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Through it, stealing on soft, moccasined feet, went Johnnie and the cruel Magua, following the trail of the fleeing and terrified longshoreman. They caught him. They bound him. And now the Hispaniola came into sight across the Lake, her sails full spread as she hurried to receive her prisoner. Johnnie and Magua put Barber aboard. The latter pleaded earnestly, but no one listened.
I was a sailor before the mast, a longshoreman, a roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, and laundries; I mowed lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. And I never got the full product of my toil. I looked at the daughter of the cannery owner, in her carriage, and knew that it was my muscle, in part, that helped drag along that carriage on its rubber tyres.
"My my scout suit!" faltered the boy. The light in those peering, bloodshot eyes told him that the longshoreman would mistreat that beloved uniform; and Johnnie wanted to gain time. Something, or some one, might interrupt, and thus stave off what? Barber straightened. "Take it off," he said quietly, but with heat; and added, "Before I tear it off." Johnnie proceeded to carry out the order.
Y' know, one of these days you'll melt, 'r git streaked." "Mm! Perhaps I'm too clean." Those coffee-colored eyes were cool. With one swift up and down they examined Big Tom's apparel. The longshoreman squirmed under the scrutiny. "Y' don't look like y've ever done a lick of honest work in your whole life!" he declared hotly.
"Lively with that gangplank now!" ordered the commander. "Oh, if I have made a mistake and gotten on the wrong ship it will be terrible," murmured the man. "Why don't you throw off that stern line?" again shouted the captain. "What shall I do?" exclaimed the nervous man. "If you're goin' t' pay me, your honor, you'll have t' hustle," advised the 'longshoreman. "I will, my man.
One of the ill-paid girls, who had $4.50 a week, gave $3.50 a week board to an aunt, who never let her delay payment a day. She had only $1 a week left for every other expense. This girl was 'keeping company' with a longshoreman, who had as much as $25 in good weeks.
As Big Tom usually entered the area by the tunnel-like hall that led in from the main street to the south, Johnnie headed north, first taking care to glance out into the area before he charged across it, blinded by its glare after the semidark of the Barber rooms. He was hatless. His hair and his fringe flew. His feet flew, too, as if the longshoreman were at their horny little heels.
He had professed to like him during the conversation at the breakfast table which resulted in his remaining at the lights, but then he was not entirely serious. He was, of course, grateful for the kindness shown him by the odd longshoreman and enjoyed the latter's society and droll remarks as he would have enjoyed anything out of the ordinary and quaintly amusing. But now he really liked the man.
"Oh, don't you feel so bad!" she pleaded. "Just try to remember that we're going away, Johnnie! Mr. Perkins'll take us both, and Big Tom'll never see us again! And I love you, Johnnie, and so does Mrs. Kukor, and Father Pat, and One-Eye, and Mr. Perkins!" "I know!" groaned the boy. "I I'll try t' think." "Mister Perkins!" scoffed the longshoreman. "Who cares about that tony guy?
He was some longshoreman in that particular epoch of his inebriety where life had no burden save the dissipation of wages. Returning, she pounded on the door, possessed of the sense that the man she sought was here, till at last it was flung open, framing the silhouette of a shirt-sleeved, thick-set youth, who shouted: "What 'n 'ell do you want to butt in for while the show's on? Go round front."
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