CHAPTER VII
A SERIOUS STEP
HE awoke with such a feeling of happiness--a fluttery feeling, which wasin his throat, and also just at the lower end of his breastbone, wherehe seemed to have so many kinds of sensations. For a moment he did notremember what made him so happy. But as he moved, something hard pressedagainst his ribs, whereupon the fluttery feeling suddenly spread overthe whole of him, so that the calves of those lead-pipe legs got creepy,and his shoulder-blades tingled. Then he knew it was all because of thebook.
The process of getting up of a morning was always a simple one. As heslept in his big clothes, all he had to do was scramble to his feet,roll up his bedding, splash a little water upon the central portion ofhis countenance, dry it away with the apron, and put the apron on.
As a rule he never so much as stirred till Barber or the alarm clocksounded an order. But on this happy morning he did not wait for orders,but rose promptly, though it still wanted more than half an hour togetting-up time. He did yet another unusual thing; noiselessly, so asnot to wake any one, he set his bedding roll on end just outside thedoor of Cis's room, then returned to the table, drew out the drawer,chose a saucer of rose-colored beads, and fell to threading themswiftly. He had two ideas in mind: first, after yesterday's unpleasantexperience, he was anxious to make a good impression upon Big Tom;second, and principally, he was stringing now, when he dared not read,in order that, later on, he might be free to enjoy his book.
He held the long needle in his right hand. He poked the beads to theneedle's tip with the forefinger of his left. He used his tongue, too,after a fashion, for if a bead was obstinate his tongue tip sometimeshelped--by curling itself noseward over his upper lip. Before now he hadalways thought of rose-colored beads as future rose-colored roses in thebeautiful purses that Mrs. Kukor made. But now the beads reminded him ofnothing less than that strange garden laying under the horizontal stonein China.
He took out all of his saucers--the pink, the green, the brown, thegold, the blue, the burgundy, the white, the black, the yellow--andfound that they gave him a new pleasure. They were the fruit ofAladdin's garden, and he planned to offer them in a yellow bowl to thatcertain dark-haired little girl. "'What wouldst thou have?'" he quoted."'I am ready to obey thee as thy slave,'"--a statement that heconsidered highly appropriate. His whispering was accompanied bygesticulations that bore no relation to bead-stringing, and by tossingsof his yellow head.
"_Now_ what y' mumblin' about?" demanded Big Tom. He was watching fromthe bedroom door, and his look denied that Johnnie, though at work, wasmaking anything like a good impression; quite the contrary--for Barber'sbloodshot eyes were full of suspicion. Should a boy who always had to bewatched and driven suddenly show a desire to keep busy? "Breakfast on?"he asked.
Johnnie sprang up. "I didn't want to make no noise," he explained. Thenext moment lids were rattling and coal was tumbling upon some blazingkindling as he started the morning fire.
"A-a-a-ah! What y' got this _lamp_ down for?"--it was the next question,and there was triumph in Big Tom's voice. "Been wastin' oil, have y'?Come! When did y' light it? Answer up!"
"I didn't light it," replied Johnnie, calmly glancing round, his chin onhis shoulders.
"No? Then what _did_ y' do? Hey? What?"
"Just took it down 'n' rubbed it."
"M-m-m!--Well, y' made a poor job of your rubbin'. I'll say that!"
"I'll rub it again," said Johnnie. He caught up the dish towel withwhich he had dried his own face and set to work on the lamp. There was afaint smile on his lips as he worked. There was a smile in his eyes,too, but he kept his lids discreetly lowered.
His whole manner irritated Barber, who sauntered to the table, took acareful survey of it, drew out the drawer, looked it over, then droppedinto the morris chair to pull on his socks. Now he sensed, as had Cisthe day before, that the air of the flat was charged withsomething--something that was strange to it. He did not guess it washappiness. But as Johnnie moved quickly between sink and stove, betweencupboard and table, Big Tom watched him, and thrust out that lower lip.
While the business of breakfast was on, instead of standing up to thetable for his bowl of oats, Johnnie made sandwiches for the two lunches.Hot tea, well sugared, went into Barber's pail. Another tin compartmentJohnnie packed with the cooked prunes. A third held slabs of corned-beefbetween bread. Sour pickles were added to these when he filled Cis'slunchbox, which closely resembled a camera. And now the wide-open, fixedlook of his eyes, the uplift at the corners of his mouth, his swellednostrils and his buoyant step told Cis that he was engaged in someadventure, high and stirring.
But Barber, still watching the boy sharply, made up his mind that thepunishment of the day before had done a lot of good. In fact, it seemedto have brought about a complete transformation. For during the two orthree minutes that Big Tom allowed himself after eating for the fillingof his pipe, Johnnie swept the table clear, washed, dried and put awaythe dishes, and was so far along with his morning's work that he waswiping off the stove.
Leaving, Barber omitted his usual warnings and directions; and did noteven wait outside the door for a final look back, but went promptlydown, as the creaking stairs testified, and out, as told by the suckingmove and gentle rattle of the hall door.
It was Cis who lingered. When the flat was clear of her stepfather, shefairly burst from her tiny room, and halted face to face with Johnnie,from whose strong right hand the stove rag was even then falling. Hereyes both questioned and challenged him. And the sudden breaking of hiscountenance into a radiant grin, at one and at the same time, answeredher--and confessed.
"Johnnie!" she whispered.
He stretched up to her pink ear to answer, for Grandpa was at the table,still busy over his bowl. "A book," he whispered back, his air that ofone who has seen the dream of a lifetime realized.
"_What?_ What kind of a book? And where'd you get it? Show it to me."
He went into the little closet. When he came out, she went in. Andpresently, as she sauntered into the kitchen once more, he plunged pasther and the tiny room received him a second time--all of which wasaccording to a method they had worked out long ago. He was up-headed,and his eyes sparkled as he unpinned a towel from under Grandpa's chinand trundled the wheel chair back from the table. His look said that hedefied all criticism.
She reached for the camera-box. Her manner wholly lacked enthusiasm. "Iguess it's a good story," she conceded kindly. "I heard about it lotswhen I was in school. But, my! It's so raggy!"
"Raggy!" scoffed Johnnie. "Huh! I don't care what it _looks_ like!"
When she, too, was gone, he omitted his usual taking of the air at thewindow. He even denied himself the pleasure of calling up his fourmillionaires and telling them of his good fortune. The main business ofthe day was the book. Would Aladdin's order for a palace, complete, becarried out? Would that ambitious Celestial marry the Princess of hischoice? Johnnie could scarcely wait to know.
Following a course that he had found good these several years past, hewound the alarm clock a few times and set it to ring sharp at four inthe afternoon--which would give him more than a full hour in which towash Grandpa, make the beds and sweep before Big Tom's return. Thisdone, he opened the book on the table, dug a hand into his tousled mop,and began to read--to read as he might have drunk if thirst weretorturing him, and a cool, deep cup were at his lips. For the book wasto him really a draught which quenched a longing akin to thirst; it wasa potion that gave him new life.
As the story of stories unfolded itself, step by step, the ragged streeturchin whose father had been a poor tailor, attained to greatheights--to wealth and success and power. Johnnie gloried in it all,seeing such results as future possibilities of his own, and notforgetting to remark how kind, through all the upward trending offortune, Aladdin had been to his mother (though he, himself, did notpause in his enjoyment of the tale to take the regular train trip withGrandpa).
Twice during the morning the old soldier, by whimpering
insistently,brought himself to Johnnie's attention. But the moment Grandpa waswaited upon, back Johnnie went to his book, and page was turned uponpage as the black magic of the hateful African wafted that most perfectof palaces many a league from its original site, and separated for hisown wicked purposes the loving Aladdin and his devoted Buddir alBuddoor.
And then--all of a sudden--and for no reason that Johnnie could name,but as if some good genie of his own were watching over him, and hadwhispered a warning, he cast off the enthrallment of Asia, stoppeddragging at his hair, started to his feet, slid the book under hiscollar-band, and took stock of the time.
It was twelve. Indeed, the noon whistles were just beginning to blow.But they and the clock did not reassure him. He had been dimly aware,the past hour or so, of a strange state of quiet overhead. Thatawareness now resolved itself into a horrible fear--the fear that, inspite of lunches put up and a clock wound to clang at four in theafternoon, the day was--Saturday!
"Gee!" breathed Johnnie, and paled to a sickly white.
His first thought was to make sure one way or another. Scurrying to thewindow, he pushed it up, hung out of it toward the Gamboni casement, andcalled to a sleek head that at this time of the day was almost certainto be bobbing in sight. There it was, and "What day is this, Mrs.Gamboni?" he demanded. "Quick! Is it Saturday?"
"_Si!_"
Saturday! A half-day! _Barber!_
He threw himself backward, then stood for a moment, panic-stricken. Ofcourse it was Saturday. Which explained why Mrs. Kukor was out. Oh, whyhad she not stopped by on her way to church? Oh, why had he left any ofhis work undone? Oh, for some genie to finish it all up in a second!Oh, for some Slave of a Ring or a Lamp!
"Gee!" he breathed again. "This was the shortest Saturday mornin' in theworld!"
There now came to the fore the practical side of his nature. He knew hemust do one of two things: stay, and take the whipping that Big Tomwould surely give him, or--go.
What had heretofore kept him from going was the fact that he had noclothes. By the end of his first year in the flat, the little suit hehad been wearing when he came was in utter rags. Big Tom had bought himno new suit, declaring that he could not afford it. So Johnnie had hadto decide between putting on some of Cis's old garments or Barber'smammoth cast-offs. He chose the latter, which Mrs. Kukor offered toalter, but Barber refused her help. And she knew at once what Johnniedid not guess: the longshoreman wanted the boy to appear ridiculous.
The plan worked. The first time Johnnie had ventured into the areawearing his baggy breeches and a voluminous shirt, the boys who had fromthe first called "Girl's hair!" at him changed their taunt to "Oldclothes!" It had sent him scurrying back into the flat, and it had kepthim there, so that Big Tom had some one to look after Grandpa steadily,and bring in a small wage besides.
But now not even the likelihood of being mocked for his ragged misfitscould keep Johnnie back. Darting into the hall, he crouched in the darkpassage a moment to listen, his heart pounding so hard that he couldhear it; then certain that the way was yet clear, he straddled thebanisters and, with his two strong hands to steady him and act as abrake to his speed, took the three flights to the ground floor.
As Big Tom usually entered the area by the tunnel-like hall that led infrom the main street to the south, Johnnie headed north, first takingcare to glance out into the area before he charged across it, blinded byits glare after the semidark of the Barber rooms. He was hatless. Hishair and his fringe flew. His feet flew, too, as if the longshoremanwere at their horny little heels.
The north tunnel gained, he scampered along it. As he dodged out of it,and westward, again the glare of the outdoors blinded him, so that hedid not see a crowd that was ahead of him--a crowd made up wholly ofboys.
He plunged among the lot. Instantly a joyous wrangle of cries went up:"Girl's hair! Girl's hair! Old clothes! Old clothes!" A water-pistoldischarged a chill stream into his face. Hands seized him, tearing athis rags.
Savagely he battled at the center of the mob, hitting, kicking, biting.His sight cleared, and he made the blows of his big hands tell. "Leaveme alone!" he screamed. "Leave me alone!"
The crowd doubled as men and women rushed up to see what the excitementwas all about. Then hands laid hold of Johnnie's tormentors, haulingthem back, and suddenly he found himself free. Once more he took to hisheels, and panting, dripping, scarlet and more ragged than before, hefled ignominiously.