EMPTY!

He did not enter the tiny room. Now, all at once, it seemed a sacred place, having for so long sheltered her who was sweet and fine. And he felt instinctively that the blue-walled retreat was not for him; that he should not stretch himself out in his soiled, ragged clothes on that dainty couch-shelf where she had lain.

He stood on the threshold to look in. How beautiful it was! From to-day forward, would she truly have another any handsomer? The faint perfume of it (just recently she had acquired a fresh stock of orris root) was like a breath from some flower-filled garden—such a garden as he had read about in The Story of Aladdin. And yes, the little cell itself was like one of Aladdin's caskets from which had been taken a precious jewel.

Just now it was a casket very much in disarray, for Cis had tumbled it in wind-storm fashion as she made ready to leave, carelessly throwing down several things that she had formerly handled delicately: the paper roses, the sliver of mirror, the pretty face of a moving-picture favorite. As for that box flounced with bright crepe paper, it was ignominiously heaved to one side. And that cherished likeness of Mr. Roosevelt was hanging slightly askew.

But Johnnie did not set straight the photograph of his hero, or stoop to pick anything up. He could think of just one thing: she was gone!

And she would never come back—never, never, never, never! He began to repeat the word, as he and Cis had been wont to repeat words, trying hard to realize the whole of their meaning: "Never! never! never! never." And once more there came over him that curious lost feeling that he had suffered after Aunt Sophie was gone in the clanging ambulance. Once more, too, he grew rebellious. "Oh, why does ev'rything have t' go 'n' bust up!" he questioned brokenly, voicing again the eternal protest of youth against an unexpected, pain-dealing shift in Life's program.

That time he had run away, she had promised that she would never leave him!—had said it with many nevers. "And she ain't ever before stayed out in the evenin' like this," he told himself. No, not in all the years he had been at the Barber flat.

However, he felt no resentment toward her for going. How could he? Now that she was away, she seemed unspeakably dear, faultlessly perfect.

But, left behind, what was he? what did he have? what would become of him? To all those questions there was only one answer: Nothing. He was alone with a helpless, childish, old man and that other. "And I've tried 'n' tried!" he protested (he meant that he had tried to please Barber, tried to do his work better, tried to deserve more consideration from the longshoreman). And this was what had come of all his striving: Cis had been driven away.

"Oh, nothin' worse can happen t' me!" he declared despairingly. "Nothin'! nothin'!" What a staff she had always been, and how much he had leaned upon that staff, he did not suspect till now, when it was wrenched from under his hand. He had a fuller understanding, too, of what a comfort she had steadily been—she, the only bright and beautiful thing in the dark, poor flat! And to think that, boylike, he had ever shrunk out from under her caressing fingers, or fled from her proffered kiss! O his darling comrade and friend! O little mother and sister in one!

"Cis!" he faltered. "Cis!"

An almost intolerable sense of loss swept him, like a wave brimming the cup of his grief. His forehead seemed to be bulging, as if it would burst. His heart was bursting, too. And something was tearing, clawlike, at his throat and at his vitals. Just where the lower end of his breastbone left off was the old, awful, aching, gnawing, "gone" feeling. Much in his short life he had found hard to bear; but never anything so appalling as this! If only he might cry a little!

"Sir Gawain, he c-cried," he remembered, "when he found out he was f-fightin' his own b-brother. And Sir G-Gareth, he c-cried too." Also, no law of the twelve in the Handbook forbade a scout to weep.

His eyes closed, his mouth lengthened out pathetically, his cheeks puckered, his chin drew up grotesquely, trembling as if tortured; then he bent his head and began to sob, terribly, yet silently, for he feared to waken Grandpa. Down his hurt face streamed the tears, to fall on the big, old shirt, and on his feet, while he leaned against the door-jamb, a drooping, shaking, broken-hearted little figure.

"Oh, I can't git along without her!" he whispered. "I can't stand it! Oh, I want her back! I want her back!"

When he had cried away the sharp edge of his grief, a deliciously sad mood came over him. In The Legends of King Arthur, more than one grieving person had succumbed to sorrow. He wondered if he would die of his; and he saw himself laid out, stricken, on a barge, attended by three Queens, who were putting to sea to take him to the Vale of Avilion.

The picture brought him peace.

There followed one of his thinks. He brought Cis back into the little room, seated her on her narrow bed, with her slender shoulders leaned against the excelsior pillow which once she had prized. In her best dress, which was white, she showed ghostily among the shadows. But he could see her violet eyes clearly, and the look in them was tender and loving.

He held out his arms to her.

Somewhere, far off, a bell rang. It was like a summons. The wraith of his own making vanished. He wiped his eyes, now with one fringed sleeve, now with the other, stooped and felt round just inside the little room for his scrap of mattress and the quilt, took them up, softly shut the door, and turned about.

That same moment the hall door began slowly to open, propelled from without by an unseen hand. "St!" came a low warning. Next, a dim hand showed itself, reaching in at the floor level with a large yellow bowl. It placed the bowl to one side, disappeared, returned again at once with a goodish chunk of schwarzbrod, laid the bread beside the bowl, traveled up to the outside knob, and drew the door to.

He knew that the dim hand was plump and brown, and that it belonged to the little Jewish lady, who never yet had been forgetful of him, who was always prompt with motherly help. He knew that; and yet, as he watched it all, there was something of a sweet mystery about it, and he was reminded of that wonderful arm, clothed in white samite, which had come thrusting up out of the lake to give the sword Excalibur to great King Arthur.

He did not go to get what had been left (noodles, he guessed, tastily thickening a broth). Grandpa was already fed for the night, and asleep in the wheel chair, where Johnnie intended to leave him, not liking to rap on the bedroom door and disturb Big Tom. As for his own appetite, it seemed to have deserted him forever.

Noiselessly he put down his bedding beside the table. And it was then that he made out, by the faint light coming in at the window, the two dolls, Letitia and Edwarda, huddled together on the oilcloth. Letitia, small, old, worn out in long service to her departed mistress, had one sawdust arm thrown across Edwarda. And Edwarda, proud though she was, and beautiful in her silks and laces, had a smooth, round, artfully jointed arm thrown across Letitia. It was as if each was comforting the other!

Johnnie picked up the old doll. Somehow she seemed closer and dearer to him than the new one. Perhaps—who knew?—she, also, was mourning the absent beloved. (If there was any feeling in her, she had been inconsolable this long time, what with being cast aside for a grander rival.) "Well, Letitia," he whispered, "here we are, you and—and me!"

It was growing dark in the kitchen. Besides, no one was there to mark his weakness and taunt him with it. He put his face against faithful Letitia's faded dress—that dress which Cis herself had made, pricking her pink fingers scandalously in the process, and had washed and ironed season after season. That was it! He loved the old doll the better because she was a part of Cis.

"Oh, dear Letitia!" he whispered again, and strained the doll to his heart.

Then he took up Edwarda, who opened her eyes with a sharp click. Edwarda, favorite of her young owner, smelled adorably—like the tiny room, like the birthday roses, like apples. And her dainty presence, exhaling the familiar scent of the dressing-table box, brought Cis even nearer to him than had Letitia. With a choking exclamation, he caught the new doll to him along with the old, and held both tight.

Then dropping to the mattress, he laid the pair side by side before crumpling down with them, digging his nose into one of Edwarda's fragrant sleeves. The instant her head struck the bed, Edwarda had clicked her eyes shut, as if quite indifferent to all that had happened that day (not to speak of the previous night), and had fallen asleep like a shot. Not so the sterling Letitia, who lay staring, open-eyed, at the ceiling.

But Johnnie, worn with emotion, weak from yesterday's whipping, sick and weary from last night's long hours across the table edge, sank into a deep and merciful and repairing sleep.