"John!"
Somehow that splintered bit of Barber's tusk made Johnnie feel more independent than ever. With it between a thumb and finger, he dared be so indifferent to the summons that he did not reply at once. Instead, he took the buttons to the sink and rinsed them; rinsed the tooth, too. Then he put the medal into the shallow dish holding the dead rose leaves, filled a cracked coffee cup with the buttons, and tossed the tooth into the drawer of the kitchen table.
"John!"—an anxious John this time, as if the longshoreman half feared the boy was gone.
"I'm up."
"Wish y'd come here."
Johnnie smiled grimly as he went. That "wish" was new! Always heretofore it had been "You do this" and "You do that." Evidently something of a change had also been wrought in Big Tom! 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!"
But—a scout is faithful. He built the fire and cooked a tasty meal—toast, with the grease of bacon trimmings soaking it, coffee, and rolled oats—and placed it on Grandpa's bed, handy to the longshoreman. Then he shut the bedroom door smartly, as a signal that Big Tom was to have privacy, and returned to his own program.
He scampered downstairs for Grandpa's milk and his own, taking time to exchange a grin with the janitress, to whom Barber's defeat of yesterday was no grief. Then back he raced, washed, combed and fed the little, old soldier, helping him to think the gruel a "swell puddin'," and the service Buckle's best. After that there was a short trip to Madison Square Garden where, despite all facts to the contrary, a colossal circus had moved in. Johnnie summoned lions before the wheel chair, and tigers, camels, Arab steeds and elephants, Cis's room serving admirably as the cage which contained these various quadrupeds. And, naturally, there was a deal of growling and roaring and kicking and neighing, while the camels barked surprisingly like Boof, and the elephants conversed with something of a Hebrew accent. All of which greatly delighted Grandpa, and he cackled till his scraggly beard was damp with happy tears.
