The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 50

"Oh, Johnnie!" she faltered. "Oh, what's the matter?"

Johnnie's lips moved. "Noth--nothin'," he whispered back. "I--I'm jus'

tryin' t' smile."

"Ah, there's a brave lad for ye!" exclaimed the Father, the tears shining in the green eyes. "Not a whine! Not a whimper! Where'd ye find another boy, Tom Barber, that'd take yer heavy hand in the spirit o'

this one? Shure, there's not a look out o' him t' show that he's hatin'

ye for what ye did t' him! Ha-a-a! It's a pearl, he is, cast under the feet o' a pig!"

"Y' can cut that out!" said the longsh.o.r.eman. Putting down his pipe, he crossed the room to the priest.

Father Pat got to his feet, but he did not retract. "Ye old buzzard!" he stormed. "Do ye dare t' lift yer hand against the servant o' G.o.d?"

Big Tom fell back a step then, as if remembering who the man before him was. "Jus' the same, y' better go," he returned. "From now on, y' better keep out o' this!"

"I'll go," answered the priest, calmly, "when I'm tossed out o' the windy--or the door. But I'll not go by me own choosin'. I'm not lastin'

long annyhow, so ye can drop me into the court if ye like. Then the law will take ye out o' the way o' these dear children."

Barber clenched and unclenched his fists, yearning to strike, yet not daring. "Go home and mind y'r own affairs," he counseled.

"Me own affairs is exactly what I'm mindin'," retorted the Father. Then, mournfully, "Oh, if only I had me old strength! If me lungs wasn't as full o' holes as a sieve! I'd say, 'Tom Barber, come ahead!' And as G.o.d's me witness, I'd thrash ye within' a inch o' yer black life!" And he shook a finger before the longsh.o.r.eman's nose.

Mrs. Kukor was giving Johnnie some milk. He whispered to her, fearing from the look in her dark eyes that she was blaming herself bitterly for what had happened to his books. "Don't y' worry," he pleaded; "it wasn't n.o.body's fault. And if y' hadn't kept 'em upstairs long as y'

did, he'd 've burned em 'fore ever I learned 'em."

"Chonnie!" she gasped. Concerned for the safety, yes, even the lives, of the two she loved, she had forgotten to inquire the fate of that basketful. Now she knew it! "Oy! oy! oy! oy!"

"Aw, shut up y'r oy-oy's," scolded Big Tom.

Father Pat had heard Johnnie, and understood him. "But we'll not be carin' about anny crazy destruction," he announced cheerfully; "for, shure, and there's plenty more o' 'em on sale in this town."

Johnnie stared up, trying to comprehend the good news. "The _'xact_ same ones?" he asked.

"Little book lover, I'll warrant there's a thousand o' each story--if a man was t' take count."

"Oh!"

The Father knelt. "Lad, dear!" he exclaimed tenderly. "Faith, and did ye think that ye owned the only copies in the _world_ o' them cla.s.sics?"

Now Johnnie fully realized the truth. "Oh, Father Pat!" he cried, and fell to laughing aloud in sheer joy.

"G.o.d love the lad!" breathed the priest, ready to weep with happiness at restoring that joy. "Was there ever such another? Why, in one hour, and without spendin' a penny, I could be readin' all seven o' yer books!

Yes, yes! In that grand book temple I told ye about--the one with the steps that lead up (oh, but they're elegant), and the lions big as horses."

"I know," said Johnnie. "I remember. I--I was there 'way late last night--in a think."

"Why, little reader dear, in that temple, and out o' it, shure and there's enough Aladdins t' pave half a mile o' Fifth Avenue! and it's likely ye could put up a Woolworth Building with nothin' but Crusoes and Mohicans!"

"I'm so glad! So glad! _My!_"

"And Father Pat's glad," added the priest. As he stood once more, he lifted a smiling face to the ceiling; and up past the kitchen of the little Jewish lady he sent a prayer of grat.i.tude to his Maker for the blessing of that instrument of man's genius, the printing press.

Then he fell to pacing the floor, now glancing at the clock, again taking out his watch and clicking its cover. Between these silent inquiries regarding the time, he played impatiently with the cross which hung against his coat on a black ribbon. It was plain that he was expecting some one.

Big Tom understood as much, and finally was moved to speech. "Y' won't bring no doctor in here," he announced. "I won't have no foolishness o'

that kind."

Father Pat ignored him. But to Mrs. Kukor, "Shure, and ye could boil a leg o' mutton while ye wait for that gentleman," he observed.

After that, for a while, the kitchen was quiet. Mrs. Kukor left on an errand to her own flat, coming back almost at once with two eggs deliciously scrambled on toast, and some stewed berries, tart and tasty.

These delicacies had a wonderfully reviving effect upon both Cis and Johnnie, and the latter even found himself able to sit up to eat.

"Now I'm so weak," he told Father Pat, "wouldn't this be a' awful fine time t' play shipwreck with Crusoe, and git washed on sh.o.r.e more dead'n alive?"

"Now, then, it just would!" agreed the priest. "But as ye've been near dead once this day, shure, ye'd best think o' stayin' alive for a change."

The last bit of egg was eaten, the last nibble of toast, too, and the fruit. "Oh, yes, I'm too tired t' think 'bout a wreck," admitted Johnnie.

"Rest, lad dear! Rest!" The quilt was tucked round the weary limbs.

One of those big-girl hands reached up and drew the priest's head lower.

"I guess where I been is on the danger line, all right," Johnnie whispered. "And the Handbook said a scout don't flinch in the face o'

danger, and this time, gee, I didn't!"

A rest and some good food had made Cis feel like her former self by now.

Presently she walked into the little room, lit a nubbin of candle, and changed into her best clothes. While she was gone, Johnnie drew on his old, big trousers, and donned Barber's shirt, then moved to the morris chair. As for Mrs. Kukor, she was gone again, her face very sober, and the line of her mouth tight and straight. As she teetered out, it was plain that she was all but in a panic to get away.

For evidently things were to happen in the flat before long. The air of the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or when a footfall sounded beyond the hall door.

All at once a loud tramping was heard on the stairs--a determined tramping, as if half a dozen angry men were setting down their feet as one. Doors flew open, voices hailed one another up and down the building, and Mrs. Kukor could be heard pattering in a wide circle beyond the ceiling. All of this disturbance brought Cis out of her tiny room, pink-faced once more, and eager-eyed.

The next moment, with a stomp and a slam, and without knocking, One-Eye made a whirlwind entrance into the kitchen, and halted, his wide hat grotesquely over one ear, a quid of tobacco distending that cheek which the hat brim touched, a score of questions looking from that single eye, and every hair on the front of those s.h.a.ggy breeches fairly standing out straight.

"Wal?" he demanded, banging the door so hard behind him that all the dishes in the cupboard rattled. He had on gauntlets. Their cuffs reached half-way to his elbows. These added mightily to his warlike appearance.

"A-a-a-a-h!" greeted Father Pat, joyously.

So this was the person whose arrival had been awaited! Nonchalantly Big Tom shifted his weight from foot to foot, and chuckled through the stubble of his beard.

"One-Eye!" cried Cis. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come! Oh, One-Eye, he tied us to the table all night! And he whipped Johnnie with the rope!"

That lone green eye began to roll--to Cis's face, seeing the truth written there, and the story of her long hours of suffering; to the countenance of the priest, to ask, dumbly, if any living man had ever heard anything more outrageous than this; then, "By the Great Horn Spoon!" he breathed, and again stomped one foot, like an angry steer.

Big Tom's smile widened.

Now, the Westerner crossed to Johnnie, bent, and with gentle fingers held under the boy's chin, studied those welts across the pale cheeks.

"Crimini!" he murmured. "Crimini! _Crimini!_"

"Look at his chest, and his back!" Cis advised.