The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 42

They were real. In the next breath, Johnnie knew it. No think of his would show them to him looking as they now looked. For Barber's heavy, dark countenance was working as he chewed on nothing ferociously; while Cis--in all the past five years Johnnie had never before seen her face as it was now. It was set and drawn, and a raging white, so that the blue veins stood out in a clear pattern on her temples. Her hat hung down grotesquely at one side of her head. Her hair was in wild disarray.

And her eyes! They were a blazing black!

What had happened?

"Let go of me!" Cis demanded, in a voice that was not hers at all.

Barber had hold of her arm. With a sudden twist she freed herself.

"Here!" Her stepfather seized her again, and jerked her to a place beside him. "And none o' y'r loud talk, d' y' understand?"

"Yes, I understand!" she answered defiantly, yet without lowering her voice. "But I don't care what you want! I'll speak the way I want to!

I'll yell--Ee-e-e----"

But even as she began the shriek, one of his great hands grasped the whole lower half of her face, covering it, and stopping the cry.

The next moment she was gasping and struggling as she fought his hold.

She tried to pull backward. She dragged at his hand as she circled him.

It was a strange contest, so quiet, yet so fierce. It was not like something that Johnnie was really seeing: it was like one of those thinks of his--a terrible one. Bewildered, fascinated, paralyzed, he watched, and the matches dropped, scattering, from his hands.

The contest was pitifully unequal. All at once the girl's strength gave out. Her knees bent under her. She swayed toward Big Tom, and would have fallen if he had not held her up--by that hand over her mouth as well as by the grasp he had kept on her elbow. Now those huge, tonglike arms of his caught her clear of the floor and half threw, half dropped, her upon the kitchen chair.

"You set there!" commanded Barber.

Too spent for speech, but still determined not to obey him, Cis tried to leave the chair, and drew herself partly up by grasping the table. But she could not stand, and sank back. At one corner of her mouth showed a trickle of blood, like a scarlet thread.

The sight of it brought Johnnie to her in an agony of concern. "Oh, Cis!" he implored.

With one flail-like swing of a great arm, Barber swept the boy aside.

"Stay where y' are!" he said to Cis (he did not even look at Johnnie).

Then he crossed to the hall door, which was shut, and deliberately bolted it. The clash between him and Cis had been so quiet that Grandpa had not even been wakened. Now Barber went to the wheel chair, and gently, slowly, began to trundle it toward the bedroom. "Time t' go t'

s'eep, Pa," he said coaxingly. "Yes, time for old man t' go s'eepy-s'eepy." When the chair was across the sill, he closed the door upon it.

Meanwhile, Johnnie had again moved nearer to Cis. Now was his chance to get away in his uniform and change into his old clothes; to gather up his old, big s.h.i.+rt and trousers from where they lay on the morris chair, unbolt the door, and make for that flight of stairs leading up to the roof. But--he did not even think of going, of leaving her when she needed him so. He wanted to help her, to comfort. "Oh, Cis!" he whispered again.

She seemed not to hear him, and she did not turn her burning eyes his way. Breathing hard, and sobbing with anger under her breath, she stared at Barber. Her lip was swelling. Her face was crimson from her fight.

Drops of perspiration glistened on her forehead.

Barber's underlip was thrust out as he came back to her. "Y' ain't got the decency t' be quiet!" he charged, "in front o' that poor old man!"

Now she had breath to answer. She straightened in her chair, and met him with a boldness odd when coming from her. "Grandpa isn't the only person in this flat to be considered," she returned.

"Jus' the same"--Big Tom shook a finger in her face--"he's the _first_ one that's goin' t' be considered!"

"Johnnie and I have _our_ rights!" she cried.

As she spoke his name, Johnnie's heart leaped so that it choked him--with grat.i.tude, and love, and admiration.

"Never mind y'r rights!" the longsh.o.r.eman counseled. "I begin t' see through you! Y're a little sneak, that's what y' are! Look at the crazy way y're actin', and I thought y' was a quiet girl! Y' been pretty cute about hidin' what y're up to!"

"Hiding!" she answered, resentful. "What do I have to hide from _you_?

What I do is none of _your_ business! I'm not a relation of yours! and I'm seventeen! And from now on----"

"Oh, drop that!" interrupted Barber. "Y' waste y'r breath!" Then with another shake of the finger, "What I want t' know--and the truth, mind y'!--is how long has this been goin' on?" He leaned on the table to peer into her eyes.

Going on? Johnnie's look darted from one to the other. Had Cis been staying away from the factory? Had she been taking some of her earnings to see a moving-picture? or----

"I don't have to tell you!" Cis declared.

"I'm the man that feeds y'!" Barber reminded. "Jus' remember _that_!"

"You've taken my earnings," she returned. "You've taken every cent I've ever got for my work! And don't you forget _that_!"

"Ev'ry girl brings home her wages," answered the longsh.o.r.eman. "And don't y' forgit that I fed y' many a year before y' was _able_ t'

work----"

"While my mother was living, she earned my food!" Cis cried. "And _I've_ worked, just as Johnnie has, ever since I was a baby!"

"Have y'? Bos.h.!.+ Y' been a big expense t' me, that's what y' been, for all these past ten years! And now, jus' when y're old enough t' begin payin' me back a little, here y' go t' actin' up! Well, you was left in my hands. I'm only stepfather to y'. All right. But I'm goin' t' see that y' behave y'rself."

"You've got nothing to say about me!" she persisted.

"No? I'll show y'! But what I want t' know now is, how many times have you met this dude at the noon hour?"

Then Johnnie understood what had happened.

"Ha-a-a-a!" Cis threw back her head with a taunting laugh. "Dude! So he's a dude, is he? But I notice, _big_ as you are, that you didn't let Mr. Perkins know you'd been watching us! You didn't come up to the bench and speak to _him_! No! You waited till he was gone! You were only brave enough to do your talking in front of a lot of girls! Ha-a-a-a!" Then her anger mounting, "_You_ talk about sneaking! That's because _you've_ sneaked and followed us!"

"Y're too young t' have any whipper-snapper trailin' 'round with y'--noons, 'r any other time," declared Barber.

"My mother married when she was seventeen!" retorted Cis.

"It'll be time enough for y' t' be thinkin' o' beaus when y're twenty,"

went on Big Tom, quietly.

She stood up. "You hate to see anybody happy, don't you?" she asked scornfully. "You're afraid maybe Mr. Perkins will like me, and want me to marry him, and give me a good home!"

"You can put that Perkins out o' y'r head," commanded the longsh.o.r.eman.

"When y're old enough, o' course, y're goin' t' marry; but I plan t'

have y' marry a _man_."

"Mr. Perkins is a man," she answered, not cowed or frightened in the least.

"Not _my_ notion o' a man," said Big Tom.

"I like him all the better for that!" she returned--an answer which stung and angered him anew, for he caught her roughly once more and hurled her back into her chair.

She stayed there for a moment, panting. Then, "I'm going to marry Mr.

Perkins," she told him. "To-morrow--_if I live_!"