There followed one of his thinks. He brought Cis back into the little room, seated her on her narrow bed, with her slender shoulders leaned against the excelsior pillow which once she had prized. In her best dress, which was white, she showed ghostily among the shadows. But he could see her violet eyes clearly, and the look in them was tender and loving.
He held out his arms to her.
Somewhere, far off, a bell rang. It was like a summons. The wraith of his own making vanished. He wiped his eyes, now with one fringed sleeve, now with the other, stooped and felt round just inside the little room for his scrap of mattress and the quilt, took them up, softly shut the door, and turned about.
That same moment the hall door began slowly to open, propelled from without by an unseen hand. "St!" came a low warning. Next, a dim hand showed itself, reaching in at the floor level with a large yellow bowl. It placed the bowl to one side, disappeared, returned again at once with a goodish chunk of schwarzbrod, laid the bread beside the bowl, traveled up to the outside knob, and drew the door to.
He knew that the dim hand was plump and brown, and that it belonged to the little Jewish lady, who never yet had been forgetful of him, who was always prompt with motherly help. He knew that; and yet, as he watched it all, there was something of a sweet mystery about it, and he was reminded of that wonderful arm, clothed in white samite, which had come thrusting up out of the lake to give the sword Excalibur to great King Arthur.
He did not go to get what had been left (noodles, he guessed, tastily thickening a broth). Grandpa was already fed for the night, and asleep in the wheel chair, where Johnnie intended to leave him, not liking to rap on the bedroom door and disturb Big Tom. As for his own appetite, it seemed to have deserted him forever.
Noiselessly he put down his bedding beside the table. And it was then that he made out, by the faint light coming in at the window, the two dolls, Letitia and Edwarda, huddled together on the oilcloth. Letitia, small, old, worn out in long service to her departed mistress, had one sawdust arm thrown across Edwarda. And Edwarda, proud though she was, and beautiful in her silks and laces, had a smooth, round, artfully jointed arm thrown across Letitia. It was as if each was comforting the other!
Johnnie picked up the old doll. Somehow she seemed closer and dearer to him than the new one. Perhaps—who knew?—she, also, was mourning the absent beloved. (If there was any feeling in her, she had been inconsolable this long time, what with being cast aside for a grander rival.) "Well, Letitia," he whispered, "here we are, you and—and me!"
It was growing dark in the kitchen. Besides, no one was there to mark his weakness and taunt him with it. He put his face against faithful Letitia's faded dress—that dress which Cis herself had made, pricking her pink fingers scandalously in the process, and had washed and ironed season after season. That was it! He loved the old doll the better because she was a part of Cis.
"Oh, dear Letitia!" he whispered again, and strained the doll to his heart.