The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 43

"T'morrow!" He shouted the word. "What're y' _talkin'_ about? I'll _kill_ y' first! I'll----"

"Oh, don't!" As Barber reached to seize Cis again, Johnnie dragged at his sleeve.

But the longsh.o.r.eman did not notice him. It was Cis who cried out to Johnnie, still defying Big Tom. "Oh, let him do what he wants!" she said. "Because he won't have a chance even to speak to me after to-day!

Let him! Let him!"

Barber shook her, and stepped back. "After t'-day," he told her, "y'll work right here at home!"

"Home! _Home!_" She laughed wildly. "Do you call _this_ a home?"

"I'll see that y' behave y'rself!" he vowed.

"You'd better see that you behave _yourself_!" she retorted. "Because Johnnie doesn't belong to you--you haven't any rights over him! And he's gone once, and he'll go again--after I go! And I'm going the minute I can stand on my feet! I've stayed here long enough! Then you can try it alone for a change!"

"Oh, _can_ I?"

"I'll never do another thing for you!" she went on; "--in this flat or out! No, not in all the rest of my life! Oh, I'm not like Johnnie! I can't pretend it's beautiful when it's awful! and imagine good clothes, and decent food, and have my friends driven away, and insulted! I won't stand it! I know what's wrong! I see things the way they are! And I'm not going to put up with them! No girl could bear what you ask me to bear! This flat! My room! The way I have to work--at the factory, and then here, too! And no b.u.t.ter! No fruit! And the mean snarling, snarling, snarling! And never a cent for myself!"

It had all come pouring out, her voice high, almost hysterical. And if it surprised Johnnie, who had never before seen Cis other than quiet and gentle and sweet, modest, wistful and shrinking, it appalled Barber.

Those eyes of his bulged still more. His great mouth stood wide open.

Presently, he straightened and looked up and around. "Well, I guess I see what's got t' be done," he remarked casually.

The strap--it was Johnnie's first thought; Barber was getting ready to whip Cis! Never before had the boy seen her threatened, and the mere idea was beyond his enduring. "Oh, Mister Barber!" he protested. "Oh, what y' goin' t' do?"

For an answer, the longsh.o.r.eman swung a big arm over his own head and gave such a mighty pull at the clothesline that it came loose from its fastening at either end.

"Cis! He'll kill y'!" cried the boy, suddenly terror-stricken.

Girls could be brave! Father Pat had said it, and Edith Cavell had proved it. Cis was proving it, too! For now she rose once more, and though she was trembling, it was only with anger, not with fear. "He can kill me if he wants to!" she cried defiantly. "But he can't make me mind him, and he can't make me stay in this flat!"

Then Johnnie knew what he must do: bear himself like the scout he was so soon to be. Also, was he not the son of his father? And his father had been braver than any scout. So he himself must be extra brave. He flung himself against Barber, and clung to him, his arms wound round one ma.s.sive leg. "Oh, Mister Barber!" he entreated. "Don't hurt Cis! Lick me! Lick me!"

But Barber could not be easily diverted from his plan. "You git out o'

my way!" he ordered fiercely. A heave of one big leg, and he slung the boy to one side--without even turning to look at him as he fell. Then again he turned to Cis.

"You keep your hands off of me!" she warned. "If you touch me, you'll be sorry!--Oh, I hate you! I hate you! _I hate you!_"

Barber laughed. "So y' hate me, do y'?" he demanded. "And y' ain't goin'

t' stay one more night! Well, maybe y'll change y'r mind! Ha! ha! ha!

ha! ha!" Then suddenly his look hardened. With a grunt of rage, rope in hand, he swooped down upon her.

"You brute! You brute!"

It was not till then that Johnnie understood what Big Tom meant to do.

Crying out to him, "Oh, y' mustn't! Y' mustn't!" he rushed across to catch at the rope, and clung to it with all his might.

Barber caught him up, and once more he threw him--so that Johnnie struck a wall, and lay for a moment, half stunned. Meanwhile, with his other hand, the longsh.o.r.eman thrust Cis down into her chair. Then growling as he worked, he wound her in the rope as in the coils of a serpent, and bound her, body, ankles, and arms, to the kitchen table.

Johnnie came crawling back, bruised, but scarcely knowing it; thinking only of Cis, of saving her from pain and indignity. "No, Mister Barber!"

he pleaded. "Not Cis, Mister Barber! Please! It's all my fault! I fetched Mister Perkins here! I did! So blame me!"

Barber straightened. He was breathing hard, but there was a satisfied s.h.i.+ne in his bloodshot eyes. "All right, Mister Johnnie," he answered.

His voice was almost playful, but still he did not look at the boy.

"It's y'r fault, is it? Well, I guess maybe it jus' about is! So y'

needn't t' worry! I'll attend t' y'--_no mistake_!"

CHAPTER x.x.x

DISASTER

BARBER took his time. He even prepared to have a smoke before "attending" to Johnnie. He fumbled through his coat pockets to find his pipe, grinning all the while at Cis.

Being bound had not subdued her. She looked back at him, her face quivering, her cheeks streaming with angry tears. "Oh, yes, he'll go after you!" she sobbed. "You needn't be afraid he won't! He likes to take somebody that's little and weak, and abuse him, just as he's abused me, because I'm a girl! You don't think, Johnnie, that he'd ever take anybody his own size!"

"That'll do!" warned Big Tom. He had found the pipe, and now came a step nearer to her. "Y'd better keep y'r mouth shut, young lady!"

"Don't talk, Cis! Don't!" begged Johnnie, half whispering.

"I _will_ talk!" she declared. "All the years I've been here I've wanted to tell him what I think of him. And now I'm going to!--I _am_ a young lady. You great, big coward!"

He struck her with the flat of one heavy hand. But as she instantly struggled, and frantically, throwing herself this way and that, and almost overturning the table upon herself, the longsh.o.r.eman thought better of continuing the punishment, and crossed to the sink to empty his pipe.

Again Cis fell to sobbing, and talking as she wept. "I'm going to see that Father Pat knows about this," she threatened. "And everybody in the whole neighborhood, too! They'll drive you out of this part of town--you see if they don't! And, oh, wait till One-Eye knows, and Mr. Perkins!"

It was just then, as she paused for breath, that something happened which was unexpected, unforeseen, and terrible in its results. The longsh.o.r.eman, to empty his pipe, rapped once on that pipe leading down into the sink from Mrs. Kukor's flat--then twice more--then once again.

It was the book signal!

Johnnie gasped. And Cis stopped crying, turning on him a look that was full of frightened inquiry. He tipped back his head, to stare at the ceiling as if striving to see through it, and he held his breath, listening. During the quarrel, he had not thought of Mrs. Kukor, nor heard any sound from above. Was she at home? Oh, he hoped she was not!

or that she had not heard!

But she was at home, and was preparing to obey the raps. Her rocking steps could be heard, crossing the floor.

"Johnnie!" warned Cis. She forgot herself now, in remembering what might be threatening.

They heard the sc.r.a.pe of the book basket as it left the upper sill.

Johnnie got to his feet then, watching Barber, who was leaning over the sink, cleaning out the bowl of the pipe with the half of a match. Oh, if only the longsh.o.r.eman would leave the window now, before--before----

Almost gayly, and as jerkily as always, the basket with its precious load came dropping by quick inches into full view, where it swung from side to side, waiting to be drawn in. And as it swung, Big Tom caught the movement of it, faced round, and stood staring, seeing the books, but not comprehending just yet how they came to be outside his window, or for whom they were intended. And Johnnie, his face distorted by an agony of anxiety, kept his eyes on Barber.

"Ha-a-a-a!" Cis broke in, scornfully. "He's been asking old Grandpa questions, Johnnie! He's been spying on you, too! He ought to make a fine detective! All he does is spy!"

It was this which told Barber that the books belonged in his flat, and to Johnnie. "So-o-o-o!" he roared triumphantly, and grabbed the four strings. But now his anger was toward Mrs. Kukor.