HELP
KNOCK! knock! knock! knock!
At the first knock of the four, a sparrow to whom Johnnie had, for this
long while, been giving good-turn crumbs, made a scrambling get-away
from the window sill, followed in the same instant by a neat, brown mate
who was equally startled at such a noise from somewhere just within. For
dawn was only now coming upon the thousands of roofs that shelter the
people of the Greatest City, the sun being still far down behind a
sea-covered bulge of the world. And this was an hour when, usually, only
early birds were abroad.
Rap! rap! rap! rap! rap! The summons was louder, more insistent, and
quite unmistakably cross.
It roused Cis, and she lifted her head, and drew in a long, fluttering
breath; but she was too stiff and weary and sore even to realize that a
visitor was at the hall door. Once more she laid a pale, tear-stained
cheek upon the table.
Bang! bang! bang! _BANG!_
Now she started up, understanding that help had come. And there was a
creaking in the bedroom, where Barber was preparing to rise, while he
swore and grumbled under his breath. Only Johnnie did not stir. Between
his outstretched arms his yellow head lay as still as if it were stone.
Tied as he was, after all the long night hours his legs, held straight
down, had completely lost their feeling; and his arms were as dead as
his legs.
BANG! BANG! _BANG!_
"Aw, that'll do!" cried the longshoreman. He came slouching out of his
room. He was fully dressed, not having taken off his clothes the night
before. For it had been his intention to leave Cis and Johnnie tied for
an hour or two, then to get up and set them free. Now, seeing that it
was morning, he first gave a nervous glance at the clock, then hurriedly
dug into a pocket, fetched out his jack-knife, opened a blade, and cut
the ropes holding Cis; next, and quickly, he severed those tighter
strands which bound the boy.
Another bang, followed by an imperious rattling of the doorknob. Then,
"Tom Barber, are ye in? If ye are, open this second, or I'll break down
yer door!" It was Father Pat's voice, lacking breath, but deep with
anger.
It was plain to Big Tom that the priest knew of the trouble. "Now, who's
been runnin' t' _you_?" he snarled. "Never seen such a buildin' for
tattle tales!--Here! Set up!" (This to Cis, who wavered dizzily in her
chair as the longshoreman shoved her roughly against the back of it.)
"Let me in, I tell ye!" ordered the Father, "or I'll go out and find a
policeman!"
"All right! All right!"--impatiently. "Wait one minute!" Now Big Tom
hastened to lift Johnnie off the table and stand the boy upon his feet.
But the moment the support of Barber's hand was taken away, Johnnie
collapsed, going down to the floor in a soft, little heap, from the top
of which his blue-marked face looked up sightlessly at Big Tom.
Frightened, the latter lifted the boy and laid him in the morris chair.
The small, cold body, partially covered by the rags of Grandpa's old
undersuit, was so white and limp that it seemed lifeless. Hastily the
longshoreman threw his own coat over Johnnie, after which he swept
together the several lengths of clothesline and flung them out of sight
under the stove.
"Barber!"
The admitting of the priest could be put off no longer. For even as he
called, Father Pat had put his shoulder to the door, so that an old
panel was bending inward; next, he fell to kicking at the bottom rail
with a stout shoe.
Barber gave a quick glance round the kitchen, then went to pull aside
the bolt. "Hold on!" he ordered roughly; and as he swung the door open,
"_Nice_ time t' be hammerin' a man out o' his bed!"
There was another in the hall besides the Father--Mrs. Kukor, in her
street clothes, and wearing her best hat. Her face looked drawn, her
black eyes weary. Her hard breathing proved that she had just come up
three flights instead of descending one.
As Barber caught sight of her, he thrust his big frame into the doorway,
blocking it. "There she is!" he declared hotly. "The tattler! The
busybody! Hidin' books for a lazy kid! Helpin' him t' waste his time!
She can't come in here!"
"Stand out o' me way!" cried the Father. "I'm comin' in, and this lady
with me!"
"Don't y' try t' tell _me_ what y're goin' t' do!" replied Big Tom. "Y'
can't take the runnin' o' this flat out o' _my_ hands--neither one o'
y'! I ain't goin' t' stand for it!"
"Ha-a-a-a!" retorted the priest. "And is the abusin' o' two children
what ye call runnin' a flat? And we can't take _that_ out o' yer hands,
can't we? Well, God be praised, there's police in this city, and there's
societies t' handle such hulkin' brutes as yerself, and--_and_--!" Words
failing him, he shook a warning finger in Barber's face.
Down the hall a door opened, and several heads appeared in it. This, as
well as the priest's words, decided Big Tom (more gossip in the house
would be a mistake). He stood aside and let his visitors enter,
instantly slamming the door at their backs. "I won't have no girl out o'
this flat settin' in a park with some stranger!" he declared. "I
promised her ma I'd look after her!"
He got no answer. There being no movement in the morris chair, under Big
Tom's coat, the Father and Mrs. Kukor had rushed past it to Cis, for the
moment seeing only her. Now they were bending over her, and "Girl, dear!
Girl, dear!" murmured the priest anxiously; and "So! so! so!" comforted
the little Jewish lady.
Cis seemed not to know who was beside her. "He's dead!" she wept. "And
it's my fault! _All_ my fault! O-o-o-oh!" A trembling seized her slender
body. Once more she swayed, then toppled forward upon the table, all her
brown hair falling over her arms.
"Vot wass she sayink?" demanded Mrs. Kukor, frightened. Falling back to
the big chair, she sat upon one arm of it, stared in horror at Cis for a
moment, then began to cry and rock, beating her hands.
"Barber, ye've a right t' be killed for this!" cried Father Pat. "And
where's the lad? What've ye done t' him? God help ye if ye've worked him
rale harm!"
Cis turned her face, and spoke again. "Poor Johnnie died in the night!"
she sobbed. "He couldn't talk to me! I tried! He couldn't get water! Oh,
I want water! Give me a drink, Mrs. Kukor!"
Mrs. Kukor had risen as Cis talked, and Father Pat had come to her.
There was horror in the faces of both. Standing, his back against the
hall door, Barber began to laugh at them. "Aw, bosh!" he said,
disgusted. "Dead nothin'! He's in the big chair there. Plenty o' kick in
him yet, and plenty o' meanness!"
His lips moving prayerfully, the priest turned and looked down, then
lifted the longshoreman's coat. As he caught sight of the rope-marked
face and shut eyes of the boy, "Oh, little lad, dear!" he cried, heart
stricken at the sight. "Oh, what's the crazy man done t' ye? Oh, God
help us!"
Together, Father Pat and Mrs. Kukor brought out Johnnie's square of
mattress, dropped it beside the morris chair, and laid the
half-conscious boy upon it. Then kneeling beside him, one at each side,
they began to rub the life back into his numbed limbs. "He's breathin',
girl dear," the priest told Cis, who could not bring herself to look at
Johnnie. Mrs. Kukor said not a word. But down the round, brown face the
tears flowed steadily.
Having made a quick fire with kerosene and some kindling, Barber lounged
at the stove, warming some milk for his father, setting his own coffee
to boil, having a pull at his pipe, and keeping a scornful silence.
Grandpa's breakfast ready, he carried it into the bedroom and fed the
old man. After that, shutting the bedroom door, he helped himself to a
slice of bread and some dried-apple sauce. His manner said that a great
fuss was being made in the kitchen over nothing.
It was Cis who spoke next--when Mrs. Kukor, leaving Johnnie for a
little, came to bring the girl a drink, and bathe her face. "I'm never
going to lie down in this place again, Mrs. Kukor," she declared. "I'm
going to leave here this morning, and I'm never coming back--never! Can
you brush my hair right now, please? Because I know Mr. Perkins will be
here soon."
At that, Big Tom launched into a sneering laugh. "Oh, is that so?" he
demanded. "Fine! I'd like t' see Perkins, all right!" His great
shoulders shook, and a horrible leer distorted his hairy face.
The Father glanced up from where he was kneeling. "Ye itch t' make
trouble, don't ye?" he charged. "When ye ought t' be thankful that this
young woman has found such a good man for a husband. I've watched the
Perkins lad pretty close. I've been t' see him, and he's called t' see
me. And by ev'ry way that a man who's a priest can judge another man, I
find no fault in him."
"Well, s'pose y' don't," answered Big Tom. "It jus' happens that _I_
do."
"Ye can't!" cried the other. "Not and be honest! Ye can't find fault
where there isn't fault! Why, he served in France, and him far under
age. And I'll ask ye, where was _yerself_ durin' the late War?
Supportin' a pensioned father, eh? And a girl that was earnin' her own
livin'! And a boy who's never cost ye a cent!--Ah, don't answer me!
Don't stain yer soul with anny more falsehoods! Money's what's irkin'
ye--the girl's earnin's. They're more t' ye than her happiness, and a
good home, and a grand husband!" Then to Johnnie, "Wee poet, won't ye
wink a bright lash at the Father who loves ye?--or me heart'll split in
two pieces!"
Johnnie sighed, and winked two bright lashes, whereupon the priest
lifted the boy's head and gave him a sip from Cis's cup of water. "Aw, a
drink o' tea'll fix _him_ all right," asserted Barber. "He ain't half as
bad off as he pretends."
"Don't talk t' me at all, Tom Barber!" commanded the priest. "For I've
no temper for it as I look at the face and shoulders o' this lad that
ye've whipped so cruel! Or at the girl that ye've tied up this whole
long night!"
By now, Cis, wrapped in her own quilt, was combed and in the big chair,
and was being plied with milk by Mrs. Kukor. She was out of pain now,
and her concern was mostly for Johnnie. She watched him constantly,
smiling down at him lovingly. And as he opened his eyes and looked back
at her, she saw the stiff muscles of his face twist as if in a spasm,
and at the sight of that twisting was frightened.
"Oh, Johnnie!" she faltered. "Oh, what's the matter?"
Johnnie's lips moved. "Noth--nothin'," he whispered back. "I--I'm jus'
tryin' t' smile."
"Ah, there's a brave lad for ye!" exclaimed the Father, the tears
shining in the green eyes. "Not a whine! Not a whimper! Where'd ye find
another boy, Tom Barber, that'd take yer heavy hand in the spirit o'
this one? Shure, there's not a look out o' him t' show that he's hatin'
ye for what ye did t' him! Ha-a-a! It's a pearl, he is, cast under the
feet o' a pig!"
"Y' can cut that out!" said the longshoreman. Putting down his pipe, he
crossed the room to the priest.
Father Pat got to his feet, but he did not retract. "Ye old buzzard!" he
stormed. "Do ye dare t' lift yer hand against the servant o' God?"
Big Tom fell back a step then, as if remembering who the man before him
was. "Jus' the same, y' better go," he returned. "From now on, y' better
keep out o' this!"
"I'll go," answered the priest, calmly, "when I'm tossed out o' the
windy--or the door. But I'll not go by me own choosin'. I'm not lastin'
long annyhow, so ye can drop me into the court if ye like. Then the law
will take ye out o' the way o' these dear children."
Barber clenched and unclenched his fists, yearning to strike, yet not
daring. "Go home and mind y'r own affairs," he counseled.
"Me own affairs is exactly what I'm mindin'," retorted the Father. Then,
mournfully, "Oh, if only I had me old strength! If me lungs wasn't as
full o' holes as a sieve! I'd say, 'Tom Barber, come ahead!' And as
God's me witness, I'd thrash ye within' a inch o' yer black life!" And
he shook a finger before the longshoreman's nose.
Mrs. Kukor was giving Johnnie some milk. He whispered to her, fearing
from the look in her dark eyes that she was blaming herself bitterly for
what had happened to his books. "Don't y' worry," he pleaded; "it
wasn't nobody's fault. And if y' hadn't kept 'em upstairs long as y'
did, he'd 've burned em 'fore ever I learned 'em."
"Chonnie!" she gasped. Concerned for the safety, yes, even the lives, of
the two she loved, she had forgotten to inquire the fate of that
basketful. Now she knew it! "Oy! oy! oy! oy!"
"Aw, shut up y'r oy-oy's," scolded Big Tom.
Father Pat had heard Johnnie, and understood him. "But we'll not be
carin' about anny crazy destruction," he announced cheerfully; "for,
shure, and there's plenty more o' 'em on sale in this town."
Johnnie stared up, trying to comprehend the good news. "The _'xact_ same
ones?" he asked.
"Little book lover, I'll warrant there's a thousand o' each story--if a
man was t' take count."
"Oh!"
The Father knelt. "Lad, dear!" he exclaimed tenderly. "Faith, and did ye
think that ye owned the only copies in the _world_ o' them classics?"
Now Johnnie fully realized the truth. "Oh, Father Pat!" he cried, and
fell to laughing aloud in sheer joy.
"God love the lad!" breathed the priest, ready to weep with happiness at
restoring that joy. "Was there ever such another? Why, in one hour, and
without spendin' a penny, I could be readin' all seven o' yer books!
Yes, yes! In that grand book temple I told ye about--the one with the
steps that lead up (oh, but they're elegant), and the lions big as
horses."
"I know," said Johnnie. "I remember. I--I was there 'way late last
night--in a think."
"Why, little reader dear, in that temple, and out o' it, shure and
there's enough Aladdins t' pave half a mile o' Fifth Avenue! and it's
likely ye could put up a Woolworth Building with nothin' but Crusoes and
Mohicans!"
"I'm so glad! So glad! _My!_"
"And Father Pat's glad," added the priest. As he stood once more, he
lifted a smiling face to the ceiling; and up past the kitchen of the
little Jewish lady he sent a prayer of gratitude to his Maker for the
blessing of that instrument of man's genius, the printing press.
Then he fell to pacing the floor, now glancing at the clock, again
taking out his watch and clicking its cover. Between these silent
inquiries regarding the time, he played impatiently with the cross which
hung against his coat on a black ribbon. It was plain that he was
expecting some one.
Big Tom understood as much, and finally was moved to speech. "Y' won't
bring no doctor in here," he announced. "I won't have no foolishness o'
that kind."
Father Pat ignored him. But to Mrs. Kukor, "Shure, and ye could boil a
leg o' mutton while ye wait for that gentleman," he observed.
After that, for a while, the kitchen was quiet. Mrs. Kukor left on an
errand to her own flat, coming back almost at once with two eggs
deliciously scrambled on toast, and some stewed berries, tart and tasty.
These delicacies had a wonderfully reviving effect upon both Cis and
Johnnie, and the latter even found himself able to sit up to eat.
"Now I'm so weak," he told Father Pat, "wouldn't this be a' awful fine
time t' play shipwreck with Crusoe, and git washed on shore more dead'n
alive?"
"Now, then, it just would!" agreed the priest. "But as ye've been near
dead once this day, shure, ye'd best think o' stayin' alive for a
change."
The last bit of egg was eaten, the last nibble of toast, too, and the
fruit. "Oh, yes, I'm too tired t' think 'bout a wreck," admitted
Johnnie.
"Rest, lad dear! Rest!" The quilt was tucked round the weary limbs.
One of those big-girl hands reached up and drew the priest's head lower.
"I guess where I been is on the danger line, all right," Johnnie
whispered. "And the Handbook said a scout don't flinch in the face o'
danger, and this time, gee, I didn't!"
A rest and some good food had made Cis feel like her former self by now.
Presently she walked into the little room, lit a nubbin of candle, and
changed into her best clothes. While she was gone, Johnnie drew on his
old, big trousers, and donned Barber's shirt, then moved to the morris
chair. As for Mrs. Kukor, she was gone again, her face very sober, and
the line of her mouth tight and straight. As she teetered out, it was
plain that she was all but in a panic to get away.
For evidently things were to happen in the flat before long. The air of
the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he
stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or
when a footfall sounded beyond the hall door.
All at once a loud tramping was heard on the stairs--a determined
tramping, as if half a dozen angry men were setting down their feet as
one. Doors flew open, voices hailed one another up and down the
building, and Mrs. Kukor could be heard pattering in a wide circle
beyond the ceiling. All of this disturbance brought Cis out of her tiny
room, pink-faced once more, and eager-eyed.
The next moment, with a stomp and a slam, and without knocking, One-Eye
made a whirlwind entrance into the kitchen, and halted, his wide hat
grotesquely over one ear, a quid of tobacco distending that cheek which
the hat brim touched, a score of questions looking from that single eye,
and every hair on the front of those shaggy breeches fairly standing out
straight.
"Wal?" he demanded, banging the door so hard behind him that all the
dishes in the cupboard rattled. He had on gauntlets. Their cuffs reached
half-way to his elbows. These added mightily to his warlike appearance.
"A-a-a-a-h!" greeted Father Pat, joyously.
So this was the person whose arrival had been awaited! Nonchalantly Big
Tom shifted his weight from foot to foot, and chuckled through the
stubble of his beard.
"One-Eye!" cried Cis. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come! Oh, One-Eye, he tied
us to the table all night! And he whipped Johnnie with the rope!"
That lone green eye began to roll--to Cis's face, seeing the truth
written there, and the story of her long hours of suffering; to the
countenance of the priest, to ask, dumbly, if any living man had ever
heard anything more outrageous than this; then, "By the Great Horn
Spoon!" he breathed, and again stomped one foot, like an angry steer.
Big Tom's smile widened.
Now, the Westerner crossed to Johnnie, bent, and with gentle fingers
held under the boy's chin, studied those welts across the pale cheeks.
"Crimini!" he murmured. "Crimini! _Crimini!_"
"Look at his chest, and his back!" Cis advised.
The cowboy lifted Johnnie forward in the morris chair, and held away the
big shirt from breast and shoulders. What he saw brought him upright
like a pistol shot, his face suddenly scarlet, his mustache whipping up
and down, and that eye of his glowering at the longshoreman ferociously.
"Caesar Augustus, Philobustus, Hennery Clay!" he burst out. "Bla-a-ack
a-a-and _blu-u-ue_!"
"And, oh, listen what _else_ he did!" Cis went on. "The uniform you gave
to Johnnie----"
"Yas?"
"_He put it in the stove!_"
One-Eye stared. "He put it in the _stove_?" he repeated, but as if this
really was quite beyond belief.
"My--my scout suit," added Johnnie, who was too worn out to weep.
"The priceless brute!" announced Father Pat.
"Yes, and all of Johnnie's books, he burned them, too," Cis added.
But One-Eye's mind dwelt upon the uniform. "He put it in the stove!" he
drawled. "That khaki outfit I give t' the boy! He burned it! And it
fresh outen the store!"
"The medal, too, One-Eye! Johnnie's father's medal! It was in the coat.
So all that's left is the shoes!"
"All that's left is the shoes," growled One-Eye. "He burned the hat, and
the coat, and--and all. After I'd paid good money fer 'em! The _gall_!
The _cheek_! The _impydence_!" He drew a prodigious breath.
"Go ahead! Sing about it!" taunted Barber.
One-Eye was in anything but a singing mood. Spurred by that taunt, of a
sudden he began to do several startling things: with a gurgle of rage,
he snatched off the wide hat, flung it to the floor with all his might,
sprang upon it, ground it into the boards with both heels; jerked off
his gauntlets and hurled them down with the hat; next wriggled out of
his coat and added it to the pile under his boots; then ran his hands
wildly through his hair, so that it stood up as straight as the hair on
his breeches stood out; and, last of all, fell to pushing back his
sleeves.
Fascinated the others watched him. Was this the good-natured, shy,
bashful, quiet One-Eye, this red-faced, ramping, stamping madman?
He addressed Barber: "Oh, y' ornery, mean, low-down, sneakin' coyote!"
He took a long, leaping step over the things on the floor--a step in the
direction of the longshoreman. As he sprang, he shifted his tobacco quid
from one cheek to the other. "Say! I'm plumb chuck-full o' y'r
goin's-on! I'm stuffed with y'r fool pre-_form_-ances! I'm fed up t' the
neck with 'em! and _sick_ o' 'em! and right here, _and_ now, you and me
is a-goin' t' have this business O-U-T!"
"He knows how t' spell it," remarked Barber, facetiously.
"Heaven strengthen the arm o' ye!" cried the Father.
Head ducked, hands out like a boxer, One-Eye again began an advance
toward Big Tom, doing a sort of a skating step--a glide. And as he came
on, Barber threw back his head and guffawed. "Oh, haw! haw! haw! haw!
haw!" he shouted. "Y' don't mean y're goin' t' _finish_ me! Oh, haw!
haw! haw!"
"A haw-haw's aig in a hee-hee's nest!" returned One-Eye, and spat on his
hands. "Finish y' is what I aim t' do! I been waitin' _and_ waitin'!"
(The cowboy was saying more in these few minutes, almost, than he had
during all of his former visits to the flat!) "I've waited since the
first time I clapped my eye on y'! I'm the mule that waited seven years!
I been storin' up my kick! And now it's growed to a humdinger! Y've
whaled this here boy, and tied up this here girl! His face is cut, and
his back is black, and raw, and bleedin'! Wal, it's Tom Barber's turn t'
git a hidin'!--the worst hidin' a polecat ever did git! So! Where'll y'
take it? In this house, 'r outside?" The question was asked with a
final, emphatic stomp, an up-throw of the disheveled head, a spreading
outward of both gartered arms.
"That's the way t' talk!" vowed the Father. "Shure, a coward needs his
own punishment handed t' him!--Take yer whippin', Tom Barber, and take
it like a man! For it's a whippin' that's justly comin' t' ye this
mornin', as all the neighborhood'll agree!"
"Where?" One-Eye insisted, for the longshoreman had not replied to the
question. "Let's don't lose no time! I'm a-goin' t' hand y' a
con-vul-sion! That's it! A con-vul-sion! I'm goin' t' pull the last,
livin' kink outen y'! Two shakes o' a lamb's tail, and I'll show y' a
civy-lized massacree! Yip-yip-yip-_yee-ow_!"
"Goin' t' wipe me out, eh? Goin' t' put me t' bed?" Barber laid down his
pipe.
"Goin' t' ship y' t' the Hospital!" Side gliding to the stove, the
cowboy delivered up his quid.
"Hee! hee!" giggled the longshoreman. "Guess I'll jus' knock that other
eye out!"
One-Eye was waltzing back. "Don't count y'r chickens 'fore they're
hatched!" he warned. "'Cause here y're gittin' a man o' y'r own size, y'
great, big, overbearin' lummox!"
Barber held up a hand. "This ain't no place t' fight," he protested.
"The old man'd hear."
"Y' can't git outen it that-a-way!" shouted One-Eye, arms in the air.
"They's miles o' room outside! Come down into the yard! Mosey! Break
trail! Vamose!" He waved the other out.
Buoyed up by so much excitement, Johnnie managed to stand for a moment.
"One-Eye!" he cried, all gratitude and pride; and, "One-Eye!" Cis
echoed, her palms together in a dumb plea for him to do his best.
The Westerner gave her a look which promised every result that lay in
his power. Then with a jerk of the head at Father Pat, and again
"Yip-yipping" lustily, he bore down upon the grinning longshoreman, who
was filling the hall doorway.
They met, and seized each other. Big Tom took One-Eye by either
shoulder, those great baboon hands clamping themselves over the top
joints of the Westerner's arms. The latter had Barber by the front of
his coat and by an elbow. For a moment they hung upon the sill. Then,
pivoting, they swung beyond it. As Father Pat closed the door upon them,
at once there came to the ears of the trio in the kitchen, the sounds of
a rough-and-tumble battle.