One, two, three, and the dishes were cleared from the table. Then with the hall door locked as a precaution, Johnnie spread the oiled table-cloth on the floor (though Mr. Perkins demurred a little at this), planted the washtub at the center of the cloth, half filled the tub from the sink spigot, warmed the water with more from the teakettle, and took a long-deferred, much-needed rub down. It was soapy, and thorough. And he proved to himself that he really liked water very much—except, perhaps, in the region of his neck and ears!
When he was rinsed and rubbed dry, and in his clothes again, Mr. Perkins took off his own coat. Under it was a khaki-colored shirt, smart and clean and soldierly, that seemed to Johnnie the kind of shirt most to be desired among all the shirts of the world. Mr. Perkins pushed up the sleeves of it, planted his feet squarely, and fell to shooting his arms up and out, and bending his solid figure this way and that. Next, he alternately thrust out his legs. And Johnnie followed suit—till both were breathless and perspiring.
"To-morrow, exercise first and bathe afterward," instructed Mr. Perkins. "To-night, be sure to sleep with that window open. And now I'll give you a lesson in saluting."
It was then that Grandpa wakened. And perhaps something about the lesson stirred those old memories of his, for he insisted upon saluting too, and tossed poor Letitia aside in his excitement, and called Mr. Perkins "General."
When the latter was gone, with no pat on the head for Johnnie, but a genuine man-to-man hand shake, and a promise of his return soon, the boy, for the first time in his short life, took stock of the condition of his own body. Slipping out of the big shirt once more, and borrowing Cis's mirror, he contrived, by skewing his head around, chinning first one shoulder, then the other, to get a meager look at his back. He appraised his spindling arms and legs. He thumped his flat chest.
"Gee! Mister Perkins is dead right!" he admitted soberly. "I'm too skinny, and too thin through, and my complexion's too good." In the back of his head, always, was that dream of leaving the flat some day, never to return. "But like I am, why, I couldn't work hard 'nough, or earn good," he told himself now, and very earnestly. "So I'll jus' go ahead and make my body over the way Mister Roosevelt did."
While he was doing his housework he stopped now and again to shoot out an arm or a leg, or to bend himself from the waist. His skin was tingling pleasantly. His eyes were bright. A new urge was upon him. A fresh interest filled his heart. His hopes were high.
Cis, when she was told that the leader had actually called, not only believed the statement but shared Johnnie's enthusiasm. Realizing how much his training to be a scout would help him, she even tried to do away with that certain objection of his. "Maybe they don't have girl scouts any more," she suggested.
"Aw, I don't care a snap 'bout girl scouts!" he answered. "Cis, he called me 'old fellow'—I like it! And he's twenty-one. And you just ought t' see the shirt he wears!—not with little flowers on it, like Mike Callaghan's. And, oh, Cis, he never even s'pected that I cook, or wash, or do anything like that! And while he was here I took a bath!"
"No!" Her enthusiasm went. She was horrified. "Oh, Johnnie! Oh, my!" She grew pink and pale by turns. "And you so dirty!"