Johnnie

“ Nothing could make Johnnie despair, no disappointment could warp the simple straightforward sincerity, the loyal and almost childlike honesty of his nature. And if here and there, for a short time, fortune seemed to shine upon him, you may be sure that there was no single friend whom he did not call upon to bask with him in these fleeting rays. ”

“ To judge from these sounds, the cowboy was carrying out Johnnie's wish. So with that rapt look, and that moving of the nostrils which betokened excited day-dreaming, Johnnie gladdened himself with a soul-satisfying picture of the contest: Big Tom prone on his face, spent, helpless, cowering, pleading, bleeding, while the dashing One-Eye rained blow after blow upon him—bing! bing! bing! ("Makin' a meal outen him," as the man from the West would say) . Next, he saw the longshoreman stretched upon a bed of pain, admitting all of his shortcomings to Father Pat in weak whispers. ”

“ Johnnie lightened his heart with all this testimony. For it was often difficult for him to feel any more certain about the cowboy than he did about his four millionaires, or Sir Galahad, say, or Uncas, or Goliath, or Crusoe. He could revel gloriously in make-believe, yes; but perhaps for this very reason he found himself terribly prone to doubt facts! And as each day went by, he came to wonder more and more about the reality of One-Eye, though the passing time as steadily added romantic touches to the figure of the Westerner. ”

“ Smiley's pew, and to Johnnie's horror one pat into the deacon's plate!
The good man's eyes tried not to twinkle as he [251] removed the unusual offering, and passed on more quickly than was his wont.
Miserable Johnnie, with his face as red as a rooster's comb and eyes cast down in shame, saw nothing but the green squares on the carpet and the dreadful pink-frosted cakes. He was sure that every one in the church was glaring at him; probably even grandma had forsaken him, and each moment he dreaded—he knew not what. ”

“ JOHNNIE went through his regular duties in the flat, but he went through them in a daze. Whenever his work was done, he sat down. Then, his body quiet, his brain registered sounds—a far-off voice, the slam of a door, the creak of the stairs, whistles, bells. But his thoughts fixed themselves upon nothing. Aimlessly they moved from one idea to another, yet got nowhere, like chips on currentless water. If he remembered about Father Pat, that memory was dull—so dull that he could not recall the Father's face; and he did not even dream about him at night. He endured no suffering. ”

“ But Johnnie's task of subduing Barber was not finished. The brave boy could see that the big longshoreman was [13] making as if to rise. Johnnie could still feel the touch of Big Tom's perspiring hand on his forehead, and the pinch of those cruel fingers on his shoulder. Taking a forward step, he gave Barber's shoulder a wrenching jerk, then thrust the longshoreman backward by a spanking blow of the open palm full upon that big, ugly, bristling face. ”

“ The car trembled like a great, eager monster, growling in leash. Johnnie's agonized eyes searched first its mechanism, and then went to the descending figures, where her uncle plunged desperately down the slope, fell, struggled, rolled, but rose and came gallantly on, half dragging, half carrying Gray in his arms.
"Let that car alone!" a new voice took up the hail, a little nearer this time; and after it came the sound of a shot. High up on the mountain's brow, against the sky, Johnnie caught a glimpse of the heads and shoulders of men, with the slanting bar of a gun barrel over one. ”

“ My dear friend, the state of Johnnie's health weighs sometimes strangely on my heart. May God give him what he stands in need of, but he should not allow himself to be cheated...However, this is neither here nor there. The greatest truth in the world is that I shall always love you as a most honest and kind man and Johnnie as another. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ What remained of the group began to aim questions at Johnnie, rooted to the pavement beside his box. [152] "Who's 'at, kid? What's he want? What y' goin' t' do?"
To answer, Johnnie had to lower himself down from the skies, to which he had been lifted by that salute. "You kids don't know One-Eye," he said, a trifle loftily. "Well, do y' know Aladdin? or Long John Silver? or—or Jim Hawkins? or Uncas? or King Arthur?"
The last name proved to be an error in selection. Instantly the half-dozen boys about Johnnie set up a derisive shout: "He knows a King! Aw, kids! He knows a King! Whee!" ”

“ Jane won't mind, I am sure, and I know Jennie will understand. It isn't what even we who love you think of you, John—it is what you are that counts. Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, maybe you could serve your country and humanity in jail—by showing the folly and the utter uselessness of all this money-getting, just as your father served it by dying. ”

“ He tried to rise, but was too weak. Slowly he recalled the accident, the pain, and the darkness. What came then? Looking around in a helpless, wistful manner, he saw Johnnie's big eyes shining on him through falling tears. He moved his left hand around to find the right one. Alas! it was gone. Turning his face to the wall, the hot tears slipped quickly down from his closed eyes.
It was a long day for the boys, Johnnie at his toilsome labor in the factory, and Pat at home thinking, thinking, thinking, trying to find some gleam of brightness, some way of self-help in the future. ”

“ And soon our young fellows settled down, and all the old wild life of wandering on the hills and of sport began again. For indeed the boys needed a rest.
Little Johnnie Shingles and that droll Old Pen took up their abode in the servants' hall, but were often invited into the drawing-room of an evening, when, to the music of Frank's fiddle, the boy and Mother Pen brought down the house, so to speak, by their inimitable waltzing. This was fun to everybody else, and even to Johnnie himself. ”

“ And then, again, in his epistolary rhymes to friends and acquaintances (alas! that was all over now) there were many obvious qualities, but certainly not the lyrical one. Here, for example, are some verses he had sent in former days to a certain Johnnie Pringle, living at Tongue, who had had his eye on a young lass down Loch Loyal way:
O Johnnie, leave the lass alane;
Her mother has but that one wean;
For a' the others have been ta'en,
As weel ye ken, Johnnie.
'Tis true her bonnie e'en would rive
The heart o' any man alive;
And in the husry [#] she would thrive—
I grant ye that, Johnnie. ”

“ And as Johnnie answered himself thus, he realized the truth of a certain statement which Father Pat had once made to him: "The only possessions in this world that can't be taken away from ye, lad dear, 're the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge that ye've got in yer brain." ”

“ Eye!" she repeated; "One-Eye!" Then was swept into another paroxysm of mirth.
Presently, "Well, go on! Tell me!" Johnnie said with proper masculine severity.
"Oh, Johnnie, you are so funny!" she declared breathlessly. "One-Eye! That old man! Oh, never, never, never, never!" The last never was only a squeak.
"When y' git done laughin'—" he prompted; and waited, lips set, and lids lowered with displeasure.
"Somebody a thousand times nicer than One-Eye!" she went on. "A million times nicer! And, oh, Johnnie, how I love him!" ”

“ Johnnie Jones said, "do you think they'll come soon?"
"Listen!" Mother answered.
Then Johnnie Jones heard a sound that made him clap his hands with joy. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Galloping down the street came the splendid big fire-horses drawing the hook-and-ladder. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Down the street came the fire-engine, the hose carriage, and the salvage corps wagon. ”

“ Johnnie talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what he meant to do when he got into the world again.
"How'd I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again."
"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for more'n two years. It's my business."
Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak.
"What you goin' to ask?"
Mary started. Then she answered steadily,—
"That's all right. I don't ask much, anyway; but when folks don't have ready money, I never ask anything. ”

“ Barber's your uncle, eh?"
"He ain't no relation," declared Johnnie, proudly.
The clock alarm announced the hour of five. Johnnie fed the fire and put the supper over. Still the man stayed. Once he got up and walked about, stared into the blackness of Big Tom's bedroom, and held the lamp so that he might have a look at Cis's closet. He grumbled to himself when he put the lamp down.
All this made Johnnie uneasy. He could think of only one reason for such strange and suspicious conduct. The books! Could this by any chance be Mr. J. J. Hunter? ”

“ John’s Gospel.
Johnnie’s delight had been the dressing the cathedral cup with a spray of holly sent to him from Brogden by his aunt, and now he sat conning the hymns he had heard in church, and musing over his prints in silence, till his brow caught an expression that strangely blended with those dreamy impressions of his father.
‘Poor children! they have had a dull Christmas-day!’ said Arthur, as they came to bid him good night.
‘No, no, papa; the owl-man has had such a game at play with us in the dining-room!’ cried Helen. ”

“ If he said little, nevertheless he inspired others to talk. For some reason he was anxious to get from Johnnie the story of the boy's past life, which was not so complete as One-Eye would have liked, since Johnnie had forgotten the surname of his Aunt Sophie. He remembered her as a tall woman with big teeth and too much chin who wore plaid-gingham wrappers and pinched his nose when she applied a handkerchief to him. ”

“ Poor Johnnie fled, without hearing his mother’s consoling ‘I’ll come;’ which only, with her look of grief, further irritated Arthur. ‘Ay, ay! That’s always the way. Nothing but the boy, whenever I want you.’
Violet saw defence would make it worse, and tried to give him the attention he required; though quivering with suppressed distress for his harshness to his poor little boy, whom she could hardly help going at once to comfort. ”

“ Slowly Johnnie faced round. On the back of the stove was the bean-kettle, big, black and of iron, heavy to lift, hard to wash, and for years—by Cis as well as Johnnie—cordially loathed. "Soldiers and miners and hunters," he repeated, as if to himself; "and scout kids wear pitchers of 'em." That remarkable change of attitude of his now included the kettle. He knew that he would never again hate it. When he turned back to the leader, he was his old confident self. "Do boy scouts ever wear aprons?" he inquired. "And does anybody laugh at 'em?"
"Laugh?" said Mr. Perkins. "They do not! ”

“ As Johnnie, preparing to set his supper table, lifted the quart milk bottle which held the bouquet, intending again to place it on Cis's dressing-box, the flowers, with a sound that was almost like a soft sigh, showered their crumpling petals [261] upon the oilcloth. Shocked, Johnnie set the bottle quickly down. But only seventeen bare stalks were left in it. The last sweet leaf had dropped.
He stood for a little looking down. The first shock past, his whole being became alive with protest. Oh, why should beautiful flowers ever have to die? ”

“ I found her cherishing the bag in a hidden corner, and recalling to me, with tears, how warm-hearted Johnnie was, saying that the night the news of her old mother's death came to her from Virginia, he had sat up till daybreak to keep the fire going. "Miss Libbie, I tole him to go to bed, but he said, 'No, Eliza, I can't do it, when you are in trouble: when I had no friends, and couldn't help myself, you helped me.'" After that, the lad was always "poor Johnnie," and many a boy with kinsfolk of his own is not more sincerely mourned. ”

“ Do flies talk? What made Grandpa grow old?
Ah, those were the days which were never to be forgotten!
There came a day which brought with it an added joy. So often Johnnie had mourned the fact that he did not have more than one friend at a time. But late on a blazing August afternoon, just as the Father was getting up to take his leave, the hall door squeaked open slowly, and there on the threshold, with his wide hat, his open vest, watchchain, furred breeches and all, was One-Eye! ("Oh, two at a time, now!" Johnnie boasted to Cis that night. "Two at a time!") ”

“ The priest threw up astonished hands. "Shure," he cried, "and is this annybody I know?"
"Oh, it is! I am!" declared Johnnie, flushing under the brim of the olive-drab hat. "It's me, Father Pat! Oh, my! Do I look fine? D' y' like it?"
Grandpa did, for he was circling Johnnie, cackling with excitement. "Oh, go fetch Mother!" he pleaded. "Go fetch Mother!—Oh, Mother, hurry up! Come and see Johnnie!"
The Father walked in circles too, exclaiming and admiring. "It can't be a certain little lad who lives in the Barber flat," he puzzled. "So who can it be? ”