THE BOY ON THE PORCH
He liked the school immensely and the fellows in it. And he liked
the town, with its tree-shaded streets and comfortable old white
houses. A row of the latter faced the Academy from across the asphalt
thoroughfare below the sloping campus, home-like residences set in turf
and gardens, guarded by huge elms and maples. Beyond them began, a
block further east, the stores. One could get nearly anything he wanted
in the two short blocks of West street, without journeying closer to
the center of town. In school parlance this shopping district was known
as Bagdad. Further away one found moving picture houses in variety.
Northward at some distance lay the river, and under certain not too
painful restrictions one might enjoy boating and canoeing. On Sunday
Alton rang with the peeling of church bells and Bagdad was empty of
life save, perhaps, for a shrill-voiced purveyor of newspapers from
whom one could obtain for a dime an eight-section New York paper with
which to litter the floor after the return from church. On that first
Sunday Slim acted as guide and Leonard learned what lay around and
about. They penetrated to the sidewalk-littered foreign quarter beyond
the railroad, where Slim tried modern Greek on a snappily-attired
gentleman who to-morrow would be presiding over a hat cleaning
emporium. The result was not especially favorable. Either Slim’s
knowledge of Greek was too limited or, as he explained it, the other
chap didn’t know his own language. Then they wandered southward, to
the Hill, and viewed the ornate mansions of the newly rich. Here were
displayed tapestry brick and terra cotta, creamy limestone and colorful
tile, pergolas and stained glass, smooth lawns and concrete walks,
immaculate hedges and dignified shrubs. Being a newer part of town,
the trees along the streets were small and threw little shade on the
sun-heated pavement, and this, combined with the fact that to reach the
Hill one had of necessity to negotiate a grade, left the boys rather
out of breath and somewhat too warm for comfort. On the whole, Leonard
liked the older part of Alton much better, and confided the fact to his
companion.
“So do I,” agreed Slim. “Of course these places up here have a lot of
things the old houses lack; like tennis courts and garages and sleeping
porches; but there’s an old white house on River street, just around
the corner from Academy, that hits me about right. I’ll show it to you
some time. I guess it’s about a hundred years old; more, likely; but,
gee, it’s a corking old place. When I have a house of my own, General,
none of these young city halls or Carnegie libraries for mine! I want
a place that looks as if some one lived in it. Take a squint at that
chocolate brick arrangement over there. Can you imagine any one being
really comfortable in it? Why, if I lived there I’d be always looking
for a bell-hop to spring out on me and grab whatever I had and push me
over to the register so I could sign my name and get a key. That’s a
fine, big porch, but I’ll bet you wouldn’t ever think of sitting out
there on a summer evening in your shirt sleeves and sprinkling water on
that trained mulberry tree!”
“I don’t believe,” laughed Leonard, “that they put anything as common
as water on that cute thing. They probably have a Mulberry Tree Tonic
or something like that they bathe it in. Say, there is some one on the
porch, just the same, and it looks to me as if he was waving to us.”
“Why, that’s Johnny McGrath!” said Slim. “Hello, Johnny! That where you
live?”
“Sure. Come on over!”
Slim looked inquiringly at Leonard. “Want to go?” he asked in low
tones. “Johnny’s a good sort.”
Leonard nodded, if without enthusiasm, and Slim led the way across the
ribbon of hot asphalt and up the three stone steps that led, by the
invariable concrete path, to the wide porch. A boy of about Leonard’s
age stood awaiting them at the top of the steps, a round-faced chap
with a nose liberally adorned with freckles and undeniably tip-tilted.
He wore white flannel trousers and a gray flannel coat, and there was a
liberal expanse of gray silk socks exposed above the white shoes.
“Want you to meet my friend Grant,” said Slim, climbing the wide steps.
“General, this is Johnny McGrath, the only Sinn Feiner in school. What
you been doing to-day, Johnny? Making bombs?”
Johnny smiled widely and good-humoredly. “You’re the only bum I’ve seen
so far,” he replied. “Come up and cool off.”
“That’s a rotten pun,” protested Slim, accepting the invitation to sit
down in a comfortable wicker chair. “Say, Johnny, there must be money
in Sinn Feining.” He looked approvingly about the big porch with its
tables and chairs, magazines and flowering plants. “Is this your real
home, or do you just hire this for Sundays?”
“We’ve been living here going on three years,” answered Johnny. “Ever
since dad made his pile.” He turned to Leonard and indulged in a truly
Irish wink of one very blue eye. “Slim thinks he gets my goat,” he
explained, “but he doesn’t. Sure, I know this is a bit of a change from
The Flats.”
“The Flats?” repeated Leonard questioningly.
“That’s what they call it over beyond the Carpet Mills,” explained
Johnny. “Shanty Town, you know; Goatville; see?”
“Oh, yes! I don’t believe I’ve been there yet.”
“Well, it isn’t much to look at,” laughed Johnny. “We lived there until
about three years ago. We weren’t as poor as most of them, but there
were six of us in five rooms, Grant. Then dad made his pile and we
bought this place.” Johnny looked about him not altogether approvingly
and shook his head. “It’s fine enough, all right, but, say, fellows,
it’s awfully--what’s the word I seen--saw the other day? Stodgy, that’s
it! I guess it’s going to take us another three years to get used to
it.”
“He misses having the pig in the parlor,” observed Slim gravely to
Leonard. The latter looked toward Johnny McGrath anxiously, but Johnny
only grinned.
“’Twas never that bad with us,” he replied, “but I mind the day the
Cleary’s nanny-goat walked in the kitchen and ate up half of dad’s
nightshirt, and mother near killed him with a flat-iron!”
“Why did she want to kill your father with a flat-iron?” asked Slim
mildly.
“The goat, I said.”
“You did not, Johnny. You told us it was a nanny-goat and said your
mother nearly killed ‘him.’ If that doesn’t mean your father--”
“Well, anyway, I had to lick Terry Cleary before there was peace
between us again,” laughed Johnny. Then his face sobered. “Sure, up
here on the Hill,” he added, “you couldn’t find a scrap if you was
dying!”
The others had to laugh, Slim ejaculating between guffaws: “Johnny,
you’ll be the death of me yet!” Johnny’s blue eyes were twinkling again
and his broad Irish mouth smiling.
“It’s mighty queer,” he went on, “how grand some of these neighbors of
ours are up here. Take the Paternos crowd next door here. Sure, six
years ago that old Dago was still selling bananas from a wagon, and
to-day--wow!--the only wagon he rides in is a limousine. And once, soon
after we moved in, mother was in the back yard seeing the maid hung the
clothes right, or something, and there was Mrs. Paternos’ black head
stuck out of an upstairs window, and thinking to be neighborly, mind
you, mother says to her, ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ or something like that,
and the old Eye-talian puts her nose in the air and slams down the
windy--window, I mean!”
“You’ve got to learn, Johnny,” explained Slim, “that you can’t become
an aristocrat, even in this free country of ours, in less than five
years. That gives you about two to go, son. Be patient.”
“Patient my eye,” responded Johnny serenely. “It’ll take more than five
years to make aristocrats of the McGraths, for they’re not wanting it.
Just the same, Slim, it makes me sick, the way some folks put on side
just because they’ve been out of the tenements a few years. I guess the
lot of us, and I’m meaning you, too, couldn’t go very many years back
before we’d be finding bananas or lead pipe or something ple-bee-an
like that hanging on the old family tree!”
“Speak for yourself,” answered Slim with much dignity. “Or speak for
the General here. As for the Stapleses, Johnny, I’d have you know
that we’re descended from Jeremy Staples, who owned the first inn in
Concord, New Hampshire, and who himself served a glass of grog to
General George Washington!”
“That would be a long time ago,” said Johnny.
“It would; which is why we can boast of it. If it happened last year
we’d be disclaiming any relationship to the old reprobate.”
“McGrath’s right,” said Leonard, smiling but thoughtful. “We’re all
descended from trade or something worse. I know a fellow back home
whose several-times-great grandfather was a pirate with Stede Bonnet,
and his folks are as proud of it as anything. If it isn’t impertinent,
McGrath, how did your father make his money?”
“In the War, like so many others. He was a plumber, you see. He’d gone
into business for himself a few years before and was doing pretty
well. Joe--that’s my oldest brother--was with him. Well, then the War
came and Joe read in the paper where they were going to build a big
cantonment for the soldiers over in Jersey. ‘Why not try to get the job
to put in some of the plumbing?’ says he. ‘Sure, we haven’t a chance,’
says my dad. ‘’Twill be the big fellows as will get that work.’ But Joe
got a copy of the specifications, or whatever they’re called, and set
down and figured, and finally persuaded the Old Man to take a chance.
So they did, and some surprised they were when they were awarded the
contract! Dad said it was too big for them and they’d have to give some
of it to another, but Joe wouldn’t stand for that. He had a hard time
getting money for the bond, or whatever it was the Government wanted,
but he did it finally, and they did the job and did it honestly. Their
figures were away under the estimate of the other firms, but in spite
of that they made themselves rich. Now I say why isn’t dad as much of
a gentleman as old Pete Paternos? Sure lead pipe’s as clean as rotten
bananas!”
“That’s just the point,” replied Slim. “The rotten bananas are old and
the lead pipe’s new. Give the lead pipe another two years, Johnny, and
you can slap Paternos on the back and get away with it.”
“I’m more likely to slap him on the head with a crow-bar,” grumbled
Johnny. Then: “Say, fellows, want some lemonade?”
“Not for worlds,” answered Slim promptly. “Where is it?”
“I’ll have Dora make a pitcher in a shake of a lamb’s tail,” said
Johnny eagerly, as he disappeared. Slim smiled over at Leonard and
Leonard smiled back. Then the latter exclaimed protestingly:
“Just the same, he’s a mighty decent sort, Slim!”
“Of course he is,” agreed the other calmly. “I told you that across the
street. Johnny’s all right.”
“Well, then, aren’t you--aren’t you afraid of hurting his feelings?
Talking to him the way you do, I mean.”
“Not a bit. Johnny knows me, and he knows that what I say is for
the good of his soul. We aristocrats, General, have got to make the
hoi polloi understand that they can’t shove into our sacred circle
off-hand. They’ve got to train for it, old man; work up; go through an
initiation.”
Leonard observed Slim in puzzlement and doubt.
“Why,” Slim went on soberly, “what do you suppose old Jeremy Staples
would say if he could see me now hob-nobbing with the son of a plumber?
The poor old rascal would turn over in his grave, General. Bet you he’d
turn over twice!”
“Oh,” said Leonard, “I thought you meant it!”
“Who says I don’t? Ah, that sounds mighty cheerful, Johnny! Sure you
didn’t put any arsenic in it? My folks are English on my uncle’s side!”
“I’d not waste good arsenic on the likes of you,” answered Johnny,
pouring from a frosted glass pitcher. Followed several moments of
deeply appreciative silence during which visitors and host applied
themselves to the straws that emerged from the glasses. Then Slim
sighed rapturously and held his glass out for more.
“It may be poisoned, Johnny,” he said, “but I’ll take a chance.”
“Are you at Alton?” Leonard asked presently of his host.
“Didn’t I tell you he was?” asked Slim in mild surprise. “He certainly
is. Johnny’s the one bright spot on the basket ball team. You’ll never
know the poetry of motion, General, until you’ve seen him toss a
back-hander into the hoop. The only trouble with him is that, true to
his race, he always mistakes a basket ball game for the Battle of the
Boyne. At least, I think I mean the Boyne. Do I, Johnny?”
“Maybe. I wasn’t there. Anyhow, you’re giving Grant here a wrong idea
of me entirely. I’m the most peaceable lad on the team, Slim Staples,
and you know it.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” protested Slim stoutly. “All I do know is
that whenever you’re playing the casualties are twice as heavy as when
you’re not. Oh, I know you have a foxy way of handing out the wallops,
and that the referee seldom catches you at it, but facts are facts,
Johnny, and I’m nothing if not factotum.”
“You’re nothing if not insulting,” corrected Johnny. “Why does he call
you ‘General?’” he continued of Leonard.
“Why, he hit on that--” Leonard began.
“Is it possible you never heard of General Grant?” demanded Slim
incredulously.
“Oh, that’s it? Well,” as Slim stood up to go and Leonard followed his
example, “I’m pleased to have met you. Come again, won’t you? I’ll not
be asking Slim, for he’s too insulting.”
“Oh, now that I know where you live and what good lemonade you keep
on draught, I’ll come frequently,” said Slim kindly. “Maybe we might
drop around next Sunday afternoon about this time, or a little before.
You’d better make it a point to have plenty of lemons on hand.”
“Why, if you come we’ll not be without them,” Johnny assured him
sweetly.
“Fine! And now, before we go, may we see the pig, Johnny?”
“Sure,” replied the other, relapsing into a rich brogue, “it’s sorry I
am, Slim my darlint, but the pig do be havin’ his afthernoon nap in the
panthry, and he’d be that angry if I was wakin’ him!”
Going back down the slope of Melrose Avenue Leonard remarked: “He said
there were six of them, Slim. Are there other brothers beside the Joe
he spoke of?”
“There were,” answered Slim. “There’s one other now, a little chap
about twelve. I don’t know his name.”
“What happened to the other brother?”
“Killed in the War,” replied Slim briefly.
“Oh!”
“There was a citation,” added Slim. “Johnny says it’s framed and
hanging over his mother’s bed. It’s a lucky thing for the country,
General, that it doesn’t have to look up a fellow’s pedigree before it
can let him fight; what?”