"John!"--an anxious John this time, as if the longshoreman half feared
the boy was gone.

"I'm up."

"Wish y'd come here."

Johnnie smiled grimly as he went. That "wish" was new! Always heretofore
it had been "You do this" and "You do that." Evidently something of a
change had also been wrought in Big Tom! The bedroom door was ajar an
inch or two. Through the narrow crack Johnnie glimpsed Grandpa, in his
chair, ready to be trundled out. But Barber was lying down, his face
half turned away.

"Wheel the old man into the kitchen," said the latter as he heard
Johnnie. He spoke with a lisp (that tooth!), and his voice sounded weak.
"And then bring me somethin' t' eat, will y'?"

Having said Yes without a Sir, Johnnie wagged his head philosophically,
the while he steered the chair skilfully across the sill. "Plenty o'
good turns t' do now," he told himself; "and all o' 'em for _him_!"

But--a scout is faithful. He built the fire and cooked a tasty
meal--toast, with the grease of bacon trimmings soaking it, coffee, and
rolled oats--and placed it on Grandpa's bed, handy to the longshoreman.
Then he shut the bedroom door smartly, as a signal that Big Tom was to
have privacy, and returned to his own program.

He scampered downstairs for Grandpa's milk and his own, taking time to
exchange a grin with the janitress, to whom Barber's defeat of yesterday
was no grief. Then back he raced, washed, combed and fed the little,
old soldier, helping him to think the gruel a "swell puddin'," and the
service Buckle's best. After that there was a short trip to Madison
Square Garden where, despite all facts to the contrary, a colossal
circus had moved in. Johnnie summoned lions before the wheel chair, and
tigers, camels, Arab steeds and elephants, Cis's room serving admirably
as the cage which contained these various quadrupeds. And, naturally,
there was a deal of growling and roaring and kicking and neighing, while
the camels barked surprisingly like Boof, and the elephants conversed
with something of a Hebrew accent. All of which greatly delighted
Grandpa, and he cackled till his scraggly beard was damp with happy
tears.

When he was asleep there was sweeping to do (with wet, scattered tea
leaves, and a broom drenched frequently at Niagara falls, all this to
help keep down the dust). A few dishes of massy gold needed washing,
too. The stove--that iron urn holding precious dust--called for the
polishing rag. Of all these duties Joh