he read—and the shining orient burst upon him!
it was as if the most delicate of gossamer curtains had been brushed aside so that he could look at a new world. what he saw there rooted him to his chair, holding him spellbound. yet not so much because it contrasted sharply with his own little world, this bare flat of barber's in the lower east side, as that it seemed to fit in perfectly with his own experiences.
aladdin was a boy like himself, who was scolded, and cuffed on the ears. the african magician was just another as wicked and cruel as the longshoreman. as for that slave of the ring, johnnie considered him no more wonderful than buckle. in fact, there was nothing impossible, or even improbable, about the story. it held him by its sheer reality. its drama enthralled him, too. and he gloried in all its beauty of golden dishes, gorgeous dress, fountain-fed gardens, jewel-fruited trees and prancing steeds.
he read carefully, one forefinger traveling to and fro across the wide pages, while his lips moved silently, and he dragged at his hair. sometimes he came to words he did not understand—chastisement, incorrigible, physiognomist, handicraft, equipped, mosques, liberality. he went over them and pressed on, just as he might have climbed one wall after the other if these barred his way. he could come back to the hard words later—and he[53] would. but first he must know how things fared with this other boy.
when grandpa wakened, johnnie fairly wrenched his look from beautiful cathay to face the demands which the borough of manhattan made upon him. tucking his book under the wide neckband of the big shirt, he let it slip down to rest at his belt. the old soldier was hungry. he was supplied with milk toast so speedily that it was the next thing to magic. then johnnie discovered a hollow feeling which centered in his own anatomy, whereupon he ate several, cold boiled potatoes well spiced with mustard.
their late lunch over, grandpa was strong in his appeals for a journey as far south as island number 10. but now johnnie had no heart for any trip into distant country. the realm of china was about him. he wheeled the chair up and down, but he sang to soothe grandpa to sleep. and this time his song was all of his great new happiness:
"oh, i got a book! i got a book! i got a book!
oh, mrs. kukor, she give it t' me!
and it's awful grand!
once it was a man's, and his name was hunter—
i wonder if he lost it, or maybe somebody sold it on him.
i'm goin' t' read it till i know ev'ry word!
i'm goin' t' read it ev'ry day—ev'ry day!
go t' sleep, 'cause i want t' read some more!
go t' sleep! go t' sleep! go t' sleep!"
on and on he caroled, like a bird on a branch. at last grandpa, after some mild protesting, was lulled by the rhapsody, and dozed once more; when johnnie adroitly tapered off his song, brought the chair to a cautious stop, drew the book from its warm hiding place, sank into the morris chair, and again there swept into the kitchen, as[54] on the crest of a stream, the glorious, the enchanting east.
he saw the dull, old lamp rubbed for the first time, and the genie come. and he rejoiced with aladdin as the poor chinese boy attained the knowledge of the lamp's peculiar virtue. only once did he emerge from the thralldom of the tale by his own will. that was when he read of the wonderful buddir al buddoor: "the princess was the most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault, her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red and charmingly agreeable symmetry——"
here he paused, lifting farseeing, shining eyes. many a time he had spied a slim little girl who came out upon one of the fire escapes opposite. the little girl's hair was black and wavy, and the wind tossed it upon her shoulders as she looked around. she seldom glanced over at johnnie, and to gain her attention he had to hoo-hoo to her. once he had shown her that pillow so cherished by cis, which was covered with bright cretonne. he had seen the little girl's white teeth flash then, and knew that she was smiling.
she was like the princess buddir al buddoor, dark, and red-lipped. and how kind she was! for she had never seemed to notice anything wrong with either his hair or his clothes. he could understand how aladdin felt about the sultan's daughter, who was so lovely—all but her name!
he was deep in the story again when a plump hand interrupted by covering his page. so shut were his ears against every sound, inside and out, that he had not heard mrs. kukor enter. now she held up something before his face. it was the alarm clock.
next after big tom and his own hair he hated the clock most. it was forever rousing him of a morning when he[55] longed to sleep. also, the clock acted as a sort of vicar to barber. its round, flat, bald face stared hard at johnnie as its rasping staccato warned him boldly. more than once he had gone up to the noisy timepiece, taken it from its place on the cupboard shelf, and given it a good shaking.
"so!" exclaimed mrs. kukor. she set the clock down and reached for the book. "i keeps him by me. to-morrow, sooner you wass finish mit your work, he comes down again by the basket."
"oh, but i can hide it!" urged johnnie, illustrating his argument at the same time. "and, oh, gee, mrs. kukor! i'm the luckiest kid in n'york!"
"supper," pronounced mrs. kukor, seeing that the book was indeed well hidden and would bring no fresh troubles upon that yellow head that day.
and it did not. for at suppertime, when barber loomed in the doorway once more, the teakettle was on the stove, and waddling from side to side very much in the manner of mrs. kukor, the kitchen was filled with the fruity aroma of stewing prunes, and johnnie, with several saucers of bright-hued beads before him, was busy at his stringing—a task which, being mechanical, could be performed without conscious effort. and he was so engrossed over his saucers that barber had to speak to him twice before the boy started up from his chair, letting the beads impaled on his long needle slip off and patter upon the floor like so much gay-colored sleet.
barber gave a satisfied look around. "all right—set your table," he commanded.
johnnie obeyed. but this was a task which was not mechanical. and with his thoughts still on the high hopes and plans of that other boy, he put two knives at one plate, two forks at another. but it was all done with such promptness, with such a quick, light step and eager,[56] smiling eye, that barber, remarking the swiftness and the spirit johnnie showed, for once omitted to harangue him for his mistakes.
cis was more discerning than her stepfather. when she came slipping in, the boy's rapt expression told her that his thoughts were on something outside the flat. she was not curious, being used to seeing him look so detached. however, supper done with, and barber out of the kitchen, putting his father to bed, she gleaned that something unusual had happened. for as they were washing and setting away the dishes, he leaned close to ask her the strangest question.
"cis," he whispered, "what's p-h-y-s-i-o-g-n-o-m-i-s-t?"
she turned her head to stare; and knit her young brows, wondering and puzzled, not at the question itself, but at what lay behind it. the bedroom door was open. she dared not venture a counter question. "start it again," she whispered back.
he named the letters through a second time. "it's a long word," he conceded. "it takes all of my fingers, and then one thumb and two fingers over. what does it spell?"
cis's lips were pressed tight. they twitched a bit, to keep back with some effort what she had on her mind. when they parted at last, she nodded wisely. "you never got that word out of my speller," she declared; "nor off of any paper bag from the grocer's." which was to say that she did not know what all those letters spelled, but that she was fully aware he had a good deal to tell her.
johnnie had already made up his mind that he would not share his precious secret with her. he feared to. barber had never allowed cis to bring home books, regarding all printed matter as a waste of time. and cis had a way of obeying barber strictly; also she often pleaded conscience and duty in matters of this kind. and to johnnie any consideration for barber's wishes or opinions, except[57] the little that was forced by fear of the strap, was silly, girlish, and terribly trying.
he admired mrs. kukor's stand. backed by her, he meant to keep the book and read it every minute he could. so with big tom once more in the kitchen, having an after-supper pipe in the morris chair, johnnie ignored cis's silent invitation to join her in the window, and brought his bedding from her room, spreading it out ostentatiously beside the stove. then having filled the teakettle and stirred the breakfast cereal into the big, black pot, he flung himself down upon his mattress with a weary grunt.
barber smiled. the boy was tired. for once some real work had been done around the place. "you better git t' bed early, too," he remarked to cis. as advice from him always amounted to a command, she disappeared at once. presently big tom got up, stretched his gorilla arms, yawned with a descending scale of oh's, and went lumbering to bed.
a wait—which to johnnie seemed interminable, while dusk thickened to darkness; then snores. the snoring continued all the while he was counting up to four hundred. also it achieved a regularity and loudness that guaranteed it to be genuine. still johnnie did not open his eyes. there were little movements in cis's room, and he felt sure she was not asleep. soon he had proof of it. for peering up carefully from under lowered lids, he saw her door slowly open; next, she came to stand in it, dimly outlined in her faded cotton kimono.
she had something white in one hand. this she waved up and down in a noiseless signal. he did not stir. she stole forward, bent down, and touched him. he went on breathing deep and steadily. she tiptoed back to her bed.
as patiently as possible he waited till the sound of her regular breathing could be heard between barber's rasping[58] 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 glass 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 scrap of that power peculiar to the lamp of aladdin: if, when he rubbed the none too clean glass 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 massy gold, or rich robes, or slaves, but only freedom. he wanted to get away from the flat; to leave behind him forever the hated longshoreman.
"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,[59] 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.
