscled tongs--tongs that gave Barber his boasted value in and out ofships.
His legs were big, too. As he stood over Johnnie now, it was plain tosee where the boy's shaggy trousers had come from (the grotesquely bigshirt as well). Each of those legs was almost as big as Johnnie'sskimped little body. And they turned up at the bottom in great brogannedfeet that Barber was fond of using as instruments of punishment. Morethan once Johnnie had felt those feet. And if he could ever have decidedhow pain was to be inflicted upon him, he would always have chosen thelong, thick, pliant strap that belted in, and held together, his baggyclothes. For the strap left colorful tracks that stung only in themaking; but the mark of one of those feet went black, and ached to thebone.
Johnnie hated Big Tom worse than he hated his own yellow hair. But hefeared him, too. And now listened attentively as the longshoreman, hiscutty pipe smoking in one knotted fist, his dinner pail in the other,his cargo hook slung to his burly neck, glowered down upon him.
"Git your dishes done," admonished Barber. "Don't let the mush dry on'em, and draw the flies."
There being no question to answer, Johnnie said nothing. Final orders ofa morning were the usual thing. If he was careful not to reply, if hewaited, taking care where he looked, the longshoreman would have his sayout and go--pressed by time. So the boy, almost holding his breath,fastened his eyes upon a patch of wall where the smudged plaster wasbroken and some laths showed. And not a muscle of him moved, except onebig toe, which he curled and uncurled across a crack in the rough, wornkitchen floor.
"Git everything else done, too," went on Big Tom. "You don't scrub tillto-morrow, so the day's clear for stringin' beads, or makin' vi'lets.And don't let me come home t'night and find no hot supper. _You_ hearme." He chewed once or twice--on nothing.
Johnnie continued silent, counting the laths--from the top down, fromthe bottom up. But his toe moved a shade faster. For there was a note ofrising irritation in that _You_ hear me.
"I say, you _hear_ me!" repeated Big Tom (replies always angered him:this time silence had). He thrust the whole of the short stem of his"nose-warmer" into his mouth. Then, with the free hand, he seizedJohnnie by one thin shoulder and gave him a rough, forward jerk.
"Yes," acknowledged the boy, realizing too late that this was oneoccasion when speech would have been safest. He still concentrated onthe laths, hoping that matters would go no further.
But that single jerk, far from satisfying Barber's rancor, only added toit--precisely as if he had tasted something which had whetted hisappetite for more. He gripped Johnnie's shoulder again, this timedriving him back a step. "Now, no sass!" he warned.
The blood came rushing to Johnnie's face, darkening it so that the mistyyellow-white brows stood out grotesquely. And his chest began to heave.He loathed the touch of Barber's hand. He despised the daily orders thatonly turned him against his work. But most of all he shrank from theindignity of being jerked when it was wholly undeserved.
Big Tom marked the boy's rising color. And the sight spurred hisill-humor. "What do you do for your keep?" he demanded. "_Stop_ pullin'your hair!" He struck Johnnie's hand down with a sweaty palm thattouched the boy's forehead. "Pullin' and hawlin' _all_ the time, butdon't earn the grub y' swallow!"
Just as one jerk always led to another, so one blow was usually theprelude to a thrashing. Johnnie saw that he must stop the thing rightthere; must have instant help in diverting Barber. Taking a quick, deepbreath, he sounded his call for aid--a loud, croupy cough.
It was instantly answered. The door beside the cookstove swung wide, andCis came hurrying in from the tiny, windowless closet--this her "ownroom"--where she had been listening anxiously. "Oh, Mr. Barber," shebegan, trying to keep her young voice from trembling, "this week can Ihave enough out of my wages for some more shoe-whitening?"
There were several ways in which to take Big Tom's mind from anysubject. The surest of these was to bring up a question of spending. Andnow, answering to his stepdaughter's subterfuge as promptly as if hewere a mechanism that had been worked by a key, he turned from gloweringdown upon Johnnie to scowl at her.
"_More?_" he demanded harshly.
Her blue eyes met his look timidly. Out of the wisdom of hersixteen-year-old policy, she habitually avoided him, slipping away of amorning to her work at the pasteboard-box factory without a word;slipping back as quietly in the late afternoon; keeping out of his sightand hearing whenever that was possible; and speaking to him seldom.
Cis looked at every one timidly. She avoided Big Tom not only because itwas wise to do so but because she was naturally shy and retiring, andavoided people in general. She had a quaint face (framed by straight,light-brown hair) that ended in a pointed, pink chin. Habitually shewore that expression of mingled understanding and responsibility commonto all children who have brought up other children. So that she seemedolder than she was. But her figure was that of a child--slim, frail, andstill lacking a woman's shapeliness, notwithstanding the fact that ithad long carried the burdens of a grown-up.
Facing her stepfather now, she did not falter. "Yes, please," sheanswered. "The last, I got a month ago."
His pipe was in his fist again, and he was chewing wrathfully. "I'llsee," he growled. And waved her to go.
From the hall door, she glanced back at Johnnie. Not only had she and hea system of communication by means of coughs, humming, whistles, tapsand other audible sounds; and a second system (just as good) thatdepended upon wall marks, soap-inscribed hieroglyphics on the bit ofmirror in Cis's room, or the arrangement of dishes on the kitchen table,and pots and pans on the stove, but they had a well-worked-out silentsystem--by means of brow-raisings, eye and lip movements, head tippingsand swift finger pointings--that was as perfect and satisfactory as thedumb conversation of two colts. Such a system was necessary; forwhenever the great figur
e of Barber came wedging itself through the halldoor, and his presence, like a blighting shadow, darkened the alreadydark little flat, then the two young voices had to fall instantlysilent, since Barber would brook no noise--least of all whispering.
Now by the quick, sidewise tip of her small, black-hatted head, Cisinquired of Johnnie whether she should stay or go. And Johnnie, withwhat amounted to an upward fling of his eyelids, answered that she neednot stay. With Barber's cutty once more in his right fist, and with hismind veered to a fresh subject, Johnnie knew the crisis was past.
With a swift glance of affection and sympathy, not unmixed with triumphover the success of her interruption, Cis fluttered out--leaving thedoor open at Barber's back.
The longshoreman turned heavily as if to follow her, but came about witha final caution, lowering his voice to cheat any busy ear in the otherflat on the same floor. "Don't you neglect the old man," he charged."Face--hair--fix him up--_you_ know."
At the stove, an untidy heap of threadbare, brown blanket, in a wheelchair suddenly stirred. In several ways old Grandpa was like a big baby,but particularly in this habit of waking promptly whenever he wasmentioned. "Is that you, Mother?" he asked in his thin, old voice. (Hemeant Big Tom's mother, dead now these many years.)
A swift change came over Barber's face. His great underlip drew in, whatchin he had was thrust out with something like concern, and his eyesrolled away from Johnnie to the whimpering old man. "It's all right,Pa," he said soothingly. "It's all right. Jus' you sleep." Then heturned, tiptoed through the door, and shut it after him softly.
Johnnie did not move--except to shift his look from the laths to thedoor knob, and take up his toeing of the crack at his feet. The dooritself moved, and rattled gently, as the area door three flights belowwas opened by Cis, and a gust from the narrow court was sent up thestairs of the tenement, as a bubble forces its way surfaceward throughwater, to suck at the Barber door.
But Big Tom was not yet gone. And a moment later, the boy was looking atthe outer knob, now in the clutch of several great, grimy, callousedfingers.
"Let your hair _alone_!" ordered the longshoreman. Then the door closedfinally, and the stairs complained with loud creakings as Barberdescended them.
Johnnie waited till the door in front of him moved and rattled again,then--