He gave over thinking about wearing a cattleman's outfit, and began once more to turn his thoughts inward upon the flat. He sought out Aladdin from the precious pile of books and opened it at the page he had been reading when One-Eye's voice had fallen for the first time upon his ears. And at once he was again living with the Chinese boy that story of stories.
The day sped. Whenever Grandpa interrupted him, Johnnie would go to look at Cis's apple. He would take it up, and turn it, and smell it. He looked at it affectionately, remembering who had bought it, had had it in his hands, and carried it. It brought that dear one close.
"Good One-Eye!" murmured Johnnie, and first making certain that even Grandpa was not watching, he laid the apple against one of his pale cheeks. Somehow it comforted him. He pictured Cis's surprise and joy when, having been told to shut her eyes and put out her hands, she would see the crimson-skinned gift.
About this he received a cruel shock. For when Cis came slipping in, with an anxious look around, as if she feared Johnnie might not be there, and had gone through the—to her—annoying preliminary of shut eyes and outstretched palms, there was plain disappointment on her face as she saw what Johnnie had to give her. And when he told her whose gift it was, far from changing her attitude, and showing the pride he expected, what she did was to burst into peals of laughter!
It was like a slap in the face. He stared at her, not able to comprehend how she could belittle a present from such a source. And all at once he felt himself more in sympathy with Big Tom than he did with her, for Big Tom at least held One-Eye in high honor, and considered his visit to the flat a compliment.
Now she added insult to injury. "What a funny thing to give a girl!" she cried. Then daintily taking a whiff of the fruit, "But then it'll scent up my box fine." She went to tuck it among her belongings.
Not a word of gratitude! And she was crossness itself when, her dress changed, she sallied forth to set to work on the wash. That this task had something to do with her lack of sweet temper never occurred to Johnnie, whose opinion of girls had received another setback. As he watched her drag forward the tub and fall to rubbing, he half-way made up his mind to wait his chance, take the apple out of that old box, and eat it! He sat at the window, counting the stars as they came into his rectangle of faded blue, and was glad that he now had a dog. A girl around the house was so unsatisfactory!
Next day, with Cis's wash swinging overhead in a long, white line, he finished Aladdin and took up Robinson Crusoe. And with the new book there opened to him still another life. Swiftly the palaces of Cathay melted away. And Johnnie, in company with several fighting men, was pacing the deck of a storm-tossed ship, with a savage-infested shore to lee. Gun in hand, he peered across the waves to a spit of sand upon which black devils danced.
By nightfall, what with fast reading, and by skipping many a paragraph which was pure description, the oilcloth table was a lonely island inhabited by no human being, the morris chair was the good ship stranded, with all on board lost except Crusoe and Johnnie, who, while the seas dashed over them, roaring, breathlessly salvaged for their future use (Johnnie's hurt arm was out of its sling all this time) the mixed contents of the kitchen cupboard.
Big Tom interrupted this saving of provender. And Crusoe's friend was curtly ordered to wash some potatoes for supper, and lay the plates, and not leave everything for Cis to do. The order was accompanied by that warning flash of white in Barber's left eye. It brought to an end Johnnie's period of convalescence.