“Now get out of the way,” Johnson commanded the throng of admirers, “and let me take him home for a little rest.”
“Scott,” he continued as he hustled him to the car, “now you can go home and sit up all night for the rest of the winter. Yes, and hanged if you can’t eat my desserts for the next six years.”
“Humph,” Scott grunted good-naturedly, “and all just because I won.”
As the boys sat in their room that evening in their pajamas talking over the events of the day Scott was impressed more than ever with Johnson’s strange philosophies, apparently gathered from almost unlimited experience. Johnson was in a very good humor over the results of the boxing match and Scott thought it a good opportunity to get him to tell his story.
“Johnson,” he asked curiously, “where haven’t you been? You don’t look very old but there does not seem to be any place that you have not worked in all the United States.”
“Well,” Johnson answered, “I have never been to the South or East, but there are not many sections of the West that I have not seen.”
“How did you do it?” Scott urged. “You said that I could sit up all night, you know, and I could listen very contentedly to an account of all your wanderings. They must be interesting for I suppose you beat your way everywhere. Come on, let’s have the whole story,” and he settled himself down to listen.
Johnson, who loved to have an audience for his adventures, was in his glory. He had had adventures galore and they lost nothing in his telling of them.
“If you really do not want to sleep for an hour,” he said, “I’ll tell you about them, but there is no use in trying to do it in less. It covers a great many years in spite of my young and boyish face.
“You asked me to tell you about my work. Well, that began when I was six years old. My father was a teamster in Duluth, and I was the oldest of eight children. The old man did not believe in any idlers in the house, and one morning when I was about six he kicked me out the front door and told me not to come back till I had earned something.” Johnson had never been taught any family pride and made no attempt to shield either his family or himself.
“There are a good many things I have forgotten since then, but I remember perfectly well what a pickle I was in that morning. I had had too many of those kicks to try to go back so I paddled away right up to the main street howling like a good fellow. Nobody paid any attention to me till I ran into a newsboy.