As patiently as possible he waited till the sound of her regular breathing could be heard between Barber's rasping snores. Then he sat up. So long as he had been able to read, he had thought of nothing but reading. But with the book put away there had come to him a wonderful plan--a plan that made his bony little spine gooseflesh: _He would rub Barber's old kitchen lamp!_

Seldom used, it stood on a cupboard shelf beside the clock. Fairly holding his breath, he got to his feet and crept across the floor. Inch by inch, cautiously, his hand felt its way to the right shelf, found the lamp, grasped the gla.s.s standard. But the table was the only proper place for the experiment. He carried the lamp there and set it down, his heart beating hard under the pleats of his shirt.

Then he considered what his course of action should be. If Big Tom's old lamp chanced to possess even a sc.r.a.p of that power peculiar to the lamp of Aladdin: if, when he rubbed the none too clean gla.s.s base, some genie were to appear, asking for orders--what should he command?

It came to him then that what he wanted most in all the world was not bags of money, not dishes of ma.s.sy gold, or rich robes, or slaves, but only freedom. He wanted to get away from the flat; to leave behind him forever the hated longsh.o.r.eman.

"If the great big feller comes when I rub," he told himself, "I'll say t' him, 'Take Grandpa and Cis and me as far away as--as Central Park'"

(this a region of delight into which he had peeped when he was three or four years old, under escort of his Aunt Sophie). "'And leave us in a flat as good as this one.'"

With Big Tom out of his life, oh, how he would work!--violet-making, bead-stringing, and, yes, boarders! He could fetch Grandpa's bed out into the new kitchen, and put three roomers into the little bedroom, just as several tenants in this building did. And what he could earn, added to Cis's wages at some factory, and Grandpa's pension (this a princely income which was now regularly drawn and spent by Big Tom) would take care of the three splendidly.

Having settled upon the supreme wish, and fairly holding his breath, he reached out in the darkness and rubbed the lamp.

Nothing happened.

He waited a little. In this lamp business perhaps time figured prominently; though his own friends--Buckle, the four millionaires, David, Goliath, the Prince, and any number of others always appeared in the kitchen promptly.

But no genie of the lamp arrived. To make sure that his test was fair, he rubbed the lamp a second time, all the way around. Still no huge, hideous, helpful figure loomed out of the dark.

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 ap.r.o.n, and put the ap.r.o.n 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 princ.i.p.ally, 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.

Johnnie sprang up. "I didn't want to make no noise," he explained. The next moment lids were rattling and coal was tumbling upon some blazing kindling as he started the morning fire.

"A-a-a-ah! What y' got this _lamp_ down for?"--it was the next question, and there was triumph in Big Tom's voice. "Been wastin' oil, have y'?

Come! When did y' light it? Answer up!"

"I didn't light it," replied Johnnie, calmly glancing round, his chin on his shoulders.

"No? Then what _did_ y' do? Hey? What?"

"Just took it down 'n' rubbed it."

"M-m-m!--Well, y' made a poor job of your rubbin'. I'll say that!"

"I'll rub it again," said Johnnie. He caught up the dish towel with which he had dried his own face and set to work on the lamp. There was a faint smile on his lips as he worked. There was a smile in his eyes, too, but he kept his lids discreetly lowered.

His whole manner irritated Barber, who sauntered to the table, took a careful survey of it, drew out the drawer, looked it over, then dropped into the morris chair to pull on his socks. Now he sensed, as had Cis the day before, that the air of the flat was charged with something--something that was strange to it. He did not guess it was happiness. But as Johnnie moved quickly between sink and stove, between cupboard and table, Big Tom watched him, and thrust out that lower lip.

While the business of breakfast was on, instead of standing up to the table for his bowl of oats, Johnnie made sandwiches for the two lunches.

Hot tea, well sugared, went into Barber's pail. Another tin compartment Johnnie packed with the cooked prunes. A third held slabs of corned-beef between bread. Sour pickles were added to these when he filled Cis's lunchbox, which closely resembled a camera. And now the wide-open, fixed look of his eyes, the uplift at the corners of his mouth, his swelled nostrils and his buoyant step told Cis that he was engaged in some adventure, high and stirring.

But Barber, still watching the boy sharply, made up his mind that the punishment of the day before had done a lot of good. In fact, it seemed to have brought about a complete transformation. For during the two or three minutes that Big Tom allowed himself after eating for the filling of his pipe, Johnnie swept the table clear, washed, dried and put away the dishes, and was so far along with his morning's work that he was wiping off the stove.

Leaving, Barber omitted his usual warnings and directions; and did not even wait outside the door for a final look back, but went promptly down, as the creaking stairs testified, and out, as told by the sucking move and gentle rattle of the hall door.

It was Cis who lingered. When the flat was clear of her stepfather, she fairly burst from her tiny room, and halted face to face with Johnnie, from whose strong right hand the stove rag was even then falling. Her eyes both questioned and challenged him. And the sudden breaking of his countenance into a radiant grin, at one and at the same time, answered her--and confessed.

"Johnnie!" she whispered.

He stretched up to her pink ear to answer, for Grandpa was at the table, still busy over his bowl. "A book," he whispered back, his air that of one who has seen the dream of a lifetime realized.

"_What?_ What kind of a book? And where'd you get it? Show it to me."

He went into the little closet. When he came out, she went in. And presently, as she sauntered into the kitchen once more, he plunged past her and the tiny room received him a second time--all of which was according to a method they had worked out long ago. He was up-headed, and his eyes sparkled as he unpinned a towel from under Grandpa's chin and trundled the wheel chair back from the table. His look said that he defied all criticism.

She reached for the camera-box. Her manner wholly lacked enthusiasm. "I guess it's a good story," she conceded kindly. "I heard about it lots when I was in school. But, my! It's so raggy!"

"Raggy!" scoffed Johnnie. "Huh! I don't care what it _looks_ like!"

When she, too, was gone, he omitted his usual taking of the air at the window. He even denied himself the pleasure of calling up his four millionaires and telling them of his good fortune. The main business of the day was the book. Would Aladdin's order for a palace, complete, be carried out? Would that ambitious Celestial marry the Princess of his choice? Johnnie could scarcely wait to know.

Following a course that he had found good these several years past, he wound the alarm clock a few times and set it to ring sharp at four in the afternoon--which would give him more than a full hour in which to wash Grandpa, make the beds and sweep before Big Tom's return. This done, he opened the book on the table, dug a hand into his tousled mop, and began to read--to read as he might have drunk if thirst were torturing him, and a cool, deep cup were at his lips. For the book was to him really a draught which quenched a longing akin to thirst; it was a potion that gave him new life.

As the story of stories unfolded itself, step by step, the ragged street urchin whose father had been a poor tailor, attained to great heights--to wealth and success and power. Johnnie gloried in it all, seeing such results as future possibilities of his own, and not forgetting to remark how kind, through all the upward trending of fortune, Aladdin had been to his mother (though he, himself, did not pause in his enjoyment of the tale to take the regular train trip with Grandpa).

Twice during the morning the old soldier, by whimpering insistently, brought himself to Johnnie's attention. But the moment Grandpa was waited upon, back Johnnie went to his book, and page was turned upon page as the black magic of the hateful African wafted that most perfect of palaces many a league from its original site, and separated for his own wicked purposes the loving Aladdin and his devoted Buddir al Buddoor.

And then--all of a sudden--and for no reason that Johnnie could name, but as if some good genie of his own were watching over him, and had whispered a warning, he cast off the enthrallment of Asia, stopped dragging at his hair, started to his feet, slid the book under his collar-band, and took stock of the time.

It was twelve. Indeed, the noon whistles were just beginning to blow.

But they and the clock did not rea.s.sure him. He had been dimly aware, the past hour or so, of a strange state of quiet overhead. That awareness now resolved itself into a horrible fear--the fear that, in spite of lunches put up and a clock wound to clang at four in the afternoon, the day was--Sat.u.r.day!

"Gee!" breathed Johnnie, and paled to a sickly white.