The Rich Little Poor Boy

by Eleanor Gates

To that, Barber did not commit himself.

When Johnnie and Cis were left alone, old Grandpa being already abed, Johnnie did not try to win her interest in the Handbook, or share with her the new and absorbing thinks it inspired. Since that unhappy ending to the procession of the bath, with its wailing protest, and its tears, with nice consideration he had not again so much as broached a pretend to her. She sat at the window in the warm twilight, busy—or so it seemed—with her fingernails, which these days consumed a great deal of her time. Johnnie took down the clothesline and fell to making Knots Every Scout Should Know.

But that night on the roof! What a revel there was of brave scout doings, of gentlemanly conduct!—all witnessed by a large, fat moon. He wigwagged messages of great portent to phantom scouts who were in dire need. He helped blind men across streets that ran down the whole length of the roof. He held back pressing crowds while the police were rendered speechless with admiration. He swept off his scout headgear to scores of motherly ladies in three-cornered shawls; wrapped up the sore paws of stray dogs; soothed weeping children; straightened the blankets on numbers of storm-blown horses standing humped against the bitter wind and rain; and pointed out the right road to many a laden and bewhiskered traveler.

But when his bed claimed him, and he was free to do a little quiet thinking, it occurred to him that he had not strung a single bead that day, nor made one violet. Did this not number him among the breakers of that first law?—"by not doing exactly a given task." There was not the least doubt of it! "My!" he exclaimed. "I'm 'fraid them laws 're goin' t' be a' awful bother!"

Nevertheless, the following day, he did not fail to keep them in mind. Though Barber had so ill repaid his efforts to please, though no can of salmon had been forthcoming as requested, he did not punish the longshoreman that morning. Life seemed very full to him now, what with his regular duties and the fresh obligations laid upon him by the Handbook.

He skimped nothing. What did the housework amount to, now that he felt a sudden liking for it? And he found that he could memorize the laws while he was stringing beads. When he paused, either in one line of effort or the other, it was to do a good turn: put crumbs on the window sill for the sparrows, feed Boof, take Mrs. Kukor up one of the small pies (lifting off Grandpa's hat to her at the door), and give the little old veteran not one, but several, short railway journeys. And all the while he made sure, by the help of Cis's mirror, that his mouth was turned up at each end like a true scout's mouth should be.

"I got t' git my lips used to it," he declared, "so's they'll stay put."

And the things he did not do! For example, he discontinued his clothesline telephone service; for another, he wasted no minute by introducing into the kitchen territory either foreign or domestic. For he was experiencing the high joy of being excessively good. Indeed, and for the first time in his life, he was being so good that it was almost painful.

Finding Johnnie in this truly angelic state of mind when he arrived, Mr. Perkins grasped his opportunity, skipped all the chapters of the Handbook till he came to that one touching upon chivalry, and sat down with Johnnie to review it. And what a joy it proved to the new convert to find in those pages his old friends King Arthur and Sir Launcelot, together with Galahad, Gareth, Bedivere and all the others! and to make the acquaintance of Alfred the Great, the Pilgrim Fathers, the pioneers, and Mr. Lincoln!—especially Mr. Lincoln, that boy who had traveled from a log cabin to the White House!

"And I'll tell y' what!" he vowed, when Mr. Perkins rose to take his leave, "I've made up my mind what I'm goin' t' be when I grow up. I've thought 'bout a lot of things, but this time I'm sure! Mister Perkins, I'm goin' t' try t' be President of the United States!"