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Updated: June 6, 2025
"No kid out of this flat is goin' to run the streets," he declared, "and learn all kinds of bad, and bring it home to that nice, little stepdaughter o' mine! No, Mrs. Kukor, her mother'd haunt me if I didn't bring her up nice, and you can bet I'll do that. That kid, long's he stays under my roof, is goin' t' be fit t' stay.
Kukor, "Shure, and ye could boil a leg o' mutton while ye wait for that gentleman," he observed. After that, for a while, the kitchen was quiet. Mrs. Kukor left on an errand to her own flat, coming back almost at once with two eggs deliciously scrambled on toast, and some stewed berries, tart and tasty.
He ain't even washed the old man yet! And I like to see my father clean and neat. That's what makes me so red-hot, Mrs. Kukor the way he neglects my father." "Chonnie wass shut up so much," argued Mrs. Kukor. That cast whitened Big Tom's eye anxiously. He did not want Johnnie to hear any talk about going out. He hastened to reply, and his tone was more righteous than ever.
Johnnie caught his breath. Mr. Maloney was here to help him! Had not Cis declared over and over that some day Big Tom would be arrested for keeping Johnnie home from public school? Mrs. Kukor had agreed. And now this was going to happen! And, oh, school would be Heaven! "Sure," assented Big Tom, smoothly. "But who's goin' t' send him? 'Cause I don't have t' do anything for him."
As he had no wish to exchange words with her, much preferring the society of the rash, but plucky, Jim, he stole back to the table, and once more projected himself half the world away. Three days had passed since One-Eye's departure. They had been quiet days. Mrs. Kukor was still gone. Big Tom ventured forth from his self-imposed imprisonment only late at night. Cis and Mr.
All he's got is girl's hair!" He started back as if from a blow. Then reaching a quick hand to the sash, he closed the window and stepped down. The voice belonged to a boy who had once charged Mrs. Kukor with going to church on a Saturday. But even as Johnnie left the sill he felt no anger toward the boy save on Mrs. Kukor's account. Because he knew that his hair was like a girl's.
The tea brewed, and Johnnie propped to drink it, with Mrs. Kukor to hold the cup to his lips, he would smile across at One-Eye as he sipped but smile only faintly, as befits the very ill. And then! He would relate how he had insisted that Johnnie sleep in the palace that night, though no doubt of it! the latter had fretted to return home.
The latter took a cigar out of an upper vest pocket and worried one end of it with a tooth. "It's half-pas' seven, sonny," he said. Johnnie backed another step. Half-past seven gave him a swift vision of the flat Grandpa asleep, Barber pacing the splintery floor in a rage, Cis weeping at the window, Mrs. Kukor waddling about, talking with tongue and hands.
About its width he did not ponder, never having seen more than a narrow portion of it since he was big enough to do much thinking. But, oh, the depth of it! He could see no sign of a limit to that, and Mrs. Kukor declared there was none, but that it reached on and on and on and on! To what? Just to more of the on and on. It never stopped.
But Grandpa! his old heart was wrapped up in his Johnnie. So childish that he was virtually a little boy, he had for Johnnie the respect and affection that a little boy gives to a bigger one. Next, bright, shining, birdlike eyes were smiling at him Mrs. Kukor! The horse blanket shook. At either side of Johnnie's nose a damp spot came on One-Eye's coat.
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