"Oh!" breathed Johnnie, so glad and proud all at once that he forgot the ap.r.o.n and his hair, or that the table was still strewn with the breakfast dishes. He fell back a step. "Oh, Mister Leader!"
The young man entered, lifting his hat from his head as he came, and displaying short, smooth, dark hair that glistened even in that poorly lighted room. "How are you, Johnnie!" he said heartily. They shook hands.
"I"m fine!" answered Johnnie, smiling his sunniest.
"Good!" The other gave a swift glance round. And certainly he was neither shocked nor delighted with the kitchen, for he acted as if he was seeing the sort of place he had expected to see--until he spied the wheel chair. Then he seemed surprised, and greatly interested. He laid his hat among the breakfast cups and crossed the room softly to look down at the little old man crumpled, sleeping, in the folds of the moth-eaten coat, the doll on one arm.
"Grandpa Barber," explained Johnnie, speaking low. "I took him on a long trip down the Miss"sippi this mornin", and he"s awful tired."
The young man nodded. A curious wrinkle had come between his brows, as if some thought were troubling him. Also, even his forehead was red now. Suddenly he took out a handkerchief, turned, and walked to the window, where he used the handkerchief rather noisily, shaking his head.
When he came about once more, and emerged from behind the square of white linen, not only did he look as if he were blushing violently, but even his eyes were a little red.
"Are you going to ask me to sit down?" he asked, smiling.
"Oh, I am! I do! Oh, what"s the matter with me t"day! I forgit ev"rything!"
The young man chose the morris chair.
It was then that Johnnie realized how untidy the kitchen was, remembered that he had not washed the old soldier"s face, or his own, or got rid of that ap.r.o.n. With fumbling fingers and mounting color, he slipped the ap.r.o.n strings over his tangled hair. "How"d I come t" have _this_ thing on!" he exclaimed, and looked at the ap.r.o.n as if he had never seen it before.
The young man seemed not to notice either Johnnie"s confusion or the soiled badge of girlish service. "You can call me Mr. Perkins, if you like," he said pleasantly. "And tell me--what"ve you been doing with yourself since I saw you?"
Again sunlight focused upon Johnnie"s face. "Well, mostly," he replied, "--mostly, I been jus" waitin" for you." He seated himself on the kitchen chair.
"Now, you don"t mean it!" cried Mr. Perkins, blushing again. "Well, bless your heart, old fellow! Waiting for me! I wish I could"ve come sooner. But I"ve been, pretty busy--up to my ears!"
"Oh, that"s all right," Johnnie a.s.sured him. ""Cause I filled in the wait good "nough. I jus" kept thinkin" you here, and ev"ry mornin"
Grandpa and me"d have you "long with us when we went t" Niaggery, or anywheres else; and ev"ry night, Cis"d take you with us, callin" on the Queen, or buyin" at the stores, or goin" t" grand b.a.l.l.s."
After that, Mr. Perkins did not have anything to say for as much as a whole minute, but sat looking earnestly at his small host, and blinking a good deal. Then, "I see," he said finally. "That"s nice. Mighty nice.
I"m glad. And--and I hope I conducted myself all right."
"Oh, you was fine! Always!" declared Johnnie, his voice breaking, he was so emphatic. "Cis never could dance with One-Eye, and not jus" "cause he wears spurs, neither. No, she thinks One-Eye"s too homely to dance, or go callin", or take t" Wanamaker"s. But, oh, she says you"re jus" fine!
Maybe not as grand as the Prince of Wales, she says, but then she"s awful silly about him."
More steady looking; more blinking. "Well,--er--what did you say the little girl"s name is?"
"Her full name"s Narcissa Amy Way," answered Johnnie. "It"s pretty long, ain"t it? And if Grandpa and me called her that, Big Tom"d think we was wastin" time, or tryin" t" be stylish, and he hates ev"rything that"s stylish--I don"t know why. So round the flat, for ev"ry day, we call her Cis--C-i-s."
"Well, Miss Narcissa is right about me," said Mr. Perkins. "I"m _not_ as grand as the Prince of Wales--not by a good deal! But now suppose you tell me all about yourself, and--and the others who live here."
Johnnie did so. And since he spoke low, and evenly, Grandpa did not wake, to interrupt. At the end of an hour, Mr. Perkins knew all that Johnnie was able to tell--about himself, his parents, his Uncle and Aunt, Mike Callaghan, the policeman, and the Fifty-fifth Street millionaire; about Cis and her mother, Barber and his father, Mrs.
Kukor, One-Eye and the other cowboys, Buckle, Boof, David, Goliath (mingling the real, the historical, the visionary and the purely fictional), young Edward of England, that Prince"s numerous silk-hatted friends, the four millionaires, the janitress, Mrs. Reisenberger and her baby, the flea-bitten mare, the postman, Edwarda (he showed the new doll), then, in quick succession, his favorite friends out of his five books.
Mr. Perkins listened, sitting on the small of his back, with his elbows on the arms of the morris chair, and his fingers touching. And when Johnnie came to the end of his story (with King Arthur, and those three Queens who kneeled around the king and sorely wept and wailed), all the visitor said was, "Good boy! And now tell me more about your reading."
Johnnie"s eyes danced. He stood up, fairly quivering with happy excitement. Enthusiastically he explained that directly under Mr.
Perkins was his oldest book, whereat Mr. Perkins got up, lifted the old chair cushion, and discovered the telephone directory. However, astonishing as it may seem, he had one just like it, so Johnnie did not lift the big book out to show its chief points of interest. Instead, he brought forth from Cis"s closet his other treasures in binding, laying them very choicely on the table, and handing them over one by one--the best-looking of the lot first.
The books were put away again very soon, Johnnie explaining why. "But y"
can keep the newspaper out," he declared. "Big Tom"s seen it, and didn"t try even t" tear it up."
"That was nice of him!" a.s.serted Mr. Perkins, as he noted the date on the paper. "But what about school?"
"Oh, gee! I forgot all about Mister Maloney!" regretted Johnnie. He filled in the gap promptly, including night school, and the matter of his not having suitable clothes. "But when Mister Maloney heard how I can read," he concluded, "he seen I didn"t need t" go t" school the way other kids do. Or anyhow"--remarking a curious light in those coffee-colored eyes--"that"s what Big Tom says. And I can write good.
Watch me, Mister Perkins! I"ll write for you on the plaster--big words, too!"
"Oh, I"m sure you write well," Mr. Perkins agreed. "So I"d rather you"d talk. Tell me this: what do you eat?"
Johnnie answered, and as correctly as possible, being careful all the while not to give so much as a hint of the shameful truth that he, himself, did most of the cooking. As he talked, he kept wishing that the conversation would swing round to scouts and uniforms. He even tried to swing it himself. "Mrs. Kukor says that scouts make picnics," he said, "and have awful good things t" eat."
But Mr. Perkins pa.s.sed that over, hint and all. He wanted to know whether or not Johnnie got plenty of milk.
"Oh, the milk we buy is all for Grandpa," Johnnie protested. "A big kid like me----"
Mr. Perkins interrupted. "I take a quart a day," he said quietly, "and I"m a bigger kid than you are; I"m twenty-one. Milk"s got everything in it that a man needs from one end of his life to the other. Don"t forget that."
"No, sir,"--fixing upon his visitor a look that admitted he was wrong.
"I wish I could drink a lot of milk," he added regretfully.
"And what about exercise? and baths? Out-door exercise, I mean," said Mr. Perkins.
"I hang out o" the window "most ev"ry mornin" that I don"t go after boxes," answered Johnnie, so glad that he could give a satisfactory account of the matter of fresh air. "And bathin", well, I bathed ev"ry day when I was at my Aunt Sophie"s, but down here----"
"Yes?" Mr. Perkins smiled encouragement.
"We ain"t got no tub," said Johnnie, "so my neck"s "bout as far as I ever git."
Then the moment for which he had been waiting: "And you think you"d like to be a scout?" inquired Mr. Perkins.
"Oh, gee!" sighed Johnnie. He relaxed from sheer excess of feeling. His head tipped back against his chair, and he wagged it comically.
"Wouldn"t I jus"! And wear clothes like yours, and--and learn t"
s"lute!"
Mr. Perkins laughed, but it was a pleasant, promising laugh. "We"ll see what can be done," he said briskly. "And to begin with, how old are you?"
Johnnie opened his mouth--but held his tongue. He guessed that age had something to do with being a scout. But what? Was he too old? But the boys who had marched past him were as tall as he, if not taller. Then was he too young? Taken unaware, he was not able quickly to decide what the trouble might be. But he had not lived five years at Tom Barber"s without learning how to get himself out of a tight corner. This time, all he had to do was tell the absolute truth. "I don"t "xac"ly know," he answered.
"Mm!" Mr. Perkins thought that over. Presently, adjusting his gla.s.ses, he looked Johnnie up and down, while anxious swallows undulated Johnnie"s thin neck, and about his k.n.o.bs of knees the long fringe of the big trousers trembled. "But we can find out how old you are, can"t we?"
Mr. Perkins added, with a sudden smile.
"I guess I"m ten goin" on "leven," capitulated Johnnie.
"Ten going on eleven! That"s splendid! It"s the best age to begin getting ready to be a scout! The very best!"
"Gee! I"m glad!"
"So am I! You see, it takes some time to be a scout. It"ll take every spare minute you"ve got to get ready. It"s something that can"t be done in a hurry. But here you"ve got more than a year to prepare yourself."