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 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 disappeare