The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 30

Barber kept on: "Your looks don't suit me, and neither does your talk.

You're altogether too slick, too pink-and-whity, too eye-gla.s.sy, and purple-shirty, and cute-socky, and girl-glovy."

"I see."

"T' put it plainer, y' don't look t' me like a real man." Out now came the underlip, threatening, aggressive.

"Indeed?" Dire as the insult was, Mr. Perkins was still smiling, was even a trifle bored. "And what kind of a chap _do_ you think is a real man?"

"Somebody," answered Big Tom, "that's ev'rything you ain't. Why, honest, you look too nice t' me t' be out in bad weather. Y' know, one of these days you'll melt, 'r git streaked."

"Mm! Perhaps I'm too clean." Those coffee-colored eyes were cool. With one swift up and down they examined Big Tom's apparel.

The longsh.o.r.eman squirmed under the scrutiny. "Y' don't look like y've ever done a lick of honest work in your whole life!" he declared hotly.

"Y' look like your pink face was made o' dough, and the balance of y'

out o' putty! Y' look as if the calf'd licked y'!"

Again that amused, bored smile. "No," said Mr. Perkins, "that hasn't happened yet."

"No? Well, y' never can tell. Y' _might_ git licked by somethin'

_besides_ a calf."

Another of those pauses which seemed so terribly long to Johnnie, and so fraught with direful possibilities. Then, "I might," agreed the scoutmaster, carelessly; "but again I--might not."

Now Barber showed that he did not possess the self-control that distinguished the younger man. His heavy, hair-rimmed mouth working as if with unspoken words, he rose, pocketed the pipe, and took a long step toward the table, upon which he planted both his huge hands. As he leaned there, it was plain that he longed for trouble. "I might not!" he mocked, disgusted. "Sure, y' might! For the reason that you ain't the kind that's got a wallop in your fist!"

Mr. Perkins got up, too. But only as if it were the well-bred thing to do. The bronze of his face was considerably darker than usual; and his eyes were black, and shone like great beads. "Ah!" he exclaimed, as amused as ever. "Now I think I know what it is that you respect most in men. Brute force. Am I right? Muscle! The power to give a hard blow."

"Dead right!" answered Barber, striking the table with his open hand.

"I hate a mollycoddle! a cutie! a reg'lar _pill_!"

Mr. Perkins nodded in the friendliest way. "So do I," he declared heartily. "And that's just why I want to train Johnnie's muscles, and teach him how to use his hands."

Big Tom straightened and went round the table. "I'll train Johnnie's muscles," he said; "and I'll teach him what t' do with his hands, too.

And you keep your nose out of it. Understand?" Then deliberately reaching out, with one finger he gave Mr. Perkins a poke in the chest.

That chest swelled under the neatly b.u.t.toned light coat. Yet Mr. Perkins continued to smile. But he did not move back by so much as an inch. And presently, with a low "Bah!" of anger and disgust, the longsh.o.r.eman loafed away. "All right," he drawled, in a tone of dismissal; "and now I'll ask for your room."

"My room?" The scoutmaster did not appear to understand.

"Yes! Yes!"--loudly, and facing round. "I'm askin' y' not t' bother us any more this mornin' with your ever-lastin' talk!"

"Oh. You wish me to go." Mr. Perkins took up his hat and gloves.

"My, but you're smart!" exclaimed Barber, sarcastically. "You can understand plain English!--Yes, _dear_ Mister Perkins, I mean that I don't want y' round." With that he continued on to the hall door, and opened it. "This way out," he said flippantly. The brown teeth showed again.

Mr. Perkins gave Johnnie a cheery smile. "Good-by, old chap," he said.

He went to the wheel chair and laid a gentle hand on Grandpa's shoulder.

"Good-by, Grandpa!"

"Good-by, General!" quavered the old man. "Good-by!" A shaking hand lifted in a salute.

Mr. Perkins gave Barber a courteous nod as he pa.s.sed him. "Good-by," he said pleasantly.

"Good-by," returned Barber. "And good riddance!" He slammed the door.

Then something strange happened--something that had never happened before. Without giving Johnnie a look, Barber lifted down the lamp, lighted it, carried it into Cis's room, and closed the door.

Rooted to the floor, alert as any frightened mouse, Johnnie listened. He could hear the longsh.o.r.eman moving about, and the sc.r.a.pe of the dressing-table box as it was lifted from its place, then shoved back.

What was Barber hunting? Fortunately the books were wound up in Johnnie's bedding, a precaution taken by their owner in view of Barber's spoken determination to return and take a look at Mr. Perkins. By any chance did the longsh.o.r.eman know about the Handbook? If he did, and if he found it, what would happen then?

After what seemed a long time, Barber appeared. Except for the lamp, his hands were empty. He blew into the top of the chimney and set the lamp back in its place. "Tea," he ordered.

Startled, Johnnie fairly rose into the air. When he touched the floor again, he was halfway to the stove. He set the table for one, mustering the food which Big Tom was to have had in the lunch pail. Barber ate, occasionally growling under his breath; or blew fiercely at the full saucer from which he was drinking. His look roved the room as if he were still searching. His meal finished, he found his hat, hung the cargo hook about his neck, and slouched out.

Then for the first time Johnnie relaxed, and slumped into the morris chair. He was not only weak, he was sick--too sick with bitterness and hate and shame and rage even to care to go into Cis's room to see in what condition Big Tom had left it. He knew now that the rough handling that he had feared for himself, though it would have been hard enough to endure, was less than nothing when compared with what he had suffered in seeing Mr. Perkins insulted, and ordered out.

He began to talk to himself aloud: "Good turns don't work! I'm sorry I ever done him one! I'll never do him another, y' betcher life!" Black discouragement possessed him. What good did it do any one to treat a man like Barber well? "Why, he's worse'n that mean Will Atkins that Crusoe hates!" he declared. "And the first time I git a chance, away I'll go, Mister Tom Barber, and this time I won't _never_ come back!"

"Sh!" whispered old Grandpa. "Sh!" The faded blue eyes were full of fear.

Johnnie fed the old soldier and got him to sleep. Then he tapped the basket signal up to Mrs. Kukor's. He had found the bed roll undisturbed, and knew that Big Tom had not discovered his treasures. But he would not take any further chances. When the basket came swinging slowly down, he called a brief explanation to the little Jewish lady. When the basket went up, it swung heavily, for his six precious books were in it.

Now he had no time, and no inclination, for reading. And he had no patience for any law that aimed to stand in his way. (Big Tom had driven Mr. Perkins from the flat; also, he had just about swept the place clean of every good result that the scoutmaster had worked.) What Johnnie felt urged to do seemed the only thing that could lessen all that rage and shame, that hate and bitterness, which was pent up in his thin little body.

"So I can't ever be a scout, eh?" he demanded. "Well, you watch me!" He planted the kitchen with a trackless forest through which boomed a wind off Lake Champlain. The forest was dark, mysterious. Through it, stealing on soft, moccasined feet, went Johnnie and the cruel Magua, following the trail of the fleeing and terrified longsh.o.r.eman.

They caught him. They bound him. And now the _Hispaniola_ came into sight across the Lake, her sails full spread as she hurried to receive her prisoner. Johnnie and Magua put Barber aboard. The latter pleaded earnestly, but no one listened. Again the ship set sail, bound for that Island which had yielded up its treasure to Captain Smollet's crew. On this Island, Big Tom was set down. And as the _Hispaniola_ set sail once more, her prow pointed homeward, Johnnie looked back to where the longsh.o.r.eman was kneeling, hands appealingly upraised, beside those certain three abandoned mutineers.

"And there y' stay," called Johnnie; "--for life!"

CHAPTER XXII

CIS TELLS A SECRET

CIS was seated on her narrow pallet, her back against the prized excelsior cushion, her knees drawn up within the circle of her slender arms. About her shoulders tumbled her hair, its glossy waves framing a face, pale and tense, in which her eyes were wide pools of black.

Johnnie was just below her on the floor, his quilt spread under him for comfort, a bare foot nursed in either hand. The combined positions were such as invariably made for confidences. And he guessed that what she had to tell him now was something unusually important and exciting.

"Johnnie," she whispered, and he saw himself dancing in those dark pools; "--oh, if I don't tell it to somebody, I'll just _die_! Oh, Johnnie, what do you think? What do you _think_?"

He thought; then, "New shoes?" he hazarded. "A new dress? A--a--more money at the fact'ry? Or"--and in an excited rush--"another book!"

"_Oh!_" She lifted her face to the ceiling, wagging her head helplessly.

"Shoes! or a dress! or money! or a book! They're nothing, Johnnie, alongside of the truth--just _nothing_!"