He grinned sheepishly, tugged at his hair a few times, then went back to his mattress and sat down. He was not disappointed, for though he had been hopeful, he had not been over-sure. And, anyhow, he had his book. He lifted it out, placed it upon his knees, and rested his forehead upon it. And the next moment, as if whisked to him by a genie all his own, Cathay was about him; and he was with the boy, Aladdin, plunging down a flight of steps on his way to a garden that yielded fruit which was all diamonds and rubies and pearls.
CHAPTER VII
A SERIOUS STEP
HE awoke with such a feeling of happiness—a fluttery feeling, which was in his throat, and also just at the lower end of his breastbone, where he seemed to have so many kinds of sensations. For a moment he did not remember what made him so happy. But as he moved, something hard pressed against his ribs, whereupon the fluttery feeling suddenly spread over the whole of him, so that the calves of those lead-pipe legs got creepy, and his shoulder-blades tingled. Then he knew it was all because of the book.
The process of getting up of a morning was always a simple one. As he slept in his big clothes, all he had to do was scramble to his feet, roll up his bedding, splash a little water upon the central portion of his countenance, dry it away with the apron, and put the apron on.
As a rule he never so much as stirred till Barber or the alarm clock sounded an order. But on this happy morning he did not wait for orders, but rose promptly, though it still wanted more than half an hour to getting-up time. He did yet another unusual thing; noiselessly, so as not to wake any one, he set his bedding roll on end just outside the door of Cis's room, then returned to the table, drew out the drawer, chose a saucer of rose-colored beads, and fell to threading them swiftly. He had two ideas in mind: first, after yesterday's unpleasant experience, he was anxious to make a good impression upon Big Tom; second, and principally, he was stringing now, when he dared not read, in order that, later on, he might be free to enjoy his book.
He held the long needle in his right hand. He poked the beads to the needle's tip with the forefinger of his left. He used his tongue, too, after a fashion, for if a bead was obstinate his tongue tip sometimes helped—by curling itself noseward over his upper lip. Before now he had always thought of rose-colored beads as future rose-colored roses in the beautiful purses that Mrs. Kukor made. But now the beads reminded him of nothing less than that strange garden laying under the horizontal stone in China.
He took out all of his saucers—the pink, the green, the brown, the gold, the blue, the burgundy, the white, the black, the yellow—and found that they gave him a new pleasure. They were the fruit of Aladdin's garden, and he planned to offer them in a yellow bowl to that certain dark-haired little girl. "'What wouldst thou have?'" he quoted. "'I am ready to obey thee as thy slave,'"—a statement that he considered highly appropriate. His whispering was accompanied by gesticulations that bore no relation to bead-stringing, and by tossings of his yellow head.
"Now what y' mumblin' about?" demanded Big Tom. He was watching from the bedroom door, and his look denied that Johnnie, though at work, was making anything like a good impression; quite the contrary—for Barber's bloodshot eyes were full of suspicion. Should a boy who always had to be watched and driven suddenly show a desire to keep busy? "Breakfast on?" he asked.