THE VISION
AS life came back into his body, Johnnie's first thought was a grateful one: how cool to his cheek was the old, crackled oilcloth on the table if he rested that cheek a moment, now here, now there! His second thought, too, was one of thankfulness: How good it was to be lying there so quietly after those rending blows which had driven the breath out of his lungs!
He would have liked to tug at his hair; but as his hands were tied fast together, and held a little way beyond where lay his head, being secured almost immovably by a length of clothesline which came up to them from around a farther leg of the table, he could not comfort himself with his old, odd habit.
Presently, "Cis!" he whispered. "Cis!"
A moan, feeble and pitiful, like the complaint of a hurt baby.
It was pitch dark in the kitchen, and though he turned his look her way, he could not see her. Yet all at once he knew that this was not the wild, fighting, bold Cis, with the strange, changed face, who had stormed at the longshoreman; this was again the Cis he knew, gentle, wistful, leaning on him, wanting his affection and sympathy. "Aw, Cis!" he murmured fondly.
"Oh, Johnnie, I want a drink! I'm thirsty!"
He pulled at his hands. But Big Tom had done his tying well, and Johnnie could not even loosen one of them. "I wish I could bring you some water," He answered. "But my legs 're roped down on this side, and he's got my hands 'way over my head on the other, so the most I could do would be t' fall sideways off the table, and that wouldn't help y' one bit."
"Oh!" she mourned. "Oh!"
"Can't you git loose?" he asked.