The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 16

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

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

Vot iss?"

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kukor, still unaware of a strange presence, had been whispering excitedly with Cis, from whom she had got the facts concerning the wound. But even as she had listened, she had been aware that Barber was talking, quietly, politely, good-naturedly. Surprised, she came half-about ("goin' exac'ly like a spud with tooth-pick laigs,"

as One-Eye said afterwards, though not unkindly), and took a look in the longsh.o.r.eman's direction. And--saw the visitor.

Her hands dropped, her eyes fixed themselves upon those fur-faced breeches, her bosom stopped heaving as she held her breath. Then, "Ach!"

she cried. "Could I believe it if so I did-ent saw it?--Mister Barber, how comes here a cowpoy?"

_A cowboy?_

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

He sat up.

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

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

CHAPTER XII

A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP

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

Mrs. Kukor vowed that she da.s.s-ent to deny how everytink about it wa.s.s both stylish und grand!

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

"I tells to him, 'Sure does Chonnie go for sometink'," declared Mrs.

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

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

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

"Yes," answered Johnnie, almost carelessly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I _thought_ there was something funny about your looks," she declared.

"I kept still, though.--Oh, Johnnie Smith, have you been robbing somebody?"

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

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

It was hard to convince him, but at last she did, this by pointing out to him the price marked in each book, a sum that took his breath away.

Three dollars and a half apiece they were! More than ten altogether!

("Und in kesh-money!" Mrs. Kukor marveled afterward, when she knew.) _His_ eyes got a far-away expression as he thought about the generosity of those strangers. Oh, how good strangers were to a person! It almost seemed that the less you knew somebody-- But, no, that was not true, because Mrs. Kukor----

"Tell me more about Mr. One-Eye," whispered Cis. "But what a name for a _man_! He _can't_ be called just that! How could you write him a letter?

Don't you know the rest of it, Johnnie? It's One-eye What?"

"Just One-Eye," returned Johnnie. "That's what they all called him.

Maybe cowboys don't have two names like common men. What's the good of two names, anyhow?"

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

Johnnie lifted an inspired finger, pointing straight at her.

"Everybody?" he asked. "Well, what about the Prince of Wales? _His_ name is Eddie. Eddie _What_?"

"Why--why--" She was confused.

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

Cis had to admit herself wrong.

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

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

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

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