it’s a queer world, and no mistake.”
jim looked unusually grave, as he gave johnny the benefit of these words of wisdom. johnny was on his way home from school, and he had stopped to show jim a certain knife, about which they had conversed a good deal, at various times. it had four blades, one of them a file-blade; it was strongly made, but pretty too, with a nice smooth white handle, and a little nickel plate on one side, for the fortunate owner’s name. they had first made its acquaintance from the outside of a shop-window, where it lay in a tray with about a dozen others of various kinds, all included in the wonderful statement,—
“your choice for fifty cents!”
johnny and jim had both chosen immediately, but as johnny, who was beginning to take an interest in politics, remarked, it was one thing to nominate a knife, and quite another to elect it! a slight difficulty lay in the way of their walking boldly into the store, and announcing their choice; neither of them had, at that precise moment, floating capital to the amount of fifty cents!
“and some fellow who has fifty cents will be sure to snap up such a bargain before the day’s over,” said johnny, mournfully. “what fun it must be to be rich, jim; just to walk into a store when you see anything you like, and say, ‘i’ll take that,’ without even stopping to ask how much it is.”
“yes, it sounds as if it would be,” said jim, “but though i can’t exactly say that i’m intimate with many of ’em, it does seem to me, looking at it from the outside, as it were, that they get less sugar for a cent than some of us ’umble sons of poverty do!”
and jim winked in a manner which johnny admired all the more because he was unable to imitate it.
“i don’t see how you can tell,” said johnny, “and i think you must be mistaken, jim.”
“well now, for instance,” replied jim, who delighted in an argument, “i’m taking what the newspaper-poetry-man would call an ever-fresh delight in those three jolly warm nightshirts your mother had made for me. i’d never have saved the money for ’em in the world, if she hadn’t kept me up to it, and i feel as proud as cuffee, every time i put one on, to think i paid for every stitch of it—i can’t help feeling sort of sorry that it wouldn’t be the correct thing to wear them on the street. now do you suppose your millionaire finds any fun in buying nightshirts? i guess not! and that’s only one thing out of dozens of the same sort. see?”
“yes,” answered johnny, thoughtfully, “i see what you mean; i didn’t think of it in that way, before. but, all the same, i’d be willing to try being a millionaire for a day or two. and i do wish the fellow in there would kind of pile up the other knives over that white one till i can raise money enough to buy it!”
it is needless to say that the shopkeeper did not act upon this suggestion—perhaps because he did not hear it; and yet, by some singular chance, day after day passed, and still the white-handled knife remained unsold. and then johnny’s uncle came to say goodbye, before going on a long business journey, and just as he was leaving, he put a bright half dollar in his nephew’s hand, saying,—
“i’ll not be here to help keep your birthday this year, my boy, so will you buy an appropriate present for a young man of your age and inches, and give it to yourself, with my love?”
would he? uncle rob knew all about that knife, in less than five minutes, and then, as soon as he was gone, johnny begged hard to be allowed to go out after dark, “just this once,” to secure the knife; he felt so entirely sure that it would be gone the next morning!
but it was not. and its presence in his pocket, during school hours, had a rather bad effect upon his pursuit of knowledge. on his way home, as i have said, he stopped to show his newly-acquired treasure to jim, and he was a little disappointed that jim did not seem more sympathetic with his joy, but simply said, thoughtfully,—
“it’s a queer world, and no mistake!”
“i don’t see anything so very queer about it, myself,” said johnny, contentedly, adding, with a little enjoyment of having the best of it, for once, with jim, “papa says, that if we think more than two people are queer to us, we may be pretty sure that we are the queer ones, and that the rest of the world is about as usual—at least, that’s the sense of what he said; i don’t remember the words exactly.”
“i wasn’t thinking of myself just then, for a wonder!” said jim, with the slightly mocking expression on his face which johnny did not like. “it’s a good enough world for me, but when i see a little chap like taffy getting all the kicks and none of the halfpence, i don’t know exactly what to think. he’s taken a new turn, lately; twisted up with pain, half the time, and as weak as a kitten, the other half.”
“where is he, anyhow?” asked johnny.
“well,” said jim, turning suddenly red under his coat of tan, “i’ve got him round at my place. the fact is, it was too unhandy for me to go and look after him at that other place; it was noisy, too. he didn’t like it.”
several questions rose to johnny’s lips, but he repressed them; he had discovered that nothing so embarrassed jim as being caught in some good work. so he only asked,—
“but how did my new knife make you think of taffy?”
“oh, never mind!” and jim began to walk away.
“but i do mind!” said johnny, following him and catching his arm. “and i do wish you wouldn’t think it is smart to be so dreadfully mysterious. come, out with it!”
“very well, then,” said jim, stopping suddenly, “if you don’t like it, maybe you’ll know better another time. it made me think of him because i have been meaning to buy him one of those knives as soon as i could raise the cash, but i’ve had to spend all i could make lately for other things. the little chap keeps grunting about a knife he once found in the street, and lost again; and he seems to fancy that when he’s doing something with his hands he don’t feel the pain so much. he cuts out pictures with an old pair of scissors i happened to have, whenever i can get him any papers, but he likes best to whittle, and he broke the last blade of that old knife of mine the other day; he’s been fretting about it ever since. i’m glad you’ve got the knife, johnny, since you’re so pleased about it, and wanted it so, but i couldn’t help thinking—” and here jim abruptly turned a corner, and was gone before johnny could stop him.
“i should just like to know what he told me all that yarn for!” said johnny to himself; a little crossly. “he surely doesn’t think i ought to give my knife, my new knife, that uncle rob gave me for a birthday present, to that little taffy? why, i don’t even know him!”
and johnny tried to banish such a ridiculous idea from his mind at once. but somehow it would not be banished. the thought came back to him again and again; how many things he had to make life sweet and pleasant to him; how few the little lonely boy, shut up all day in jim’s dingy bed room, the window of which did not even look on a street, but on a narrow back yard, where the sun never shone. the more he thought of it, the more it appealed to his pity. and here was a chance,—but no, surely people could not be expected to make such sacrifices as that.
he managed to shake off the troublesome thought for a few minutes, when he showed the knife to his mother and tiny. they both admired it to his heart’s content, and said what a bargain it was, and what a wonder that nobody had bought it before, and what a suitable thing for him to buy for uncle rob’s birthday present to him. but, when he went up to his room, the question again forced itself upon him, and would not be shaken off. over and over again in his mind, as they had done that other time, the words repeated themselves,—
“and who is my neighbor?”
he did not see jim again for several days, and this made him unreasonably angry. it seemed to him that jim had taken things for granted altogether too easily. how did jim know that he, johnny, was not waiting for a chance to send the knife to poor little taffy?
but was he? he really hardly knew himself until one day when, by dint of hard running, he caught jim, and asked him,—
“see here! how’s that little chap, and what’s gone with you lately?”
“he’s worse,” said jim, gruffly, “and i’m busy—that’s what’s gone with me. i can’t stop, i’m in a hurry.”
“oh, very well!” said johnny, in an offended tone. “i thought we were friends, jim brady, but i’ll not bother you any more. goodbye.”
“johnny,” said jim, putting his hand on johnny’s shoulder as he spoke, “can’t you make any allowance for a fellow’s being in trouble? i can’t stop now, i really and truly can’t, but i’ll be on the corner by the library this afternoon, and if you choose to stop, i’ll talk all you want me to.”
“all right, i’ll come,” said johnny, his wounded self-love forgotten at sight of jim’s troubled face.
he hurried home, and, with the help of an old table knife, he managed to work ten cents out of the jug that he had “set up” for a christmas present fund. with this he bought the largest picture paper he could find for the money. then he gathered together a handful of pictures he had been saving for his scrap book, wrapped the knife first in them, then in the large paper, and then tied the whole up securely in a neat brown paper parcel.
when he saw jim that afternoon he asked him as cautiously as he could about taffy’s needs, and at last he said,—
“jim, why haven’t you told mamma about him, and let her help you?”
“it seemed like begging. i didn’t like—” and jim stopped, looking very much embarrassed.
“well, i mean to tell her as soon as i go home,” said johnny, resolutely, “for i know she’ll go and see him, and have something done to make him better, and—jim, i must go now, but will you please give this to taffy, with my love?”
and, putting the parcel in jim’s hand, johnny turned, and ran home.
but was he really the same johnny? had wings grown on his feet? had his heart been suddenly changed into a feather? he whistled, he sang, he stopped to turn somersets on the grass in the square. no one but his captain had known of the battle. none, but the giver of it, knew of the victory.
