The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 44

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 wa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce. "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 longsh.o.r.eman, 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 longsh.o.r.eman. 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 longsh.o.r.eman 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.