THE ROOF
IN the morning, he was very stiff. When he discovered this, he made up
his mind that he was ill enough to stay in bed, which (it being
Saturday) would let him out of having to do the scrubbing. But when, on
second thought, he consulted Cis, he changed his mind, instantly
scrambled up, put the scrubbing water on to heat, and started breakfast.
For he dared not allow Big Tom to know the truth about his condition.
And the truth was, he gathered, that his stiffness was due to those
exercises--also to the baleful effects of the bath!
"Maybe I lost _too_ much skin," he suggested. "Y' think I'm any worse
off for it, with all that skin gone?"
"Oh, you keep it up!" returned Cis. "You won't be stiff as soon as
you've moved around a little. And, oh, Johnnie, don't ever, ever, _ever_
wait so long before you bathe again! I'm just _sick_ about what happened
yesterday! I dreamed about it!--though, of course"--catching at a straw
of comfort--"it would've been a lot worse if _He_ had been here instead
of the scout man."
Deep-breathing and exercises regularly punctuated, or, rather, regularly
interrupted, the morning program of work. And bath water took the place
of the scrubbing water in the tub directly the floor was mopped up. Then
Johnnie could not deny himself the pleasure of showing himself to Mrs.
Kukor while he still bore evidences of his unwonted, and unspotted,
state. Blowing and excited, and looking yellower than usual, he
displayed his freshly washed neck, a fringe of wet hair, and a pair of
soapy ears. "And ain't I shiney as a plate?" he demanded. "It's my
second in two days!"
She turned him round and round, marveling. "Pos-i-tivvle!" she declared.
For a very long time Johnnie had been making a point of skimping the
Saturday noon meal, this because Barber came home to eat it.
Furthermore, as hot biscuits and gravy made a combination dish of which
the longshoreman was particularly fond, Johnnie had seen to it that hot
biscuits and gravy did not appear on the table except rarely. But this
Saturday his inner man was demanding more food than usual. His appetite
was coming up, exactly as Mr. Perkins had said it would! So Johnnie set
about preparing a good dinner.
He used a cup of Grandpa's milk for biscuit-dough. And when the
biscuits--two dozen of them--were browning nicely in the oven, he
concocted a generous supply of bacon-grease gravy, and set it to boiling
creamily. There were boiled potatoes, too, and two quarts of strong tea.
Not only because he was hungry, but also because he dreaded to let Big
Tom know just how hungry he was, Johnnie ate half of his dinner before
the others returned. At the regular meal, he ate his ordinary amount.
"Gee! Water and air'll fix me all right!" he boasted to Cis. "Who'd ever
b'lieve it!" He was too happy even to fret about One-Eye.
"Haven't I advised you lots of times to wash yourself all over?" she
reminded him. "My! I'd bathe if all I had to bathe in was a teacup! And
now I've a mind to start in on the exercises!" She was too pleased over
the change in him to bring up just then the matter of that first bath.
There was no mistake about Johnnie's improving. Mr. Perkins noted it the
moment he stepped through the door one morning early in the next week.
He had brought with him a quart-bottle of delicious, fresh milk, and
Johnnie drank it, slowly, cup by cup, as they talked. What had helped
most, Mr. Perkins declared, was the open window at night, the fresh air.
And Johnnie must have even more fresh air.
"But how're we going to manage it?" Mr. Perkins wanted to know. "Because
you can't very well go out for long walks and leave Grandpa
alone"--which showed that Mr. Perkins felt as One-Eye did about it. "If
there was a fire, say, what could the poor, old, helpless man do?"
"I never thought of that!" admitted Johnnie. "But"--with clear
logic--"when Big Tom's home, and Grandpa's safe's anything, why, even
then I ain't ever 'lowed to go for a walk. Big Tom and Mustapha, they're
both against me and Aladdin playin' in the street."
"What about the roof?" asked Mr. Perkins.
Strangely enough, Johnnie had never thought of that, either. "But Aunt
Sophie wouldn't 'low me to go up on her roof," he remembered. "And I
don't b'lieve the jan'-tress would on this one."
He was right. Though Mr. Perkins called personally upon that lady, and
laid before her the question of Johnnie's health, she was adamantine in
her refusal. Even the sight of a two-dollar bill could not sway her,
offered, as Mr. Perkins explained, not in the hope of bribing her to do
anything that was forbidden, but as pay in case Johnnie proved to be any
trouble; for she had explained, "Kids is fierce for t'rowin' trash
'round, and I can't swip the roof only once a year."
Mr. Perkins was keenly disappointed. But he tried to make light of their
set-back, and distracted Johnnie's thoughts from the roof by producing
two wonderful presents. One was an unframed picture of Colonel Theodore
Roosevelt, looking splendid and soldierlike in a uniform and a broad
hat turned up at one side, and a sword that hung from his belt. The
second gift was a toothbrush.
Johnnie pinned the picture above Cis's dressing-table box in the tiny
room. The toothbrush (it had a handle of pure ivory!), he slipped inside
his shirt. Mr. Perkins suggested delicately that, when it came to the
care of the teeth, there was no time like the present. But Johnnie
begged for delay. "I want Cis t' see it while it's so nice and new," he
argued, "--before it's all wet and spoiled."
Cis was fairly enraptured when he showed her the brush. "Oh, I've been
wanting to own a good one for years!" she cried; "and not just the
ten-cent-store kind! Oh, Johnnie--!" She tipped her sleek head to one
side entreatingly.
Johnnie had foreseen all this. He bargained with her. "I'll swop y' the
brush," he declared.
"Swop for what?--Oh, Johnnie! Oh, isn't it _sweet_!"
Grandpa was in the room. Johnnie raised on his toes to whisper: "For you
not t' tell Mister Perkins n'r anybody else when I sneak up on the roofs
of nights."
"You wouldn't lean over the edge, Johnnie, and go all dizzy, and
fall?"--the brush was a sore temptation.
Johnnie belittled her fears. "Couldn't I jus' as easy fall out of our
window?" he demanded.
The bargain was struck; the brush changed hands.
In the face of those two gifts, Cis could never again doubt the
existence of a real Mr. Perkins. "I didn't care awfully whether he was a
truly person or not," she confided to Johnnie now. "But as long as he
_is_ alive, I think I'd like to meet him. So the next time he comes, you
get him to come the time after that between twelve and one, and I'll run
home. I can eat my lunch while I'm walking."
Johnnie considered the suggestion. "You won't give 'way on me 'bout the
swop, though."
"Cross my heart!"
After she had used the brush (thoroughly, too), and could not,
therefore, retreat out of her bargain, he offered an argument which he
felt sure would clinch her silence. "You wouldn't want Mister Perkins t'
find out that y' didn't have a good brush of your own," he reminded her,
"and that y' took mine away."
"Oh, I wouldn't!"--fervently. Then, recalling how she had already been
mortified in the matter of his first bath, and returning, girl-like, to
that worn-out subject, "Johnnie, are you positive Mr. Perkins didn't see
you empty the tub that day? and did he see the bottom of it when the
water was all out? and in the bottom wasn't there a lot of grit?"
He reassured her. "But, my goodness, Cis, you're terrible stuck-up," he
declared.
Certainly she felt more comfortable. For at once, with a haughty and
precise air, which was her idea of how the socially elect bear
themselves, with a set smile on her quaint face, and modulating her
voice affectedly, she took Mr. Perkins's arm and went for a walk around
Seward Park (the table), discussing the weather as she strolled, the
scenery, and other impersonal subjects. And there was much bowing and
hand shaking to it all, while Johnnie stood by, scarcely knowing whether
to be pleased or cross.
"When you come home, and Mister Perkins is here, what'll I say?" he
asked; "--just at first?"
"You introduce us," instructed Cis. "You tell him what my name is, and
you tell me what his name is."
"But you know his name!" argued Johnnie. "And he knows yours."
"I can't help it," she returned. "It sounds silly, but everybody does it
that way, and so you must, or he'll think you're funny."
"Well, all right." It was important that Mr. Perkins should not think
him funny, lest that invitation to become a scout be withdrawn.
That night, so soon as Big Tom was asleep, Johnnie made his first trip
to the roof; and understood, the moment he emerged from the little house
which was built over the top of the stairs, why Mr. Perkins had
recommended it as being more desirable than the street. Of course it
was! The confinement of the past week or more helped to emphasize its
good points. Ah, this was a place to breathe! to exercise! Above all,
what a place from which to see! With the night wind in his hair, and
swelling the big shirt, Johnnie stood, high and lonely, like Crusoe on
his island, looking up and around, enchanted.
How much sky there was!--joined to his own square. The clouds, enormous
and beautiful, had plenty of space in which to drift about, by turns
hiding and uncovering the stars. Lifted almost into those clouds were
the spars of ships, the tallest of the city's buildings, the black
lace-work of two bridges. Oh, how big, how strange--yes, and even how
far removed--seemed this New York of the night!
When he could say good-by to the flat for the last time, could leave it
behind him forever, oh, how many sights there would be for him to see in
this great city! "I'll just go and go!" he promised himself. "In ev'ry
direction! And look and look and look!" Going had brought him One-Eye's
friendship, and Mr. Perkins's. Somewhere in all those miles of roofs
were other friends, just waiting to be found.
The cold in the night wind cut short his reflections. He fell to
exercising, and drinking in big draughts of the sea air; then hastened
down on soft foot to his bed. Cis was waiting in her door to see him
come, and he knew she had been anxious, and thoroughly resented it.
"I didn't hurt the old roof," he whispered. But he felt very happy, in
spite of his irritation, and genuinely sorry for any boy who did not
have a roof.
Every morning now he enjoyed his splash in the tub; every night he
glorified in his taste of the real outdoors. On the following Sunday, he
combined the two pleasures. Big Tom was in and out all day, making it
impossible for Johnnie to bathe even in the seclusion of Cis's tiny
room, which she generously offered to loan him for the ceremony. He did
not accept her offer. He was as sure as ever that Barber would not only
put a stop to all baths if he discovered they were being taken (on the
ground that they used up too much soap), but the longshoreman might go
further, and administer punishment which would be particularly
trying--with Johnnie in a clothesless condition.
He waited for nightfall. The day was unseasonably warm. By sundown the
patch of sky framed by the window was solidly overlaid with clouds,
among which the thunder was rolling. A shower was brewing, and Johnnie
had an idea. He took the soap and a wash rag to bed with him.
The others were asleep when the storm broke. But Johnnie was just inside
the little house on the roof, shedding his clothes under cover. As the
rain came lashing upon the warm, painted tin, he rushed forth into it,
letting it whip his bare skin as he soaped and rubbed.
It was glorious! And though he dared not shout, he leaped hither and
thither in an excess of joy, and did his calisthenics, the lightning
flashing him into his own sight. And he took in from the rain, through
tossing arms and legs, the electricity that he lacked--cut off as he had
been so long from even the touch of a pavement.
Next, naked though he was, he played scout; and as he romped other
scouts came to romp with him, dropping over the edge of the roof in all
directions, or popping out from behind the chimney and the little
house. And all were as naked as he, and as full of joy, and they danced
in a circle with him, and marched, and went through the exercises.
When at last his yellow hair was streaming, and his breath was spent, he
dried himself, standing on the stairs, and using the long tails of the
big shirt; then, trousered once more, he crept down and in, to sleep an
unbroken, dreamless sleep, wrapped from head to toe in just nothing but
his quilt. Only his small unfreckled nose showed, drawing in the
rain-washed breeze that came swirling upon his bed through the open
window.
"It's my beach!" he told Cis proudly the next morning. "I waded--honest,
I did! And I pretty near _swimmed_!"
He felt stronger, and consequently did not hate his housework so much.
As for his appearance, Mr. Perkins was more than ever struck with its
improvement when he saw Johnnie again; also, the leader was a trifle
puzzled. But other things than breathing and bathing and exercises were
helping Johnnie. He had something to look forward to now--a goal.
Indeed, the greater part of his betterment was the result of that fresh
interest Mr. Perkins had given him, his pride, and his hope.
"But I'd like t' learn more things 'bout scouts," he told the leader.
"Is all I have t' do jus' git strong and grow t' be twelve?"
"Steady, old man!" counseled Mr. Perkins.
He failed to see, he said, that Johnnie's teeth looked any whiter. He
acted almost as if he doubted Johnnie's use of the brush. Luckily
Johnnie remembered that meeting which Cis had proposed, and this served
to change the subject. By advice from Cis, later on, he was insured
against Mr. Perkins's being so disappointed again. Cis gave him some
powder; and he got fair results from her old brush.
So far as he was concerned, the meeting between Cis and Mr. Perkins
proved utterly profitless. To begin with, in his pride and excitement,
he forgot to follow out her instructions regarding the introduction.
Instead of pronouncing the two names politely, he ran to Cis, and "Here
he is!" he cried. "This is him! Mister Perkins!"
She stood against the hall door, smiling shyly. Mr. Perkins rose,
looking more red than brown, and gave her a soldierly bow, though that
day he was not wearing a uniform, but a gray business suit.
"I'm so glad to meet you," he said. "Johnnie's told me so much about
you."
"I--I've got to go right back," was what she said. "Two of the girls 're
waiting for me downstairs."
"Aw, Cis!" pleaded Johnnie. "Wait! Ain't y' goin' t' exercise with us?"
She went. And though she darted a smile at their visitor, to Johnnie she
seemed all indifference, and he was staggered by it; only to be more
than gratified by her complete change of attitude when she got home at
suppertime. "Oh, he's handsome!" she declared. "My! The girls wouldn't
believe how noble and splendid he is! He just can't be as young as you
say, Johnnie, because he's been a soldier in the big war! I know it by
that little button-thing in his coat! Oh, Johnnie, he's nicer than you
said! Thousands and thousands of times!"
Johnnie swaggered a bit over that. "_All_ my friends is nice," he
observed. "Only I wish I could have One-Eye and Mr. Perkins here both at
the same time!"
He had to give a minute account of Mr. Perkins's visit, and not once,
but as often as he could manage to go over the subject before Big Tom
came in. After supper, as they hung in the window together, looking up
at the night sky, he had to review all previous visits, as well as that
memorable, history-making meeting under the Elevated.
"He's like a young gentleman in a story!" she whispered. "And he's awful
stylish! Did you notice?--his handkerchief to-day had a teeny brown edge
to it!"
In the morning, she did an unprecedented thing: rose earlier than usual
and helped Johnnie set the flat to rights. The dish cupboard came in for
the most of her attention, a fact which brought loud protests from him,
for she used up the whole of Mr. Maloney's precious newspapers, this in
making fancifully cut covers for the shelves.
"Oh, let's look civilized!" she cried.
She came home at noon, her girl friends accompanying her, but waiting,
as before, in the area. She was not so shy as she had been the first
day; instead, she was dignified as she viewed the arm- and leg-work,
praised Johnnie with sweet condescension, and thanked Mr. Perkins for
all his trouble with quite a grown-up air.
The noon following, she arrived alone (Mr. Perkins had remarked the day
previous that he would be coming regularly now). As he had appeared
early, and the exercising was over and done, he and Cis went down the
stairs together. Johnnie stood outside the door to watch them, and
marveled as he watched. When had he ever seen Cis smile so much? chatter
so freely? Now she did not seem afraid of Mr. Perkins at all!
In the hall overhead some one else was watching--Mrs. Kukor. As he
looked up, she nodded at him. "Ah-ha-a-a-a!" she whispered, and laid one
finger along her nose mysteriously. Johnnie understood that she was
thinking of Big Tom. He nodded back, and put a finger to his lips.
All that afternoon he was so proud, just thinking of Cis threading the
crowds with Mr. Perkins at her side. Yet she herself was evidently not
impressed by the great compliment the leader had paid her. For the next
day she did not invite a similar experience by coming home at noon; nor
the next. In fact, she never again dropped in to see the drill. She had
lost interest in it, she told Johnnie--which was natural enough, seeing
that she was a girl.
But! She seemed also to have completely lost all interest in Mr.
Perkins!