"Gee! Barber spoils ev'rything!" he declared.
After the rope was up he felt weak. He sat down at the table, thin legs curled round the rungs of the kitchen chair, clean elbows on the restored oilcloth, a big fist propping each cheek; and presently found himself listening, waiting, his eyes on the hall door. At every noise, he gave a start, and hope added its shine to that other shine which soap had left on his face.
And so the long morning passed. Shortly after noon, he carried dinner in to Big Tom, and took away the breakfast dishes. Grandpa went as far as the door with him, and opened grave, baby eyes at sight of his prostrate son. "Oh, Tommie sick!" he whispered, frightened. "Poor Tommie sick!"
"Shut up!" growled "poor Tommie," roughly, and Grandpa backed off quickly, with soft tap-taps.
"Maybe y' better have a doctor," essayed Johnnie, practically, and as calmly as he might have said it to Cis.
"You mind your business."
The afternoon was longer than the morning. Johnnie sat at the table again. His face was hot, and he kept a dipper of water in front of him so that he could take frequent draughts. Sometimes he watched his patch of sky; sometimes he shut his eyes and read from the burned books, or looked at their pictures; now and then he slept—a few minutes at a time—his head on his arms.
Toward evening, though rested physically, he found his spirits again drooping. Bravely as he had started the day, its hours of futile waiting had tried him. (Could it be possible that grief was a matter of the clock?) As twilight once more moved upon the city it brought with it the misery, the loneliness and the pain which had been his just twenty-four hours before. Oh, where, he asked himself, was the light step, the tender voice, the helpful hand of her who had hurried home to him every nightfall of the past?
He understood then what a difference there could be between bodily suffering and mental suffering. His whipping, severe as it had been, was over and done, and all but forgotten. But this sorrow—! "Gee!" he breathed, marveling; "how it sticks!"
No; he had not realized when Cis left how hard it would be to stay on at the flat without her. And ahead of him were how many days like this one? He seemed there to stay for a time that was all but forever!