The Rich Little Poor Boy Part 46

"I know!" groaned the boy. "I--I'll try t' think."

"Mister Perkins!" scoffed the longsh.o.r.eman. "Who cares about _that_ tony guy? If he ever pokes his head into this flat again, I'll stick _him_ into the stove!" The s.h.i.+rt followed the leggings, after which, with a dull clanking of the stove lids, he covered the firebox.

"But my jacket's burnin'," Johnnie sobbed. "My nice jacket! And the medal! Oh, the beautiful medal!"

"He'll pay for it!" vowed Cis. "You'll see! I know one person that'll make him pay!--for hitting me, and tying me up, and burning your things!

Just you wait, Johnnie! It'll all come out right! This isn't over yet!

No, it isn't!"

Barber was laughing again. The top of the stove was a reddening black.

Upon it now he threw all the books; whereupon little threads of smoke began to ascend--white smoke, piercing the darker smoke of the burning hat and uniform.

As the books struck the stove, Johnnie had once more turned his head to look, and, "Oh, my _Robinson Crusoe_!" he burst out now. "Oh, Aladdin!

And dear Galahad!" This was more than the destruction of stories: this was the peris.h.i.+ng of friends.

"Never mind, dear Johnnie! Never mind!" The voice of the comforter was strong and clear.

Once more a stove lid rattled. Big Tom was putting the first book upon the fire. It was the beloved _Last of the Mohicans_. Johnnie's tearful eyes knew it by the brown binding. He groaned. "Oh, it's Uncas!" he told Cis. "Oh, my story! I'll never read y' again!"

"He'll wish a hundred times he'd never done it!" declared Cis. "It'll cost him something, I can tell you! He'll pay for them all, over and over!"

"Is that so?" Barber was amused. Now he threw the other books after the first. After that, he lounged to and fro, waiting till it was certain that even no part of the volumes would fail to be consumed. As he sauntered, he found his sack of smoking tobacco and refilled that pipe which had been the innocent cause of all Johnnie's misfortune.

With Big Tom away from the stove, the boy rose and crossed the room.

They were turning into ashes, all his books and the other things, and he wanted one last look at them before they were wholly gone. He picked up the poker, lifted a lid, and gazed down.

"Don't y' touch anythin'!" warned the longsh.o.r.eman, fussing with the matches as he strolled.

"I won't." Layers of curling black leaves were lying uppermost in the stove. And they were moving, as if they were living and suffering things. On some of the leaves Johnnie could see lettering. But as, at the sight, his tears burst forth again, the force of his breath upon those blistered pages broke them, and they crumbled.

He covered the stove and stumbled away. An odd thought was in his tortured brain: What Scout Law of the Twelve covered the burning of a uniform? of the books that all scouts should love? "Trustworthy," he repeated aloud; "loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient----"

"Oh, shut up!" ordered Barber.

"Yes, shut up, Johnnie," advised Cis. "Because those are all things this man doesn't know about--he's never heard, even, of anybody's being kind, or friendly." Then as there came from the stove a sudden snapping and blowing, she turned her face toward the longsh.o.r.eman, and it was strangely unlike her face, so changed was it by hate. "Oh, you vile, vile thing!" she cried.

"Now I guess that'll about do," said Barber. "Understand me. I've heard enough."

"_Nothing'll_ do," she returned firmly. "You won't ever stop my talking again! I sha'n't ever obey you again--no, about anything! And there are some things I'm going to tell about you. You think I don't know them--or that I've forgot. But my mother told me what she knew about you, and I remember it all. And to-morrow I'm going to hunt a policeman, and----"

In one long step he was beside her. "You--you--_you_!" he raged, choking. His face was blue, and working horribly, and there was fear in the bulging eyes. "What're y' _talkin'_ about? Have y' gone clean crazy?" With a half-bend, he caught up a length of the clothesline from the floor and doubled it. "You open your mouth to anybody," he told her, fiercely, "and I'll break ev'ry bone in y'r body!"

"Cis!" Johnnie rushed to her, clung to her bound arms, and warned her to silence.

But she would not be still. She was triumphant, seeing how afraid he was of her threat. She straightened, moving the table as she moved, and broke into a shout of defiance. "_Break_ my bones!" she challenged.

"Kill me, if you want to! But I'm going to tell--_tell_--_TELL_!"

"I will kill y'!" he vowed, and doubled the rope into a short, four-ply whip.

Johnnie forgot everything then but Cis's danger. Once more he came to put himself, thinly clad though he was now, between her and Big Tom.

"Oh, don't y' see she's half crazy?" he cried to the latter. "She don't know what she's sayin'! Oh, Mister Barber! Mister Barber!"

"They'll arrest him! They'll send him to jail! To the chair!" Cis was shouting, almost joyously, remembering only that now she was torturing their tormentor. "But I'll tell! I'll tell!"

Barber did not answer her. "Git out o' my way!" he growled to Johnnie.

"'R I'll lick you, too!"

Facing Barber, Johnnie leaned back against Cis, half covering her body with his own. "Lick me," he begged. "Oh, but don't touch her!"

Barber bared his teeth, turning a look of hate upon the boy. "You!" he cried, and cursed. "I'll lick y', all right! I'll lick y' so's it'll be a week before y' leave y'r bed!" Taking a firmer hold of the looped strands, he swung them above his head; then with a deep breath, and with all the power of his right arm, brought them down.

A shriek--from Cis.

But Barber had not struck her. The blow had reached only the upraised face and breast of the boy, driving him against Cis with terrible force.

Even in his agony Johnnie knew that, as he was pressing against her, she might be inadvertently struck as Big Tom struck at him; so, staggering sidewise, his arms held, crossed, above his head to keep the rope from his eyes, he got away from the table and the bound girl. But as he went he continued to clutch with all of his fingers at the rope which was now descending with awful regularity.

Shrieking, Cis covered her eyes by laying her head upon the table; and now she tried to cover one ear, then the other, to shut out the sound of the blows. And to her screams was added the voice of old Grandpa, whimpering in the bedroom, while he beat feebly at the door.

Johnnie, however, made no sound. Each stinging blow of the rope whip knocked the breath out of him, sending him farther and farther away from the table. Sometimes he reeled, sometimes he spun, so that as Barber drove him with lash after lash, he went as if performing a sort of grotesque dance. And all the while his face was purpling in two long stripes where had fallen that first cruel scourge.

With each swing of the strands Barber gasped out a word: "There!--Now!--Take!--Lazy!--_Sneak!_" Sweat dripped from among the hairs on his face. That white spot came and went in his left eye like an evil light.

Some one fell to pounding upon the hall door, and some one else upon a dividing wall. Then, with a crash, a bottle came hurtling through a pane of the window.

But Big Tom was himself half crazed by now, and seemed not to hear.

"I'll learn y'!" he shouted, and rained blow after blow--till the small figure, those old undergarments almost in rags as the rope strands cut into his back, could stand up to no more punishment. Of a sudden, with an anguished sigh, the boy half pivoted, and a score of red bands showing angrily upon his bare, thin arms, gave a lurch, bent double, and went down, his limp body in a half circle, so that his yellow head touched his knees.

A hoa.r.s.e shriek of terror and grief from Cis; she tried to rise, and dragged the table part way across the kitchen, her chair with it, striving to get to Johnnie. "Oh, you've killed him!" she cried. "You've killed him!"

Outside in the hall, the stairs creaked to the steps of several. Voices called. Doors opened and shut. Windows went up and down. From top to bottom the old building was astir.

Big Tom strode to the door and listened. Gradually, as quiet prevailed in the Barber flat, the other flats fell into silence, while the watchers in the hall stole away. Presently the longsh.o.r.eman gave a chuckle. n.o.body cared to interfere with him. He came sauntering back to Johnnie.

The boy was lying p.r.o.ne now, his eyes shut, his breast heaving. As Big Tom stood over him, his whole little ragged figure s.h.i.+vered, and he sucked in his breath through his clenched teeth.

"Ha-a-a!" laughed Barber. "So y' will stick in y'r nose! Well, I'll learn y'!" Catching Johnnie up in one big hand, he carried him to the table and laid him over its edge, arms outstretched, the yellow head between them, and the thin legs hanging down toward the floor. Then taking up that length of rope with which he had beaten the boy, he tied the spent body beside that of the well-nigh fainting girl.

"Now there the two o' y'll stay till mornin'," he announced when he was done. "Then maybe y' won't be so fresh about runnin' this place."

The sun was now below the tops of the houses to the west, and the kitchen was beginning to darken. Big Tom got down the lamp, lighted it, and carried it to the bedroom. "All right, Pa," he said cheerfully, "I'm comin' t' put y' t' bed now. Y' want y'r milk first, don't y'? Well, Tommie'll git it for y'." He returned to the cupboard for the milk bottle, gave a smiling look at the two heads leaned on the table, and disappeared to bed.

Presently some one tapped timidly on the hall door; but as there was no reply, the caller went softly away. A bit later, a gruff voice was heard on the landing, speaking inquiringly, and there were whispered answers.

But the gruff voice died away on the stairs, along with heavy footsteps. Then only the distant rumble of the Elevated Railroad could be heard occasionally, or the far, seaward whistle of some steamer, or the sc.r.a.pe and screak of a street-car.

And so night settled upon the flat.