UPS AND DOWNS
HE awoke a changed boy. How it had come about, or why, he did not try to
reason; but on opening his gray eyes at dawn, he felt distinctly two
astonishing differences in himself: first, his sorrow over Cis's going
seemed entirely spent, as if it had taken leave of him some time in the
night; second, and more curious than the other, along with that sorrow
had evidently departed all of his old fear of Big Tom!
The fact that Johnnie no longer stood in dread of Barber was, doubtless,
due to the fact that he had seen the giant outmatched and brought to
terms. He hated him still (perhaps even more than ever); yet holding him
in contempt, did not indulge in a single revenge think. He understood
that, with Cis away, the longshoreman needed him as he had never needed
him before. So Barber would not dare to be ugly or cruel again, lest he
lose Johnnie too. "If I followed Cis where'd he be?" the boy asked
himself. "Huh! He better be careful!"
As to Cis, now that he had had a good rest, it was easy for him to see
that this change which had come into her life was a thing to be grateful
for, not a matter to be mourned about. After her trouble with Barber,
she could not stay on in the flat and be happy. Granting this, how
fortunate it was that she could at once marry the man she loved. (And
what a man!)
He saw her in that splendid, imaginary apartment in which he had long
ago installed Mr. Perkins. And was he, John Blake, wishing that she
would stay in a tiny, if beautiful, room without a window?
"Aw, shucks, no!" he cried. "I don't want y' back! I miss y', but I'm
_awful_ glad y'r gone! And I don't mind bein' left here."
He felt hopeful, ambitious, independent.
He rose with a will. He was stiff, just at first, but strong and steady
on his feet. As in the past he had never made a habit of pitying
himself, he did not pity himself now, but took his aches and pains as he
had taken them many a time before, that is, by dismissing them from his
mind. He was hungry. He was eager for his daily wash. He wanted to get
at his morning exercises, and take with them a whiff of the outdoors
coming in at the window. By a glance at his patch of sky he could tell
that this whiff would be pleasant. For how clear and blue was that bit
of Heaven which he counted as a personal belonging! And just across the
area the sun was already beginning to wash all the roofs with its
aureate light.
Three sparrows hailed him from the window ledge, shrilly demanding
crumbs. Crumbs made him think of Mrs. Kukor's stealthy gift. Sure
enough, the yellow bowl held soup. In the soup was spaghetti--the wide,
ribbony, slippery kind he especially liked, coiled about in a broth
which smelled deliciously of garlic. As for the black bread, some
nibbling visitor of the night had helped himself to one corner of it,
and this corner, therefore, went at once to the birds.
"My goodness!" soliloquized Johnnie. "How the mice do love Mrs. Kukor's
bread!" And he could not blame them. It _was_ so good!
Then, a trifle startled, he noted that the wheel chair was not in the
kitchen; but guessed at once that Barber had quietly rolled Grandpa into
the bedroom at a late hour. Next, his roving glance dropped back to the
old mattress, and he caught sight of the dolls. Forgetting what a
comfort they had been to him the evening before, this while feeling
boyishly ashamed and foolish at having had them with him, in a panic he
caught them up and flung them, willy-nilly, out of sight upon Cis's
couch; after which, looking sheepish, and wondering if Big Tom had, by
any chance, seen them, he put away his bedding, filled the teakettle,
and reached down the package of oatmeal.
It was not till he started to build a fire that he remembered! In the
fire box still was all that remained of his uniform, his books, and the
Carnegie medal. He lifted a stove lid; then as a mourner looks down into
a grave that has received a dear one, so, for a long, sad moment, he
gazed into the ashes. "Oh, my stories!" he faltered. "Oh, my peachy suit
o' clothes!"
But it was the medal he hunted. On pressing the ashes through into the
ash-box, something fell with a clear tinkle, and he dug round till he
found a burned and blackened disk. Fire had harmed it woefully. That
side bearing the face of its donor was roughened and scarred, so that no
likeness of Mr. Carnegie survived; but on the other side, near to the
rim, several words still stood out clearly--_that a man lay down his
life for his friends_.
After more poking around he found all the metal buttons off the uniform,
each showing the scout device, for, being small, the buttons had dropped
into the ashes directly their hold upon the cloth was loosened by the
flames, and so escaped serious damage. Also, following a more careful
search, he discovered--the tooth.
The clock alarm rang, and he surmised that Big Tom had wound it when he
came out for Grandpa.
"John!"
Somehow that splintered bit of Barber's tusk made Johnnie feel more
independent than ever. With it between a thumb and finger, he dared be
so indifferent to the summons that he did not reply at once. Instead, he
took the buttons to the sink and rinsed them; rinsed the tooth, too.
Then he put the medal into the shallow dish holding the dead rose
leaves, filled a cracked coffee cup with the buttons, and tossed the
tooth into the drawer of the kitchen table.
"John!"--an anxious John this time, as if the longshoreman half feared
the boy was gone.
"I'm up."
"Wish y'd come here."
Johnnie smiled grimly as he went. That "wish" was new! Always heretofore
it had been "You do this" and "You do that." Evidently something of a
change had also been wrought in Big Tom! The bedroom door was ajar an
inch or two. Through the narrow crack Johnnie glimpsed Grandpa, in his
chair, ready to be trundled out. But Barber was lying down, his face
half turned away.
"Wheel the old man into the kitchen," said the latter as he heard
Johnnie. He spoke with a lisp (that tooth!), and his voice sounded weak.
"And then bring me somethin' t' eat, will y'?"
Having said Yes without a Sir, Johnnie wagged his head philosophically,
the while he steered the chair skilfully across the sill. "Plenty o'
good turns t' do now," he told himself; "and all o' 'em for _him_!"
But--a scout is faithful. He built the fire and cooked a tasty
meal--toast, with the grease of bacon trimmings soaking it, coffee, and
rolled oats--and placed it on Grandpa's bed, handy to the longshoreman.
Then he shut the bedroom door smartly, as a signal that Big Tom was to
have privacy, and returned to his own program.
He scampered downstairs for Grandpa's milk and his own, taking time to
exchange a grin with the janitress, to whom Barber's defeat of yesterday
was no grief. Then back he raced, washed, combed and fed the little,
old soldier, helping him to think the gruel a "swell puddin'," and the
service Buckle's best. After that there was a short trip to Madison
Square Garden where, despite all facts to the contrary, a colossal
circus had moved in. Johnnie summoned lions before the wheel chair, and
tigers, camels, Arab steeds and elephants, Cis's room serving admirably
as the cage which contained these various quadrupeds. And, naturally,
there was a deal of growling and roaring and kicking and neighing, while
the camels barked surprisingly like Boof, and the elephants conversed
with something of a Hebrew accent. All of which greatly delighted
Grandpa, and he cackled till his scraggly beard was damp with happy
tears.
When he was asleep there was sweeping to do (with wet, scattered tea
leaves, and a broom drenched frequently at Niagara falls, all this to
help keep down the dust). A few dishes of massy gold needed washing,
too. The stove--that iron urn holding precious dust--called for the
polishing rag. Of all these duties Johnnie made quick work.
Then, without a thought that Big Tom might come forth, see, and seeing,
disapprove, Johnnie switched to the floor that square of oilcloth which
so often covered the Table Round, rolled the wash-tub into place at the
cloth's center, and partly filled it. At once there followed such a
soaping and scrubbing, such a splashing and rinsing! Whenever the cold
water struck a sore spot there were gasps and ouches.
A close attention to details was not lacking. Ears were not forgotten,
nor the areas behind them; nor was the neck (all the way around); nor
were such soil-gathering spots as knee-knobs and elbow-points; nor even
the black-and-blue streaks across an earnest face. And presently, the
drying process over, and Cis's old toothbrush laid away, a pink and
glowing body was bending and twisting close to the window, and shooting
out its limbs.
When Johnnie was dressed, and stood, clean and combed and straight on
his pins, his chest heaving as he glanced around a kitchen which was
shipshape, and upon his aged friend, who was as presentable as possible,
it occurred to him that when a caller happened in this morning--Mrs.
Kukor, Father Pat, or Cis; or when he, himself, fetched King Arthur, or
Mr. Roosevelt, or Robinson Crusoe, no excuses of any kind would have to
be made. He and his house were in order.
Mrs. Kukor. So far he had not noticed a sound from overhead. When the
brown shoes were on, he rapped an I'm-coming-up signal on the sink pipe.
There was no answer. He rapped it again, and louder, watching the clock
this time, in order to give the little Jewish lady a full minute to rise
from her rocking chair. But she did not rise; and no steps went
doll-walking across the ceiling. At this early hour could Mrs. Kukor be
out? He went up.
Another surprise. Another change. Another blow. At her door was her
morning paper, with its queer lettering; on the door, pinned low, was
what looked like a note. Feeling sure that it had been left for him,
Johnnie carried it half-way to the roof to get a light on its message,
which was sorry news indeed:
_Der Jony my rebeka has so bad sicknus i needs to go by hir love Leah
Kukor._
He was so pained by the explanation, so saddened to learn that his
devoted friend would be gone all day, that he descended absentmindedly
to the flat directly below Barber's, where he walked in unceremoniously
upon nine Italians of assorted sizes--the Fossis, all swarmed about
their breakfast in a smoke-filled room.
With a hasty excuse, he darted out; then, his heart as lead, climbed
home. Poor Mrs. Kukor! Poor daughter Rebecca! Poor baby, whose mamma
had a "bad sicknus!" And, yes, poor husband, Mr. Reisenberger!--even
though he was "awful rich."
The broom had swept from under the stove those lengths of clothesline.
With more philosophical wags of the head, Johnnie fastened them end to
end with weaver's knots, and rehung the rope, knowing as he worked that
he could never again bear to telephone along that mended line.
"Gee! Barber spoils ev'rything!" he declared.
After the rope was up he felt weak. He sat down at the table, thin legs
curled round the rungs of the kitchen chair, clean elbows on the
restored oilcloth, a big fist propping each cheek; and presently found
himself listening, waiting, his eyes on the hall door. At every noise,
he gave a start, and hope added its shine to that other shine which soap
had left on his face.
And so the long morning passed. Shortly after noon, he carried dinner in
to Big Tom, and took away the breakfast dishes. Grandpa went as far as
the door with him, and opened grave, baby eyes at sight of his prostrate
son. "Oh, Tommie sick!" he whispered, frightened. "Poor Tommie sick!"
"Shut up!" growled "poor Tommie," roughly, and Grandpa backed off
quickly, with soft tap-taps.
"Maybe y' better have a doctor," essayed Johnnie, practically, and as
calmly as he might have said it to Cis.
"You mind your business."
The afternoon was longer than the morning. Johnnie sat at the table
again. His face was hot, and he kept a dipper of water in front of him
so that he could take frequent draughts. Sometimes he watched his patch
of sky; sometimes he shut his eyes and read from the burned books, or
looked at their pictures; now and then he slept--a few minutes at a
time--his head on his arms.
Toward evening, though rested physically, he found his spirits again
drooping. Bravely as he had started the day, its hours of futile waiting
had tried him. (Could it be possible that grief was a matter of the
clock?) As twilight once more moved upon the city it brought with it the
misery, the loneliness and the pain which had been his just twenty-four
hours before. Oh, where, he asked himself, was the light step, the
tender voice, the helpful hand of her who had hurried home to him every
nightfall of the past?
He understood then what a difference there could be between bodily
suffering and mental suffering. His whipping, severe as it had been, was
over and done, and all but forgotten. But this sorrow--! "Gee!" he
breathed, marveling; "how it sticks!"
No; he had not realized when Cis left how hard it would be to stay on at
the flat without her. And ahead of him were how many days like this one?
He seemed there to stay for a time that was all but forever!
That night it was Boof who shared the mattress with him. He whispered to
the dog for a long while, recounting his troubles. Afterward, he said
over the tenth law, that one having to do with bravery. "Defeat does not
down him" the Handbook had said; and he was not downed. He thought of
every valiant soul he knew--Aladdin, Heywood, Uncas, Jim Hawkins,
Lancelot, Crusoe. He fought the tears. But he felt utterly stricken,
wholly deserted.
--By all save Polaris, now risen above the roofs. "Oh, you can see
ev'rything!" Johnnie said to the star, enviously. "So, please, where is
Father Pat?"
But Polaris only stared back at him. Bright and hard, calm and
unchanging, what difference did it make to so proud a beacon--the woe of
one small boy?
* * * * *
Joy cometh with the morning. This time Joy wore the disguise of a cowboy
who had a black eye, a bag of apples, a newspaper, and two cigars. Also
he carried a couple of businesslike packages, large ones, well wrapped
in thick brown paper and wound with heavy string.
The excitement and happiness that One-Eye roused when he shuffled in
came very nearly being the end of Johnnie, who could not believe his own
eyes, but had to take hold of a shaggy trouser leg in order to convince
himself that this was a real visitor and not just a think.
The Westerner appeared to have changed his mind about Big Tom in much
the same way that Johnnie had changed his (and, doubtless, for the same
reason). Dropping all of his packages, and fishing the cigars from a top
vest-pocket, he stalked boldly into the bedroom. "Say!" he began,
"here's a couple o' flora dee rope. Smoke you' blamed haid off!" Then,
as Barber, grunting, reached a grateful hand for the gift, "An', say!
I've brung the kid some more of all what y' burned up. So tell me--right
now--if y' got any objections."
"No-o-o-o!"--crossly.
"If y' have, spit 'em out!"
"Gimme a match!"
It was a victory!
"That feller's lost his face!" One-Eye confided to Johnnie when the
bedroom door was shut. He winked emphatically with that darkly colored
good eye.
"L--lost his face?" cried Johnnie, aghast. "What y' mean, One-Eye? But
he had it this mornin'! I _saw_ it!"
"Aw, y' little jay-hawk!" returned the cowboy, fondly.
Then, excitement! In a short space of time which the Westerner described
as "two shakes o' a lamb's tail," Johnnie was garbed from hat to
leggings in a brand-new scout uniform, and was gloating and gurgling
over another _Robinson Crusoe_, another _Treasure Island_, another _Last
of the Mohicans_, another _Legends of King Arthur_, and another
_Aladdin_. Each had tinted illustrations. Each was stiff with newness,
and sweet to the smell. "And the sky-book, 'r whatever y' call it, and
the scout-book, w'y, they'll come t'morra, 'r the day after, I don't
know which. --Wal, what d' y' say?"
"I say 'Thanks'--with _all_ of me!" Johnnie answered, trembling with
earnestness. They shook hands solemnly.
"Oh, our books!" cried Grandpa. "Our nice, little soldier!" To him, the
cowboy's presents were those which had gone into the stove.
There was something in that newspaper for Johnnie to read. It was a
short announcement. This had in it no element of surprise for him, since
it told him nothing he did not already know. Nevertheless, it took his
breath away. In a column headed "_Marriages_" were two lines which read,
"_Perkins-Way: April 18, Algernon Godfrey Perkins to Narcissa Amy Way_."
"It's so!" murmured Johnnie, awed. "They're both married!" Seeing it in
print like that, the truth was clinched, being given, not only a
certainty, but a dignity and a finality only to be conveyed by type.
"One-Eye, it's _so_!"
One-Eye 'lowed it was.
"And, my goodness!" Johnnie added. "Think o' Cis havin' her name in the
paper!"
They sat for a while without speaking. Grandpa, having been generously
supplied by the cowboy with scraped apple, slept as sleeps a fed baby.
Johnnie stacked and restacked his five books, caressing them, drawing in
the fragrance of their leaves. One-Eye studied the floor and jiggled a
foot.
"Sonny," he said presently (it was plain that he had something on his
mind); "y' won't feel too down-in-the-mouth if I tell y'--tell
y'--er--aw--" The spurred foot stopped jiggling.
"What? Oh, One-Eye, y're not goin' away right off?"
"T'night."
"Oh!"
"But, shucks, I'll be sailin' back East again in no time! These Noo York
big-bugs is jes' yelpin' constant fer my polo ponies."
"I'm glad." But there was a shadow now upon a countenance which a moment
before had been beaming. Things were going wrong with him--everything--all
at once. It was almost as if some malign genie were working against him.
"Mrs. Kukor's away, too," he said. "And with Cis gone--" He swallowed
hard.
One-Eye began to talk in a husky monotone, as if to himself. "They's
nobody else jes' like her," he declared; "that's a cinch! She's shore
the kind that comes one in a box! Whenever I'd look at her, I'd allus
think o' a angel, 'r a bird, 'r a little, bobbin' rose." He sighed,
uncrossed his shaggy knees, crossed them the other way, shifted his quid
of tobacco to the opposite cheek, and pulled down the brim of the wide
hat till it touched his leathery nose. "Such a slim, little figger!" he
added. "Such a pert, little haid! And--and a cute face! And she was
white! _Plumb_ white!"
Johnnie, as he listened, understood that the cowboy was talking of
Cis--no one else. He was not mourning his own departure, nor regretting
the fact that a small, lonely boy was to be left behind. Which gave that
boy such a pang of jealousy as helped him considerably to bear this new
blow.
"Wal," went on One-Eye, philosophically, "I never was a lucky cuss. If
the sky was t' rain down green turtle soup, yours truly 'd find himself
with jes' a fork in his pocket."
What was the cowboy hinting? How had luck gone against him, who was
grown-up, and rich, and free to travel whither he desired? And, above
all, what connection was there between Cis and green turtle soup?
Johnnie could not figure it out. With all his power of imagination,
there was one thing he never did understand--the truth concerning
One-Eye's feeling toward a certain young lady.