CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE VISION

AS life came back into his body, Johnnie's first thought was a grateful one: how cool to his cheek was the old, crackled oilcloth on the table if he rested that cheek a moment, now here, now there! His second thought, too, was one of thankfulness: How good it was to be lying there so quietly after those rending blows which had driven the breath out of his lungs!

He would have liked to tug at his hair; but as his hands were tied fast together, and held a little way beyond where lay his head, being secured almost immovably by a length of clothesline which came up to them from around a farther leg of the table, he could not comfort himself with his old, odd habit.

Presently, "Cis!" he whispered. "Cis!"

A moan, feeble and pitiful, like the complaint of a hurt baby.

It was pitch dark in the kitchen, and though he turned his look her way, he could not see her. Yet all at once he knew that this was not the wild, fighting, bold Cis, with the strange, changed face, who had stormed at the longsh.o.r.eman; this was again the Cis he knew, gentle, wistful, leaning on him, wanting his affection and sympathy. "Aw, Cis!"

he murmured fondly.

"Oh, Johnnie, I want a drink! I'm thirsty!"

He pulled at his hands. But Big Tom had done his tying well, and Johnnie could not even loosen one of them. "I wish I could bring you some water," He answered. "But my legs 're roped down on this side, and he's got my hands 'way over my head on the other, so the most I could do would be t' fall sideways off the table, and that wouldn't help y' one bit."

"Oh!" she mourned. "Oh!"

"Can't you git loose?" he asked.

"No! I'm tied just as _tight_!"

Then for a little they were quiet, while Johnnie tried to study out a way of helping her. But he failed. And soon she began to fret, and move impatiently, now sobbing softly, as if to herself, again only sighing.

He strove to soothe her. "It won't be long till mornin'," he declared.

"If y' could make b'lieve y' was in bed, and count sheep----"

"But the ropes hurt me!" she complained. "I want them off! They hurt me awfully, and I feel sick!"

"Well," he proposed, "let's pretend y're so sick y' need a nurse, and----"

But she would not wait for the rest of his plan. "Oh, that kind of thinking won't help me!" she protested. "And I don't want anybody but my mother!" Then sobbing aloud, "Oh, I want my mother! I want my mother!"

The cry smote his heart, bringing the tears that had not come when Barber was beating him. Never before, in all the years he had known her, had she cried out this longing. Saying scarcely anything of that mother who was gone, leaving her so lonely, so bereft, always she herself had been the little mother of the flat.

"Course y' do!" he whispered, gulping. "Course y' do!"

"If she'd only come back to me now!" she went on. "And put her arms around me again!"

"Don't, Cis!" he pleaded tenderly. "Oh, please don't! Ain't y' got me?

That's pretty nice, ain't it? 'Cause we're t'gether. Here I am, Cis!

Right in reach, almost. Close by! Don't cry!"

But she was not listening. "Oh, Mother, why did you go and leave me?"

she wept. "Oh, Mother, I want you so much!"

Johnnie began to argue with her, gently: "But, Cis, think how Mister Perkins likes y'! My! And he wants t' marry y'! And y'll have such a nice place t' live in. Oh, things'll be _fine_!"

That helped a little; but soon, "I want to lie down!" she complained.

"Oh, Johnnie, it hurts to sit like this all the time! Can't you reach me? Oh, try to untie me!"

"Cis, I can't," he protested, once more. "But it'll be mornin' before y'

know it! W'y, it's awful late in the night right now! I betcher it's twelve--almost. So let's play a game, and the time'll pa.s.s so _quick_!"

"I can't wait till morning for a drink!" she cried. "I'm so thirsty! And I want to lie down!"

"Now," he started off cheerily, "--now, we'll play the way we used t'

before y' got grown-up. Remember all the nice things we used t' do?

Callin' on the Queen, and dancin' parties, and----"

"My back hurts! Awful!"

"Let's try t' think jus' o' all our nice friends," he coaxed. "Mister Perkins, and One-Eye, and Mrs. Kukor, and----"

"Let's call to Mrs. Kukor!" she pleaded. "Let's try to make her hear!"

"He'll whip us again if we do!" Johnnie cautioned. "And, Cis, I don't think I could stand any more whippin'. Oh, don't holler, Cis. Let's rest--jus' rest!" A weakness came over him suddenly, and he could not go on.

But she was sobbing again. "I'm thirsty!" she lamented. "I'm thirsty!

I'm thirsty! I'm thirsty!"

Presently he roused himself, and remembered his faithful Buckle. He summoned the latter now, speaking to him in that throaty, important voice which he used when issuing commands. "Mister Buckle," he said, "bring the young lady a lemon soda jus' chock-full o' ice."

"No! No!" Cis broke in petulantly. "Oh, that makes it all the harder to bear!--Oh, where's Mrs. Kukor? She knows something's wrong! Why hasn't she helped us?" She fell to weeping irritably.

At his wits' end, Johnnie racked his brain for something to tell her--something which might take her thoughts from her misery. But his own misery was now great, for the clothesline was cutting into his wrists and ankles; while across the front of his body, the edge of the table was pressing into him like the blade of a dull knife. "But I'll stand it," he promised himself. "And I'll try t' be cheerful, like the Handbook says."

However, there was no immediate need for his cheerfulness, for Cis had quieted. A few moments, and he heard her deep breathing. He smiled through the dark at her, happy to think that sleep had come to help her over the long night hours. As for himself, he could not sleep, weak as he was. His heart was sore because of what he had lost--his new, wonderful uniform, and all his dear, dear books. What were all these now? Just a bit of gray dust in the cooling stove! Gone! Gone forever!

Ah, but _were_ they! The suit was. Yes, he would not be able ever again to wear that--not actually. But the books--? They were also destroyed, as completely as the khaki uniform. And yet--_had_ Big Tom really done to them what he wanted to do? _Had_ he wiped them out?

No!

And as Johnnie answered himself thus, he realized the truth of a certain statement which Father Pat had once made to him: "The only possessions in this world that can't be taken away from ye, lad dear, 're the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge that ye've got in yer brain." And along with his sudden understanding of this there came a sense of joyous wonder, and a feeling of utter triumph. His precious volumes were burned. True enough. Their covers, their pictures, their good-smelling leaves, these were ashes. But--_what was in each book had not been wiped out_! No! The longsh.o.r.eman had not been able to rob Johnnie of the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge which had been tied into those books with the printed letter!

"I got 'em yet, all the stories!" he cried to himself. "The 'stronomy, too! And the things in the Handbook! They're all in my brain!"

And the people of his books! They were not destroyed at all! Fire had not wiped them out! They were just as alive as ever! As he lay, stretched over the table edge, they took shape for him; and out of the black corners of the room, from behind the cupboard, the stove, and the chairs, they came trooping to him--Aladdin, the Sultan, the Princess Buddir al Buddoor, Jim Hawkins, Uncas, King Arthur, Long John Silver, Robinson Crusoe, Lincoln, Heywood, Elaine, Galahad, Friday, Alice, Sir Kay!

"Oh!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "Oh, gee, all my friends!" Oh, yes, the people in stories _did_ live on and on, just as Father Pat had said; were immortal because they lived in the minds of all who loved them!

His eyes were shut. But he smiled at the group about him. "He didn't hurt y'!" he said happily--but whispering as before, lest he disturb Cis. "Say! He didn't hurt y' a teeny-weeny bit!"

Pressing eagerly round him, smiling back at him fondly, those book people whom he loved best replied proudly: "Course he didn't! Shucks! We don't bother 'bout _him_!"