“Well, then, an orange?” went on Johnny. “I know a first-rate way to fix an orange, the way they do ’em in Havana, where they grow. Papa showed me, the winter he went there. Shall I do one for you? I don’t believe you ever ate one that way.”
Taffy nodded eagerly, opening his parched lips, but still not speaking. So Johnny hunted up a fork, and then, with Taffy’s knife, cut a round, thick slice of skin, about the size of a half-dollar, off the stem and blossom ends of the orange. These pieces of skin he put together, and stuck the fork through them. Then he peeled half the orange, cutting off all the white skin, as well as the yellow, then he stuck it on the fork, at the peeled end, finished peeling it, and handed it to Taffy, who had been looking on with breathless interest.
“There!” said Johnny, “you just hold on to the fork, and bite, and you’ll get all the good part of the orange, and none of the bad.”
“Now wasn’t that first-rate?” he asked, as Taffy handed him back the fork, with the “bad” of the orange on it.
Taffy laughed delightedly. His shyness was quite gone, but Johnny saw that his breath came with difficulty, and that it cost him an effort to speak.
“When I get well, and go sellin’ papers again,” he said, “I’ll fix up oranges that way on sticks. Folks would buy ’em, hot days; now don’t you think they would?”
“Why, yes,” said Johnny, seeing he was expected to answer, “I daresay they would.”
“The old woman down there,” and Taffy pointed to the floor, “she says I’m dyin’. Don’t you think she’s just tryin’ to scare me? Now don’t you, Johnny Leslie?”
Johnny was dismayed. What should he say? He sent up a swift, silent prayer for help, then he spoke, very gently.