&. - 1 p CALIF. LWJURY. LOi WHAT HE SAW THERE HELD HIM SPELLBOUND IX HIS CHAIR THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY BY ELEANOR GATES AUTHOR OF "THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL," "THE PLOW-WOMAN," "THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRAIRIE GIRL," "ALEC LLOYD, COW-PUNCHER," "PIGGIE," ETC. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK ::MCMXXII -LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY i PSIHTED IJf THE UMITED STATES OP AMEKICA TO R F. M. 2129816 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE WICKED GIANT 1 II. PRIDE AND PENALTY 10 III. A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION .... 17 IV. THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 24 V. NEW FRIENDS 36 VI. THE DEAREST WISH 52 VII. A SERIOUS STEP 60 VIII. MORE TREASURES 68 IX. ONE-EYE 79 X. THE SURPRISE 93 XI. THE DISCOVERY 1 8 XII. A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP 117 XIII. CHANGES 122 XIV. THE HEAVEN THAT NEARLY HAPPENED . 138 XV. SCOUTS 144 XVI. HOPE DEFERRED 153 XVII. MR. PERKINS 160 XVIII. THE ROOF vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIX. A DIFFERENT CK 183 XX. THE HANDBOOK 190 XXI. THE MEETING 201 XXII. Cis TELLS A SECRET 212 XXIII. ROSES THAT TATTLED 219 XXIV. FATHER PAT 233 XXV. AN ALLY CROSSES A SWORD .... 241 XXVI. THE END OF A LONG DAY 247 XXVII. ANOTHER GIFT 255 XXVIII. ANOTHER STORY 275 XXIX, REVOLT 290 XXX. DISASTER 300 XXXI. THE VISION 318 XXXII. HELP 330 XXXIII. ONE-EYE FIGHTS 345 XXXIV. SIR ALGERNON 357 XXXV. GOOD-BYS 363 XXXVI. LEFT BEHIND 373 XXXVII. UPS AND DOWNS 379 XXXVIII. ANOTHER GOOD-BY XXXIX. THE LETTER 400 XL. "THE TRUE WAY" 407 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY ELEANOR GATES CHAPTER I THE WICKED GIANT HE was ten. But his clothes were forty. And it was this difference in the matter of age, and, consequently, in the matter of size, that explained why, at first sight, he did not show how thin-bodied he was, but seemed, instead, to be rather a stout little boy. For his faded, old shirt, with its wide sleeves lopped off just above his elbows, and his patched trousers, short- ened by the scissors to knee length, were both many times too large for him, so that they lay upon him, front, back and sides, in great, overlapping pleats that were, in turn, bunched into heavy tucks; and his kitchen apron, worn with the waistband about his neck, the strings being tied at the back, also lent him if viewed from the front an appearance both of width and weight. But he was not stout. His frame was not even fairly well covered. From the apron hem in front, the two legs that led down to the floor were scarcely larger than lead piping. From the raveling ends of his short sleeves were thrust out arms that matched the legs bony, skinny arms, pallid as to color, and with hardly any more shape to them than there was to the poker of the cookstove. But while the lead-pipe legs ended in the sort of hard, splinter-defying boy's feet that could be met with on any stretch of pavement outside the tenement, the bony arms did not end in boyish hands. The hands that hung, finger- tips touching halfway to the knee, were far too big for a boy of ten. They were red, too, as if all the blood of- his thin shoulders had run down his arms and through his 1 2 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY wrists, and stayed there. And besides being red, fingers, palms and backs were lined and crinkled. They looked like the hands of a hard-working, grown girl. That was because they knew dish washing and sweeping, bed making and cooking, scrubbing and laundering. But his head was all that a boy's head should be, show- ing plenty of brain room above his ears. While it was still actually and naturally large for his body, it looked much too large; not only because the body that did its bidding was undersized, but because his hair, bright and abundant, added to his head a striking circumference. He hated his hair, chiefly because it had a hint of wave in it, but also because its color was yellow, with even a touch of green ! He had been taunted about it by boys. But what was worse, women and girls had admired it, and laid hands upon it or wanted to. And small wonder; for in thiclf undulations it stood away from forehead and temples as if blown by the wind. A part it had not, nor any sort of neat arrangement. He saw strictly to that. Whenever his left hand was not busy, which was less often than he could wish, he tugged at his locks, so that they^ reared themelves on end, especially at the very top, where they leaned in various directions and displayed what ap- peared to be several cowlicks. At every quarter that shin- ing mop was uneven, because badly cut by Big Tom Bar- ber, his foster father, whose name belied his tonsorial ability. Below that wild shock of colorful hair was a face that, when clean, could claim attention on its own account. It was a square-jawed little face over which the red was quick to come, though, unhappily, it did not stay. Its center was a nose that seemed a trifle small in proportion to its surroundings. But the top line of it was straight, and the nostrils were well carved, and had a way of lifting and swelling whenever his interest was caught. THE WICKED GIANT 3 Under them was a mouth that was wide yet noticeably beautiful not with the soft beauty of a baby's mouth, or a girl's, and not because it could boast even a touch of scarlet. It had been cut as carefull}' as his nose, the lips full yet firm, their lines drawn delicately, but with strength. It was sensitive, with a little quirk at each corner whicli betrayed its humor. Above all things, its expression was sweet. Colorless as were his cheeks and lips, nevertheless he did not seem a pale boy, this because his brows were a misty yellow-white, and his thick lashes flaxen; while his eyes were an indescribable mixture of glowing gray and blue plentifully flecked with yellow. Perfectly adjusted were these straight-looking eyes, and set far apart. By turns they were quick, and bold, and open, and full of eager in- quiry ; or they were thoughtfully half covered by their heavy lids, very still, and far sighted. Aifld when he laughed, what with the shine of his hair and brows and light lashes, and the flash of his eyes and his teeth, the effect was as if sunlight were upon his face though the sun so seldom shone upon him that he had not one boyish freckle. Such was Johnnie Smith. Just now he was looking smaller and less sunlit than usual. This was because Big Tom bulked in front of him, delivering the final orders for the day before going down the three flights of stairs, out into the brick-paved area, thence through a dank, ground-floor hall which bored its way from end to end of another tenement, and into the crowded East Side street, and so to his work on the docks. Barber was a huge-shouldered, long-armed slouch of a man, with a close-cropped head (flat at the back) upon which great hairy ears stood out like growths. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging, the left with an elusive cast in it that showed only now and then, when it testified to the 4 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY Idnk in his brain. His nose, uneven in its downward trend, was so fat and wide and heavy that it fairly sprawled upon his face; and its cavernous, black nostrils made it seem to possess something that, to Johnnie, was like a person- ality as if it were a queer sort of snakish thing, carefully watched over by the bulging, bloodshot eyes. For Barber's nose had the power of moving itself as Johnnie had seen no other nose move. Slowly and steadily it went up and down whenever Barber ate or talked as even Johnnie's small, straight nose would often do. But whenever Big Tom laughed sneeringly or boastfully or in ugly triumph the nose would make a sudden, sidewise twist. But something besides its power to move made it seem a live and separate thing: the longshoreman troubled him- self to shave only of a Sunday morning, when, with all the stiff, dark growth cleared away to right and left for Barber's beard grew almost to his eyes his nose, though bent and purplish, was fairly like a nose. But with Mon- day, again the nose took on that personality ; and seemed to be crouching and writhing at the center of its mat of stubble. But Barber's mouth was his worst feature, with its great, pushed-out underlip, which showed his complete satisfaction in himself. So big was that lip that it seemed to have acquired its size through the robbing of the chin just beneath for Big Tom had little enough chin. But his neck was massive, and an angry red, sprinkled with long, wiry hairs. It fastened his flat-backed head to a body that was like a gorilla's, thick and wide and humped. And his arms gave an added touch of the animal, for they were so long that his great palms reached to his knees ; and so sprung out at the shoulder, and so curved in at the wrist, that when they met at the fingers they formed a pair THE WICKED GIANT 5 of mammoth, muscled tongs tongs that gave Barber his boasted value in and out of ships. His legs were big, too. As he stood over Johnnie now, it was plain to see where the boy's shaggy trousers had come from (the grotesquely big shirt as well). Each of those legs was almost as big as Johnnie's skimped little body. And they turned up at the bottom in great bro- ganned feet that Barber was fond of using as instruments of punishment. More than once Johnnie had felt those feet. And if he could ever have decided how pain was to be inflicted upon him, he would always have chosen the long, thick, pliant strap that belted in, and held together, his baggy clothes. For the strap left colorful tracks that stung only in the making; but the mark of one of those feet went black, and ached to the bone. Johnnie hated Big Tom worse than he hated his own yellow hair. But he feared him, too. And ,jnow listened attentively as the longshoreman, his cutty pipe smoking in one knotted fist, his dinner pail in the other, his cargo hook slung to his burly neck, glowered down upon him. "Git your dishes done," admonished Barber. "Don't let the mush dry on 'em, and draw the flies." There being no question to answer, Johnnie said noth- ing. Final orders of a morning were the usual thing. If he was careful not to reply, if he waited, taking care where he looked, the longshoreman would have his say out and go pressed by time. So the boy, almost holding his breath, fastened his eyes upon a patch of wall where the smudged plaster was broken and some laths showed. And not a muscle of him moved, except one big toe, which he curled and uncurled across a crack in the rough, worn kitchen floor. "Git everything else clone, too," went on Big Tom. "You don't scrub till to-morrow, so the day's clear for stringin' beads, or makin' vi'lets. And don't let me come 6 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY home t'night and find no hot supper. You hear me." He chewed once or twice on nothing. Johnnie continued silent, counting the laths from the top down, from the bottom up. But his toe moved a shade faster. For there was a note of rising irritation in that You hear me. "I say, you hear me!" repeated Big Tom (replies al- ways angered him: this time silence had). He thrust the whole of the short stem of his "nose-warmer" into his mouth. Then, with the free hand, he seized Johnnie by one thin shoulder and gave him a rough, forward jerk. "Yes," acknowledged the boy, realizing too late that this was one occasion when speech would have been safest. He still concentrated on the laths, hoping that matters would go no further. But that single jerk, far from satisfying Barber's ran- cor, only a^ded to it precisely as if he had tasted some- thing which had whetted his appetite for more. He gripped Johnnie's shoulder again, this time driving him back a step. "Now, no sass !" he warned. The blood came rushing to Johnnie's face, darkening it so that the misty yellow-white brows stood out grotesquely. And his chest began to heave. He loathed the touch of Barber's hand. He despised the daily orders that only turned him against his work. But most of all he shrank from the indignity of being jerked when it was wholly un- deserved. Big Tom marked the boy's rising color. And the sight spurred his ill-humor. "What do you do for your keep ?" he demanded. "Stop pullin' your hair !" He struck John- nie's hand down with a sweaty palm that touched the boy's forehead. "Pullin' and hawlin' all the time, but don't earn the grub y' swallow !" Just as one jerk always led to another, so one blow was usually the prelude to a thrashing. Johnnie saw that he THE WICKED GIANT 7 must stop the thing right there ; must have instant help in diverting 1 Barber. Taking a quick, deep breath, he sounded his call for aid a loud, croupy cough. It was instantly answered. The door beside the cook- stove swung wide, and Cis came hurrying in from the tiny, windoxyless closet this her "own room" where she had been listening anxiously. "Oh, Mr. Barber," she began, trying to keep her young voice from trembling, "this week can I have enough out of my wages for some more shoe- whitening?" There were several ways in which to take Big Tom's mind from any subject. The surest of these was to bring up a question of spending. And now, answering to his stepdaughter's subterfuge as promptly as if he were a mechanism that had been worked by a key, he turned from glowering down upon Johnnie to scowl at her. "More?" he demanded harshly. 9 Her blue eyes met his look timidly. Out of the wisdom of her sixteen-year-old policy, she habitually avoided him, slipping away of a morning to her work at the pasteboard- box factory without a word; slipping back as quietly in the late afternoon; keeping out of his sight and hearing whenever that was possible; and speaking to him seldom. Cis looked at every one timidly. She avoided Big Tom not only because it was wise to do so but because she was naturally shy and retiring, and avoided people in general. She had a quaint face (framed by straight, light-brown hair) that ended in a pointed, pink chin. Habitually she wore that expression of mingled understanding and re- sponsibility common to all children who have brought up other children. So that she seemed older than she was. But her figure was that of a child slim, frail, and still lacking a woman's shapeliness, notwithstanding the fact that it had long carried the burdens of a grown-up. 8 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY Facing her stepfather now, she did not falter. "Yes, please," she answered. "The last, I got a month ago." His pipe was in his fist again, and he was chewing wrath- fully. "I'll see," he growled. And waved her to go. From the hall door, she glanced back at Johnnie. Not only had she and he a system of communication by means of coughs, humming, whistles, taps and other audible sounds ; and a second system (just as good) that depended upon wall marks, soap-inscribed hieroglyphics on the bit of mirror in Cis's room, or the arrangement of dishes on the kitchen table, and pots and pans on the stove, but they had a well-worked-out silent system by means of brow- raisings, eye and lip movements, head tippings and swift finger pointings that was as perfect and satisfactory as the dumb conversation of two colts. Such a system was necessary; for whenever the great figure of Barber came wedging itjelf through the hall door, and his presence, like a blighting shadow, darkened the already dark little flat, then the two young voices had to fall instantly silent, since Barber would brook no noise least of all whispering. Now by the quick, sidewise tip of her small, black-hatted head, Cis inquired of Johnnie whether she should stay or go. And Johnnie, with what amounted to an upward fling of his eyelids, answered that she need not stay. With Barber's cutty once more in his right fist, and with his mind veered to a fresh subject, Johnnie knew the crisis was past. With a swift glance of affection and sympathy, not un- mixed with triumph over the success of her interruption, Cis fluttered out leaving the door open at Barber's back. The longshoreman turned heavily as if to follow her, but came about with a final caution, lowering his voice to cheat any busy ear in the other flat on the same floor. "Don't you neglect the old man," he charged. "Face hair fix him up you, know." 9 At the stove, an untidy heap of theadbare, brown blan- ket, in a wheel chair suddenly stirred. In several ways old Grandpa was like a big baby, but particularly in this habit of waking promptly whenever he was mentioned. "Is that you, Mother?" he asked in his thin, old voice. (He meant Big Tom's mother, dead now these many years.) A swift change came over Barber's face. His great un- derlip drew in, what chin he had was thrust out with some- thing like concern, and his eyes rolled away from Johnnie to the whimpering old man. "It's all right, Pa," he said soothingly. "It's all right. Jus' you sleep." Then he turned, tiptoed through the door, and shut it after him softly. Johnnie did not move except to shift his look from the laths to the door knob, and take up his toeing of the crack at his feet. The door itself moved, and rattled gently, as the area door three flights below was opened by^ % Cis, and a gust from the narrow court was sent up the stairs of the tenement, as a bubble forces its way surfaceward through water, to suck at the Barber door. But Big Tom was not yet gone. And a moment later, the boy was looking at the outer knob, now in the clutch of several great, grimy, calloused fingers. "Let your hair alone!" ordered the longshoreman. Then the door closed finally, and the stairs complained with loud creakings as Barber descended them. Johnnie waited till the door in front of him moved and rattled again, then CHAPTER II PRIDE AND PENALTY HIS toe stopped working across the crack in the floor. His left hand forsook his tousled hair and fell to his side. His eyes narrowed, and his chin came up. Then his lips began to move, noiselessly. "I'll pay him up for that !" he promised. "I'll make him wish he didn't shove me ! This time, I'll think a* awful bad think about him ! I'll think the worst think I can! I'll I'll " He paused to decide. He had many "thinks" for the punishing of Big Tom, each of them ending in the desertion of that gentleman, who was always left helplessly grovel- ing and pleading while Johnnie made a joyous, triumphant departure. Which of all those revenges would he select this morning? Would he go, after handing the longshore- man over to the harshest patrolman in New York? or would it be a doctor who would remain behind in the flat with the tyrant, assuring Johnnie, as the latter sauntered out of the kitchen for the very last time, that no skill on earth could entirely mend the hurts which he had so bravely in- flicted upon his groaning foster father? or would he set; sail grandly from the Battery for some port at least a million miles away, his last view of the metropolis including in its foreground, along with a brass band and many dig- nitaries of the city, the kneeling shape of a wretched dock- worker who had repented of his meanness too late? Suddenly Johnnie caught his breath, his eyes dilated, 10 PRIDE AND PENALTY 11 his fingers began to play against his palms. He had de- cided. And in that same instant, a change came over him complete, satisfactory, astonishing. Now, instead of the ragged, little boy upon whom Big Tom had glowered down a meek boy, subdued, even crest- fallen, whose eyes were lowered, and whose lashes blinked fearsomely, he was quite a good deal taller, boldly erect, proud in his poise, light on his neatly shod feet, confident and easy in his manner, with a charming smile to right and left as ringing cheers went up for him while he awaited the lessening of the pleasant tribute, his composure really quite splendid, his hands stuffed into the pocket of his absolutely new, light-gray suit, which had knee pants. A change had also taken place in the Barber kitchen. Now the walls were freshly papered in a regal green-and- gold pattern which, at the floor line, met a thick, red car- pet. Red velvet curtains hung at either side of ^Jie window. Splendid, fat chairs were set carelessly here and there ; and a marble-topped table behind Johnnie was piled with a variety of delectable dishes, including several pies oozing juice. And the crowd that pressed up to the hall door! It was worthy of his pride, for it was a notable gathering. In it was no tenant of the building, no neighbor from other, near-by flats, and not a single member of that certain rough gang which haunted the area, the dark halls leading into it, and all the blocks round about. Indeed, no! Even in his "thinks" Johnnie was most careful regarding the selection of his companions, his so- cial trend being ever upward. And he was never small about any crowd of his, but always had everybody he could remember who was anybody a riot of famous people. On this occasion he was reaching into truly exclusive circles. Naturally, then, this was a well-dressed assemblage, strik- ingly equipped with silk hats (there were no ladies pres- 12 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY ent) and gold-headed canes; and every gentleman in the gathering wore patent-leather shoes, and a vest that did not match his coat. All were smart and shaven and wealthy. In their lead, uniformed in khaki, and wearing the friendliest look possible to a young man who is cheer- ing, was His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. Like all the others in that wildly enthusiastic gathering, the young heir apparent was turned toward Johnnie as toward a hero. And small wonder. For there, between the distinguished crowd and the boy, lying prone upon the red carpet, in his oldest clothes, and unshaven, was none other than Big Tom Barber, felled by the single, over- whelming blow that Johnnie had just given him, his nose bleeding (not too much, however) and the breath clean knocked out of him. Now the shouting died away, and Johnnie addressed the admiring throng. But his lips moved without even a whis- per. "I made up my mind a long time ago," he began, "to give Tom Barber a good thrashin'. So this morning, I done it." Despite his ungrammatical conclusion, the speech called forth the resounding hurrahs of the Prince and his gentle- men, and once more Johnnie had to wait, striving to appear properly modest, and twirling a gold watch chain all of heavy links. But he could not keep his nostrils from swell- ing, or his eyes from flashing. And his chest heaved. It was now that he made Cis one of his audience, dress- ing her in a becoming pink gown (her favorite color). Old Grandpa was standing beside her, no longer feeble and chair bound, but handsomely overcoated and hatted, and looking as formidable as any policeman. These two, naturally enough, had only proud glances for the young champion of the hour. But Johnnie's task of subduing Barber was not finished. The brave boy could see that the big longshoreman was PRIDE AND PENALTY 13 making as if to rise. Johnnie could still feel the touch of Big Tom's perspiring hand on his forehead, and the pinch of those cruel fingers on his shoulder. Taking a forward step, he gave Barber's shoulder a wrenching jerk, then thrust the longshoreman backward by a spanking blow of the open palm full upon that big, ugly, bristling face. Again Barber fell prostrate. He was purple with mor- tification, and leered up at Johnnie murderously. "Ha! ha! Y' got enough?" Johnnie inquired. He was all of a glow now, and his face fairly shone. But he was not done with the tyrant. A sense of long-outraged justice made him hand Barber the big, black, three-legged, iron kettle that belonged on the back of the cookstove. There was some cold oatmeal in the bottom of the kettle, and Johnnie also handed the longshoreman a spoon with a glance toward the Prince, who seemed awed by Johnnie's complete mastery of the enemy. "Here !" the be j directed, giving the pot a light kick with a new shoe (which was brown). "Go ahead and eat. Eat ev'ry bite of it. It's got kerosene in it!" Now Barber got to his knees imploringly. "Oh, idon't make me eat it !" he begged. "Oh, don't, Johnnie ! Please !" "Y' made me eat it once," said Johnnie quietly. "And y* need a lesson, Tom Barber, and I'm givin' y' one." Barber choked down the bad-tasting food. But there was no taunting of him. Johnnie kept a dignified silence as did also the Prince and the gentlemen. But when the last spoonful was swallowed, and Barber was cowering be- side the empty kettle, the boy felt called upon to go still further, and make away finally with that strap which was the symbol of all he hated that held up and together the too-large clothes which had so long mortified his pride ; that stood for the physical pain dealt out to him by Big Tom if he so much as slighted a bit of his girl's work. The strap was around him now, even over that new suit. 14 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY It circled him like a snake. He took it off, his lips work- ing in another splendid speech. "And I don't wear it ever again," he declared, looking down at Barber. "Do y' un- iderstand that?" He flicked a big arm with the leather, though not hard enough to give pain. "Yes," faltered the longshoreman, shrinking. "Well, I'm glad y' understand it," returned Johnnie. "And now you just watch me for on-n-ne second! You won't never lay this strap across me again !" He whipped out a long, sharp, silver-handled bread- knife. Then turning to the table, he laid the strap upon the beautiful marble; and, in sight of all, cut it away to the very buckle inch by inch ! "Now!" he cried, as he scattered the pieces upon the carpet. The punishment was complete ; his triumph nothing less than perfe<^. And it occurred to him now that there was particular gratification in having present this morning His Royal Highness. "Mister Prince," he said, "I'm awful tickled you was here !" The Prince expressed himself as being equally pleased. "Mister Smith," he returned, "I don't know as I ever seen a boy that could hit like you! Why, Mister Smith, it's wonderful! How do y' do it?" He shook Johnnie's hand warmly. "Well, I guess I'm like David, Mister Prince," Johnnie explained modestly. "0' course you know David and his friend, Mister Goli'th? Oh, y' don't? Y' mean y' ain't never met neither one? Oh, gee! I'm surprised! But that's 'cause y' don't know Mrs. Kukor, upstairs. They're both friends of hers. Well, I'll ask 'em down." An upturned face and a beckoning arm accomplished the invitation, whereupon there entered at once the cham- pion Philistine and that youth who was ruddy and of a fair countenance. And after a deal of hand-shaking all PRIDE AND PENALTY 15 around, Johnnie told the tale of that certain celebrated fight told it as one who had witnessed the whole affair. He turned his face from side to side as he talked, gesticu- lating with easy grace. "And now I guess we're ready t' start, ain't we ?" he ob- served as he concluded. "David, would you and your friend like t' come along? Only Big Tom, he's got t' stay behind, 'cause ' At the stove, the untidy heap of brown blanket in the wheel chair stirred again. Out of the faded folds a small head, blanched and bewhiskered, reared itself weakly. "Johnnie," quavered old Grandpa. "Johnnie! Milk!" The boy's lips ceased to frame words. His right arm fell to his side ; the left went up again to resume that tug- ging at his hair. He swayed slightly, shifting his weight, and his big toe began once more to curl and uncurl. Then, as fancy was displaced by reality, as dreaming, gave place to fact, Barber disappeared from the floor. The silk- hatted gentlemen with the gold canes went, too along with the gallant young English Prince, that other Prince who was of Israel, and a tall person with a sore, red bump on his forehead. The gold-and-green walls faded ; so did the carpet, the curtains, and that light-gray suit (which was precisely like the one Johnnie had worn when he first came to the Barber flat except, of course, that it was larger). The marble-topped table and the fat chairs folded them- selves up out of sight. And all those delicious fruit pies dissolved into thin air. But one thing did not go : A sense of satisfaction. Hav- ing met his enemy before the world, and conquered him; having spent his own anger and loathing, and revenged the other's hated touch, his gray eyes held a pleased, proud look. Once more in the soiled big shirt and trousers, with the strap coiled about his middle, he could put Barber 16 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY aside for the day not brood about him, harboring ill-will, nor sulk and fret. Now he was ready for "thinks" of a different sort ad- ventures that were wholly delightful. A feeling of joy surged through him. Ahead lay fully nine unhampered hours. He pivoted like a top. His arms tossed. Then, like a spring from which a weight has been lifted, like a cork flying out of a charged bottle, he did a high, leaping hop-skip straight into the air. "Wow-ow-ow-ow-ow !" he sang out full-throatedly. "Rr-r-r-r! ree-ee-ee!" and explosively, "Brt! brt! brt! ling!" CHAPTER III A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION NINE free hours ! or, to be exact, eight, since the best part of one would have to be devoted to the flat in order to avoid trouble. However, Johnnie never did his work any sooner than he actually had to ; and that hour of labor should be, as always, the last of the nine, this for the sake of obeying Big Tom at the latest possible time, of circumventing his wishes, and thwarting and out- witting him, just to the degree that safety penritted. So ! For eight hours Johnnie would live his dreams. And, oh, the things he could do ! the things ! But before he could begin the real business of the day, he had to put Grandpa to sleep again. This was best ac- complished through tiring the little old man with a long, exciting train trip. "Oo, Grandpa!" cried Johnnie. "Who wants to go ride-ride on the cars?" "Cars ! cars ! cars !" shrilled Grandpa, his white-lashed, milky-blue eyes dancing. At once, impatiently, he fell to tapping on the floor with his cane, while, using his other hand, he swung the wheel chair in a circle. Across his shrunken chest, from one side of the chair to the other, was a strand of rope that kept him from tumbling out of his scat. To hasten the promised departure, he began to throw his weight alternately against the rope and the back of the chair, like an excited baby. "Wait now!" admonished Johnnie. He took off his apron and wadded it into a ball. Then with force and 17 18 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY fervor he sent the ball whizzing under the sink. "Wherell we go?" he cried. The bottoms of his trouser legs hung about his knees in a fringe. Now as he did another hop- skip into the air, not so much because of animal spirits as through sheer mental relief, all that fringe whipped and snapped. "Pick out a place, Grandpa !" he bade. "Where do y' want t' go ?" "Go ! go ! go !" chanted the old man. Not so long ago he had been able to call up a score of destinations most of them names that had to do with the Civil War cam- paigns which, in the end, had impaired his brain and cost him the use of his legs. Johnnie proceeded to prompt. "Gettysburg?" he asked ; "Shiloh? Chick'mauga? City of Washington ? Niaggery Falls?" "Niaggery Falls !" cried Grandpa, catching, as he al- ways did,^t whatever point was named last. "Where's my hat? Where's my hat?" He never remembered how to find his hat, though it al- ways hung conveniently on the back of the wheel chair. It was the dark, broad-brimmed, cord-encircled head cov- ering of the Grand Army man. As he turned his head in a worried search for it, Johnnie set the hat atop the white hair. Johnnie had named Niagara last because he liked best to visit that Wonder of Nature. He did not know why except that the name seemed curiously familiar to him. It was familiar to Grandpa, too, in a dim way, for he had visited "the Falls" on his wedding trip. And every repe- tition of the imaginary journey thrilled him. "Chug ! chug ! chug !" he began, the moment he felt the hat. His imitation of a starting engine was so genuine that it shook his spare frame from his head to his slippered feet. "Chug! chug! chug!" But Johnnie was not ready to set off. The little, old A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION 19 soldier had not yet eaten his breakfast, and if he did not eat he would not go to sleep promptly at the conclusion of the trip, nor stay asleep. "Oh, Grandpa," began the boy coaxingly, as he hastily dished up a saucer of oatmeal, another saucer of prunes, and poured a glass of milk, "before we start we got t' eat our grand banquet ! It's a long way to Niaggery, y' know. So here we both are at the Grand Central Station !" (The Station was situated on or about the center of the kitchen.) "Station!" echoed Grandpa. "Chug! chug! chug!" "No, Grandpa," Johnnie's manner of handling the old man was comically mature, almost motherly; his tone, while soothing, was quietly firm, as if he were speaking to a younger child. "See ! Here's the fine table !" Up to this table, still strewn with unwashed dishes and whatever remained of breakfast, the pair of travelers drew. Then Johnnie, with the air and the lavishness'Jbf a mil- lionaire, ordered an elaborate and tasty breakfast from a waiter the like of whom was not to be found anywhere save in his own imagination. This waiter's name was Buckle, and he had served John- nie faithfully for the past several years. In all ways he was an extraordinary person of his kind, being able to fur- nish anything that Grandpa and Johnnie might call for, whether meat, vegetable or fruit, at any time of the year, this without regard to such small matters as seasons, the difficulties of importing, adverse hunting laws, and the like. Which meant that Grandpa could always have his venison, and Johnnie his choice of fruits all from the deft hand of a man quick and soft-footed, and full of low bows, who wore a suit of red velvet fairly loaded with gold bands and brass buttons. "Mister Buckle," began Johnnie (for such an august creature in red velvet could not be addressed save with a courteous title), "a turkey, please, an* some lemon pie, an* 20 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY some strawberry ice cream an' fifteen pounds of your best candy." "Candy ! candy ! candy !" clamored Grandpa, impatiently beating on the table with his spoon like a baby. Buckle was wonderful. As Johnnie's orders swept him hither and thither, how he transformed the place, laying down the articles called for upon a crisp red tablecloth that was a glorious full brother to one that belonged to the little Jewish lady who lived upstairs. But Grandpa took little interest in Buckle, though he picked eagerly enough at the viands which Johnnie urged upon him. "Here's your turkey," pointed out the boy, giving the old man his first spoonful of cereal. "My goodness, did y* ever see such a drumstick! Now another! 'cause, gee! you'll be starved 'fore ever we git t' Niaggery! Mm! but ain't that turkey fine?" "Mm ! * Mm !" agreed the veteran. "Mister Buckle, I'll take some soda and some popcorn," went on Johnnie, spooning out his own saucer of oatmeal. "And some apples and oranges, and bananas and cherries and grapes." Fruit was what he always ordered. How almost ter- ribly at times he yearned for it ! For the only fruit that ever Barber brought home was prunes. Johnnie washed them and put them over the fire to boil with a regularity due to his fear of the strap. But he hated them. (Like- wise he pitied them because they seemed such little, old creatures, and grew in that shriveled way which reminded him somehow of Grandpa.) What he longed for was freshi fruit, which he got only at long intervals, this when Cis carried home to him a few cherries in the bottom of a paper bag, or part of an apple which was generously specked, and so well on its way to ruin, or shared the half of a lemon, which the two sucked, turn about, all such being the gifts of a certain old gentleman with a wooden leg who 'A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION 21 carried on a thriving trade in the vicinity of the nearest public school. But the periods between the contributions were so long, and the amount of fruit consumed was so small, that Johnnie was never even a quarter satisfied except at one of his Barmecide feasts. Grandpa's oatmeal and milk finished, Johnnie urged the prunes upon him. "Oo, lookee at the watermelon!" he cried. "The dandy, big watermelon ! on ice!" The mere word "watermelon" always stirred a memory in old Grandpa's brain, as if he could almost recall when he, a young soldier of the North, had taken his fill of sweet, black-seeded, carnation-tinted pulp at some plantation in the harried South. And now he ate greedily till the last prune was gone, when Johnnie had Buckle throw all of the green rinds into the sink. (It was this attention to detail which invested his games with reality.) Then, the repast finished, Grandpa fretted to be away, whirling his chair and whimpering. Johnnie had eaten through a perfect menu only as an unfillable boy can. So he dismissed Buckle with a thou- sand-dollar bill, and the two travelers were off, Johnnie making a great deal of jolly noise as he fulfilled the duties of engineer, engine and conductor, Grandpa having noth- ing to do but be an appreciative passenger. To the old man the dish cupboard, which was Carthage, in "York State," never lost its interest, he having lived in that town long years ago, before he marched out of it with a company of men who were bound for the War. But the morris chair with its greasy cushions, which was the capi- tal, Albany, and the cookstove, which was very properly Pittsburgh (though the surface of the earth had to be wrenched about in order to put Pittsburgh after Albany on the way to "the Falls"), both of these estimable cities also won their share of attention, the special train bearing the pair making a stop at each, though the passengers, 22 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY boy and man, longed quite naturally for a sight of the Marvel of Waters which awaited them at the end of the line. But Pittsburgh left behind, and Buffalo (the woodbox) all but grinding under their wheels, neither Grandpa nor Johnnie could withstand longer the temptation to push forward to wonderful Niagara itself. With loud hissings, toot-toots, and guttural announcements on the part of the conductor, the wheel chair drew up with a twisting flourish at the sink. And now came the most exciting moment of all. For here imagination had to be called upon least. This Niag- ara was liquid. And held back its vast flood or poured it just as Johnnie chose. He proceeded to have it pour. With Grandpa's cane, he rapped peremptorily twice then once on the big lead pipe which, leading through the ceiling as a vent to Mrs. Kukor's sink, debouched in turn into the Barber sink. A moment's wait. Then some one began to cross the floor overhead with an astonishing sound of rocking yet with little advance in the way that a walking doll goes forward. This was Mrs. Kukor herself, who was mother- hood incarnate to Johnnie; motherhood boiled down into an unalloyed lump ; the pure essence of it in a fat, round package. The little Jewish lady never objected to this regular morning interruption of her work. And so the next moment, the miracle happened. Lake Erie began to empty itself; and with splashes, gurgles and spurts, the cataract descended upon the pots and pans heaped in the Barber sink. The downpour was greeted by a treble chorus of delight from the tourists. "Oh, Grandpa !" cried Johnnie, jump- ing up and down. "Ain't it fine! Ain't it fine!" And "Fine!" chimed in the old man, swaying himself against his breast rope. "Fine! Fine!" A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION 23 One long half-minute Niagara poured before the ad- miring gaze of the two in the special. Then the great stream became dammed, the rush of its waters ceased, ex- cept for a weak trickle, and the ceiling gave down the sound of a rocking step bound away, followed by the squeaking of a chair. Mrs. Kukor was back at work. The train returned silently to Pittsburgh, the Grand [Army hat was taken off and hung in its place, the blanket was pulled up about Grandpa's shoulders, and this one of the pair of travelers was left to take his rest. Comfort- able and swift as the whole journey was, nevertheless the feeble, old soldier was tired. His pale blue eyes were rov- ing wearily ; the chair at a standstill, down came their lids, and his head tipped sidewise. He looked as much like a small, gray monkey as his strapping son resembled a gorilla. As Johnnie tucked the blanket about the thin old neck, Grandpa wat already breathing regularly, the while he made the facial grimaces of a new-born child. CHAPTER IV THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES JOHNNIE always started his own daily program witK a taste of fresh air. He cared less for this way of spending his first fifteen free minutes than for many another. But as Cis, with her riper wisdom, had pointed out, a short airing was necessary to a boy who had no red in his cheeks, and too much blue at his temples not to mention a pinched look about the nose. Johnnie regu- larly took a quarter of an hour out of doors. He to&c it from the sill of the kitchen window which was the only window in the Barber flat. This sill was breast-high from the kitchen floor, John- nie not being tall for his age. But having shoved up the lower sash with the aid of the broom handle, he did not climb to seat himself upon the ledge. For there was no iron fire escape outside; the nearest one came down the wall of the building to the kitchen window of the Gamboni family, to the left. And so Johnnie denied himself a perch on his sill a dangerous position, as both Mrs. Kukor and Cis pointed out to him. Their warnings were unnecessary. He could easily realize what a slip of the hand might mean: a plunge through space to the brick paving far below; and there an instant and horrible end. His picture of it was enough to guard him against accident. He contented himself with laying his body across the sill, with the longer and heavier portion of his small anatomy balanced securely against a shorter and lighter upper portion. 24 THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 25 He achieved this position and held it untiringly by the aid of the old rope coil. This coil was a relic of those dis- tant times when there was no fire escape even outside the kitchen window of the Gambonis, and the landlord pro- vided every tenant with this cruder means of flying the building. The rope hung on a large hook just under the Barber window, and was like a hard, smudged wheel, so completely had the years and the climate of the kitchen colored and stiffened it. And Johnnie's weight was not enough to elongate its set curves. It was a handy affair. Using it as a stepping-place, and pulling himself up by his hands, he brought the lower end of his breastbone into contact with the sill. Resting thus, upon his midriff, he was thoroughly comfortable, due to the fact that Big Tom's shirt and trousers thoroughly padded his ribby front. Then he swelled his nostrils with his intaking of air, and his back heaved and fen, so that he was for all the world like some sort of a giant lizard, sunning itself on a rock. Against the dingy black-red of the old wall, his yellow head stood forth as gaudily as a flower. The flower nod- ded, too, as if moved by the breeze that was wreathing the smoke over all the roofs. For Johnnie was taking a gen- eral survey of the scenery. The Barber window looked north, and in front of it were the rear windows of tenements that faced on a street. There was a fire escape at every other one of these win- dows the usual spidery affair of black-painted iron, clinging vinelike to the bricks. And over each escape were draped garments of every hue and kind, some freshly washed, and drying; others airing. Mingling with the apparel were blankets, quilts, mattresses, pillows and babies. Somehow Johnnie did not like the view. He glanced "down into the gloomy area, where a lean and untidy cat 26 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY was prowling, and where there sounded, echoing, the un- idistinguishable harangue of the fretful Italian janitress. Now Johnnie's general survey was done. He always made it short, wasting less than one minute in looking down or around. It was beauty that drew him beauty and whatever else could start up in his mind the experi- ences he most liked. His face upturned, one hand flung across his brows to shield his eyes, for the light outside the sill seemed dazzling after the semidark of the flat, he scanned first the opposite roof edges, a whole story higher than he, where sparrows were alighting, and where smoke plumes curled like veils of gossamer; next he scanned the sky. Above the roofline of the tenements was a great, chang- ing patch which he called his own, and which he found fas- cinating. And not only for what it actually showed him, which was splendid enough, but for the eternal promise of it. At any moment, what might not come slipping into sight ! What he longed most to catch sight of was a stork. Those babies across on the fire escapes, storks had brought them (which was the main reason why all the families kept bedclothes out on the barred shelves; a quilt or a pillow made a soft place on which to leave a new baby). A stork had brought Cis she had had her own mother's word for it many times before that mother died. A stork had brought Johnnie, too and Grandpa, Mrs. Kukor, the Prince of Wales, the janitress; in fact, every one. "I wonder what kind of a stork was it that fetched Big Tom!" Johnnie once had exclaimed, straightway visioning a black and forbidding bird. Storks, according to Cis, were as bashful as they were clever, and did not come into sight if any one was watch- ing. They were big enough to be seen easily, however, as THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 27 proven by this : frequently one of them came floating down with twins ! "Down from where?" Johnnie had wanted to know, lik- ing to have his knowledge definite. "From their nests, silly,' Cis had returned. But had been forced to confess that she did not know where storks built their nests, "In Central Park, I guess," she had added. (Central Park was as good a place as any.) "Oh, you guess !" Johnnie had returned, disgusted. He had never given up his watching, nor his hope of some day seeing a big baby-bringer. He searched his sky patch now. But could see only the darting sparrows and, farther away, some larger birds that wheeled gracefully above the city. Many of these were seagulls. The others were pigeons, and Cis had told him that people ate them. This fact hurt him, and he tried not to think about it, but only of their flight. He envied them their freecfcm in the vast milkiness, their power to penetrate it. Beyond the large birds, and surely as far away as the sun ever was, some great, puffy clouds of a blinding white were shoulder- ing one another as they sailed northward. Out of the wisdom possessed by one of her advanced age, Cis had told him several astonishing things about this field of sky. What Barber considered a troublesome, meddle- some, wasteful school law was, at bottom, responsible for her knowing much that was true and considerable which Johnnie held was not. And one of her unbelievable state- ments (this from his standpoint) was to the effect that his sky patch was constantly changing, yes, as frequently as every minute because the earth was steadily moving. And she had added the horrifying declaration that this movement was in the nature of a spin, so that, at night, the whole of New York City, including skyscrapers, bridges, water, streets, vehicles and population, was upside down in the air! 28 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY "Aw, it ain't so!" he cried, though Cis reminded him (and rather sternly, for her) that in doing so he was ques- tioning a teacher who drew a magnificent salary for spreading just such statements. "And if they pay her all that money, they're crazy ! Don't y' know that if we was t' come upside down, the chimnies'd fall off all the build- in's? and East River'd sptti?" Cis countered with a demonstration. She filled Big Tom's lunch pail with water and whirled it, losing not a drop. But he went further, and proved her wrong that is so far as the upside-down of it was concerned. He did this by staying awake the whole of the following night and not- ing that the city stayed right-side up throughout the long hours. Cis, poor girl, had been pitifully misinformed. But the changing of the sky he believed. He believed it because a< night there was the kind of sky overhead that had stars in it; also, sometimes, a moon. But by dawn, the starred sky was gone been left behind, or got slipped to one side; in its place was a plain, unpatterned stretch of Heaven which, in due time, was once more succeeded by a firmament adorned and a-t winkle. When Cis returned home one evening and declared that the forewoman at the factory had asserted that there were stars everywhere in the sky by day as well as by night, and no plain spots at all anywhere; and, further, that if any- body were at the bottom of a deep well he or she could see stars in the sky in the daytime, Johnnie had fairly hooted at the tale. And had finally won Cis over to his side. Her last doubt fle3 wKen, Having gone down into a dark corner of the area the Sunday following, she found, as did he, that no stars were to be seen anywhere. After that she believed in his theory of starless sky-spots ; starless, but not plain. For in addition to the sun, many other THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 29 things lent interest to that field of blue clouds, rain, sleet, snow, and fog, all in their time or season. Also, be- sides the birds, he occasionally glimpsed whole sheets of newspapers as they ambitiously voyaged above the house tops. And how he longed for them to blow against his own window, so that he might read them through and through ! Sometimes he saw a flying machine. The first one that had floated across his sky had very nearly been the death of him. Because, forgetting danger in his rapturous ex- citement, he had leaned out dangerouslv, and might have fallen if he had not suddenly thought of Grandpa, and thrown himself backward into the kitchen to fetch the wheel chair. The little old soldier had only been mildly diverted by the sight. Johnnie, however, had viewed the passing of the biplane in amaze, though later on he came to accept the conquest of the air as just one iritre marvel in a world of marvels. But his wonder in the sky itself never lessened. About; its width he did not ponder, never having seen more than a narrow portion of it since he was big enough to do mucH thinking. But, oh, the depth of it ! He could see no sign of a limit to that, and Mrs. Kukor declared there was none, but that it reached on and on and on and on! To what? Just to more of the on and on. It never stopped. One night Cis and he, bent over the lip of the window, she upholstered on a certain excelsior-filled pillow which was very dear to her, and he padded by Big Tom's cast- offs, had attempted to realize what Mrs. Kukor had said. "On and on and on and on," they had murmured. Until finally just the trying to comprehend it had become overpowering, terrible. Cis declared that if they kept at it she would certainly become dizzy and fall out. And so they had stopped. But Johnnie was not afraid to think about it, awful as 30 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY it was. It was at night, mostly, that he did his thinking. At night the birds he loved were all asleep. But so was Barber; and Johnnie, with no fear of interruption, could separate himself from the world, could mentally kick it away from under him, and lightly project his thin little body up to the stars. Whenever fog or clouds screened the sky patch, hiding the stars, a radiance was thrown upon the heavens by the combined lights of the city a radiance which, Johnnie thought, came from above ; and he was always half ex- pecting a strange moon to come pushing through the cloud screen, or a new sun, or a premature dawn! Now looking up into the deep blue he murmured, "On and on and on," to himself. And he wondered if the gulls or the pigeons ever went so far into the blue that they lost their way, and never came back but just flew, and flew, ind flew, till weariness overcame them, when they dropped, and dropped, and dropped, and dropped ! A window went up in front of him, across the area, and a voice began to call at him mockingly: "Girl's hair! Girl's hair! All he's got is girl's hair! All he's got is girl's hair !" He started back as if from a blow. Then reaching a quick hand to the sash, he closed the window and stepped down. The voice belonged to a boy who had once charged Mrs. Kukor with going to church on a Saturday. But even as Johnnie left the sill he felt no anger toward the boy save on Mrs. Kukor's account. Because he knew that his hair was like a girl's. If the boy criticized it, that was no more than Johnnie constantly did himself. Tne second his feet touched the splintery floor he made toward the table, caught up the teapot, went to lean his head over the sink, and poured upon his offending locks the whole remaining contents of the pot leaves and all. THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 31 For Cis (that mine of wisdom) had told him that tea was darkening in its effect, not only upon the lining of the tummy, which was an interesting thought, but upon hair. And while he did not care what color he was inside, darker hair he longed to possess. So, his bright tangles a-drip, he set the teapot in among the unwashed pans and fell to rubbing the tea into his scalp. And now at last he was ready to begin the really im- portant matters of the day. But just which of many should he choose for his start? He stood still for a moment, considering, and a look came into his face that was all pure radiance. High in the old crumbling building, as cut off from the world about him as if he were stranded with Grandpa on some mountain top, he did not fret about being shut in and away ; he was glad of it. He was spared the taunts of boys who did not like his hair or his clothes ; but also he had the whole flat to himself. Day after day there was no one to make him do this, or stop his doing that. He could handle what he liked, dig around in any corner or box, eat when he wished. Most important of all, he could think what he pleased ! He never dwelt for any length of time upon unhappy pictures those which had in them hate or revenge. His brain busied itself usually with places and people and events which brought him happiness. For instance, how he could travel ! And all for noth- ing! His calloused feet tucked round the legs of the kitchen chair, his body relaxed, his expression as rapt as any Buddhist priest's, his big hands locked about his knees, and his eyes fastened upon a spot on the wall, he could forsake the Barber flat, could go forth, as if out of his own body, to visit any number of wonderful lands which lay so near that he could cross their borders in a moment. He could sail vast East Rivers in marvelous tugs. He 32 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY could fly superbly over great cities in his own aeroplane. And all this travel brought him into contact with just the sort of men and women he wanted to know, so politely kind, so interesting. They never tired of him, nor he of them. He was with them when he wanted to be instantly. Or they came to the flat in the friendliest way. And when its unpleasant duties claimed him the Monday wash, the Tuesday ironing, the Saturday scrubbing, or the regular everyday jobs such as dishes, beds, cooking, bead-string- ing, and violet-making frequently they helped him, light- ening his work with their charming companionship, stimu- lating him with their example and praise. Oh, they were just perfect! And how quiet, every one of them ! So often when the longshoreman returned of an evening, his bloodshot eyes roving suspiciously, a crowd of handsomely dressed people filled the ^itchen, and he threaded that crowd, yet never guessed ! "vVhen Big Tom spoke, the room usually cleared ; but later on Johnnie could again summon all with no trou- ble whatever, whether they were great soldiers or presi- dents, kings or millionaires. Of the latter he was especially fond ; in particular, of a certain four. And as he paused now to decide upon his program, he thought of that quartet. Why not give them a call on the telephone this morning? He headed for the morris chair. Under its soiled seat- cushion was a ragged copy of the New York telephone directory, which just nicely filled in the sag between the cushion and the bottom of the chair. He took the direc- tory out as carefully as if it were some volume not pos- sible of duplication. It was his only book. Once, while Cis was still attend- ing school, he had shared her speller and her arithmetic, and made them forever his own (though he did not realize it yet) by tHe simple method of photographing each on THE FOUR MILLIONAIRES 3 lus brain page by page. And it was lucky that he did; for when Cis's brief schooldays came to an end, Big Tom took the two textbooks out with him one morning and sold them. The directory was the prized gift of Mrs. Kukor's daugh- ter, Mrs. Reisenberger, who was married to a pawnbroker, very rich, and who occupied an apartment (not a flat) very fine, very expensive in a great Lexington Avenue building that had an elevator, and a uniformed black ele- vator man, very stylish. The directory meant more to Johnnie than ever had Cis's books. He knew its small- typed pages from end to end. Among the splendid things it advertised, front, back, and at the bottom of its pages, were many he admired. And he owned these whenever he felt like it, whether automobiles or animals, cash registers or eyeglasses. But such possessions, fine as they were, took second place in his interest. What thrill*! him was the list of subscribers the living, breathing thousands that waited his call at the other end of a wire ! And what people they were! the world-celebrated, the fabulously wealthy, the famously beautiful (as Cis herself declared), and the socially elect ! Of course there was still others who were prominent, such as storekeepers, prize fighters, hotel owners and the like (again it was Cis who furnished the data). But Johnnie, as has been seen, aimed high always ; and he was particular in the matter of his telephonic associations. Except when shopping, he made a strict rule to ring up only the most superior. There was a clothesline strung down the whole length of the kitchen. This Johnnie lowered on a washday to his own easy reach. At other times it was raised out of the way of Big Tom's head. He let the line down. Then, pushing the kitchen chair to that end of the rope which was farthest from the stove 34s THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY and the sleeping old man, he stood upon it; and having considered a moment whether he would first call up Mr. Astor, or Mr. Vanderbilt, or Mr. Carnegie, or Mr. Rocke- feller, decided upon Mr. Astor, and gave a number to a priceless Central who was promptness itself, who never rang the wrong bell, or reported a busy wire, or cut him off in the midst of an engrossing conversation. This morning, as usual, he got his number at once. "Good-mornin', Mister Astor !" he hailed breezily. "This is Johnnie Smith. 'Oh, good-mornin', Mister Smith! How are y'?' I'm fine! 'That's fine!' How are you, Mister Astor? 'Oh, I'm fine.' That's fine! 1 was just wonderin', Mister Smith, if you would like to go out ridin' with me.' Yes, I would, Mister Astor. I think it'd be fine! with his hat on. And and so I filled the m-m-mush- kettle t' soak it, and then we we " His lips went on moving; but his words became inau- dible. A smile was twisting Barber's mouth, and carry- ing that crooked, cavernous nose sidewise. Johnnie un- derstood the smile. The fringe about his thin arms and legs began to tremble. He raised both hands toward the longshoreman, the palms outward, in a gesture that was like a silent prayer. With a muttered curse, Barber straightened, turned on his heel, strode to the door of his bedroom, threw it wide, noted the fenmade beds, and came about, pushing at the sleeve of his right arm. "Come here," he bade, and the quiet of his tone was more terrible to the boy than if he had shouted. Johnnie did not obey. He could not. His legs would not move. His feet were rooted. "Oh, Mister Barber," he pleaded. "Oh, don't lick me! I won't never do it again! Oh, don't! Oh, don't! Oh, don't!" "Come here." The great arm was bared now. The voice was lower than before. In one bulging, bloodshot eye that cast showed and went;, then showed again. "Do what I say come here." "Oh ! oh ! oh !" Again JoKnnie was gasping. Barber burst out at him like some fierce storm. "Don't y' try t' fool me!" he cried. He came on. When he was within reach, that great, naked, iron arm shot out, seized the boy at his middle, swept him up from the floor with a violence that sent the tea leaves flying from the yellow hair, held him for a second in mid-air, the small body NEW FRIENDS 39 slouched in the big clothes as in the bottom of a sack, then shook him till he fairly rattled, like a pea in a pod. In a terror that wag uncontrollable, Johnnie began to thrash about and scream. And as Barber half dropped, half flung him to the floor, old Grandpa roused, and came round in his chair, tap-tapping with the cane. "Captain !" he shrilled. "The right's falling back! They're giving us grape and canister !=Oh, our boys ! Our poor boys!" Frightened by any trouble, his mind always reverted to old scenes of battle, when his broken sentences were like a halting, squeaky record in some talking machine that is out of order and running down. As Grandpa rolled near to Johnnie, the latter caught at a wheel, seeking help, in his extremity, of the helpless, and thrust his hands through the spokes to lock them. So that as Barber once more bent and dragged at him, the chair and the old man followed about the kitchen. * "Let go!" commanded the longshoreman. He tried to shake Johnnie free of the wheel. But Johnnie held on, and his cries redoubled. The kitchen was in a tumult now, for old Grandpa was also weeping not only in fear for Johnnie, but in terror lest he himself be overturned. And Big Tom was alternately cursing and ordering. The trouble was heard elsewhere. To right and left there was movement, and the sound of windows being raised. Voices called out questioningly. Some one pounded on a wall in protest. And overhead Mrs. Kukor left her chair and went rocking across her floor. Muttering a savage exclamation, Big Tom let go of the boy and flung himself into the morris chair, not wanting to go so far with his punishment as to invite the complaints of his neighbors and the interference of the police. "Git up out of that !" he commanded, giving Johnnie a rough nudge with a foot; then to quiet his father, "Now, Pa! 40 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY That'll do. Sh! sh! It's all right. The battle's over, and the Yanks've beat." But Johnnie was still prone, with the wheel in his em- brace, and the old veteran was sobbing, his wrinkled face glistening with tears, when Mrs. Kukor opened the door and came doll-walking in. She was a short little lady, witK a compact, inflexible figure that was, so to speak, square, with rounded-off cor- ners square, and solid, and heavy. She had eyes that were as black and round and bright as a sparrow's, a full, red mouth, and graying hair, abundant and crinkly, which stood out around her countenance as if charged with elec- tricity. It escaped the hairpins. Even a knitted brown cap of some weight did not adequately confine it. Every hair seemed vividly alive. Her olive face was a trifle pale now. Her birdlike eyes darted froifc one to another of the trio, quickly taking in the situation. Too concerned to make any apology for her unannounced entrance, she teetered hastily to Big Tom's side. "Oyf oy!" sHe breathed anxiously. **Vo iss?" "Tommie home," faltered old Grandpa. "Tommie Home. And the color sergeant's dead !" He reached his arms out to her like a frightened child who welcomes company. Like her eyes, Mrs. Kukor's lips never rested, going even when she listened, for she had the habit of silently re- peating whatever was said. Thus, with lips and eyes busy, head alternately wagging and nodding eloquently, and both hands waving, she was constantly in motion. Now, "The color sergeant's dead!" her mouth framed, and she gave a swift glance around almost as if she expected to see a fallen flag bearer. "It's this lazy little rascal again," declared Barber, working his jaws in baffled wrath. "So-o-o-o!" She stooped and laid a gentle hand on NEW FRIENDS 41 JoHnnie's shoulder. "Come," she said. "Better Chomrie, he goes in a liddle by Cis's room. No ?" And as the boy, still trembling, got to his knees beside the chair, she helped him to rise, and half led, half carried him past the stove. Barber began his defense. "I go out o' here of a moram'," he complained, "to do a hard day's work, so's I can pay rent and the grocer. I leave that kid t' do a few little things 'round the place. And the minute my back's turned, what does he do? Nothin'! I come back, and look!" Mrs. Kukor, having seen Johnnie out of the room, turned about. Then, smoothing her checked apron with her plump hands, she glanced at Barber with a depre- cating smile. "I haf look," she answered. "Und I know. But he wass yust a poy, und you know poys." "I know boys have t' work," came back Bajber, right- eously. "If they don't, they grow up into no-account men. When his Aunt Sophie died, I promised her I'd raise him right. The work here don't amount to nothin', anyhow not if you compare it with what I done when / was a boy. Why, on my father's farm, up-state, I was out of my bed before sunup, winter and summer, doin' chores, milkin', waterin' the stock, hoein', and so on. What's a few dishes to that? What's a bed or two? and a little sweepin'? And look! He ain't even washed the old man yet ! And I like to see my father clean and neat. That's what makes me so red-hot, Mrs. Kukor the way he neglects my father." "Chonnie wass shut up so much," argued Mrs. Kukor. That cast whitened Big Tom's eye anxiously. He did not want Johnnie to hear any talk about going out. He hastened to reply, and his tone was more righteous than ever. "No kid out of this flat is goin' to run the streets," he declared, "and learn all kinds of bad, and bring it home to that nice, little stepdaughter o' mine ! No, Mrs. Kukor, 42 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY her mother'd haunt me if I didn't bring her up nice, and you can bet I'll do that. That kid, long's he stays under my roof, is goin' t' be fit t' stay. And he wouldn't be if he gadded the streets with the gangs in this part of town." While this excuse for keeping Johnnie indoors was any- thing but the correct one, Big Tom was able to make his voice fervent. "But Chonnie wass tired mit always seeink the kitchen," persisted the little Jewish lady. "He did-ent go out now for a lo-ong times. I got surprises he ain't crazy !" "That's just what he is!" cried Big Tom, triumphantly. "He's crazy ! Of all the foolishness in the world, he can think it up ! And the things he does ! but nothin' that'll ever git him anywheres, or do him any good ! And lazy ? Anything t* kill time t' git out of honest work! Now what d'y' suppose he was doin' with this clothes line down ? and talkin' out loud to himself ?" "Niaggery! Niaggery!" piped old Grandpa, smiling through his tears, and swaying against the rope that crossed his chest. "Niaggery ! Niaggery ! Chug ! chug ! chug!" Mrs. Kukor spread out both hands in a comprehensive gesture. "See?" she asked. "Oh, I haf listen. The chair goes roundt and roundt, und much water wass runnink in the sink. It wass for Grandpa, und it takes time." Barber's dark face relaxed a little. It could not truth- fully be said of him that he was a bad son ; and any ex- cuse that offered his father as its reason invariably soft- ened him. He pulled himself to his feet and picked up the lunch pail and the cargo hook. "Well all right," he conceded. "But I said t' myself, Til bet that kid ain't workin'.' So havin' a' hour, I come home t' see. And how'd he git on yesterday, makin' vi'lets for y'?" "Ach !" this, an exclamation of impatience, was aimed at herself. "I wass forgettink !" Under her apron hung NEW FRIENDS 48 a long, slender, black bag. Out of it she took a twenty- five-cent piece and offered the coin to Barber. "For yest- tady," she added. "Thank y'." He took the quarter. "Glad the kid done his work." "Oh, sure he do!" protested Mrs. Kukor. "Pos-i-tiv- vle!" (Mrs. Kukor could also be guilty of self-decep- tion.) Now, Barber raised his voice a little : "Johnnie, let's see how quick you can straighten this place up." At that, Mrs. Kukor waved both hands in eloquent sig- nals, urging Big Tom to go; tapped her chest, winked, and made little clicking noises with her tongue all to denote the fact that she would see everything straightened up to perfection, but that for old Grandpa's sake further conversation with Johnnie might be a mistake, since weep- ing all around would surely break out again. So Barber, muttering something about leaving her a clear coast, scuffed his way out. As the hall door closed, Johnnie buried his small nose in Cis's pillow. He was wounded in pride rather than in body. He hated to be found on the floor at the toe of Big Tom's boot. He had listened to the conversation while lying face downward on Cis's bed but with his head raised like a turtle's. However, it seemed best, somehow, not to be found in that position by Mrs. Kukor. He must not take his ill-treatment lightly, nor recover from his hurts too quick. He decided to be prone and prostrated. When the little Jewish lady came swaying in to him, therefore, he was stretched flat, his yellow head motionless. The sight smote Mrs. Kukor. In all the five years he had lived at the Barber flat, she had continually watched over him, plying him with medicine, pulling his baby teeth, mending his ragged clothes, teaching him to cook and do 44 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY housework, feeding him kosher dainties, and for reasons better hinted at than made plain keeping a sharp look- out in the matter of his bright hair. In the beginning, when trouble had assailed him, her lap had received him like the mother's lap he could not remember; her arms had cradled him tenderly, her kisses had comforted, and he had often wept out his rage and mortification on her bosom. However, long since he had felt himself too big to be held or kissed. And as for his hair, she understood what a delicate subject it had come to be with him. She would have liked to stroke it now ; but she contented herself with patting gently one thin arm. Behind her was old Grandpa, peering into the dim closet. "Oy ! oy ! oy !" mourned Mrs. Kukor, wagging her round head. "Ev'rytink goes bat if some peoples lives by oder peoples w'Sh did-ent belonk mit. Und how to do ? I can't to say, except yust live alonk, und see if sometink nice happens maype." Johnnie moved, with a long, dry sob, and very tenderly she leaned down to turn his face toward her. "Ach, poor Chonnie!" she cried. "Come! We will wash him, und makes him all fresh und clean. Und next how do you t'ink? Mrs. Kukor hass for you a big surprises !" He sat up then, wearily, but forbore to seem curious, and she coaxed him into the kitchen, to bathe the dust and tears from his countenance, and stitch up some rents in the big shirt, where Big Tom had torn it. All the while she talked to him comfortingly. "Ach, mine heart it bleets over you!" she declared. "But nefer mind. Be- cause, oh, such swell surprises!" Now Johnnie felt he could properly show interest in things outside the morning's trouble. "What, Mrs. Kukor?" he wanted to know. "Is it is it noodle soup?" NEW FRIENDS 45 And now botK burst out laughing, for it was always a great joke between them, his liking for her noodle soup. Old Grandpa laughed loudest of all, circling them, and pounding the floor with his cane. "What say?" he de- manded. "What say?" Altogether the restoration to the flat of peace and happiness was made so evident that, to right, left, and below, windows now began to go down with a bang, as, the Barber row over, the neighbors went back to their own affairs. "It wass not noodle soup," declared Mrs. Kukor. "It wass sometink a t'ousand times so goot. But not for cat- ink. No. Much better as. Und ! Sooner your work wass finished, make a signals to me alonk of the sink, und see how it happens !" More she would not say, but rocked out and up. Johnnie went at his dishes hard. The table Beared, the sink empty, and the cupboard full, he tied the clothesline out of the way, then with broom and dustpan invaded Big Tom's bedroom, which Grandpa shared with his hulking son. Here were two narrow, iron bedsteads. Between them was barely room for the wheel chair when it rolled the little old man in to his night's rest. To right and left of the door, high up, several nails supported a few dusty garments. That was all. If Johnnie stooped in the doorway of this room, he could see every square foot of its floor, and every article in it. Yet from the very first he had feared the place, into which no light and air came direct. Whenever he swept it and made the beds, his heart beat fast, and he felt ner- vous concerning his ankles, as if Something were on the point of seizing them ! For this reason he always put off his bedroom work as long as he could ; then finished it up quickly, keeping the door wide while he worked. At other times, he kept it tight shut. Often when old Grandpa was 46 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY asleep by the stove, Johnnie would tiptoe to that door, lean against the jamb of it, and listen. And he told Cis that he could plainly hear creaking s! But this morning he felt none of his usual nervousness, so taken up was his mind with Mrs. Kukor's mystery. Swiftly but carefully he made the two beds. As a rule, he contented himself with straightening each out, but so artfully that Barber would think the sheets had been turned. Sometimes Barber threw a bit of paper or a sock into one bed or the other, in order to trap Johnnie, who found it wise always to search for evidence. Now he pulled each bed apart, turned the old mattresses with the loudest thumps, snapped the sheets profession- ally (Cis had taught him that!), whacked the pillows with might and main, and tucked in the worn blankets like a trained nurse. Then with puffs and grunts he swept under as well as around the beds, searching out the deep cracks with the cornstraw, and raising a prodigious cloud. When he came out of the bedroom it was to empty his garnerings into the stove and repeat the dust-gathering process in Cis's room, that cubby-hole, four-by-seven, which had no window, and doubtless had been intended for a storage place, or a bathroom free from draughts. K held no furniture at all only a long, low shelf and a dry- goods box. Cis slept on a narrow mattress which uphol- stered the shelf, and used the box both as a dressing-table and a wardrobe. Johnnie was not expected to make up the shelf; and was strictly forbidden to touch the box. He scratched the floor successfully, not having attended to it for some days. By the time he was ready to do the kitchen, his face was streaked again, and glistening with perspiration. And he could not help but wish, as he planted the wheel chair at the open window, that Barber, if he intended to NEW FRIENDS 47 make another unexpected return, would come at such a time as this, when things that he liked were happening. The kitchen floor lay in great splintering hummocks and hollows. Its wide cracks were solid with the accumu- lations of time, while lint and frayings, and bits of cloth and string, were fairly woven into its rough surface everywhere, and tenaciously held. It was lastingly greasy in the neighborhood of the table, as steadily wet in the region of the sink, and sooty in an ever-widening circle about the stove. Sprinkling it thoroughly, he swept even the two squares on which were set the fuel boxes ; gave the stove what amounted to a feverish rubbing, then turned his at- tention to old Grandpa. The morning routine of caring for the aged veteran in- cluded the bathing of the wizened face and hands and the brushing of the thin, straggling hair. Johnnie hastened to collect the wash! basin, the bar of soap (it was of the laundry variety), and a square of once-white cloth, which it must be confessed was used variously about the flat, serving at one time to polish the lamp chimney, and again for any particular dusting. Grandpa had all of a small boy's dislike for water. The moment he spied Johnnie's preparations, he began to protest. "No ! no !" he objected. "It's cold ! It's cold !" He whirled his chair in an attempt to escape. But Johnnie had a fine device for just this problem. "Oh, Grandpa!" he reminded coaxingly as he filled the wash basin with warm water out of the teakettle, "don't you remember that you jus' was in a big battle? And there's mud on your face !" Grandpa capitulated at once, and allowed himself to be washed and combed. The old man clean, Johnnie gave him a glass of warm milk, wheeled him as far away from the window as possible, then trundled him gently back 48 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY and forth, as if he were a baby in a carriage. And all tHe while the boy sang softly, improvising a lullaby : "Oh, Grandpa, now go to s'eepy-s'eep, 'Cause you're awful tired. And Johnnie wants t' see what Mrs. Kukor Is goin* to s'prise him about " Grandpa dozing, Johnnie did not pause to eat the cold potato and bread spread with the grease of bacon trim- mings which made his usual noon meal. Curiosity dulled his hunger. Gently he tapped upon that convenient pipe once, then twice, then once again. As he leaned at the window to wait, his small nose curled in a grin. There was no movement up above. He half suspected a joke. But he had got off easy with Big Tom. Also, the % housework was done, and in fine style. Except for a little violet-making not too much more than a whole half-day still lay ahead of him. And what an auto- mobile trip he could take with Mr. Astor! Idly he fol- lowed the changing contours of a cloud in an otherwise empty sky. Then of a sudden something came dropping between him and the cloud. He started back. It was a shallow basket, suspended from each of its four corners by a string. As it lowered inch by inch, he stood up in the rope coils ; and what he saw in it fairly took his breath. For there on the bottom of the basket was a book ! "Gee !" he gasped. He brought the basket to a safe landing. Then, for- getting that some one was at the other end of the four strings, he slipped to the floor, turned on the water in the sink, and, like a Moslem holy man who is about to touch his Koran, washed both grimy hands. To look at, it was not much of a book. In the first NEW FRIENDS 49 place, it had not the length, width or thickness of the tele- phone directory, while its corners were fully as dog-eared. iTet he took it from the basket with something like rever- ;nce. It had one cloth cover the back. This was wine- red, and shiny. The front one had been torn out of its binding. However, this seemed to him no flaw. Also, there tvere several pictures in colors! And as he looked the volume over still more closely, he made a wonderful dis- covery: on the front page was written a name J. J. Hunter. It was a man's book! "Oh, my goodness !" he whispere3. "OK, Mrs. Kukor !" The basket danced inquiringly, tipped, and began to heave upward. A voice began to whisper to him, coming down along those four strings: "I finds him by a secont- hant store-mans. I gets him almost for notink. He wass olt, und very fine. Haf you open him ? Heat, ^honnie !" He opened the book at the first page; and knew how different this one was from tHe directory, with its solid lines of names ; from the speller, printed in columns of rords, or the arithmetic, which was all hit-or-miss. Here was a page divided into paragraphs, as in the newspapers which Cis sometimes smuggled in. Before and after many of the paragraphs were those strange little marks, larger at one end than at the other, which showed that some one was speaking. "It's a story !" he whispered back. Indeed, as he read that first page, it so informed him. Across its top, in capital letters, ran those words: THE STORY OF ALADDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP. All his life he had had to make up his own stories, get acquainted with the people in them, dress them, and even give them speech. But here was a story belonging to some one else a story as important as that one about 50 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY his friends David and Goliath, this proven by the fact that it had been written down, letter for letter. He began it : In the capital of one of the large and rich provinces of the Kingdom of China, the name of which I do not recollect, there lived a tailor, named Mustapha, who leas so poor, that lie could hardly, by his daily labor, main- tain himself and his family, which consisted of a wife and son. His son, who was called Aladdin Something came into Johnnie's throat when he got that far. He gulped. And he could not read any further just then because something had come into his eyes. He laid the book against his breast, and crossed both arms upon it. He did not know how to pray. Mrs. Kukor had never dared teach him, fearing the wrath of Big Tom. As for Cis, she knew how from her mother; but she had all of a child's nsLural shyness regarding sacred subjects. To Johnnie, Sunday was not a day set apart for sacred matters. It was a day to be dreaded. And not only be- cause on that day Barber was likely to be about at any hour, but because for Johnnie it meant uninterrupted work. The noon meal had to be put on the table instead of into lunch pails. And when dinner was cleared away there was always bead-stringing or violet-making to do Cis helping when she returned from church. On account of his clothes, Johnnie never went to church himself. What he knew about churches, therefore, was only what Cis told him; and of her information the most striking bit was this: red carpets led into them under gay awnings when- ever people were getting married. But as he stood with the book clasped to his breast, what he felt was thanksgiving to his very toes. "Aladdin," he spoke aloud to that other boy, who was so poor ; "you're goin' t' be a dandy friend of mine! Yes, and your Pa NEW FRIENDS 51 mid Ma, too'! And I'll introduce you to Buckle, and Mr. Rockefeller, and a lot of nice folks !" Presently he brought the book up to where, by lowering bis head, he could lay a thin cheek against that front page. Then, "Oh, Mister J. J. Hunter," he added huskily, ; 'I hope you ain't never goin' to want this back !" CHAPTER VI THE DEAREST WISH HE read and the shining Orient burst upon him! It was as if the most delicate of gossamer cur- tains had been brushed aside so that he could look at a new world. What he saw there rooted him to his chair, holding him spellbound. Yet not so much because it contrasted sharply with his own little world, this bare flat of Barber's in the lower East Side, as that it seemed to fit in perfectly with his own experiences. Aladdin was a boy like himself, who was scolded, and cuffed on the ears. The African magician was just an- other as wicked and cruel as the longshoreman. As for that Slave of the Ring, Johnnie considered him no more wonderful than Buckle. In fact, there was nothing im- possible, or even improbable, about the story. It held him by its sheer reality. Its drama enthralled him, too. And he gloried in all its beauty of golden dishes, gorgeous dress, fountain-fed gardens, jewel-fruited trees and prancing steeds. He read carefully, one forefinger traveling to and fro across the wide pages, while his lips moved silently, and he dragged at his hair. Sometimes he came to words he did not understand chastisement, incorrigible, physiog- nomist, handicraft, equipped, mosques, liberality. He went over them and pressed on, just as he might have climbed one wall after the other if these barred his way. He could come back to the hard words later and he 52 THE DEAREST WISH 53 prould. But first he must know how things fared with this jther boy. When Grandpa wakened, Johnnie fairly wrenched his look from beautiful Cathay to face the demands which the Borough of Manhattan made upon him. Tucking his aook under the wide neckband of the big shirt, he let it slip down to rest at his belt. The old soldier was hungry. He was supplied with milk toast so speedily that it was the next thing to magic. Then Johnnie discovered a hol- low feeling which centered in his own anatomy, whereupon IB ate several, cold boiled potatoes well spiced with mus- tard. Their late lunch over, Grandpa was strong in his ap- peals for a journey as far south as Island Number 10. But now Johnnie had no heart for any trip into distant country. The realm of China was about him. He wheeled the chair up and down, but he sang to soothe*Grandpa to sleep. And this time his song was all of his great new happiness : "Oh, I got a book ! I got a book ! I got a book ! Oh, Mrs. Kukor, she give it t' me ! And it's awful grand! Once it was a man's, and his name was Hunter I wonder if he lost it, or maybe somebody sold it on him. I'm goin' t' read it till I know ev'ry word ! I'm goin' t' read it ev'ry day ev'ry day ! Go t' sleep, 'cause I want t' read some more! Go t' sleep ! Go t' sleep ! Go t' sleep !" On and on he caroled, like a bird on a branch. At last Grandpa, after some mild protesting, was lulled by the rhapsody, and dozed once more; when Johnnie adroitly tapered off his song, brought the chair to a cautious stop, drew the book from its warm hiding place, sank into the morris chair, and again there swept into the kitchen, as 54 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY on the crest of a stream, the glorious, the enchanting East. He saw the dull, old lamp rubbed for the first time, and the genie come. And he rejoiced with Aladdin as the poor Chinese boy attained the knowledge of the lamp's peculiar virtue. Only once did he emerge from the thralldom of the tale by his own will. That was when he read of the wonderful Buddir al Buddoor : The princess -was the most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault, her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red and charmingly agreeable sym- metry " Here he paused, lifting farseeing, shining eyes. Many a time he had spied a slim little girl who came out upon one of the fire escapes opposite. The little girl's hair was black anofvwavy, and tHe wind tossed it upon her shoulders as she looked around. She seldom glanced over at John- nie, and to gain her attention he had to Hoo-hoo to her. Once he had shown her that pillow so cherished by Cis, which was covered with bright cretonne. He had seen the little girl's white teeth flash then, and knew that she was smiling. She was like the Princess Buddir al Buddoor, dark, and red-lipped. And how kind she was! For she had never seemed to notice anything wrong with either his hair or his clothes. He could understand how Aladdin felt about the sultan's daughter, who was so lovely all but her name! He was deep in the story again when a plump hand in- terrupted by covering his page. So shut were his ears against every sound, inside and out, that he had not heard Mrs. Kukor enter. Now she held up something before his face. It was the alarm clock. Next after Big Tom and his own hair he hated the clock most. It was forever rousing him of a morning when he THE DEAREST WISH 55 onged to sleep. Also, the clock acted as a sort of vicar ;o Barber. Its round, flat, bald face stared hard at John- lie as its rasping staccato warned him boldly. More than mce he had gone up to the noisy timepiece, taken it from ts place on the cupboard shelf, and given it a good shak- ng- "So!" exclaimed Mrs. Kukor. She set the clock down md reached for the book. "I keeps him by me. To- norrow, sooner you wass finish mit your work, he comes iown again by the basket." "Oh, but I can hide it !" urged Johnnie, illustrating his irgument at the same time. "And, oh, gee, Mrs. Kukor! ['m the luckiest kid in N'York !" "Supper," pronounced Mrs. Kukor, seeing that the x>ok was indeed well hidden and would bring no fresh troubles upon that yellow head that day. And it did not. For at suppertime, when Barlfcr loomed in the doorway once more, the teakettle was on the stove, and waddling from side to side very much in the manner :>f Mrs. Kukor, the kitchen was filled with the fruity aroma af stewing prunes, and Johnnie, with several saucers of bright-hued beads before him, was busy at his stringing a, task which, being mechanical, could be performed with- out conscious effort. And he was so engrossed over his saucers that Barber had to speak to him twice before the boy started up from his chair, letting the beads impaled on his long needle slip off and patter upon the floor like so much gay-colored sleet. Barber gave a satisfied look around. "All right set your table," he commanded. Johnnie obeyed. But this was a task which was not mechanical. And with his thoughts still on the high hopes and plans of that other boy, he put two knives at one plate, two forks at another. But it was all done with such promptness, with such a quick, light step and eager, 56 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY smiling eye, that Barber, remarking the swiftness and the spirit Johnnie showed, for once omitted to harangue him for his mistakes. Cis was more discerning than her stepfather. When she came slipping in, the boy's rapt expression told her that his thoughts were on something outside the flat. She was not curious, being used to seeing him look so detached. However, supper done with, and Barber out of the kitchen, putting his father to bed, she gleaned that something un- usual had happened. For as they were washing and set- ting away the dishes, he leaned close to ask her the strang- est question. "Cis," he whispered, "what's p-h-y-s-i-o-g-n-o-m-i-s-t?" She turned her head to stare ; and knit her young brows, wondering and puzzled, not at the question itself, but at what lay behind it. The bedroom door was open. She dared n*b venture a counter question. "Start it again," she whispered back. He named the letters through a second time. "It's a long word," he conceded. "It takes all of my fingers, and then one thumb and two fingers over. What does it spell ?" Cis's lips were pressed tight. They twitched a bit, to keep back with some effort what she had on her mind. When they parted at last, she nodded wisely. "You never got that word out of my speller," she declared; "nor off of any paper bag from the grocer's." Which was to say that she did not know what all those letters spelled, but that she was fully aware he had a good deal to tell her. Johnnie had already made up his mind that he would not share his precious secret with her. He feared to. Barber had never allowed Cis to bring home books, regard- ing all printed matter as a waste of time. And Cis had a way of obeying Barber strictly; also she often pleaded conscience and duty in matters of this kind. And to John- nie any consideration for Barber's wishes or opinions, ex- THE DEAREST WISH 57 cept the little that was forced by fear of the strap, was silly, girlish, and terribly trying. He admired Mrs. Kukor's stand. Backed by her, he meant to keep the book and read it every minute he could. So with Big Tom once more in the kitchen, having an after- supper pipe in the morris chair, Johnnie ignored Cis's silent invitation to join her in the window, and brought his bedding from her room, spreading it out ostentatiously beside the stove. Then having filled the teakettle and stirred the breakfast cereal into the big, black pot, he flung himself down upon his mattress with a weary grunt. Barber smiled. The boy was tired. For once some real work had been done around the place. "You better git t* bed early, too," he remarked to Cis. As advice from him always amounted to a command, she disappeared at once. Presently Big Tom got up, stretched his gorilla arms, yawned with a descending scale of Oh's, and weJt lumber- ing to bed. A wait which to Johnnie seemed interminable, while idusk thickened to darkness ; then snores. The snoring continued all the while he was counting up to four hun- dred. Also it achieved a regularity and loudness that guaranteed it to be genuine. Still Johnnie did not open his eyes. There were little movements in Cis's room, and he felt sure she was not asleep. Soon he had proof of it. For peering up carefully from under lowered lids, he saw her door slowly open ; next, she came to stand in it, dimly outlined in her faded cotton kimono. She had something white in one hand. This she waved up and down in a noiseless signal. He did not stir. She stole forward, bent down, and touched him. He went on breathing deep and steadily. She tiptoed back to her bed. As patiently as possible he waited till the sound of her regular breathing could be heard between Barber's rasp- 58 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY ing snores. Then he sat up. So long as he had been able to read, he had thought of nothing but reading. But with the book put away there had come to him a wonderful plan a plan that made his bony little spine gooseflesh: He would rub Barber's old kitchen lamp! Seldom used, it stood on a cupboard shelf beside the clock. Fairly holding his breath, he got to his feet and crept across the floor. Inch by inch, cautiously, his hand felt its way to the right shelf, found the lamp, grasped the glass standard. But the table was the only proper place for the experiment. He carried the lamp there and set it down, his heart beating hard under the pleats of his shirt. Then he considered what his course of action should be. If Big Tom's old lamp chanced to possess even a scrap of that power peculiar to the lamp of Aladdin: if, when he i^bbed the none too clean glass base, some genie were to appear, asking for orders what should he com- mand? It came to him then that what He wanted most in all the world was not bags of money, not dishes of massy gold, or rich robes, or slaves, but only freedom. He wanted to get away from the flat; to leave behind him forever the hated longshoreman. "If the great big feller comes when I rub," he told him- self, "I'll say t' him, 'Take Grandpa and Cis and me as far away as as Central Park' " (this a region of delight into which he had peeped when he was three or four years old, under escort of his Aunt Sophie) . " 'And leave us in a flat as good as this one.' " With Big Tom out of his life, oh, how hie would work ! violet-making, bead-stringing, and, yes, boarders! He could fetch Grandpa's bed out into the new kitchen, and put three roomers into the little bedroom, just as several tenants in this building did. And what he could earn* THE DEAREST WISH 59 added to Cis's wages at some factory, and Grandpa's pen- sion (this a princely income which was now regularly clrawn and spent by Big Tom) would take care of the three splendidly. Having settled upon the supreme wish, and fairly hold- ing his breath, he reached out in the darkness and rubbed the lamp. Nothing happened. He waited a little. In this lamp business perhaps time figured prominently ; though his own friends Buckle, the Four millionaires, David, Goliath, the Prince, and any lumber of others always appeared in the kitchen promptly. But no genie of the lamp arrived. To make sure that lis test was fair, he rubbed the lamp a second time, all the way around. Still no huge, hideous, helpful figure doomed out of the dark. He grinned sheepishly, tugged at his hair a lew times, then went back to his mattress and sat down. He was not disappointed, for though he had been hopeful, he had not aeen over-sure. And, anyhow, he had his book. He lifted it out, placed it upon his knees, and rested his forehead upon it. And the next moment, as if whisked to him by a srenie all his own, Cathay was about him ; and he was with the boy, Aladdin, plunging down a flight of steps on his pray to a garden that yielded fruit which was all diamonds and rubies and pearls. CHAPTER VII A SERIOUS STEP HE awoke with such a feeling of happiness a flut- tery feeling, which was in his throat, and also just at the lower end of his breastbone, where he seemed to have so many kinds of sensations. For a mo- ment he did not remember what made him so happy. But as he moved, something hard pressed against his ribs, whereupon the fluttery feeling suddenly spread over the whole of ijim, so that the calves of those lead-pipe legs got creepy, and his shoulder-blades tingled. Then he knew it was all because of the book. The process of getting up of a morning was always a simple one. As he slept in his big clothes, all he had to do was scramble to his feet, roll up his bedding, splash a little water upon the central portion of his countenance, dry it away with the apron, and put the apron on. As a rule he never so much as stirred till Barber or the alarm clock sounded an order. But on this happy morn- ing he did not wait for orders, but rose promptly, though it still wanted more than half an hour to getting-up time. He did yet another unusual thing; noiselessly, so as not to wake any one, he set his bedding foil on end just out- side the door of Cis's room, then returned to the table, drew out the drawer, chose a saucer of rose-colored beads, and fell to threading them swiftly. He had two ideas in mind: first, after yesterday's unpleasant experience, he was anxious to make a good impression upon Big Tom; 60 A SERIOUS STEP 61 second, and principally, he was stringing now, when he dared not read, in order that, later on, he might be free to enjoy his book. He held the long needle in his right hand. He poked the beads to the needle's tip with the forefinger of his left. He used his tongue, too, after a fashion, for if a bead was obstinate his tongue tip sometimes helped by curling itself noseward over his upper lip. Before now he had always thought of rose-colored beads as future rose-colored roses in the beautiful purses that Mrs. Kukor made. But now the beads reminded him of nothing less than that strange garden laying under the horizontal stone in China. He took out all of his saucers the pink, the green, the brown, the gold, the blue, the burgundy, the white, the black, the yellow and found that they gave him a new pleasure. They were the fruit of Aladdin's garden, and he planned to offer them in a yellow bowl to that certain (dark-haired little girl. " 'What wouldst thou have?' " he quoted. " *I am ready to obey thee as thy slave,' " a statement that he considered highly appropriate. His whispering was accompanied by gesticulations that bore no relation to bead-stringing, and by tossings of his yel- low head. "Now what y' mumblin* about?" demanded Big Tom. He was watching from the bedroom door, and his look denied that Johnnie, though at work, was making any- thing like a good impression ; quite the contrary for Bar- ber's bloodshot eyes were full of suspicion. Should a boy who always had to be watched and driven suddenly show a desire to keep busy? "Breakfast on?" he asked. Johnnie sprang up. "I didn't want to make no noise," He explained. The next moment lids were rattling and coal was tumbling upon some blazing kindling as he started the morning fire. 62 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY "A-a-a-ah ! What y' got this lamp down for ?" it was the next question, and there was triumph in Big Tom's voice. "Been wastin' oil, have y' ? Come ! When did y* light it ? Answer up !" "I didn't light it," replied Johnnie, calmly glancing round, his chin on his shoulders. "No? Then what did f do? Hey? What?" "Just took it down V rubbed it." "M-m-m! Well, y' made a poor job of your rubbin'. I'll say that !" "I'll rub it again," said Johnnie. He caught up the dish towel with which he had dried his own face and set to work on the lamp. There was a faint smile on his lips as he worked. There was a smile in his eyes, too, but he kept his lids discreetly lowered. His whole manner irritated Barber, wHo sauntered to the table^took a careful survey of it, drew out the drawer, looked it over, then dropped into the morris chair to pull on his socks. Now he sensed, as had Cis the day before, that the air of the flat was charged with something something that was strange to it. He did not guess it was happiness. But as Johnnie moved quickly between sink and stove, between cupboard and table, Big Tom watched him, and thrust out that lower lip. While the business of breakfast was on, instead of stand- ing up to the table for his bowl of oats, Johnnie made sand- wiches for the two lunches. Hot tea, well sugared, went into Barber's pail. Another tin compartment Johnnie packed with the cooked prunes. A third held slabs of corned-beef between bread. Sour pickles were added to these when he filled Cis's lunchbox, which closely resembled a camera. And now the wide-open, fixed look of his eyes, the uplift at the corners of his mouth, his swelled nostrils and his buoyant step told Cis that he was engaged in some adventure, high and stirring. A SERIOUS STEP 63 But Barber, slill watching tKe boy sh'arply, ma'de up his mind that the punishment of the day before had done a lot of good. In fact, it seemed to have brought about a complete transformation. For during the two or three minutes that Big Tom allowed himself after eating for the filling of his pipe, Johnnie swept the table clear, washed, dried and put away the dishes, and was so far along with his morning's work that he was wiping off tKe stove. Leaving, Barber omitted his usual warnings and "direc- tions ; and did not even wait outside the door for a final look back, but went promptly down, as the creaking stairs testified, and out, as told by the sucking move and gentle rattle of the hall door. It was Cis who lingered. When the flat was clear of her stepfather, she fairly burst from her tiny room, and halted face to face with Johnnie, from whose string right hand the stove rag was even then falling. Her eyes botK questioned and challenged him. And the sudden breaking of his countenance into a radiant grin, at one and at the same time, answered her and confessed. "Johnnie!" she whispered. He stretched up to her pink ear to answer, for Grandpa was at the table, still busy over his bowl. "A book," He whispered back, his air that of one who has seen the dream of a lifetime realized. "What? What kind of a book? [And where'd you get it? Show it to me." He went into the little closet. When he came out, she went in. And presently, as she sauntered into the kitchen once more, he plunged past her and the tiny room received him a second time all of which was according to a method they had worked out long ago. He was up-headed, and his eyes sparkled as he unpinned a towel from under Grandpa's chin and trundled the wEeel chair back from 64. THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY tHe table. His look said that He defied all criticism. She reached for the camera-box. Her manner wholly lacked enthusiasm. "I guess it's a good story," she con- ceded kindly. "I heard about it lots when I was in school. But, my! It's so raggy!" "Raggy !" scoffed Johnnie. "Huh ! I don't care what iUoofrslike!" When she, too, was gone, he omitted his usual taking of the air at the window. He even denied himself the pleasure of calling up his four millionaires and telling them of his good fortune. The main business of the day was the book. Would Aladdin's order for a palace, complete, be carried out? Would that ambitious Celestial marry the Princess of his choice? Johnnie could scarcely wait to know. Following a course that he had found good these sev- eral years past, he wound the alarm clock a few times and set it to ring sharp at four in the afternoon which would give him more than a full hour in which to wash Grandpa, make the beds and sweep before Big Tom's return. This done, he opened the book on the table, dug a hand into his tousled mop, and began to read to read as he might have drunk if thirst were torturing him, and a cool, deep cup were at his lips. For the book was to him really a draught which quenched a longing akin to thirst; it was a potion that gave him new life. As the story of stories unfolded itself, step by step, the ragged street urchin whose father had been a poor tailor, attained to great heights to wealth and success and power. Johnnie gloried in it all, seeing such results as future possibilities of his own, and not forgetting to re- mark how kind, through all the upward trending of for- tune, Aladdin had been to his mother (though he, himself, did not pause in his enjoyment of the tale to take the regu- lar train trip with Grandpa) . Twice during the morning the old soldier, by whimpering A SERIOUS STEP 65 insistently, brought himself to Johnnie's attention. But the moment Grandpa was waited upon, back Johnnie went to his book, and page was turned upon page as the black magic of the hateful African wafted that most perfect of palaces many a league from its original site, and separated for his own wicked purposes the loving Aladdin and his idevoted Buddir al Buddoor. And then all of a sudden and for no reason that Johnnie could name, but as if some good genie of his own were watching over him, and had whispered a warning, he cast off the enthrallment of Asia, stopped dragging at his hair, started to his feet, slid the book under his collar- band, and took stock of the time. It was twelve. Indeed, the noon whistles were just be- ginning to blow. But they and the clock did not reassure him. He had been dimly aware, the past hour or so, of a strange state of quiet overhead. That awarentls now re- solved itself into a horrible fear the fear that, in spite of lunches put up and a clock wound to clang at four in the afternoon, the day was Saturday ! "Gee!" breathed Johnnie, and paled to a sickly white. His first thought was to make sure one way or another. Scurrying to the window, he pushed it up, hung out of it toward the Gamboni casement, and called to a sleek head that at this time of the day was almost certain to be bobbing in sight. There it was, and "What day is this, Mrs. Gamboni ?" he demanded. "Quick ! Is it Saturday ?" H sir Saturday ! A half-day ! Barber! He threw himself backward, then stood for a moment, panic-stricken. Of course it was Saturday. Which ex- plained why Mrs. Kukor was out. Oh, why had she not stopped by on her way to church? Oh, why had he left any of his work undone? Oh, for some genie to finish it 66 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY all up in a second! Oh, for some Slave of a Ring or a Lamp! "Gee !" he breathed again. "This was the shortest Sat- urday mornin* in the world!" There now came to the fore the practical side of his nature. He knew he must do one of two things : stay, and take the whipping that Big Tom would surely give him, or go. What had heretofore kept him from going was the fact that he had no clothes. By the end of his first year in the flat, the little suit he had been wearing when he came was in utter rags. Big Tom had bought him no new suit, de- claring that he could not afford it. So Johnnie had had to decide between putting on some of Cis's old garments or Barber's mammoth cast-offs. He chose the latter, which Mrs. Kukor offered to alter, but Barber refused her help. And she ISiew at once what Johnnie did not guess: the longshoreman wanted the boy to appear ridiculous. The plan worked. The first time Johnnie had ventured into the area wearing his baggy breeches and a voluminous shirt, the boys who had from the first called "Girl's hair !" at him changed their taunt to "Old clothes !" It had sent him scurrying back into the flat, and it had kept him there, so that Big Tom had some one to look after Grandpa steadily, and bring in a small wage besides. But now not even the likelihood of being mocked for his ragged misfits could keep Johnnie back. Darting into the hall, he crouched in the dark passage a moment to listen, his heart pounding so hard that he could hear it ; then cer- tain that the way was yet clear, he straddled the banisters and, with his two strong hands to steady him and act as a brake to his speed, took the three flights to the ground floor. As Big Tom usually entered the area by the tunnel-like hall that led in from the main street to the south, Johnnie A SERIOUS STEP 67 headed north, first taking care to glance out into the area before he charged across it, blinded by its glare after the semidark of the Barber rooms. He was hatless. His hair and his fringe flew. His feet flew, too, as if the long- shoreman were at their horny little heels. The north tunnel gained, he scampered along it. As he idodged out of it, and westward, again the glare of the outdoors blinded him, so that he did not see a crowd that was ahead of him a crowd made up wholly of boys. He plunged among the lot. Instantly a joyous wrangle of cries went up : "Girl's hair ! Girl's hair ! Old clothes ! Old clothes !" A water-pistol discharged a chill stream into his face. Hands seized him, tearing at his rags. Savagely he battled at the center of the mob, hitting, kicking, biting. His sight cleared, and he made the blows of his big hands tell. "Leave me alone!" he screamed. "Leave me alone !" The crowd doubled as men and women rushed up to see what the excitement was all about. Then hands laid hold of Johnnie's tormentors, hauling them back, and suddenly he found himself free. Once more he took to his heels, and panting, dripping, scarlet and more ragged than before, jhe fled ignominiously. CHAPTER VIII MORE TREASURES WHEN He had put half a dozen blocks behind him, he slackened his pace, took a quick look into sev- eral doorways, chose one that promised seclusion, clove into it, got his breath back, made sure that the precious book was safe, and then indulged himself in a grin that was all relief. The grif. narrowed as he remembered that Grandpa was alone in the flat. "Oh, but Big Tom or Mrs. Kukor'll be home soon," he reflected; and comforted his conscience further by vowing that, given good luck, he would in no time be in a position to return for the purpose of enticing away both Cis and the old soldier (men are men, and in the stress of the moment he did not give a thought to that slim, little, dark-haired girl) . He could not help but feel hope- ful regarding his plans. Had not just such adventuring as this accomplished wonderful results for his new friend, Aladdin, a boy as poor as himself? He did not stay long in the doorway. He felt sure that the moment Barber returned a search of the neighborhood would be made, during which people would be questioned. Discretion urged that more blocks be put between the flat and that small back which so dreaded the strap. So off he went once more at a lively trot. Though during the last five years he had not once been so far away from the area as this, he was not frightened. A city-bred boy, he felt as much at ease, scuttling along, 68 MORE TREASURES 69 as a fish in its native waters, or a rabbit in its own warren. He had taken a westward direction because he knew that the other way East River lay close, shutting off flight. Now he began to read the street signs. Cis had often talked of a great thoroughfare which cut the city into two unequal parts a one-time road, she said it was, and so long that it ran through other cities. This was the street Johnnie wanted being the one he had heard most about. It was a street called Broadway. As he traveled, he passed other dirty, ragged, little boys. His head was the yellowest of them all, his clothes were the poorest. But he was scarcely noticed. The occasional patrolman did not more than glance at him. And he was fully as indifferent. At his Aunt Sophie's, a policeman by name Mike Callaghan had been a frequent visitor, when he was wont to lay off not only his cap but his coat as well, and sit around bareheaded in his shirt-sleeves, smoking. This glimpse of an officer of the law, shorn, as it were, of his dignity, had made Johnnie realize, even as a babe, that policemen are but mortals after all, as ready to be pleased with a wedge of pie as any youngster, and given to the wearing of ordinary striped percale shirts under their majestic blue. So Johnnie was neither in awe of, nor feared, them. What he did keep a fearsome eye out for was any man who might be an African magician. That he would know such a man he felt sure, having a fair idea from a picture in his book of the robe, headdress, sandals and beard proper to magicians in general. But though he was alert enough as he traveled, the only unusual-looking person he met up with was a man with a peg leg and a tray of shoe- laces. That peg leg frightened him. For a moment he was in- clined to take to his heels, certain that this was the same wooden-legged man who gave Cis fruit. Then the tray 70 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY reassured him. Shoelaces were one thing; fruit was an- other. And even if this one-legged man were full brother to the one-legged man of the fruitstand (Johnnie took for granted a whole one-legged family), he himself would be far away before any member of that family could get in touch with Barber. It was while he was boldly inspecting the shoe-lace man's peg leg that he discovered he was in Broadway, this by reading the name of the street on the front of a passing car. "Gee !" he exclaimed, taking a good look up and down the thoroughfare. Now he began really to enjoy himself. He pattered leisurely along, stopping at this window and that, or leaned against a convenient water plug to watch the traffic stream by. He was resting, and gazing about him, when the wagon driver came up. The driver was a colored youth in a khaki shirt and an overseas cap, and his wagon was a horseless affair, huge and covered. The colored man, halt- ing his truck to let a cross current of vehicles pass, daz- zled Johnnie with a good-natured smile. Johnnie grinned back. "You goin' up Broadway?" he asked, with a jerk of his head toward the north. "All the way up t' Haa'lem," answered the black man, cordially. "Climb aboa'd !" There was a loop of chain hanging down from the end- board of the truck. Johnnie guided a foot through it stirrup-wise and reared himself into an empty wagonbed. Then as the wheels began to turn, he faced round, knelt comfortably, and let Broadway swiftly drop behind. He could not see all the new and engrossing sights that offered themselves in the wake of the truck and to both sides. His ears were packed with strange noises. Yet entertained as he was, from time to time he took note of MORE TREASURES 71 the cross streets Eighth, then Tenth, next, busy Four- teenth. From time to time the colored man took note of him. "You-all thay yit?" he would sing- out over a shoulder; or, "Have Ah done los' you, kid ?" Upon being reassured, he would return to his problem of nosing a way along with other vehicles, large and small, and Johnnie would once more be left to his fascinating survey. At Twentieth, he very nearly fell out on that shining head, this at catching sight of a mounted patrolman. No figure in his beloved book seemed more splendid to him than this one, so noble and martial and proud. Here was a guardian of the peace who was obviously no common mortal. Then and there, as the mounted dropped grad- ually into the background, Johnnie determined that should he ever be rich enough, or if hard work and fdudy could accomplish it, he would be a mounted policeman. At Twenty-third Street, Broadway suddenly took a sharp turn toward the right. Also, it got wider, and noticeably cleaner. More: suddenly confronted with the gigantic, three-cornered building standing there, a struc- ture with something of the height and beauty of his own dream edifices, he realized that he was now entering the true New York. This was more like it ! Here was space and wealth and grandeur. Oh, how different was this famous street from either of those which gave to the building in the area ! Then he discovered that he was not traveling a street at all! He was skimming along an avenue. And it was none other than Fifth Avenue, for the signs at corners plainly said so. Fifth Avenue! The wonderful, stylish boulevard which Cis mentioned almost reverently. And he was in it! The next moment he was truly in it. For at sight of a window which the truck was passing, and without even 72 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY stopping to call to the driver, Johnnie dropped himself over the end-board to the smooth concrete. The window was no larger than many a one he had glimpsed during the long drive northward. What drew him toward it, as if it were a powerful magnet, was the fact that it was full of books. "My !" he whispered as he gained the sidewalk in front of the window. There were books standing on end in curving rows. There were others in great piles. A few lay flat. It had never occurred to him, shut up so long in a flat without any book save the telephone directory, that there could be so many books in the whole of New York. And all were so new! and had such fresh, untorn covers! He had stood before the window quite some time, his eyes going from book to book thoughtfully, while one hand tugged at^his hair, and the other, thrust into his shirt front, caressed his own dear volume, when he became con- scious of the near presence of two people, a man and a woman. The woman was the nearer of the two. On glanc- ing up at her, he found her looking down. That embar- rassed him, and he stopped pulling at his hair. She smiled. "Do you like books, little boy?" she asked. He nodded. "More'n ant/thing!" he declared fervently. A pause; then, "Would you like to have a book?" she asked next. At that, pride and covetousness struggled for first place in him. Pride won. He straddled both feet a bit wider and thrust a thumb into his belt. . "I've got a book," he answered. So far as he was concerned, he thought his remark com- monplace, ordinary certainly not at all amusing. But there was never any telling how this thing or that would strike a grown-up. The man's mouth popped open and he exploded a loud laugh, followed by a second and louder. MORE TREASURES 78 "Sh! sh!" admonished the woman, glancing at John- nie. "It's old, but it's always good," protested the man, half apologetically. Along with his boasting, Johnnie had drawn Aladdin forward to the opening in his shirt. Evidently the man had caught a glimpse of that torn cover. Now the boy hastily poked the book to a place under one arm. "It is old," he conceded. "But that don't hurt it 7 don't mind.' ' "Of course, you don't !" chimed in the woman, heartily. "A book's a book as long as it holds together. Besides some books are more valuable as they get older." "Sure !" agreed Johnnie. She left them and went inside. And Johnnie found himself being stared at by the man. The man was a millionaire. Johnnie noted |his with a start. He had a way of recognizing millionaires. When he lived with his Aunt Sophie, his Uncle Albert was the chauffeur of one. On the two occasions when that wealthy gentleman showed himself at his red-brick garage in Fifty- fifth Street, he wore a plush hat, dark blue in color, and an overcoat with a fur collar. This short, stout stranger before the window wore the same. But he was as friendly as possible, for he continued the conversation. "Nice looking lot of books," he observed. "Don't you think so?" Johnnie nodded again. "What kind of a place would y* call this ?" he inquired. "A store," informed the other. Now he stared harder than ever, so that Johnnie grew uneasy under the scrutiny, and began to consider rounding the nearest corner to get away. "Never seen a bookstore before, eh?" Johnnie shook his head. "Don't have 'em where I live," he explained. "No? And where do you live?" 74 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY Johnnie felt more uneasy than ever. He determined to be vague. "Me? Oh, just over that way," he answered, with a swing of the arm that took in a full quarter of the horizon including all territory from Beekman Place to the Aquarium. The woman rejoined them. In one hand she carried a book. It was a blue book, not quite so large as the story of Aladdin, but in every way handsomer. She held it out to Johnnie. "Here's another book for you," she said. "You'll love it. All boys do. It's called Robinson Cru- soe." Afterwards he liked to remember that he had said "Thank you" when she placed the book in his hands. He was too overcome to look up at her, however, or smile, or exclaim over the gift. He stood there, thrilled and gaping, and holding his breath, while the ends of his red fingers went white with holding the new book so tight, and his pale face turned red with emotions of several kinds, all of them pleasant. At last, when he raised his eyes from the book to her face, that face was gone. The millionaire was gone, too. Johnnie opened the book. It did not open easily, being so new. But how good it smelled! And, oh, what a lot of it there was, even though it was smaller than the other! For the letters were tiny, and set close together on every page. Twenty to thirty pages Johnnie turned at a time, and found that there were six hundred in all. Also, there was one picture of a man wearing a curious, peaked cap, funny shoes that tied, and knee trousers that seemed to be made of skins. It was while he was turning the pages for a second time that he chanced upon the dollar bill. It was between two pages toward the back of the book, and he thought for a moment that it was not there, really, but that he was just thinking so. But it was there, and looked as crisply MORE TREASURES 75 new as the book. He ran to the corner and stared in every direction, searching for the millionaire and the woman. Then he felt sure that she had not known the money was in the book. Instead, it belonged to the store, and had somehow got tucked between the leaves by mistake. A revolving door gave to the bookshop. He entered one section of it and half circled his way in. Never in his boldest imaginings had he thought of such a place as he saw now. It was lofty and long, with glis- tening counters of glass to one side. But elsewhere there were just books ! books ! books ! great partitions of them, walls solidly faced with them, the floor piled with them man-high. He forgot why he had come in, forgot his big clothes, his bare feet, his girl's hair, the new blue book, and the dollar. "Yes? Well? What d' you want?" It was a man speaking, and rather sharply, xle was a red-headed man, and he wore spectacles. He came to stand in front of Johnnie, as if to keep the latter from going farther into the shop. Johnnie held up the new book. "A lady bought me this," he explained ; "and when I opened it I found all this money." Now he held out the dollar. There were many people in the store. Some of them had on their hats, others were bareheaded, as if they be- longed there. A number quietly gathered about Johnnie and the red-haired man, looking and listening. Johnnie gave each a swift examination. They were all so well- dressed, so different from the tenants in the area build- ing. "The lady slipped the dollar into the book for you," declared the red-headed man. "Wasn't that mighty nice of her?" Johnnie silently agreed. A dozen pairs of eyes were watching him, and so many strange people were embar- 76 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY rassing. He began slowly to back toward the revolving door. "What're you going to buy with your dollar, little boy ?" asked a man in the group a tall man whose smile disclosed a large, gold tooth. The question halted Johnnie. Such a wonderful idea occurred to him. The dollar was his own, to do with as he liked. And what he wanted most "I'm goin' to buy some more books with it," he an- swered. And turned aside to one of the great piles. There was more laughter at that, and a burst of low conversation. Johnnie paid no attention to it, but ap- pealed to the red-headed man. "What's the best book y' got ?" he inquired, with quite the air of a seasoned shopper. Again there was laughter. But it seemed to be not only kind but complimentary as if once more he had said something clever or amusing. However, Johnnie kept his attention on the red-headed man. "Well, I'm afraid no two people would ever agree as to which is our best book," said the latter. "But if you'll tell me what you like, I'll do my best to find something that'll suit you." Johnnie, glancing about, reflected that, without ques- tion, Cis's speller had come from this very room! The arithmetic, too ! "Got any spellers to-day?" he inquired casually just to show them all that he knew a thing or two about books. "In several languages," returned the man, quite calmly. "I like Aladdin better," announced Johnnie. Then trying not to sound too proud, "I got it here with me right now." Whereupon he reached into the baggy shirt and drew forth Mrs. Kukor's gift. "Bless his heart !" cried a woman. "He does love them !" To Johnnie this seemed a foolish remark. Love them? MORE TREASURES 77 Who did not? "If you got another as good as this one," he went on, "I'd like t' buy it." The red-headed man took Aladdin. Then he shook his head. The group was moving away now, and he and John- nie were to themselves. "I'm afraid this book would be hard to equal," he said earnestly. "They aren't writing any more just like it which is a pity. But you stay here and I'll see what I can find." He gave Aladdin back, and hurried off. There was a chair behind Johnnie. He sat down, his two precious books and the dollar on his knees. Then once more he looked up and around, marveling. He was aware that several of those who had been in the group were now talking together at a little distance. They seemed a trifle excited. The red-headed man joined them for a moment, listened to what they had to say, and took some money from each of them (Johnnie concluded that all were bookbuyers like himself) before hurrying on be- tween two high walls of books. In anticipation of more literary possessions, Johnnie now slipped his two volumes inside the shirt, one to the right, one to the left, so that they would not meet and mar each other. When the red-headed man came back, he brought three books, all new and handsome. "I think you'll like these," he declared. "See this one's called The Legends of King Arthur and his Knights, and this one is The Last of the Mohicans, and here's Treasure Island." "Much obliged," said Johnnie, heartily. His eyes shone as he gathered the books to him. His one thought now was to get away and read, read, read. Quickly he prof- fered the dollar bill. "Oh, you keep the money," said the red-headed man "You'll need it for something else. Take the books com- pliments of the house !" "No !" Johnnie was aghast. He was used to paying 78 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY for what he got his food, his bed, his rent. "Oh, gee ! I want to pay, Mister. I want 'em to be all mine. But is there any change comin' back t' me?" Once more he heard laughter from behind the pile of books nearest him; then that woman's voice again: "Oh, the darling ! The darling !" Even as she spoke, she moved into sight. Johnnie had heard ladies speak about him in just that way before. He knew that if they came near to him it was to lay hands on his yellow mop. He wanted none of that sort of thing here, in this glorious house full of books, be- fore all these men. "Your books came out just a dollar even," replied the red-headed man. "Thank y', Mister!" Johnnie, his new purchases clasped tight, sidled quickly toward the street. "Sha'n*i I wrap 'em up for you?" called the other. Johnnie was already revolving in his quarter-section of the remarkable door. He shook his head. Going side- wise, he could see that quite a few of those inside were still watching him. He flashed at them one of his radiant smiles. Then the door disgorged him upon a step, the great Avenue received him, and he trotted off, dropping his books into his shirt, one by one, as he went, precisely as Aladdin had stuffed his clothes with amethysts, sapphires and rubies. Before he reached the next block he was fairly belted with books ; he was armored with them, and looked as if he were wearing a life preserver under his folds and pleats. The sun was still high, the air warm enough for him if not for a fur-collared millionaire. And Johnnie did not feel too hungry. His one wish was to absorb those five books. He began to keep an eye out for a vacant building. "My goodness !" he exclaimed. "Think of me runnin' into the place where all the books come from !" CHAPTER IX ONE-EYE HE left the Avenue, turning east. Now all plans concerning Broadway were given up ; also, he felt no anxiety about getting lost. For he went at ran- idom. Yet he was businesslike, and walked rapidly. No win- dow, however beautiful, lured him to pause. He did not waste a single minute. And soon he was gazing up at a really imposing and colossal structure which, \)\g as it looked (for it seemed to occupy a whole block), was plainly not in use. At one corner the building mounted to a peak. On going all the way around it, he discovered smaller peaks at each of the other corners. There were any number of entrances, too ; and, of course, fire escapes. It suited him finely. On one side of this old palace for he was sure it could be nothing short of a palace was a flight of steps which led up to a small door. This en- trance was an inconspicuous one, which could not be said of the several porticoed entrances. Beside the steps, in the angle made by the meeting of the wall with them, was conveniently set a small, pine box. Johnnie had hunted a vacant building with the intention of entering it. But now he decided to read first, and steal into the palace later, under cover of the dark. Down he sat upon the box, out of the way of a breeze that was wafting a trifle too freshly through the street. One by one he took out the three books he had just 79 80 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY bought, this in order to give them a closer scrutiny than the store had afforded him ; and to start with he met that "glorious company, the flower of men," who made up the Table Round, and who, if the colored pictures of them were to be believed, made his mounted policeman of an hour before seem a sorry figure. And their names were as splendid as their photographs Launcelot, and Gawain, Gareth and Tristram and Galahad. Remembering that he was called Johnnie, he felt quite sick. When, after poring over the half-dozen illustrations, he was forced to the conclusion that nothing could sur- pass the knights of King Arthur, he opened The Last of the Mohicans and found himself captured, heart and soul, by the even more enticing Uncas and his fellows, superb bronze creatures, painted and feathered, and waving toma- hawks that far outshone any blunt lance. He had to change his mind again. For bringing him- self to tuck away his Indians and fetch forth Treasure Island, he was rewarded by the sight of a piratical crew who easily surpassed even the redmen. The fiercest of these pirates, a gentleman by the name of Long John Silver, was without question the pick of the lot. To begin with, Mr. Silver undoubtedly belonged to the New York family of peg legs, which, of course, brought him nearer than his brother pirates. However, what especially recom- mended him was a pistol-filled belt. "Gee! I'm glad I got mine!" Johnnie declared, since the chief-pirate's belt was strikingly like the one binding in Big Tom's cast-off clothes ; and he willingly forgot what the strap of leather had done to him in the past in real- izing its wonderful possibilities for the future. Finally he was ready to begin reading. He was loyal to his friend Aladdin then, whom he had left, on the fatal stroke of twelve, in rather dire straits. The Oriental wonder book on his knees, he resumed the enthralling story, ONE-EYE 81 his lips and fingers moving, and in the excitement of it all his misty eyebrows twisting like two caterpillars. Pedestrians hurried past him, motor vehicles and sur- face-cars sped by for Fourth Avenue lay in front; but what he saw was Aladdin in chains ; Aladdin before the executioner; Aladdin pardoned, yet aghast over the loss of his palace and the beloved Buddir al Buddoor, and ready to take his own life. The afternoon went swiftly. Evening came. But the nearest street lamp was lighted in advance of the dark. Engrossed by the awful drama transpiring in Africa, where Aladdin and his Princess were plotting to rid themselves of the magician, Johnnie did not know when lamplight took the place of daylight. The Princess, who began to be tired with this impertinent declaration of the African magician, interrupted him and said, "Let us drink first, and then say what you will after- wards;" at the same time she set the cup to her lips, while the African magician, who was eager to get his wine off first, drank up the very last drop. In finishing it, he had reclined his liead back to show his eagerness, and remained some time in that state. The Princess kept the cup at her lips, till she saw his eyes turn in his head "Hurrah !" cried Johnnie, relieved at this fortunate end of the crisis, for his very hair was damp with anxiety. "His eyes've turned in his head!" "Wai, by the Great Horn Spoon !" This strange exclamation, drawled in a nasal tone, came from the steps at his back. He started up, jerking side- wise to get out of reach of the hands that belonged to the voice, and clutching his book to him. But as he faced the speaker, who was peering down at him from the top of the steps, wonder took the place of apprehension. For to his astonished and enraptured gaze was vouch- safed a most interesting man a man far and beyond and 82 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY above anybody he had ever before beheld in the flesh. This person was tall and slender, and wore a blue shirt, a plaid vest hanging open but kept together with a leather watch- chain, a wide, high, gray hat, and most wonderful of all a pair of breeches which, all down the front, were as hairy as any dog ! It was the breeches that gave the stranger his startling and admirable appearance the breeches and his face. For directly under the hat, which was worn askew, was one round, greenish eye, set at the upper end of a nose that was like a triangle of leather. The eye held the geo- graphical center of the whole countenance, this because its owner kept his head tipped, precisely as if he had a stiff neck. Under the leathery nose, which seemed to have been cut from the same welt as the watchchain, was a drooping, palish mustache, hiding a mouth that had lost too many* teeth. As for the other eye, it was brushed aside under the band of the hat. "Gee !"breathed Johnnie. Wearing fur trousers instead of a fur collar, here, without doubt, was a new kind of millionaire ! The latter took a cigar out of an upper vest pocket and worried one end of it with a tooth. "It's half-pas' seven, sonny," he said. Johnnie backed another step. Half-past seven gave him a swift vision of the flat Grandpa asleep, Barber pacing the splintery floor in a rage, Cis weeping at the window, Mrs. Kukor waddling about, talking with tongue and hands. He had no mind to be made a part of that picture. He resolved to answer no questions, while with a dexterous movement he slipped Aladdin into his shirt and got ready to run. The other now sat down, scratched a match nonchal- antly on a step, and let the light shine into that single green eye as he set an end of the cigar afire ; after which ONE-EYE 83 he proceeded to blow smoke through his nose in a masterly fashion, following up that feat with a series of perfect smoke rings. Still on his guard, Johnnie studied the smoker. The big gray hat came to a peak like the highest corner of the empty palace. Below the hairy trousers the lower parts of a pair of black boots shone so brightly that they carried reflections even at that late hour. The boots were tapered off by spurs. What was there about this man that made him seem somehow familiar? Johnnie puzzled over it. And decided at last, correctly enough, as it turned out, that the ex- planation lay in those shaggy trousers. He was not afraid to make an inquiry. "Mister," he began politely, "where did y' buy your pants?" The effect of this question was startling. The man pushed back his hat, threw up his head, rescued the burn- ing cigar, then emitted an almost catlike yowl. For some minutes several people had been watching him from a respectful distance. Now, hearing the yowl, these on- lookers drew near. He rose then, instantly sober, set the hat forward, descended the steps, and held out a friendly left hand to Johnnie. "Come on, sonny," he coaxed. "Ain't it eatin' time? Let's go and pur-chase some grub." Johnnie, for all that he had been practically a recluse these past several years, had, nevertheless, the metropo- lite's inborn indifference to the passerby. He had scarcely noticed the steadily increasing group before the steps. Now he ignored them all. He was hungry. That invita- tion to partake of food was welcome. He advanced and held out a hand. The one-eyed man grasped it, descended the last step or two, pushed his way through the crowd without looking to right or left, and led Johnnie down the street at such a pace that the bare 84 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY feet were put to the trot which was not too fast, seeing that supper lay somewhere ahead. Johnnie felt proud and flattered. He made up his mind to be seen talking to his tall companion as they fared along. "Guess you're not a longshoreman," he said, to begin the conversation. "Me?" drawled the other; then, mysteriously, "Wai, sonny, I'll tell y' : if I am, I ain't never yet found it out !" Then silence for half a block. Johnnie studied his next remark. The direct way was the most natural to him. He tried another query. "And and what do y' do?" he asked. "Do?" this stranger seemed to have Grandpa's habit of repeating the last word. "Oh, I val-lav a hoss." Johnnie was no wiser than before, but he felt it good manners to appear enlightened. "You you do that back there?" tfe 1 ventured next. "Yeppie. In the Garden." Now Johnnie was hopelessly lost. Val-lay meant noth- ing, hoss even less; as for a garden, he vaguely under- stood what that was: a place where beans grew, and po- tatoes ; yes, and wizen-faced prunes. But though he had circled about the neighborhood considerably since leaving the bookstore, he had caught no glimpse of any garden except that one belonging to Aladdin. Ah, that was it! This strange man's garden was down a flight of steps ! "Do you grow cabbages in your garden?" he asked, "or or diamonds?" "How's that?" demanded the other; then as if he had recovered from a momentary surprise, "Oh, a little of both." "Both!" "But but this ain't what you'd call a good year for diamonds. Nope. Too many cutworms." Johnnie wanted to ask if all gardeners wore hairy ONE-EYE 85 trousers. Then thought of a subject even more interest- ing. "Mister," he put a note of genuine sympathy into his voice "how'd you come t' lose your eye?" "My eye?" Grandpa's habit again. "Wai, this is how" He frowned with the eye he had left, and pursed his lips till his mustache stood out fearsomely. "Yes?" encouraged Johnnie, whose mind was picturing all sorts of exciting events in which the tall man, as the hero, fought and was injured, yet conquered his enemies. "Sonny," the other went on sadly, "I jes' natu'lly got my eye pinched in the door." Pinched in the door! Johnnie stared. Pinched in the doorf How could that happen? What might a man be doing that such an accident should come to pass? He put his free hand to one of his own eyes, fingering it inquiringly. Before he could come to any conclusion, the one-eyed man had halted before the blazing, glassed-in front of a restaurant that fairly dazzled the sight. It was, as Johnnie saw, such a place as only millionaires could afford to frequent. In the very front of it, behind that plate window, stood men in white, wearing spotless caps, who were cooking things in plain view of the street. And inside for the one-eyed man now boldly opened a door and entered, drawing Johnnie after him were more men in white, and women similarly garbed. The high walls of the great room were white too, like the hall of a sul- tan's palace. And seated at long tables were splendidly attired men and women, enjoying their supper as calmly as if all this magnificence were nothing to them nothing, though the tables were of marble! However, every man and woman in the wonderful place showed marked excitement on the appearance of Johnnie and his escort. They stopped eating. And how they stared! They bent to all sides, whispering. For a mo- 86 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY ment, Johnnie felt sure that, ragged as he was, the palace did not want him, and that he was about to be ordered out. He hung back, wishing with all his heart that he had done his hanging back earlier, outside the door, for instance. Then, relief; for he recognized that all the interest was kindly. One of the ladies in white a beautiful, stately person showed them grandly to chairs at either side of a table; a second lady brought them each a glass of ice water, and condescended to listen to their wants in the supper line. About them people smiled cordially. The one-eyed man was now bareheaded. And Johnnie, just as he was leaning back, prepared to enjoy himself to the full, suddenly noted, and with a pang, that his host, shorn of his headgear, was far less attractive in appearance than when covered; did not seem the strange, rakish, picturesque, almost wild figure of a moment be- fore, but civilized, slick, and mild. For one thing, that shut eye was in full view, which subtracted from the brigandish look of his countenance; for another, the shaggy trousers were naturally in total eclipse. Then he had mouse-colored hair which matched his mustache, whereas it should have been black or bright red. To make matters worse, the hair had recently been wet-combed. It was also fine and thin, especially over the top of the head, from where it had been brought straight down upon the forehead in a long, smooth, shining bang which (and this not a quarter-inch too soon) turned to sweep left. Contrasting with the oily appearance of the bang were some hairs at the very crown of the head. These a few leaned this way and that, making a wild tuft. Johnnie wished with his whole heart that the stranger would again put on his hat. Another feature thrust itself upon Johnnie's notice. ONE-EYE 87 Out from the front of his host's throat, to the ruination of such scant good looks as he had, protruded an Adam's apple that was as large and tanned and tough-looking as his nose. On that brown prominence a number of long pale hairs had their roots. These traveled now high, now low, as the one-eyed man drank deep of the ice water. And Johnnie felt that he understood the sad quiet of this queer, tall person. In his case the stork had been indeed cruel. The hat was swinging from a near-by hook one of a idouble line of hooks down the long room. Under the hat was a sign. Johnnie read it; then centered his stare on the hat. At any moment he expected to witness some- thing extraordinary. That was because across the pla- card, in neat, black letters, were the words: Watch your Hat and Coat. He reached to touch the one-eyed man. "lay, Mis- ter!" he whispered, "Y' see what it says? Well, what'll happen if we watch?" "Huh!" ejaculated the other, slewing that one green eye round to glance upward. "That's jes' it ! If y' watch, nuthin'll happen !" It was a good thing to know at the moment. For the second lady was back, bringing supper with her a smok- ing dish of mingled meat and vegetables, another of pork and beans, a cup of coffee, a glass of milk, an orange, and bread and butter. Butter! Johnnie could scarcely believe his eyes. He almost thought this was one of Buckle's meals, and that the butter would melt, figuratively speaking, before his longing look. But it stayed, a bright pat, as yellow as his own hair, on a doll's dish of a plate. And as Johnnie had not tasted butter for a very long time, he proceeded now, after the manner of the male, to clear that cunning little dish by eating the choicest thing first. 88 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY As for the one-eyed man, his knife, held in his left hand, was going up and down between the dish of beans and his mouth with mechanical regularity. At the bean dish, he covered the long blade with a ruddy heap. Then bal- ancing it all nicely, he swung it ceiling-ward, met it half-way by a quick duck of the mouse-covered head, and swept it clean with a dextrous, all-enveloping movement. Johnnie was hungry too. The butter gone, along with its complement of bread, he attacked his share of the meat and vegetables, using, however (which was to Cis's credit), a fork. The dish was delicious. He forgot even the placard. So far the one-eyed man had proven to be anything but a talkative person. Under the circumstances this was just as well. Johnnie could not have shared just then in a conservation. Twice during the meal he reached down ami let out the strap a hole or two. And for the first time in his life he was grateful for the roominess of Barber's old clothes. Half an hour, and Johnnie was, as he himself ex- pressed it, "stuffed like a sausage." The orange, he (dropped into his shirt-band to find a place with the books, there being no space for it internally. "Full up, eh?" demanded the one-eyed man, mopping at his mustache so hard with a paper napkin that Johnnie expected to see the hairy growth come away from its moorings under the leathery nose. "It was a feast!" pronounced Johnnie, borrowing from the language of his friend Aladdin. A moment later he gasped as he saw his host carelessly ring a fifty-cent piece upon the gorgeous marble of the table top. Then the meal had cost so much as that! As he trotted door- ward in the wake of the spurred heels, his boy's con- science faintly smote him. He almost felt that he had eaten too much. ONE-EYE 89 "My goodness !" he murmured, his glance missing the variegated mosaic of the floor. But still another moment, and the one-eyed man had halted at a desk which stood close to the front door, and was throwing down a one-dollar bill, together with some silver. Johnnie knew something was wrong. His host was forgetful, absent-minded. He realized that he must in- terfere. "You jus' paid the lady !" he warned in a hasty whisper. The other nodded sadly as he settled the big hat. "Yeppie," he returned. "But y' see, sonny, it's this-away : if you got jes' one eye, w'y, they make y' pay twicet!" Another gasp. It was so grossly unfair! However it had all proved to him beyond a doubt that here was a man of unlimited wealth. On several^occasions Uncle Albert's millionaire had treated Johnnie to candy and apples. But now the riches of that person seemed pitifully trivial. They fared forth and away in the same order as they had come. But not so silently. Food, it seemed, was what could rouse the one-eyed man to continued speech. He began to ask questions, all of them to the point, most of them embarrassing. "Say, what in the name o' Sam Hill y' got cached inside that shirt?" this was the first one. "Books," returned Johnnie, promptly, "and thfi orange." "Y' kinda cotton t' books, eh ?" the other next observecT "Not cotton," replied Johnnie, politely. "They're made of paper." "Y' don't tell me? -And what y j want me t' call y'?" "My my my," began Johnnie, trying to think and speak at the same time, with small success in either di- 90 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY rection. Then feeling himself pressed for time, and help- less, he fell back upon the best course, which was the simple truth. "My name's Johnnie Smith," he added. The truth was too simple to be believed, "Aw, git out !" laughed the one-eyed man, with a comical lift of the mustache. "And I s'pose y' live with the Vanderbilt fam- bly, eh?" Johnnie's eyes sparkled. There was in the question a certain something an ignoring of bare facts which made him believe that this man and he were kindred souls. "No, I don't live with 'era," he hastened to say. "But I talk to Mister Vanderbilt ev'ry day on the tel'phone." The stranger seemed neither doubtful nor amazed. Johnnie liked him better and better. Taking a fresh hold of the other's horny hand, he chattered on : "I talked to Mister Astor yesterday. He asked me t' go ridin' with him, but Ihad t' take a trip t' Niagarry." "Hope y* didn't hurt his feelin's none," the tone was grave: that one green eye looked anxious. Johnnie only shook his head. He did not care to go further with the discussion of the Astor-Simth friend- ship. However, the one-eyed man himself turned the conver- sation, "Goin' back home t'night?" he wanted to know. Johnnie raised startled eyes. "N-n-no," he returned. "I-i-if I was to, I'd have to take a terrible lickin'." "Mm." The one-eyed man seemed to understand; then, presently, "Your paw? or your maw?" "No relation at all," protested Johnnie. "Just the man where I live." "He feeds y' O. K.," put in the other. "I was noticin' back yonder in the chuck-house how plump y' are." Johnnie said nothing. There were things he could tell, if he wanted to, which had to do with comparisons between Aunt Sophie's table and Big Tom's. But these things ONE-EYE 91 would contradict the one-eyed man; and Johnnie knew from experience that grown-ups do not like to be con- tradicted. Just ahead was that great palace, lifting dark towers against the glowing night sky. If the one-eyed man lived there, if the palace actually contained a garden (and it seemed large enough to contain any number of gardens), Johnnie wanted, if possible, to spend some time under that vast roof. So it was wise not to say anything that might bring him into disfavor; especially when what he wanted most now was shelter and a reading light. He grasped the other's hand firmly and flashed up what was intended for a beguiling smile. "He don't ever feed me like you do," he declared, with dazzling diplomacy. The compliment was grandly passed over. "But he shore dresses y' tiptop !" was the next assertion. At that, some inkling of the other's real meaning came to Johnnie. He tried, but in vain, to catch that single eye. But even in the half light it was busy taking in every detail of Big Tom's shirt and trousers. "Y* y' think so ?" Johnnie ventured, ready to laugh. "Think so !" cried the one-eyed man, spiritedly. "Wy, he must jes' about go broke at it! Lookee! Twicet as much shirt as y' need, and at least five times as much pants !" Certainly there was no denying the statement. How- ever, there was another side to Barber's generosity that Johnnie longed to discuss. Yet once more he decided to invite no argument. "It'll be worse if I had t' wear girl's clothes," was what he returned, philosophically. The street was dark just there. He was not able to mark the facial expression which now accompanied a curious sound from the region of the Adam's apple. But when the light at the palace corner was reached, a quick glance showed a stern visage, with mouth set hard and 92 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY that green eye burning. And Johnnie's heart went out of him, for now he doubted again. They paused at the foot of those steps. "Do y' go t' school?" asked the one-eyed man. Johnnie shook his head. "He don't let me," he declared. But he was as careful as ever to speak with no bitterness. Without question, in this tall stranger Big Tom had an ally. "He don't let y'," drawled the other. "Don't let y' go t' school. Hm! Say, y' know, I think I'd like that feller!" He must get away! Suddenly throwing all the weight of himself and his books into the effort, Johnnie tried to pull free of his companion, using both hands. The one-eyed man held on. His grasp was like steel yes, even like Big Tom's grasp. "Aw, sonny !" he cried, as if suddenly repentent. Then seizing Johnnie under both arms, he swung him to the top of those steps. That same moment wide doors opened before them, and a vast, dim place was disclosed to the boy's astonished view. "Why ! What ! Oh !" he marveled. The one-eyed man shut the doors by retreating and giving them a push with his back. Then he thrust Johnnie toward a second flight of steps. These led down to a basement only partly lighted, full of voices, tramp- lings, and strange smells. Frightened, Johnnie made out the upraised heads of horses lines of them! He could see a group of men too, each as big-hatted and shaggy- trousered as this one who still had him about his middle. A great cry went up from that group "Yip! yip! yip ! yip ! yee-e-e-e-eow! One-Eye !" "Oh, Mister," breathed Johnnie, "is it the circus?" CHAPTER X THE SURPRISE IT on t* the size of it! .... Oh, my Aunt Sally! .... Lookee what the cat bmng in! .... Boys, ketch me whilst I faint! .... Am I seein' it, or ain't I w'ich? .... Say! they's more down cellar in a teacup !" Johnnie understood that it was all about himself, and even guessed that he looked a little queer to Jjhese men who appeared so strange to him. They were gathered around in a boisterous circle, exclaiming and laughing. He revolved slowly, examining each. Some were stocky and some spindling. Two or three were almost boyish ; the others, as old as One-Eye. But in the matter of dress, one was exactly like every other one at least so far as could be judged by a small boy in a moment so charged with excitement. He felt no resentment at their banter, sensing that it was kindly. He liked them. He liked the great, mysteri- ous basement. He felt precisely like another Aladdin. No magical smoke had gone up, and no stone had been lifted. Yet here he was in a new and entrancing world! He would have liked to stay right there at the foot of the stairs for a long time, in order to give adequate study to every one of the shaggy men. But One-Eye suddenly grasped him by the hand again and led him away down a long, curving alley that took them past a score of horses. Each horse was in a stall of its own, and under 93 94 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY each was straw as yellow as Johnnie's own hair. Electric bulbs lit the whole place grandly, disclosing saddles and straps and other horse gear, hung at intervals along the alley. la one of his swift visions, he now saw himself as a member of this fasciniating crew, wearing, like them, long, hairy breeches, a wide hat, spurs, and a neckerchief, and setting gaily forth in a cavalcade to be admired by a marveling city! Far along, where the alley swerved sharply, One-Eye halted him. Here was a vacant stall, except that it was half-filled with straw. A coat hung in it, and in the iron feed box in one corner nested a pair of boots. Plainly this was a camping place, and Johnnie thrilled as they turned into It, and he stood almost waist deep in clean bedding. "Have a chair," insisted One-Eye, with a gentle shoulder pat. Johnnie sat. Even as he went down he felt that he really was coming to understand this new friend better. Of course there was no chair. It was just the other's way of saying things an odd, funny way. His back braced against a stall side, he grinned across at One-Eye, now squatted opposite him, and smoking, this in splendid disregard of a sign which read plainly: No Smoking. Johnnie did not speak. His experience with Big Tom had taught him at least one valuable lesson : to be sparing with his tongue. So he waited the pleasure of his com- panion, sunk in a trough of the straw, ringed round with books, his thumbs in his palms and his fingers shut tight upon the thumbs through sheer emotion, which also show- ed in two red spots on his cheeks. "Reckon y' don't want t' go out no more t'night," ob- served One-Eye, after a moment. THE SURPRISE 95 "No." Johnnie held his breath, hoping for an invita- tion. It came. "Thought y' wouldn't. So camp right here, and to-morra we'll powwow." "All right." Johnnie's voice shook with relief and de- light; with pride, too, at heing thus honored. He rolled up the coat for a pillow when One-Eye rose and threw it Idown to him; and being offered a horse blanket, pulled it up to his brows and lay back obediently, to the peril of the orange, which was under him, and so to his own Discomfort. "So long, sonny." The single green eye gleamed down at him almost affectionately from under the wide brim. "Thank y'," returned Johnnie. For a long time he lay without moving, this for fear One-Eye might come back. When he took his books out of his shirt, he did not read, though the stall w,s brightly lighted, only watched a pair of nervous brown ears that kept showing above the stall-side in front of him. Some- thing was troubling him very much. It seemed to be some- thing in his forehead ; but it was in his throat most of all ; though that spot at the end of his breastbone felt none too well. Whatever it was, it had a great deal to 'do with Cis (the mere thought of her made his eyes smart) and with Grand- pa. Freedom and new friends he had; more books, too, than he could read in a year or so it seemed to him as he measured the pile under the orange. Then why, having the best bed he had known since the one with the blue knobs at Aunt Sophie's, why could he not go to sleep? or, if he was not sleepy, why did he not want to read? or summon to him Aladdin, or David with Goliath, or Mr. Rockefeller? He pulled hard at his hair. The truth was, he was learning something about him- 96 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY self. He was finding out that to get away from danger was only part of his problem: the other part was to get away from his own thoughts, his feelings in short, his conscience. For try as he might, as he lay there, he could not keep the wheel chair out of his sight ! It stood before him in the yellow bedding, and the little old man seated in it kept holding out trembling hands. The thin, bearded face was distorted pathetically, and tears streamed from the faded eyes. If Johnnie turned his head away from the chair, he met other eyes eyes young and blue and gentle. Poor Cis, so shy always, and silent; so loving and good! Down into One-Eye's coat went Johnnie's small nose, and so hard that to this unfreckled feature was instantly transferred the pain in his forehead and throat ano! breast; and his hurt was for a moment changed into the physical, ^fvhich was easier to bear. Yes, they were left behind alone, those two who were so dear to him. Even with the horse blanket over both ears he could hear the wheel chair going from the stove to the window, from the window to the hall door, while the old soldier whimpered and called. He could hear Cis call, too his name. But it was Grandpa who hurt him the most. Cis was quite grown-up, and had girl friends, and her work, and the freedom to go to and from it. But Grandpa! his old heart was wrapped up in his Johnnie. So childish that he was virtually a little boy, he had for Johnnie the respect and affection that a little boy gives to a bigger one. Next, bright, shining, birdlike eyes were smiling at him Mrs. Kukor ! The horse blanket shook. At either side of Johnnie's nose a damp spot came on One-Eye's coat. But fortunately the trembling and the tears were seen by no human eyes, only by a brown pair that belonged to those brown ears. And presently, when the nearest THE SURPRISE 97 lights went out, leaving Johnnie's retreat in gloom, the pictures that smote him changed to those of a sleeping dream, and he wandered on and on through a vast white garden that grew hats and coats in a double row. When he wakened, the lights were on again. As he rose he made up his mind to win One-Eye's consent to his remaining in this big palace which had turned out to be a horse palace. " 'Cause I dassn't go back !" lie (decided. The enormity of what he had done in leaving the flat and staying away a whole night, he now realized. A creepy feeling traveled up and down his spine at the thought of it, and he shook to his calloused heels. Then with a grin, he remembered that no one knew where he belonged. Furthermore, as One-Eye did not believe that Johnnie Smith was his real name, he had only to hint that he was somebody else, which wyuld throw his new friend completely off the track. He leaned against the stall and pulled at his Hair, con- sidering that problem of staying on. To his way of thinking, there was only one good scheme by which to win the approbation of anybody, and that scheme was work. So when he had tugged at his hair till the last straw was out of it, he pattered off down the runway, determined to find some task that needed to be done. The great place appeared strangely deserted as to men. So he came across no one whom he could help. As for the occupants of the giant circle of stalls, he did not know what service he could offer them. He felt fairly sure that horses' faces were not washed of a morning. And they had all been fed. But why not comb their hair? Searching up and down for a possible comb, he spied a bucket. Then he knew what he could do. The job was not without its drawbacks. For one thing, the horses were afraid of him. They wrenched at their hitching-chains when he came close to their heels, 98 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY or blew noisily, or bunched themselves into the forward ends of their stalls, turning on him startled, white-rimmed eyes. He offered the dripping bucket only to the more quiet ones. He worked his way down the long line that stood near- est the spigot, now staggering and splashing as he lugged a full pail, now scampering back happily with an empty one. And he was beside a stairway, and on the point of taking in a drink to the horse stalled closest to the entrance, when he heard several voices, the creak of doors, and foot- steps. So he paused, the bucket swinging from both hands, until half a dozen pairs of shaggy legs appeared just above him. Then as the big hats were bobbing into view, so that he knew his labors could be seen and appre- ciated, he faced round with the pail and entered the stall. The next, moment there sounded a dull bang, followed by the loud ring of tin, a breathless cry, and the swish of flying water as Johnnie came hurtling headlong out of the stall, the bucket preceding him, a shod hoof in his immediate wake, and the contents of the pail showering in all directions. There was a second bang also dull, as he landed against the bottom step of the stairs at the very feet of the horrified men. A chorus of cries went up. But Johnnie's voice was not a part of it. Hurt, winded, and thoroughly scared, he lay in a little ragged heap, a book thrusting up the big shirt here and there, so that he looked to have broken not a few bones. "That flea-bit mare!" charged One-Eye, dropping Johnnie's breakfast and picking up the boy. "Pore kid ! . . . . And he was workin' ! . . . . Is he hurt bad? .... That ongrateful bronc'! .... Tot- in' the blamed thing water, too !" thus they sympathized with him as he swayed against One-Eye, who was steadying him on his feet. THE SURPRISE 99 Breath ancl tears came at the same moment the latter in spite of him. But he wept in anger, in disappointment and chagrin and resentment, rather than in pain. The books having now fallen into place in the pouch of the shirt, it was evident there were no fractures. "Shore of it," pronounced One-Eye. "I've felt him all over." Furthermore, a book had undoubtedly received the full force of the implanted hoof; and save for a darkening patch on Johnnie's left arm, he was as good as ever, though slightly damp as to both spirits and clothing. For it was his feelings that were the more injured. His proffer of a drink had been repaid by an ignominious kick that had landed upon him under the very eyes of those whom he most wanted to impress. "Now what'd Mister Vanderbilt say if he knowecl!" mourned One-Eye; "or Mister Astor! They'3 be plumb sore on me! My! my! my!" These remarks shifted Johnnie's inner vision to other scenes, and having already guessed that he was not broken in two, he considered One-Eye's plaint with something of a twinkle in his eyes, and fell once more to dragging at his hair. Willing hands now refilled the battered bucket and washed his tear-wet face. After which One-Eye recovered the breakfast an egg sandwich and a banana and pro- ceeded to lay down the law. "With that hurt arm o' your'n, sonny," he began, "it's back to home, sweet home. And if that feller, Tom, licks y', w'y, I'll jes' nat'ally lick him." "You couldn't lick him," informed Johnnie, turning his sandwich about in search for a location thin enough to admit of a first bite. "He's the strongest longshoreman in N'York. He can carry five sacks of flour on his back, and one under both arms." 100 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY Disdainfully One-Eye lifted his lone brow, an3 Ke passed over the remark. "The point is," he continued, "that if y' ever figger t' go back, now's the time." Johnnie saw the argument. And to his own surprise he found himself willing to go. "Prob'ly Big Tom'll only pull my ear," he said philosophically. "And he won't do that much, even, if if yov?\\ go along." "Will I!" cried One-Eye. "Wai, it'd take a twenty- mule team t' holt me back!" "Honest?" For this fellow was a wag, and there was no telling what he really meant to 80. "If I don't, I'll eat my shaps !" promised One-Eye. "Then I guess you better tie up my arm," went on Johnnie, which bit of inspired diplomacy sent the whole sympathizing group into whoops of laughter. "Ain't he the ticket?" demanded one man. One-Eye 'lowed that he was. The tying was clone. First the purplish spot was swathed in white; and as the injury was below the ravel- ing edge of the sleeve, the bandage was in plain sight, and carried conviction with it. Next a sling was made out of a blue-patterned handkerchief of One-Eye's. Proudly Johnnie contemplated the dressing. Here was not only insurance against a whipping, but that which' lent him a peculiar and desirable distinction. "You'll go all the way up with me ?" he asked One-Eye. (Now was the time to make sure of the future.) "Y' see it's Sunday. He'll be home." "Up and in," vowed the latter. "Come along!" There were hearty good-bys to be said, and Johnnie had his well arm thoroughly shaken before One-Eye helped him climb the stairs. He would gladly have prolonged his leave-taking. For one thing, he had not half inspected that mammoth basement not to mention the huge, dim place overhead. 'And the horse that had kicked him THE SURPRISE 101 merited a second look. But "Let's go whilst the goin's good," counseled One-Eye. So Johnnie fell in beside him, holding well to the front that interesting bandage. "Y' live far?" One-Eye wanted to know. This was when they were out by that lamp post which had lighted Johnnie's reading. "Clear 'way down to the other end of Broadway al- most," boasted Johnnie. 'N' then you go over towards the Manhattan Bridge." "That so! Clear way down! And how'd y' git up this far?" That green eye was as keen as a blade. "Rode up in a' automobile." Johnnie did not like to spoil the picture by explaining that the automobile was a truck, and that he had found it strewn with chicken- feathers. "All right," returned One-Eye. "Then jre'll ride down." Inserting a knuckle into his mouth between two widely separated teeth that were like lone sentinels, he blew a high, piercing summons. At the same time, he swung his arm at a passing taxicab, stopping it almost electrically. And the thing was done. As the taxicab rolled to the curb, Johnnie turned his back upon it for a last look at the palace. How huge it was! "And I'll bet the Afercan magician couldn't even move it," he decided. He promised himself that one day he would come back to it, and climb to its several towers. "A-a-a-a-all aboard!" One-Eye lit a large, magnifi- cently banded cigar. He handed a second, fully as thick and splendid, to the staring, but respectful, individual who was to drive them a young, dark man, very dirty, and in his shirt-sleeves (he was seated upon his coat), who seemed so impressed by the elder of his passengers as to be beyond speech. "Over t' Broadway, and down," instructed One- Eye. "We'll tell y' when t' whoa." Calmly Johnnie climbed into the taxicab, and carelessly 102 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY he took his seat. Then the car plunged westward before a reeking cloud of its own smoke. Under way, he elevated that small nose of his and drank deep of the to him good smell of gasoline. Had not his Aunt Sophie often pronounced it clean and healthy? However, despite this upward tilting, he did not appear to be at all proud of the fact that he was riding; and One-Eye fell to watching him, that green eye round witK wonder. For here was this little ragamuffin seated high and dry in a first class taxi, and speeding through the city in style, yet with the supreme indifference of a young millionaire ! "City younguns shore take the bak'ry!" One-Eye ob- served admiringly, aiming the remark at his driver, who sat somewhat screwed about on his seat in such a way that he could, from block to block, as some other car slowed his machine, regale his astonished eyes with those fur-fronted breeches. "Oh, this banana'll be enough," politely returned Johnnie, having caught the word bakery but missed the real meaning of the statement. Calmly as ever, he divested the fruit of its skin and cast the long peelings upon the floor of the cab. In his time he had sat for hours at a stretch in the regal limousines of Uncle Albert's rich man ; and he regarded a taxicab without awe. One-Eye chuckled. Presently Johnnie was dragging at his mop as he ate. >Vhich was proof that he was meditating. Indeed he was thinking so hard that he failed to note the large amount of attention which he and his companion were attracting. So far he had not mentioned Grandpa to this friendly stranger this for fear of harming his own case, of has- tening his return home. Now the omission somehow ap- peared to be almost a denial of the truth. Nor had he THE SURPRISE 103 spoken of Cis. All this called for correction before the flat was reached. By way of clearing up the whole matter, he began with an introduction of Cis. "There's a girl lives where I do," he announced casually. "Y* don't say! Sister? Cousin? She must V missed yV "No relation at all. But she's awful nice I like her. She's sixteen, goin' on seventeen, and I'm goin' t' steal her away soon's ever I grow up." "I git y'. Say, Mister, go slow with this gasoline bronc' of } r our'n ! Y' know I'd like t' see little old Cheyenne oncet more before I check in," this to the chauffeur, as the taxicab shaved the flank of a street car going at high speed, then caromed to rub axles with a brother machine. "You'll meet her," promised Johnnie, who did not think they were going too fast, and who had completely forgotten it was Sunday, which meant that Cis would be at home without fail ; " 'cause once before, when I burnt my hand, she stayed away from work two whole days. Big Tom never lets Grandpa be alone." (He thought that rather a neat way to bring in the old man.) With a sidewise tipping of the big hat, One-Eye di- rected a searching look to the bare head at his elbow. "Other days, you take care of said ole man," he returned. Johnnie nodded. "I like him." The silence that followed was embarrasing. He knew One-Eye was watching him. But not liking to glance up, he was unable to judge of his companion's attitude. So he began again, changing the subject. "Cis is awful pretty," he confided. "Once she was a May Queen in Central Park for her class at school, only it wasn't in May, and she had all the ice cream she could eat. Mrs. Kukor made her a white dress for that time, and I made some art'ficial vi'lets for 'round her hair. Oh, she looked 104 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY fine! And she saw the Prince of Wales when he was in N'York and ever since she's liked just him." One*Eye took the cigar from his mouth. "It'd be a grand match for her," he conceded. His tone implied that the alliance with Royalty was by no means a remote possibility. "A-a-a-aw!" scoffed Johnnie, flashing up at One-Eye a wise smile. "All the girls at Cis's fac'try seen him, too, and they all like him just the same as she does. But the Prince, he's got t* marry a Princess." One-Eye agreed. "Pretty tough," he observed sympa- thetically, and went back to his cigar. "So Cis'll have t' marry a movin'-picture actor," con- cluded Johnnie ; " or a cowboy." At that the cigar fairly popped from One-Eye's coun- tenance. "e\ cowboy!" he cried, the green eye dancing. "W'y, that'd be better'n a Prince!" "It would?" Johnnie considered the idea. "Certainly would t' my way of thinkinV In their brief acquaintance One-Eye had never before shown such interest, such animation. "How d' you mean?" "I mean," answered One-Eye, stoutly, "that cowboys is noble fellers !" Before Johnnie could argue the matter further, or ask any one of the thousand questions that he would have liked to get explained regarding cowboys, the driver in- terrupted to demand how much farther southward he was expected to go; and as Chambers Street was even then just ahead, the eastern turn was made at once, which set Johnnie off along a new line of thought his coming or- deal. And this ordeal was not the meeting with Big Tom, which he dreaded enough, but which he believed would not have to be endured for at least some hours; it was the THE SURPRISE 105 Having to face, in company with this rich and important acquaintance, that gang of boys who so delighted to taunt him. Anxiously his gray eyes searched ahead of the taxicab, which was now picking its way too swiftly through streets crowded with children. This ability to invest the present with all the reality of the future, how wonderful it could be ! but how terrible ! For he was suffering great- ly in advance, and writhing on the leather-covered seat, and all but pulling out his yellow hair. "Arm ache y'?" One-Eye wanted to know. "Guess so," faltered Johnnie. Then his face turned a sickly pale, and he shouldered a bit closer to his escort. A feeling of suffocation meant that his breath had stopped. And upon his untanned forehead oozed the perspira- tion of dismay. Also, his cheeks mottled. For just before them were two of those boys whom he feared !- *-as if they had sprung from a seam in the sidewalk! They were staring at the taxicab. They were looking at Johnnie (who stole a nervous look back). Now they were follow- ing on! Johnnie's jaw set; his teeth clenched. He steeled him- self to bear public insult. Too many children had now brought the taxicab down to a crawling gait. Slowly it rolled on through shouting, Sunday-garbed youngsters. And fast grew the crowd which kept pace with it. But it was a silent crowd, as Johnnie's ears told him, for his chin was on his breast and his eyes were fixed upon the meter in agony, as if he, and not One-Eye, would have to pay a charge which had already mounted high in three figures. Why was that crowd silent? And what were those boys preparing to do two were now several who held all things in scorn? who made even the life of the patrolman on the beat a thing to be dreaded? 106 THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY The uncertainty was crushing. "Home in a jiffy," soothed One-Eye, who felt sure the ride had been too much of a strain. "Stop here," whispered Johnnie, catching sight, after a turn or two, of one of those entrances which gave to the area. The taxicab stopped. In a hush that actually hurt, One-Eye rose and descended, flipping a five-dollar bill to the driver. "But don't you go," he directed. "I'll want y' t' tote me back uptown." Johnnie rose then feebly. Once more he held that bandaged arm to the front. His faltering eyes said that the injury was a plea a plea for courteous treatment before this distinguished stranger. Oh, he knew he was a girlish-headed ragbag, but if they would only spare him this once! One-EyC took his hand. "Step careful, sonny," he advised, almost tenderly. Then to those pressing round, "Back up, won't y' ? Give this boy room ? Don't y' see he's hurt?" This was what so emboldened Johnnie that he decided, even as a bare foot sought the running-board of the ma- chine, to take one good look around. He paused, there- fore, lifted his head, and let his glance deliberately sweep the crowd. What he saw fairly took his breath; brought a flusK to his sober little face, and strengthened him, body and soul but especially spine. For before him was a staring, admiring, respectful, yes, and fascinated, even awe-struck, assemblage. There were grown people in it. There were more above, to both sides, leaning out of windows. And every mouth was wide! Was it One-Eye in his startling garb? or the profes- sional touch to his own appearance, in the shape of that dramatic, handkerchief-slung arm? or was it both? THE SURPRISE 107 No matter. Instantly reacting to this solemn recep- tion, Johnnie managed a pale smile. "Much obliged!" this he said gaily as his feet touched the concrete. He was experiencing such pride as had been his before only in his "thinks." This was a moment never to be forgotten! "Now maybe I better lead ha?" What satisfaction there was in addressing One-Eye thus familiarly in the teeth of the enemy! "Break trail!" said One-Eye. Then, "Gangway!" he sang out to the crowd. Next, with a swift circular fling of an arm, he scattered a handful of small coins to right and left upon the street. The crowd swayed, split, and scattered like the money. A path cleared. One-Eye at his side, Johnnie stepped forward. Now he would have liked to hang back, to loiter a bit, delaying their disappearance, and enjoying the situation. But One-Eye, ignoring every one, as if crowds bored him, was headed for the hall like a fox to its hole, taking long, impressive, shaggy-legged strides. Behind, the boys Johnnie had feared scrambled without shame for One-Eye's small silver. While he, the "Old clothes," the "Girl's hair," the mocked and despised, was walking, as man with man, beside the wonderful One-Eye before whom those same boys had not dared to utter a single slur ! His satisfaction was complete! "Home again !" he cried, feeling ready to