LEFT BEHIND
EMPTY!
He did not enter the tiny room. Now, all at once, it seemed a sacred
place, having for so long sheltered her who was sweet and fine. And he
felt instinctively that the blue-walled retreat was not for him; that he
should not stretch himself out in his soiled, ragged clothes on that
dainty couch-shelf where she had lain.
He stood on the threshold to look in. How beautiful it was! From to-day
forward, would she truly have another any handsomer? The faint perfume
of it (just recently she had acquired a fresh stock of orris root) was
like a breath from some flower-filled garden--such a garden as he had
read about in _The Story of Aladdin_. And yes, the little cell itself
was like one of Aladdin's caskets from which had been taken a precious
jewel.
Just now it was a casket very much in disarray, for Cis had tumbled it
in wind-storm fashion as she made ready to leave, carelessly throwing
down several things that she had formerly handled delicately: the paper
roses, the sliver of mirror, the pretty face of a moving-picture
favorite. As for that box flounced with bright crepe paper, it was
ignominiously heaved to one side. And that cherished likeness of Mr.
Roosevelt was hanging slightly askew.
But Johnnie did not set straight the photograph of his hero, or stoop to
pick anything up. He could think of just one thing: she was gone!
And she would never come back--never, never, never, never! He began to
repeat the word, as he and Cis had been wont to repeat words, trying
hard to realize the whole of their meaning: "Never! never! never!
never." And once more there came over him that curious lost feeling that
he had suffered after Aunt Sophie was gone in the clanging ambulance.
Once more, too, he grew rebellious. "Oh, why does ev'rything have t' go
'n' bust up!" he questioned brokenly, voicing again the eternal protest
of youth against an unexpected, pain-dealing shift in Life's program.
That time he had run away, she had promised that she would never leave
_him_!--had said it with many nevers. "And she ain't ever before stayed
out in the evenin' like this," he told himself. No, not in all the years
he had been at the Barber flat.
However, he felt no resentment toward her for going. How could he? Now
that she was away, she seemed unspeakably dear, faultlessly perfect.
But, left behind, what was he? what did he have? what would become of
him? To all those questions there was only one answer: Nothing. He was
alone with a helpless, childish, old man and that other. "And I've tried
'n' tried!" he protested (he meant that he had tried to please Barber,
tried to do his work better, tried to deserve more consideration from
the longshoreman). And this was what had come of all his striving: Cis
had been driven away.
"Oh, nothin' worse can happen t' me!" he declared despairingly.
"Nothin'! nothin'!" What a staff she had always been, and how much he
had leaned upon that staff, he did not suspect till now, when it was
wrenched from under his hand. He had a fuller understanding, too, of
what a comfort she had steadily been--she, the only bright and beautiful
thing in the dark, poor flat! And to think that, boylike, he had ever
shrunk out from under her caressing fingers, or fled from her proffered
kiss! O his darling comrade and friend! O little mother and sister in
one!
"Cis!" he faltered. "Cis!"
An almost intolerable sense of loss swept him, like a wave brimming the
cup of his grief. His forehead seemed to be bulging, as if it would
burst. His heart was bursting, too. And something was tearing, clawlike,
at his throat and at his vitals. Just where the lower end of his
breastbone left off was the old, awful, aching, gnawing, "gone" feeling.
Much in his short life he had found hard to bear; but never anything so
appalling as this! If only he might cry a little!
"Sir Gawain, he c-cried," he remembered, "when he found out he was
f-fightin' his own b-brother. And Sir G-Gareth, he c-cried too." Also,
no law of the twelve in the Handbook forbade a scout to weep.
His eyes closed, his mouth lengthened out pathetically, his cheeks
puckered, his chin drew up grotesquely, trembling as if tortured; then
he bent his head and began to sob, terribly, yet silently, for he feared
to waken Grandpa. Down his hurt face streamed the tears, to fall on the
big, old shirt, and on his feet, while he leaned against the door-jamb,
a drooping, shaking, broken-hearted little figure.
"Oh, I can't git along without her!" he whispered. "I can't stand it!
Oh, I want her back! I want her back!"
When he had cried away the sharp edge of his grief, a deliciously sad
mood came over him. In _The Legends of King Arthur_, more than one
grieving person had succumbed to sorrow. He wondered if he would die of
his; and he saw himself laid out, stricken, on a barge, attended by
three Queens, who were putting to sea to take him to the Vale of
Avilion.
The picture brought him peace.
There followed one of his thinks. He brought Cis back into the little
room, seated her on her narrow bed, with her slender shoulders leaned
against the excelsior pillow which once she had prized. In her best
dress, which was white, she showed ghostily among the shadows. But he
could see her violet eyes clearly, and the look in them was tender and
loving.
He held out his arms to her.
Somewhere, far off, a bell rang. It was like a summons. The wraith of
his own making vanished. He wiped his eyes, now with one fringed sleeve,
now with the other, stooped and felt round just inside the little room
for his scrap of mattress and the quilt, took them up, softly shut the
door, and turned about.
That same moment the hall door began slowly to open, propelled from
without by an unseen hand. "St!" came a low warning. Next, a dim hand
showed itself, reaching in at the floor level with a large yellow bowl.
It placed the bowl to one side, disappeared, returned again at once with
a goodish chunk of _schwarzbrod_, laid the bread beside the bowl,
traveled up to the outside knob, and drew the door to.
He knew that the dim hand was plump and brown, and that it belonged to
the little Jewish lady, who never yet had been forgetful of him, who was
always prompt with motherly help. He knew that; and yet, as he watched
it all, there was something of a sweet mystery about it, and he was
reminded of that wonderful arm, clothed in white samite, which had come
thrusting up out of the lake to give the sword Excalibur to great King
Arthur.
He did not go to get what had been left (noodles, he guessed, tastily
thickening a broth). Grandpa was already fed for the night, and asleep
in the wheel chair, where Johnnie intended to leave him, not liking to
rap on the bedroom door and disturb Big Tom. As for his own appetite, it
seemed to have deserted him forever.
Noiselessly he put down his bedding beside the table. And it was then
that he made out, by the faint light coming in at the window, the two
dolls, Letitia and Edwarda, huddled together on the oilcloth. Letitia,
small, old, worn out in long service to her departed mistress, had one
sawdust arm thrown across Edwarda. And Edwarda, proud though she was,
and beautiful in her silks and laces, had a smooth, round, artfully
jointed arm thrown across Letitia. It was as if each was comforting the
other!
Johnnie picked up the old doll. Somehow she seemed closer and dearer to
him than the new one. Perhaps--who knew?--she, also, was mourning the
absent beloved. (If there was any feeling in her, she had been
inconsolable this long time, what with being cast aside for a grander
rival.) "Well, Letitia," he whispered, "here we are, you and--and me!"
It was growing dark in the kitchen. Besides, no one was there to mark
his weakness and taunt him with it. He put his face against faithful
Letitia's faded dress--that dress which Cis herself had made, pricking
her pink fingers scandalously in the process, and had washed and ironed
season after season. That was it! He loved the old doll the better
because she was a part of Cis.
"Oh, dear Letitia!" he whispered again, and strained the doll to his
heart.
Then he took up Edwarda, who opened her eyes with a sharp click.
Edwarda, favorite of her young owner, smelled adorably--like the tiny
room, like the birthday roses, like apples. And her dainty presence,
exhaling the familiar scent of the dressing-table box, brought Cis even
nearer to him than had Letitia. With a choking exclamation, he caught
the new doll to him along with the old, and held both tight.
Then dropping to the mattress, he laid the pair side by side before
crumpling down with them, digging his nose into one of Edwarda's
fragrant sleeves. The instant her head struck the bed, Edwarda had
clicked her eyes shut, as if quite indifferent to all that had happened
that day (not to speak of the previous night), and had fallen asleep
like a shot. Not so the sterling Letitia, who lay staring, open-eyed, at
the ceiling.
But Johnnie, worn with emotion, weak from yesterday's whipping, sick and
weary from last night's long hours across the table edge, sank into a
deep and merciful and repairing sleep.