The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 58

Mrs. Kukor. So far he had not noticed a sound from overhead. When the brown shoes were on, he rapped an I'm-coming-up signal on the sink pipe.

There was no answer. He rapped it again, and louder, watching the clock this time, in order to give the little Jewish lady a full minute to rise from her rocking chair. But she did not rise; and no steps went doll-walking across the ceiling. At this early hour could Mrs. Kukor be out? He went up.

Another surprise. Another change. Another blow. At her door was her morning paper, with its queer lettering; on the door, pinned low, was what looked like a note. Feeling sure that it had been left for him, Johnnie carried it half-way to the roof to get a light on its message, which was sorry news indeed:

_Der Jony my rebeka has so bad sicknus i needs to go by hir love Leah Kukor._

He was so pained by the explanation, so saddened to learn that his devoted friend would be gone all day, that he descended absentmindedly to the flat directly below Barber's, where he walked in unceremoniously upon nine Italians of a.s.sorted sizes--the Fossis, all swarmed about their breakfast in a smoke-filled room.

With a hasty excuse, he darted out; then, his heart as lead, climbed home. Poor Mrs. Kukor! Poor daughter Rebecca! Poor baby, whose mamma had a "bad sicknus!" And, yes, poor husband, Mr. Reisenberger!--even though he was "awful rich."

The broom had swept from under the stove those lengths of clothesline.

With more philosophical wags of the head, Johnnie fastened them end to end with weaver's knots, and rehung the rope, knowing as he worked that he could never again bear to telephone along that mended line.

"Gee! Barber spoils ev'rything!" he declared.

After the rope was up he felt weak. He sat down at the table, thin legs curled round the rungs of the kitchen chair, clean elbows on the restored oilcloth, a big fist propping each cheek; and presently found himself listening, waiting, his eyes on the hall door. At every noise, he gave a start, and hope added its shine to that other shine which soap had left on his face.

And so the long morning pa.s.sed. Shortly after noon, he carried dinner in to Big Tom, and took away the breakfast dishes. Grandpa went as far as the door with him, and opened grave, baby eyes at sight of his prostrate son. "Oh, Tommie sick!" he whispered, frightened. "Poor Tommie sick!"

"Shut up!" growled "poor Tommie," roughly, and Grandpa backed off quickly, with soft tap-taps.

"Maybe y' better have a doctor," essayed Johnnie, practically, and as calmly as he might have said it to Cis.

"You mind your business."

The afternoon was longer than the morning. Johnnie sat at the table again. His face was hot, and he kept a dipper of water in front of him so that he could take frequent draughts. Sometimes he watched his patch of sky; sometimes he shut his eyes and read from the burned books, or looked at their pictures; now and then he slept--a few minutes at a time--his head on his arms.

Toward evening, though rested physically, he found his spirits again drooping. Bravely as he had started the day, its hours of futile waiting had tried him. (Could it be possible that grief was a matter of the clock?) As twilight once more moved upon the city it brought with it the misery, the loneliness and the pain which had been his just twenty-four hours before. Oh, where, he asked himself, was the light step, the tender voice, the helpful hand of her who had hurried home to him every nightfall of the past?

He understood then what a difference there could be between bodily suffering and mental suffering. His whipping, severe as it had been, was over and done, and all but forgotten. But this sorrow--! "Gee!" he breathed, marveling; "how it sticks!"

No; he had not realized when Cis left how hard it would be to stay on at the flat without her. And ahead of him were how many days like this one?

He seemed there to stay for a time that was all but forever!

That night it was Boof who shared the mattress with him. He whispered to the dog for a long while, recounting his troubles. Afterward, he said over the tenth law, that one having to do with bravery. "Defeat does not down him" the Handbook had said; and he was not downed. He thought of every valiant soul he knew--Aladdin, Heywood, Uncas, Jim Hawkins, Lancelot, Crusoe. He fought the tears. But he felt utterly stricken, wholly deserted.

--By all save Polaris, now risen above the roofs. "Oh, you can see ev'rything!" Johnnie said to the star, enviously. "So, please, where is Father Pat?"

But Polaris only stared back at him. Bright and hard, calm and unchanging, what difference did it make to so proud a beacon--the woe of one small boy?

Joy cometh with the morning. This time Joy wore the disguise of a cowboy who had a black eye, a bag of apples, a newspaper, and two cigars. Also he carried a couple of businesslike packages, large ones, well wrapped in thick brown paper and wound with heavy string.

The excitement and happiness that One-Eye roused when he shuffled in came very nearly being the end of Johnnie, who could not believe his own eyes, but had to take hold of a s.h.a.ggy trouser leg in order to convince himself that this was a real visitor and not just a think.

The Westerner appeared to have changed his mind about Big Tom in much the same way that Johnnie had changed his (and, doubtless, for the same reason). Dropping all of his packages, and fishing the cigars from a top vest-pocket, he stalked boldly into the bedroom. "Say!" he began, "here's a couple o' flora dee rope. Smoke you' blamed haid off!" Then, as Barber, grunting, reached a grateful hand for the gift, "An', say!

I've brung the kid some more of all what y' burned up. So tell me--right now--if y' got any objections."

"No-o-o-o!"--crossly.

"If y' have, spit 'em out!"

"Gimme a match!"

It was a victory!

"That feller's lost his face!" One-Eye confided to Johnnie when the bedroom door was shut. He winked emphatically with that darkly colored good eye.

"L--lost his face?" cried Johnnie, aghast. "What y' mean, One-Eye? But he had it this mornin'! I _saw_ it!"

"Aw, y' little jay-hawk!" returned the cowboy, fondly.

Then, excitement! In a short s.p.a.ce of time which the Westerner described as "two shakes o' a lamb's tail," Johnnie was garbed from hat to leggings in a brand-new scout uniform, and was gloating and gurgling over another _Robinson Crusoe_, another _Treasure Island_, another _Last of the Mohicans_, another _Legends of King Arthur_, and another _Aladdin_. Each had tinted ill.u.s.trations. Each was stiff with newness, and sweet to the smell. "And the sky-book, 'r whatever y' call it, and the scout-book, w'y, they'll come t'morra, 'r the day after, I don't know which. --Wal, what d' y' say?"

"I say 'Thanks'--with _all_ of me!" Johnnie answered, trembling with earnestness. They shook hands solemnly.

"Oh, our books!" cried Grandpa. "Our nice, little soldier!" To him, the cowboy's presents were those which had gone into the stove.

There was something in that newspaper for Johnnie to read. It was a short announcement. This had in it no element of surprise for him, since it told him nothing he did not already know. Nevertheless, it took his breath away. In a column headed "_Marriages_" were two lines which read, "_Perkins-Way: April 18, Algernon G.o.dfrey Perkins to Narcissa Amy Way_."

"It's so!" murmured Johnnie, awed. "They're both married!" Seeing it in print like that, the truth was clinched, being given, not only a certainty, but a dignity and a finality only to be conveyed by type.

"One-Eye, it's _so_!"

One-Eye 'lowed it was.

"And, my goodness!" Johnnie added. "Think o' Cis havin' her name in the paper!"

They sat for a while without speaking. Grandpa, having been generously supplied by the cowboy with sc.r.a.ped apple, slept as sleeps a fed baby.

Johnnie stacked and restacked his five books, caressing them, drawing in the fragrance of their leaves. One-Eye studied the floor and jiggled a foot.

"Sonny," he said presently (it was plain that he had something on his mind); "y' won't feel too down-in-the-mouth if I tell y'--tell y'--er--aw--" The spurred foot stopped jiggling.

"What? Oh, One-Eye, y're not goin' away right off?"

"T'night."

"Oh!"

"But, shucks, I'll be sailin' back East again in no time! These Noo York big-bugs is jes' yelpin' constant fer my polo ponies."

"I'm glad." But there was a shadow now upon a countenance which a moment before had been beaming. Things were going wrong with him--everything--all at once. It was almost as if some malign genie were working against him.

"Mrs. Kukor's away, too," he said. "And with Cis gone--" He swallowed hard.

One-Eye began to talk in a husky monotone, as if to himself. "They's n.o.body else jes' like her," he declared; "that's a cinch! She's sh.o.r.e the kind that comes one in a box! Whenever I'd look at her, I'd allus think o' a angel, 'r a bird, 'r a little, bobbin' rose." He sighed, uncrossed his s.h.a.ggy knees, crossed them the other way, shifted his quid of tobacco to the opposite cheek, and pulled down the brim of the wide hat till it touched his leathery nose. "Such a slim, little figger!" he added. "Such a pert, little haid! And--and a cute face! And she was white! _Plumb_ white!"

Johnnie, as he listened, understood that the cowboy was talking of Cis--no one else. He was not mourning his own departure, nor regretting the fact that a small, lonely boy was to be left behind. Which gave that boy such a pang of jealousy as helped him considerably to bear this new blow.

"Wal," went on One-Eye, philosophically, "I never was a lucky cuss. If the sky was t' rain down green turtle soup, yours truly 'd find himself with jes' a fork in his pocket."