The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 56

She was carrying something which she was not taking: Edwarda, until recently so treasured and beloved. She laid the doll upon the oilcloth, glanced at One-Eye, and put a finger to her lips. "You can give it to some little girl, Johnnie," she said; "--some real poor little girl."'

"All right." (He had decided on the instant who should have Edwarda!) "But I'd go 'long fast, if I was you," he added, with a fearsome look toward the bedroom.

Cis came to him. "Mrs. Kukor'll be right upstairs," she reminded (the little Jewish lady was trotting out and away, not trusting herself to look on at their farewells).

"And I'll drop in often," interposed Father Pat; "--please G.o.d!"

One-Eye divined what was going forward. He got up uneasily. "Dang it, if I ain't sorry I'm goin' West so soon again!" he fretted. "But I'll tote y' back with me some day, sonny--see if I don't! Also, I'll peek in oncet 'r twicet afore I go--that is, if my lamp gits better."

"All right," said Johnnie again. He had but one idea now: to get every one safely away. So he was not sad.

"You--you can have my room now," Cis went on, swallowing, and trying to smile.

"Thank y'."

They shook hands, then, both a little awkwardly. Next, she bent to kiss him. Boylike, he was not eager for that, with Father Pat and Mr. Perkins looking on. So he backed away deprecatingly, and she succeeded only in touching her lips to a tuft of his bright hair. But at once, forgetting manly pride, he wound his arms about her, and laid his hurt cheek against her shoulder; and she patted his sore back gently, and dropped a tear or two among the tangles brushing her face.

When he drew away from her, he saw that neither Father Pat nor Mr.

Perkins were watching them. The former had a hand across his eyes (was he praying, or just being polite?); while the scoutmaster, hands behind him, and chin in air, was staring out of the window.

"I'm ready, Algy,"--Cis tried to say it as casually as if she were going only to the corner. She joined Father Pat and One-Eye at the door.

Now it was Mr. Perkins's turn. He came over and held out a hand. "Well, John Blake," he said (he had never used "John" before), "you'll be in our thoughts every hour of the day--you, and Grandpa. You know you're not losing a sister; you're gaining a brother."

They shook hands then, as men should. But a moment later, by an impulse that was mutual, each put his arms about the other in a quick embrace.

"My little brother!"

"My--my big brother!"

"Hate to leave you, scout boy."

"Aw, that's all right. Y' know me, Mister Perkins. I don't mind this old flat. 'Cause,--well, I don't ever have t' stay in it if I don't want t'.

I mean, I can be wherever I want t' be. And--and I'm with Aladdin most o' the time, 'r King Arthur. And this next day 'r so, I'm plannin' t'

spend on Treasure Island." All this was intended to make them feel more cheerful. Now he smiled; and what with the shine of his tow hair, his light brows and his flaxen lashes, combined with the flash of his yellow-flecked eyes and white teeth, the effect was as if sunlight were falling upon that brave, freckleless, blue-striped face.

The four went then, the Father guiding One-Eye, and Cis with Mr.

Perkins. They went, and the door closed upon them, and a hard moment was come to test his spirit--that moment just following the parting.

Fortunately for him, however, Grandpa demanded attention. Beyond the bedroom door the little, old soldier, as if he guessed that something had happened, set up a sudden whimpering, and tried to turn the k.n.o.b and come out.

Johnnie brought him, giving not a glance to the great figure bulking on Barber's bed, and shutting the door as soft as he could. He fed the old man, talking to him cheerily all the while. "Cis is goin' t' be married," he recounted, "and have, oh, a swell weddin' trip. And then some day, when she gits back, she'll pop in here again, and tell us a-a-all about it! So now you go s'eepy-s'eepy, and when y' wake, Johnnie'll have some dandy supper f'r y'!"

His boy's spirit buoyed up by this picture of great happiness for another, he began to sing as he wheeled Grandpa backward and forward--to sing under his breath, however, so as not to disturb Big Tom! He sang out of his joy over the joy of those two who were just gone out to their new life; and he sang to bring contentment to the heart of the little, old soldier, and sleep to those pale, tired eyes:

"Oh, Cis, she's goin' t' be Mrs. Algernon Perkins, And live in a' awful stylish flat.

There's a carpet and curtains in the flat, And a man 'most as good as Buckle t' do all the work.

And she's goin' t' have a velvet dress, I think, maybe, And plenty o' good things t' eat all the time-- b.u.t.ter ev-ry day, I guess, and eggs, too, And nice, red apples, if she wants 'em----"

And so, caroling on and on, he put old Grandpa to sleep.

But how his song would have died in his throat if he could have guessed that, of the four who had just left,--those four whom he loved so sincerely--one, and oh, what a dear, dear one, was never to pa.s.s across the threshold again!

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

LEFT BEHIND

EMPTY!

He did not enter the tiny room. Now, all at once, it seemed a sacred place, having for so long sheltered her who was sweet and fine. And he felt instinctively that the blue-walled retreat was not for him; that he should not stretch himself out in his soiled, ragged clothes on that dainty couch-shelf where she had lain.

He stood on the threshold to look in. How beautiful it was! From to-day forward, would she truly have another any handsomer? The faint perfume of it (just recently she had acquired a fresh stock of orris root) was like a breath from some flower-filled garden--such a garden as he had read about in _The Story of Aladdin_. And yes, the little cell itself was like one of Aladdin's caskets from which had been taken a precious jewel.

Just now it was a casket very much in disarray, for Cis had tumbled it in wind-storm fashion as she made ready to leave, carelessly throwing down several things that she had formerly handled delicately: the paper roses, the sliver of mirror, the pretty face of a moving-picture favorite. As for that box flounced with bright crepe paper, it was ignominiously heaved to one side. And that cherished likeness of Mr.

Roosevelt was hanging slightly askew.

But Johnnie did not set straight the photograph of his hero, or stoop to pick anything up. He could think of just one thing: she was gone!

And she would never come back--never, never, never, never! He began to repeat the word, as he and Cis had been wont to repeat words, trying hard to realize the whole of their meaning: "Never! never! never!

never." And once more there came over him that curious lost feeling that he had suffered after Aunt Sophie was gone in the clanging ambulance.

Once more, too, he grew rebellious. "Oh, why does ev'rything have t' go 'n' bust up!" he questioned brokenly, voicing again the eternal protest of youth against an unexpected, pain-dealing shift in Life's program.

That time he had run away, she had promised that she would never leave _him_!--had said it with many nevers. "And she ain't ever before stayed out in the evenin' like this," he told himself. No, not in all the years he had been at the Barber flat.

However, he felt no resentment toward her for going. How could he? Now that she was away, she seemed unspeakably dear, faultlessly perfect.

But, left behind, what was he? what did he have? what would become of him? To all those questions there was only one answer: Nothing. He was alone with a helpless, childish, old man and that other. "And I've tried 'n' tried!" he protested (he meant that he had tried to please Barber, tried to do his work better, tried to deserve more consideration from the longsh.o.r.eman). And this was what had come of all his striving: Cis had been driven away.

"Oh, nothin' worse can happen t' me!" he declared despairingly.

"Nothin'! nothin'!" What a staff she had always been, and how much he had leaned upon that staff, he did not suspect till now, when it was wrenched from under his hand. He had a fuller understanding, too, of what a comfort she had steadily been--she, the only bright and beautiful thing in the dark, poor flat! And to think that, boylike, he had ever shrunk out from under her caressing fingers, or fled from her proffered kiss! O his darling comrade and friend! O little mother and sister in one!

"Cis!" he faltered. "Cis!"

An almost intolerable sense of loss swept him, like a wave br.i.m.m.i.n.g the cup of his grief. His forehead seemed to be bulging, as if it would burst. His heart was bursting, too. And something was tearing, clawlike, at his throat and at his vitals. Just where the lower end of his breastbone left off was the old, awful, aching, gnawing, "gone" feeling.

Much in his short life he had found hard to bear; but never anything so appalling as this! If only he might cry a little!

"Sir Gawain, he c-cried," he remembered, "when he found out he was f-fightin' his own b-brother. And Sir G-Gareth, he c-cried too." Also, no law of the twelve in the Handbook forbade a scout to weep.

His eyes closed, his mouth lengthened out pathetically, his cheeks puckered, his chin drew up grotesquely, trembling as if tortured; then he bent his head and began to sob, terribly, yet silently, for he feared to waken Grandpa. Down his hurt face streamed the tears, to fall on the big, old shirt, and on his feet, while he leaned against the door-jamb, a drooping, shaking, broken-hearted little figure.

"Oh, I can't git along without her!" he whispered. "I can't stand it!

Oh, I want her back! I want her back!"

When he had cried away the sharp edge of his grief, a deliciously sad mood came over him. In _The Legends of King Arthur_, more than one grieving person had succ.u.mbed to sorrow. He wondered if he would die of his; and he saw himself laid out, stricken, on a barge, attended by three Queens, who were putting to sea to take him to the Vale of Avilion.