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Pippin; A Wandering Flame

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards · English · Gutenberg #40176 · 490,375 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Pippin; A Wandering Flame

Author: Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards


        
Release date: July 9, 2012 [eBook #40176]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIPPIN; A WANDERING FLAME ***

  [Illustration: Pippin ... breaks out into full-throated song:

      "Knives and scissors to grind, oh!
      Have 'em done to your mind, oh!"
                                                     [PAGE 155]]




  PIPPIN
  _A WANDERING FLAME_

  BY
  LAURA E. RICHARDS
  AUTHOR OF "FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE," "ELIZABETH FRY," ETC.

  [Illustration]

  FRONTISPIECE

  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK         LONDON
  1917


  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY


  Printed in the United States of America




  TO PIPPIN
  WHO WILL NEVER KNOW




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                          PAGE

      I. PIPPIN SAYS GOOD-BY                          1

     II. PIPPIN MAKES A FRIEND                       15

    III. PIPPIN FINDS A TRADE, "TEMP'RY"             29

     IV. PIPPIN GOES TO CYRUS                        42

      V. CYRUS POOR FARM                             62

     VI. PIPPIN SINGS FOR HIS SUPPER                 74

    VII. FLORA MAY                                   96

   VIII. PIPPIN SETS BREAD AND LAYS A PLAN          105

     IX. PIPPIN ENCOUNTERS THE RED RUFFIAN          111

      X. PIPPIN LOOKS FOR THE GRACE OF GOD          122

     XI. THE CHAPLAIN READS HIS MAIL                132

    XII. NIPPER                                     142

   XIII. ENTER MARY-IN-THE-KITCHEN                  150

    XIV. PIPPIN LOOKS FOR OLD MAN BLOSSOM'S LITTLE
         GAL                                        159

     XV. PIPPIN MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE           172

    XVI. PIPPIN ENCOUNTERS THE GIDEONS              185

   XVII. THREE TETE-A-TETES                         199

  XVIII. PIPPIN KEEPS WATCH, WITH RESULTS           210

    XIX. A KNOT IN THE THREAD                       220

     XX. THE PERPLEXITIES OF PIPPIN                 234

    XXI. MARY BLOSSOM                               247

   XXII. THE OLD MAN                                261

  XXIII. THE CHAPLAIN SPEAKS HIS MIND               272

   XXIV. PRIMAL FORCES                              281

    XXV. PIPPIN OVERCOMES                           290

   XXVI. PIPPIN PRAISES THE LORD                    297




PIPPIN




PIPPIN




CHAPTER I

PIPPIN SAYS GOOD-BY


The chaplain seemed to be waiting for some one. He was sitting in his
office, as usual at this hour of the morning the little bare office in a
corner of Shoreham State Prison, with its worn desk and stool, its chair
facing the window (what tales that chair could tell, if it had power of
speech!), its piles of reports and pamphlets, its bookshelf within arm's
reach of the desk. (Bible, Concordance, Shakespeare, the "Life of John
Howard," Pickwick, the "Golden Treasury"; these, thumbed and shabby,
jostled the latest works on prison reform and criminology. An expressive
bookshelf, as all bookshelves are.)

One would not have picked out Lawrence Hadley for a prison chaplain; if
chaplain at all, he surely belonged in the army. Look, bearing,
voice--that clear ringing voice we remember so well--all bespoke the
soldier; and a soldier he was, not only because of his service in the
Philippines--he was in the army till his health broke down--but because
he was born one.

As I said, he seemed to be waiting for some one. His eyes were watching
the yard, taking note of each figure that came and went, seeing that old
Pete was walking lame, that French Bill was drooping and poking his
head forward, a bad sign with him; that Mike was whistling, a good sign
always; but while his eyes looked, his ears listened; and now, when it
seemed that he had been listening a long time, came the familiar knock.

"Ah!" The chaplain's chair, which had been tilted back on two legs for
meditation, came down on four for action. "Come in!"

"Pippin, sir!"

"Come in, Pippin! I was looking for you."

A young man entered and closed the door behind him, making no sound. He
moved with an extraordinary grace and swiftness, like some wild
creature, yet there was no haste or hurry about him. At first glance,
the two men were of something the same build, both tall and square
shouldered, holding their chins well up and looking straight forward;
but there the resemblance ceased. The chaplain was sandy fair, with blue
eyes as kindly as they were piercing; the other was all brown: brown,
crisp, curling hair, brown skin, brown flashing eyes. The eyes were not
flashing now, though; they were as nearly dim as they could be, for
Pippin had been saying good-by, and now was come the hardest parting of
all.

"Well, here I be, Elder!" he said. "I s'pose it's time I was off."

"Yes!" said Mr. Hadley. "Yes, I suppose it is. Well, Pippin, we're going
to miss you here. The place won't be the same without you."

Pippin made as if to speak, but the words did not come.

"I just want you to know," the chaplain went on slowly, "what a help
you've been to me this past year, especially the past six months. I
don't know--I really do not know--how I shall get on without you,
Pippin!"

Pippin cleared his throat and spoke huskily.

"Elder," he said, "say the word and I'll stay! Honest I will. I'd be
proud, sir, if I could help you, any way, shape, or manner. I would so!"

The chaplain laughed rather ruefully, and rose from his chair. "That
would never do!" he said. "No, no, Pippin, you mustn't think I'm not
just as glad to have you go as I am sorry to lose you. You'll be helping
outside instead of inside, that's all. We shall not let go of you
altogether. How about Sandy Colt, Pippin?" he asked with an abrupt
change of voice. "You've been with him a good deal this past month, I've
noticed. How about him?"

Pippin considered a moment.

"Sandy," he said, "is all right; or I think so, Elder. I've been round
with him, as you say. I kind o' thought mebbe you got him put on bindin'
with me?"

The chaplain nodded.

"I kind o' thought it squinted that way. Well, sir, that boy is about
ready to go on the straight; leastways he's sick to death of crooks and
their games, and that's the first step. I--kind o'--think--" the words
came more and more slowly--"it's about time to leave Sandy alone with
the money box, Elder."

"What do you mean?" The chaplain looked up sharply; met a glance full of
meaning, and smiled. "So you knew, eh?" he said musingly. "I wondered if
you did, Pippin."

"Know!" Pippin's eyes were shining now, and he spoke with suppressed
energy. "What would you think of it? Lemme tell you, Elder! I've wanted
to tell you ever since. I'd ben tryin'--tryin' hard. I'd found the
Lord--found Him for keeps, and I knowed it; but yet, along that summer,
after--that day, you know, sir--I couldn't seem to keep holt of Him
_stiddy_. Now wouldn't that give you a pain, sir? Honest, wasn't it
awful? But 'twas so!"

"Not awful in the least, Pippin! Did you ever see a baby learning to
walk? He'll tumble down twice for every new step he takes. You were
learning to walk, Pippin."

"Well, I got the tumbles all right!" Pippin shook his head. "Here was
the Lord helpin' me, helpin' me good, and you too, Elder, and Warden,
and Pete: and yet with all that--gorry to 'Liza!--with all that, if the
devil didn't get in his licks too, call me pudd'n head! He'd wait till I
was dog-tired, mebbe, or some one had spoke ugly to me. 'Huh!' he'd say,
'you're no good; what makes you think you are? You're spoilin' a
first-rate crook,' he'd say, 'and you'll never make anything else,
'cause that's where your gifts lie,' he'd say. 'Nobody'll ever trust
you, either!' he'd say. 'Sweat all you like, and pray all you're a mind
to, and sing your insides out,' he'd say; ''twon't make any difference.
A crook you are, and a crook folks'll think you!' he'd say."

"But you knew better!"

"Course I knew better; but there's times when knowin' don't seem to
help; and them times he'd get me down, Satan would, and kneel on my
chist, and lam into me--Green grass! he _would_ lam in!"

Pippin was silent a moment; the chaplain watched him, silent too.

"Come one day," Pippin went on, "he got me bad. I tried singin', but
that wouldn't do; I tried prayin', and all I could make out was the Lord
was real sorry for me, but I'd got to play this hand alone. When you
come round I tried to speak up and answer pleasant and cheerful, but I
guess I made a poor fist of it. I see you look me over; then you went
off kind o' thinkin', whistlin' that tune--what is it, that tune you
give us when you're thinkin' somethin' up, Elder?"

The chaplain laughed outright.

"'Am I a Soldier of the Cross?'" he said. "You know too much, Pippin."

"I know this much!" cried Pippin. "I know you sent for me half an hour
later, and I come. Here were you, and there was I, and on the table was
a box full of money, and you were counting it over; might have been a
hundred dollars."

"Just!" said Mr. Hadley. "My quarter's salary!"

"Looked to be! Well, sir, I don't need to tell you. You began to ask me
about my cell, and was I careful about this, that or the other; all of a
sudden you pulls up and looks at your watch. 'Hello!' you says. 'Ten
o'clock! I've got to go and speak to the Warden about something. Just
watch this money till I come back, will you, Pippin?' And off you go
full chisel, and leave me--"

Pippin's voice broke, and he brushed his hand across his eyes. The
chaplain laid a quiet hand on his shoulder; his own eyes were dim for a
moment.

"And you think Sandy is ready for that?" he said quietly.

"I do, sir!" Pippin straightened his shoulders and threw up his chin
again. "I know for myself that was the devil's last kick. I've never had
no more trouble with him since that day; and I think Sandy's time has
come to find there's somebody trusts him and looks to him to be a
decent chap from now on. Then there's Tom Kidd--but I'm keepin' you,
Elder! Mebbe you was goin' out, sir? Pleasant day like this--"

"I'm keeping you!" The kind hand still on his shoulder, Pippin was
gently propelled toward the door. "Time you were starting, Pippin, since
you are determined to go in this way, without help or company. I'm
coming down with you, and you can tell me about Tom as we go."

Down the stone stairs, talking earnestly as he went, pausing now and
then for the unlocking of an iron door which clanged "good-by" as it
shut behind him; through the narrow corridors whose brick walls shone
with the rubbing of generations of shoulders; through the guard room,
pausing here to shake the friendly hands of a dozen turnkeys, clerks,
attendants, all wishing him good luck, all bidding him not forget them
for they would sure miss him; down the final stairs at last went Pippin,
the chaplain still at his shoulder, through the door behind which he had
left hope three years ago, to find her again on the other side--out into
the air and sunlight, a free man.

Now came the last handclasp--long and firm, saying many things; the last
clear glance of love and trust between blue eyes and brown; the last
word.

"And remember, my son, that wherever you look for the grace of God,
there you will be pretty sure to find it!"

"That's right, Elder!" said Pippin. "Amen! I'll look for it, sure! And
I'll never forget all you've done for me. So long, Elder!"

"Good-by, my son! Good-by, Pippin! The Lord be with you!"

The chaplain stood on the steps, watching the lithe, alert figure as it
strode along the highway; coming to the corner, it turned, waved a
salute and vanished.

The chaplain sighed; he was glad, heartily glad, that Pippin was "out,"
but he would miss him sadly; everybody would miss him. He had been the
sunshine of the place, these six months past. He looked up at the gray
walls, the frowning windows, and gave a little shiver; sighed and
smiled, squared his shoulders, and went back into the prison.

Pippin, too, as he waved his farewell at the corner, smiled and sighed
and squared his shoulders, then he thrust out his jaw in a way the
parson knew well.

"Now, bo," said Pippin, "it's up to you! Green grass! I'll miss that
man, I sure will. I'll miss him, and the Warden, and them little tads of
his, and Pete, and--gee! I'll miss the whole darned show. Now wouldn't
that give you a pain? Let's look it over a spell!"

He looked carefully about, and, finding a large stone, flicked the dust
from it with a clean pocket handkerchief (which he then inspected
anxiously, shaking every speck of dust from it before repocketing it)
and, after laying down the bundle he carried, sat down.

"It is up to you, son!" he repeated. "The Lord will see to His end, you
needn't worry about that any; you'll find your own enough to heft. The
Elder knows a lot!" he added meditatively. "He doesn't give you no easy
talk about blessin's an' golden crowns an' that: no, sir! 'You've got to
behave,' he says, 'or you'll be back here again. And the way for you to
behave is to hold fast to the grace that God has given you and to get
hold of what He has given to others.' Yes, sir! Straight talk is what
Elder Hadley gives. An' I'm goin' to do them things; just watch me! And
to begin with, I'm goin' to do some forgettin', a heap of it. I'm goin'
to forget the crib, an' the gang, and the--the _en_tire b'ilin'! Yes,
sir! I'll say good-by to 'em." He stopped, and taking off his cap,
turned it slowly round and round in his hands. "Say good-by to 'em!" he
repeated under his breath.

He stared before him, as one seeing visions at once strange and
familiar. A cellar, dark and noisome, under a city street: an old woman
in a long blue cloak and a white cap, crouching over a spark of fire: a
half-naked child playing on the naked floor: in a corner a man sprawling
half-drunk, smoking a clay pipe. The child stumbles over the man's feet,
is clutched and held fast in one hand while the other shakes the burning
dottle from the pipe on the little bare back.

"To larn ye manners!" growls the man.

The woman rises painfully, totters across the cellar and brings down her
staff with astonishing force on the man's head--"She must have been a
hundred!" Pippin thinks--bidding him get out for the drunken brute he
is. Whack! Whack! The second blow brings the man staggering to his feet
and out of the door, protesting thickly, "I was only larnin' him
manners! He'll remember that, see if he don't."

The child shrieked when the fire touched him; he is now whimpering
piteously. The old woman finds a rag and rubs something cooling on his
back, muttering some words--what were they? Pippin racks corners of his
memory.

"White--white--patter, was it?" And then, "St. Peter's brother,"
and--no, it is gone. But he knows the other! He sees her now take the
child's two hands in hers, hears her croon the unforgettable words to
the unforgettable tune:

    There was an old man,
    And he was mad,
    And he ran up the steeple.
    He took off
    His great big hat,
    And waved it over the people!

"I won't forget that!" said Pippin. "No, nor I won't forget the whole of
Granny Faa: some parts I'll keep. She was good to me many a time, and
give me snuff out of her box. But I'll forget Dod Bashford all right.
Just watch me--"

He paused, for the vision came again. A dark night, a dark house,
shrubbery gleaming wet about it. A match flickers, carefully sheltered
by brawny hands, and shows a small window, as of a pantry, standing
partly open. Somebody is bidden with an oath to "boost the kid up!" A
boy of ten is seized by other hands and raised to the window. "Get in!"
says a rough whisper. "Round to your left and open the first door. If
you make a noise, I'll cut your heart out!" For some reason--it is not
clear what--the boy is unwilling, hangs back, struggling in air, pushing
away from the window-sill toward which he is thrust. "Will you?" growls
the rough voice, and the lighted match is held to his leg. Still the
child struggles dumbly for a little; at last, with a smothered shriek,
he gives up and climbs in at the window.

"Green grass!" mutters Pippin. "I'll forget _that_: watch me!"

He blinked twice or thrice, then straightened himself. "There!" said
Pippin. "There ain't no such folks in the world. I don't know as there
ever was--except old Granny! I'll keep her in it, 'long of them things
she done for me. And anyhow Granny was out of it before we begun to do
auto sneakin', country houses, and like that. She was dead by that time.
Now, son, you think of all the _good_ folks you know. Count 'em over,
what say? Take the other taste out of your mouth, see? There's Elder
Hadley first and foremost: keep your eyes on him right straight along:
he's like--like a window that's open, and no bars to it, and you see the
Lord through it, some way. Then there's the Warden, and Mis'
Warden--gee! remember that dinner she sent me in one day I pulled her
little tad out the water? There was--" Pippin's eyes kindled--"roast
beef, mashed potatoes--" he was checking the items off on his
fingers--"fried parsnips, pickles, apple pie--green grass! that was a
dinner! And she sent it to me by name, and her thanks, Elder Hadley
said, all because I see that kid fall into the cistern and hauled him
out. Well! and the kid--some kid that!--and he follerin' me round after
that, every chanst he got; and the others, too, and nothin' doin' but I
must sing to 'em. And then old Pete! gee! Pete'll miss me, and me him.
You make brooms 'longside of a guy for a year and you know what each
other thinks; and Pete is _all right_!"

He paused once more, seeing things. No distant vision this time, but the
familiar scene on which he had just turned his back--forever, he and the
Elder hoped. A long vaulted room, bare and bright; forty or fifty men at
work making brooms; the clean, sweet smell of the broom corn almost
driving out the prison smell--almost!--near the door, under the watchful
eye of an official, two men working together, binding and clipping,
himself and Pete. Pete was talking, as he had talked that last day they
worked together. He knew Pippin was going out, and he, Pete, was in for
life. Seemed an awful waste, Pippin thought. Just because his mad got
away with him once--Hear Pete telling his story in a husky rumble,
cheerfully, as a matter of course, this fourteen years now.

"I was cuttin' and rollin' my tobarker on the palm of my hand, and the
old woman come along and give me a slap in the face. I shoved her off
with my elbow and went on rollin' my tobarker. She come up again and hit
me over the head with a stove lifter. I forgot I had my knife in my
hand, and I just hit out and jabbed it into her. I hadn't oughter done
it, but yet it oughter _been_ done, 'pears like."

"Old Pete! And him, you might say, the Warden's right hand now, after
ten years in solitary under the old management. Warden Merrow had him
out of that in good shape, now I tell you! Takes care of the cows and
pigs, sleeps with 'em, or so handy by he could hear if a shoat had the
teethache, or like that. Warden sends him off to buy cows, order in his
pocket, proud as a peacock; back in three days and he _is_ back, on the
dot. I tell ye! That's the way!"

Pippin lifts his chin, squares his shoulders once more. "Look at here!"
he says. "If I'm goin' to set here all day belly-achin' over the folks
back there, I mought as well _go_ back there and stay back! It's bein'
on my own, you see, after bein' a bunch of corn in a broom, as you might
say. Green grass! I wish't I had some folks of my own!"

A silence followed. Pippin studied the road before him, drawing patterns
in the dust with his stick. Mike Hooligan give him that stick: it come
from Ireland, and was the pride of Mike's heart; he wouldn't take gold
for it. Now wouldn't that--He examined the stick carefully. It was an
excellent blackthorn with an anchor carved on the head. Mike had been a
sailor, and was "in" for making too free with a marlinspike on a
shipmate's head. Finally, holding it up before him, he addressed it as
if it were a living creature.

"Well! I ain't got no folks, see? But supposin' I had--what I would
say--I'd have 'em dandy, that's what! And--what's to prevent my kind o'
keepin' in the back of my head that if I _had_ folks, and they _was_
dandy--and they would be, for the reason I wouldn't have the other
kind--why, I would act accordin' _to_. See? Well, you would! Now lemme
tell you about the folks I'd have. Kind o' get 'em set up, see, and then
I can carry 'em along, some kind of way, in the back of my head, and
they'll do me good and keep out--other things."

Whistling softly, he took off his cap and turned it slowly round and
round, considering.

"I'll have me a ma first!" he said. "She'll have a blue dress and a
white apron, and--sort o' pink cheeks, and when she speaks, she'll sort
o' smile all over her face. 'Sonny,' she'll say, 'sonny, come here and
I'll give you a piece of pie!' No! I'm goin' too fast. 'Sonny,' she'll
say, 'have you washed your hands? Go wash them good, and _then_ come
here and I'll give you a piece of pie.' That's the talk. Golly!--think
of her carin' whether my hands was clean or not. She would, though; you
bet she would! I've seen fellers as had that kind of ma. We'd have real
good times together, Ma and me! I'll have me a pa, too. Lemme see what
kind I'll have!" Again he paused, considering, his head on one side, his
face grave and earnest. "Tall, I guess, and big; big enough to lick me
if he wanted to, but he wouldn't want to, and I wouldn't make him want
to, neither. Smoke a pipe, and talk kind o' slow. Fought in the Civil
War, I expect Pa would have, and no end of stories to tell. When he came
in from--from--I expect he'd be a farmer: that's it! that's it! Nice
white farmhouse with green blinds and a garding and white ducks and all
the rest of it--Green grass! I wish't I was feedin' the ducks this
minute!--Well, when Pa came in, he'd set down and smoke his pipe and
then's my time. 'Tell me about Shiloh!' I'll say, or Gettysburg, or some
place else. And pa'll take me between his knees--I see the Warden take
his boy so, and it stays by me yet--and smoke, and talk, and gee! I'll
hear the bullets zip and see the flag--old Pa! he'd be a good one,
surely! Then--I wouldn't have no grandmother, because there's Granny
Faa; no kin to me, but she give me snuff--but--there's brothers and
sisters. How about them?"

Pippin whistled "There was an old man" carefully through three times,
weighing, sifting, comparing. At last, "My brother ought to be a baby!"
he announced. "That's the best way. See? That way I can watch him grow,
and see him cut his teeth, and learn him manners--" he frowned, and drew
his breath in sharply; then he shook himself and squared his shoulders.
"Didn't I tell you I'd forgot that?" he said. "But my sister'd be in
between. Call her about four; pretty little gal--pretty little gal--"

Once more the vision! An alley, or narrow court, where clothes are
drying. A mite of a girl trying to take the clothes down. She cannot
reach high enough; she stamps her little foot and cries. A boy comes and
takes them down for her.

"Thank you, boy!" she says prettily.

"Say Pippin!" says the boy.

"Pip-_pin_!" cries the child in a clear, high little voice.

Pippin runs his fingers through his close-curling hair with a puzzled
look.

"Now--now--" he said; "when was that? 'Twas after the first things I've
forgot, and before the second. Pretty little gal! What was her name now?
Polly? No! Dolly? No! Well, anyhow, I guess I'll have my sister like
that little gal. Say her name was Dolly--and _that_ ain't right somehow,
but 'twill do. Now! you understand? Them's the folks I'd have--if I had
'em! See?"

He nodded to the stick, rose from his stone, and stretched his arms with
a cheerful gesture; then he took up his bundle, a large bandanna neatly
tied (it held a change of linen; the chaplain had offered him a small
trunk and a second suit of clothes, but he liked to travel light, and
could wash as he went along, he said) and swinging it over his shoulder
on the end of his stick, Pippin took the road.




CHAPTER II

PIPPIN MAKES A FRIEND


Elder Hadley had tried hard to persuade Pippin to commit himself to some
definite plan when his time was up. He wanted to give him letters to
this friend or that, who would help him to this or that position.

"Give you a leg up!" said the good man. "Why not? I'll guarantee your
conduct, Pippin, and they'll be glad to help you, and give you a good
start. It may make all the difference in the world to you."

"No offense, Elder," replied Pippin, "but I'd ruther not. I'd ruther
walk on my own feet than other folkses', even yours. Long as I've ben
here, I've took all you gave, and thankful; but now it's up to me and
the Lord, and we'll go on our own. No offense in the world, and thanking
you kindly, sir!"

"But what are you going to do?" asked Mr. Hadley.

"Haven't the first _i_dea!" replied Pippin cheerfully. "But I'll find
the right thing, just watch me! You see, Elder, this is the way I look
at it. I was fetched up to a trade, and it was the devil's, wasn't it?
Well! So I got a wrong start, you see. Now I've got to find the Lord's
trade, the one He meant for me to find, and you can't find unless you
look. That's the way I see it. I'm going to take the road and find my
own trade that I was meant for: I'll know it when I see it, don't you
have no fear!"

Pippin fared merrily onward, walking briskly. As he went, he talked
aloud, now addressing the stick, which he called his pal, now an
imaginary comrade, now the beloved figure of the chaplain. This habit of
talking aloud had been formed in his prison days. A wholly social
creature, he loved the kindly sound of the human voice, and when there
was no other to hear he must listen to his own. He even called up the
family that his fancy had fashioned, and pictured them walking the road
with him, "Ma" in her blue dress, with her pink cheeks and bright eyes,
"Pa" brown and stalwart as himself ("only he'd wear a beard, kind of
ancient-like and respectable"), the little girl, even the baby. A
fanciful Pippin; but "I like to have things inter_est_in'," he would
say, "and they can't be real interestin' unless you have somebody to
chin with. See?"

He was deep in an imaginary argument with the chaplain concerning the
merits and demerits of Chiney Pottle, who had occupied the next cell to
his.

"I don't say he's lively company, Elder, nor I don't say he's han'some.
Take a guy like that, color of last week's lemon, and he's got somethin'
wrong with his liver, most likely, and Chiney sure has. He has pains
something fierce; I hear him groanin' nights. I see a yarn in a book
about a bird interferin' with some guy's liver: well, Chiney sounded
like that. But what I would say, you start anybody else groanin' or
belly-achin', any way, shape, or manner, and Chiney's _all there_! Shuts
up on his own, and is orful sorry you--"

"Hi!" said a voice close beside him. Pippin started violently. He had
been so absorbed in talk that he had not heard the sound of wheels in
the soft dust of the road.

The driver of the wagon pulled up his horse and surveyed him curiously.
"Who were you talkin' to?" he asked.

Pippin blushed, but met his questioner's look cheerfully. A thickset,
grizzled man with an honest face, now screwed up in a puzzled
expression, bent forward over the dasher.

"Who were you talkin' to?" he repeated.

"I was just talkin'!" said Pippin. "I admire to talk, don't you?"

The man looked about, to see if any one else were near: then again at
Pippin. "You don't look like a drinkin' man!" he said.

"That's because I ain't!" Pippin smiled.

"Nor yet you don't look loony! Yet there you was, footin' it along, and
talkin' nineteen to the dozen. Looks queer, to me!"

"Does it? Now I maintain that it's more natural for a man to talk than
to keep still."

The man studied Pippin with shrewd, observant eyes. At last, "Like a
lift?" he said.

"Thank'ee!" said Pippin, and in another minute they were jogging along
the road.

"Nice day!" said the stranger.

"Dandy! Havin' elegant weather right along. Don't know as ever I see
better. As I was sayin'," Pippin turned toward his companion, "talkin'
is the way of natur', or so I view it. When a man keeps still--well, it
may mean one thing and it may mean another. He may be gettin' religion:
I never spoke for three days when the Lord was havin' it out with me:
but then again it may mean that he's plannin' to get out, or that he's
goin' home. Why, I've known men that never stopped talkin', mornin'
till night, fear they'd lose their minds if they did; in solitary, they
was."

The man looked at him sharply. "What are you talkin' about?" he asked in
a different tone.

Pippin's eyes met his squarely. "When a thing is so," he said, "it's so.
I found the grace of God, and there's no lyin' in mine from now on. I've
ben doin' time, sir! I'm just out of State Prison."

"Is that so?" The man was silent, his kindly face grave. "What were you
in for?" the question came at last.

"Breakin' and enterin'!"

"Whew!" The gray-haired man drew in his breath with a long, slow
whistle. Again he studied Pippin's face intently. "You foolin'?" he
asked at length.

Pippin shook his head. "Poor kind o' foolin' I'd call that, wouldn't
you? I'm tellin' you the truth."

"Whoa up!" the man checked his horse, and looked about him. A lonely
road, no house in sight, no sound in the air save the distant barking of
an invisible dog. After scanning the landscape, he took a careful survey
of his horse, leaning forward to scrutinize every buckle of the harness;
at last his eyes came back to Pippin with a very grave look. "I guess
we'd better go into this a mite!" he said. "I ain't accustomed to--no,
you needn't get down! I don't mean that. I want to understand where I
am, that's all. Out on parole, are you, or--"

Pippin stared at him; then broke into a laugh. "Or run away? That what
you was thinkin', sir? Why, if I'd run away, would I be tellin'? I guess
nix! No parole, neither. I'm out for good; served my turn--and had my
lesson!" he added in a different tone.

"Breakin' and enterin', too!" the gray-haired man repeated. "How come
you to be breakin' and enterin'? Weren't you sayin' something about
religion just now? That don't go along with burglary, young chap!"

"Brought up to it!" Pippin replied briefly. "My trade, from a baby as
you may say. I've give it up now, and lookin' for another."

"How long were you there? In prison, I mean!"

"Three years. It'll sound queer to you, sir, but I count them three
years the best I've had yet in my life."

Glancing at Pippin, and seeing the bright eagerness of his face, the
stern look of the elder man softened. "How's that?" he said, not
unkindly. "Git up, Nelson!" he clucked to the horse, which started
obediently on a jog trot. Pippin drew a long breath, and threw his head
back with a little upward glance. One would have thought he was giving
thanks for something. Then he looked at his companion, timidly yet
eagerly.

"I don't know as you'd care to hear about it, sir," he said, "but
perhaps if you had a boy of your own--"

"I had! I'd like to hear, son!"

Pippin breathed deeply again, and squared his shoulders, settling
himself in his seat. "I thank you, sir. I'll make it as short as I can.
Well! I hadn't no parents, to know them, and I growed up anyhow, as you
might say, kickin' round the streets. Come about ten years old, a man
bought my time of the old woman who had a kind of an eye to me--she was
no kin, but she was good to me sometimes--and I went with him, and
learned sneakin'."

"Sneaking?"

"Sneak-thievin'! Hallways, overcoats, umbrellas, like that! I hated it,
but I learned it good. Shopliftin', too, and pocket-pickin'! I could
pick your pocket, sir, and you'd never know I'd moved my hands. Your
pocket-book is in your inside breast pocket--" the man recoiled
involuntarily--"and I'd advise you to change it, for you see, sir, in a
crowd, any one in that line that knew his business would slit your coat
and pinch it just as easy--Well! So I learned that, and at the same time
I was taken on breakin's. I was small up to about twelve, and I did the
openin' and gettin' in part. I always hated that. You may not believe
me, but I didn't really like any of it much, but it was my trade, and I
wanted to do my best; and anyhow--anyhow I had to or I'd been killed."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that! He was that kind of man, the boss who bought my time. I saw
him kill a boy--I guess I won't go into that! Well, sir, I grew up big,
as you see, and I cut loose from Bashford's gang. I'd learned all he had
to teach--all that was worth learnin'--and I was counted a master hand
for a young un. Pippin the Kid--I had other names, too, but no need to
go into that. I was as proud of 'em as I am ashamed now, and I guess
that's enough. He tried to keep me, but I was fed up with him and his
kind, so I licked him in good shape and went over to Blankton, 'crost
the river. Along about then I got in with some fellers of my own age,
who thought breakin' was the only trade in the world. They were keen on
it, and they meant to be gentleman burglars, and get rich, and own the
earth, or as much of it as they could cover. They'd been readin' a book
about a feller named Snaffles; I called him a mean skunk, but they
thought he was all creation; well, they were good fellers, and we
chummed up together, and pretty soon I got my pride up and wanted to
show 'em that I knew all they did ten times over. _I did_! They had
growed up in homes, nice clean homes, with mothers--green grass! mothers
that took care of 'em, taught 'em to say prayers, kept their clothes
mended; wouldn't that give you a pain? If I saw them boys now, wouldn't
I put the grace of God into them with a jimmy--not that I carry a jimmy
now!" he added hastily. "I wouldn't, not if it was handier than it is,
and it's dreadful handy! Now a file's different!"

"Why is it different?" asked his companion, half smiling at his earnest
look.

Pippin's hair curled thick and close all over his head, like an elastic
cushion. He ran his fingers through it and produced a small file.

"Anybody needs a file, you see!" he explained. "There's your nails, for
one thing; a crook has to keep his nails and hands just so, or he'd lose
his touch--and yet an honest man takes care of 'em too, or ought so to
do! This file is a good friend to me!" He replaced it carefully, the
other following his motions with wondering eyes. "But a jimmy, you see,
sir," turning an animated face toward his companion, "is a crook's tool,
and no one else's. Well! Where was I? Oh, yes, I had joined them
fellers. Well, we made up a gang, and we got us a name; the Honey Boys
we were. Crooks are real childish, or apt to be; I expect most folks
are, one way or another, but there's lots of crooks that ain't all
there, or maybe they wouldn't be crooks. Elder Hadley would say--but I
haven't come to him yet. So we was the Honey Boys, and we was goin' to
steal di'monds and jool'ry, and the kings of the earth wouldn't be in it
with us."

"My! My!" said the stranger. "An' you lookin' like an honest feller! I'm
real sorry--"

"I _am_ an honest feller!" cried Pippin. He leaned forward and laid his
hand on the other's knee. "Just look me in the eye! I couldn't pinch the
Kimberley di'mond, not if it was stickin' out in your shirt front this
minute. There's no pinch in me! Just you wait! Now was the time when the
Lord began to take a hand. That is, of course He was playin' the game
right along, but you couldn't see the cards; now they was on the table,
so to say. He'd give me just so much rope, and that was all I was goin'
to have. The first big job we undertook I got pinched and run in. Green
grass! how mad I was! You see, it wasn't my fault. One of our gang had a
hunch against me--I'd licked him one day when he robbed a kid. Brought
home a little gal's bracelet he'd took off her at the movies; wouldn't
that make your nose bleed? Well, I made his, I tell you, and he laid it
up; kind of Dago he was, with an ugly streak in him. There was four of
us on the job--country house job, and him and me was the two to go in
while the others kep' watch. So we went through the rooms, did it in
good shape too, got quite a lot of swag and didn't wake a soul till just
as we was gettin' out the window. He got out first and I give him the
bag; just then a door opened into the pantry where we was. He caught me
on the sill, give me a shove with all his strength and knocked me back
into the room, then he slammed the window and run off. I was too mad to
move for a minute, and then before I could get the window open, there
was a woman standin' by me--a tall woman she was, in a white gown. She
just looked at me and says she, 'Why, it's a boy! Oh, your poor mother!'
That took me kind of sudden, because I hadn't no mother, so to say--and
I guess she see the way I felt. I believe she would have let me off, but
just then her husband came in, and--well, it wasn't to be expected he
would look at it any such way. So I was run in, and I got three years."

"In Shoreham?"

"In Shoreham! P'raps you know the place, sir?" Pippin's eyes lightened
inquiringly.

The stranger shook his head. "I never was in it, but I've seen some that
have been--and more that ought to be. Pretty hard place, I'm told!"

"It used to be!" said Pippin. "They tell tales--and there's things still
that don't seem to belong, someway, to the Lord's world. Left-over
barber--barberries--no! barbarisms, Elder Hadley calls 'em. That's it,
barbarisms! Him and the Old Man--that's the Warden, sir--are doin' of
'em away as fast as they can, but you can't clean a ward with one pail
of water. And there's old crooks that wouldn't understand; they--I
dono--" Pippin shook his curly head, and was silent, seeing visions. His
companion jogged him with his elbow. The story was proving interesting.

"You say you found the Lord there; or the Lord found you! How was that?"

"I found Him!" Pippin laughed joyously. "He didn't find me, and reason
good: He never lost me. He knowed where I was all the time. I'll cut it
as short as I can. The first year I was no good. I was mad, and I stayed
mad: there was nobody I inclined to chum up with. There was some kind o'
made up to me, but I didn't take to 'em someway. They was dirty, too.
One thing I'll always lay kind to the Honey Boys, they was clean.
Brought up clean, you see; learned to wash, and brush their hair, and
that; mothers learned 'em. Green grass! and think o' their--Well,
anyhow, I took to that like a cat to cream; I've never been dirty since,
nor I can't abide dirty folks. I just grouched off by myself, and
planned what I'd do when my time was up; nobody thought I was any good,
and I wasn't. All I thought of was how to get out, and then get back at
Chunky--he was the Dago guy I was tellin' about. I'd study over it all
day long. I wouldn't kill him, I thought, just smash his face
(good-lookin' guy, great on the girls, an' they on him), or break his
back so he'd never walk again, or--_I'm tellin' you this because I am
ashamed to tell it_, and because I want you should know what the Lord
raised me up out of. I tell you I'd sit there after workin' hours,
hunched up in my cheer, never speakin' to a soul, just feelin' him under
my hands, feelin' his flesh go soft and his bones crunch--"

Pippin stopped abruptly, flushing scarlet. "Lord, forgive me!" he said
simply.

"Amen!--Well?" The gray-haired man was looking expectantly at him. "Go
on, young feller! You can't stop there." Pippin gave a gulp and went on.

"The chaplain used to come and see me once or twice a week, and he give
me papers to read--nice papers they was, too; I liked 'em--and said I
was in a bad way and didn't I repent, and I said no, I didn't, and he'd
shake his head and say, 'Hardened! hardened!' kind of sad, and go away.
He'd ben there a long time, and it had soaked into him, as you may say.
He'd lost his spring, if ever he had any. Well! come one day--I'll never
forget that day! bright, sunshiny day it was, just like this--I went to
chapel as usual. I liked to go to chapel, 'count of the singin'. I'd
rather sing than eat, any day. I never noticed the words, you
understand, but I liked the tunes, and I sang out good whenever I got a
chance. So I went in with the rest, like a sheep, and sat down, never
lookin' up. I'd got a piece of string, and a feller had showed me a new
knot, and I sat tyin' it, waitin' for the singin'. I never took no
notice of anything else. Then a voice spoke, and I jumped, and looked
up. It was a strange voice, and a strange man. Tall and well set up, he
was, kind o' sandy hair and beard, and eyes that looked right through
you and counted the buttons on the back of your shirt. Yes, and his
voice went through you, too; it wasn't loud nor yet sharp, but you
couldn't help but listen. '_The Lord is here!_' he said. He let that
sink in a minute; then, 'Right here,' he said, 'in this chapel. And
what's more, you left Him behind you in your cell. And what's more,
you'll find Him there when you go back. _You can't get away from Him!_'
I can't tell you all he said, but every word come straight as a rifle
bullet. I wasn't the only one that sat up, I tell ye! 'Twas different
talk from what we was used to. He spoke about ten minutes, and it didn't
seem three; then he stops short and says, 'That's enough. Now let's
sing! Hymn 464!' Well, there was some sung, like me, because they liked
it, and there was a few here and there was professors, but half of 'em
didn't pay no attention special, just sat there. After the first verse
he held up his hand. 'I said _sing_!' says he. 'And when I say sing I
mean _sing_! Never mind whether you know how or not; _make a noise_! I
ain't goin' to sing alone!'

"Gorry! I can see him now, standin' there with his head up, clappin' two
hymn books together to beat the time and singin' away for all he was
worth. In two minutes every man in the place was singin', or crowin', or
gruntin', or makin' what kind of noise was give him to make. Yes, sir!
that was Elder Hadley all over. I let out my voice to the last hole; I
expect I bellered like a bull, for he looked at me kind o' quick; then
in another minute he looked again, and that time he saw all there was to
see. I felt it crinkle down to my toes, so to say. Bimeby, as we were
goin' out, after service, he come down and shook hands with us all,
every man Jack, and said somethin' pleasant. Come to me, he looks me
right through again, and says he, 'Well, boy, what are _you_ doin'
here?' I choked up, and couldn't say a word. It wasn't so much what he
said, mind you, as the way he said it. Why, you was a real person, and
he _cared_; you bet he cared! Well, sir, 'twould take the day to tell
what that man did for me. He told me that 'twas true, the Lord _was_
there. And that--that _He_ cared too. It took a long time to get that
into my head. I'd been kicked about from one gutter to another; nobody
ever had cared--except old Granny Faa; she give me snuff sometimes, when
she was sober, and she kep' Bashford off me as much as she could--but
still--

"Well! I'll bile it down. Come one day, somethin' started me wrong; I
don't know what it was. My head ached, and the mush was burnt, and I
didn't give a tinker's damn for anything or anybody. I did what I had
to, and then I sat down and just grouched, the way I told you. Crooks is
childish, as I said; maybe other folks is too, I dono. Well! So Elder
Hadley come along, and he says, 'Hello, Pippin! What's the matter? You
look like you'd been frostbit!' he says. I tried to fetch a grin, but it
wouldn't come. 'Nothin' doin', Elder!' I says.

"'What's the matter?' he says again, his kind way.

"'Hell's the matter!' I says. I used language, them days; never have
since, but I did then.

"He sits down and looks me over careful. 'What's "hell"?' he says.

"'Everything's hell!' I says: and then I biled over, and I guess that
mush was burnt all right. He listened quiet, his head kind o' bent down.
At last he says, 'How about takin' the Lord into this, and askin' Him to
help?'

"'Nothin' doin'!' I says. 'There's no Lord in mine!'

"'_Stop that!_' says he. I looked up; and his eyes was like on fire, but
yet they was lovin' too, and--I dono--somethin' in his look made me
straighten up and hold up my head. 'None of that talk!' he said. 'That's
no talk for God's boy. Now, hark to me! You like me, don't you, Pippin?'

"'You bet I like you, Elder!' I says. 'There's nothin' doin' in your
line here, but you bet I like you. You've treated me white, and you're a
gentleman besides.'

"'Now,' he says, slow and careful, 'what you like in me is just the
little bit of God that's in me. The little bit that's in you finds the
little bit that's in me, do you see? And _likes_ it, because they belong
together. There's another bit in the Warden, and another in Tom Clapp
there, though I'll own he doesn't look it (and he didn't); and there's a
bit in everybody here and elsewhere. And that's not all! Go you out into
that field yonder and sit there for an hour, and you'll find other
little bits, see if you don't! And see if they don't fit together.'

"He pointed out of the window to a field a little ways off: I could see
the buttercups shinin' in it from where I sat. I stared at him. 'Go
along!' says he. 'What do you mean?' I says. 'I mean _go_!' he says.
'I've the Warden's leave for you whenever I see fit, and I see fit now.'
I looked at him, and I see 'twas true. I got up kind o' staggerin',
like, and he tucked his arm into mine, and he opened the door and we
went out. Out! I'd been in there a year, sir. I don't believe you could
guess what 'twas like. He marched me over to that field--we clum over
the fence, and _that_ done me a sight of good--and told me to set down.
Then he give me his watch--gold watch and chain, handsome as they make
'em--and said, 'Come back in an hour. Good-by, boy!' and he went off and
left me there. Green grass! do you understand? He never turned round
even. He left _me_--a crook, a guttersnipe, a jailbird--out there alone
in the sunshine, with the buttercups all round me."

Pippin's voice broke. Mr. Bailey produced a voluminous bandanna
handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. There was silence for a few
moments. Pippin went on.

"Then, after a while, I found the Lord, like the Elder said. He come all
round me, like the air; I couldn't get away from Him. A little bird come
and tilted on a bush by where I was sittin', and he sang, and there was
a bit of the Lord in him, and he said so, over and over, plain, and I
heard him. And the sun shined on the buttercups, and they had a bit too,
and appeared like they knowed it, and kind o' nodded and was pleased;
and the leaves on the trees rustled, and they appeared pleased, too. And
like a voice said inside me, 'It all belongs, and you belong too!' and
all at once I was down on my knees. 'It's the Lord!' I says. 'I've found
Him, and He's the Whole Show!'"




CHAPTER III

PIPPIN FINDS A TRADE, "TEMP'RY"


There was a silence when Pippin finished his story. He had no more to
say. He sat erect, looking straight before him, with parted lips and
shining eyes. Jacob Bailey glanced at him once or twice, and cleared his
throat as if to speak, but no words came. Again he looked his horse
over, slowly and critically, as if he rather expected to see something
out of place.

"That strap's worked a mite loose!" he muttered. "He crabs along so, you
can't keep the straps in place."

Finally he blew his nose with much deliberation, and turned toward his
companion. "Young man," he said, "I'd like to shake hands with you!" He
held out a brown, knotty hand, and Pippin grasped it eagerly. "I believe
every word you say, and I thank the Lord for you. I--I'd ought to have
trusted you from the beginning, same as your face told me to, but--"

Pippin shook his head emphatically. "I couldn't ask no more than what
you've done. I thank you, sir! I thank you much!" he cried. "You've
listened real kind and patient, and it sure has done me good, gettin'
this off my chest, like; a heap of good! It has so! And how could you
tell? I've seen crooks looked like--well, real holy and pious, different
from me as a dove from a crow, and they wasn't, but the reverse.
Behooved you be careful, is what I say."

"Especially being guardian of the poor!" said Jacob Bailey. "Yes, son, I
run the Poor Farm, up to Cyrus. It's as pretty a piece of farm land as
there is in the state, and a pleasant place whatever way you take it.
Now--you say you are lookin' for a trade? How about farmin'? Ever think
of that?"

Pippin pondered. "I never had any experience farmin'," he said, "but I
love to see things grow, and I love the smell of the earth, and like
that. I should think 'twould be a dandy trade all right."

"Well!" Jacob Bailey's eyes began to shine too. "Now, young feller, I
tell you what! I--I take to you, some way of it. I don't take to
everybody right away like this; I'm some slow as a rule; but--what I
would say is this: I'm kinder short-handed just now at the Farm, and
unless you find something you like better, why, you might come and have
a try at that."

"You're awful good!" cried Pippin. "Say, you are, Mr. Bailey, no
mistake. I feel to thank you, sir. As if you hadn't done me good enough,
lettin' me blow off steam, without this!"

"Nuff said about that!" Bailey spoke with the gruffness of a shy man.
"You done me good too, so call it square. Well, you think it over,
that's all. No hurry! I'm there right along, and so's the Farm; and
farmin' is as good, clean, pleasant a trade as a man can find--or so I
hold, and I've farmed thirty years."

"I'll bet it is!" Pippin climbed down from the wagon, and the two men
shook hands again, looking each other in the face with friendly eyes.
"I'll bet it is, and I wouldn't wonder a mite but I might take you up
some day, Mr. Bailey. I only want to make sure what it's meant I should
do, and if it is farmin' I'd be real pleased, I wouldn't wonder. And
anyway, I'll look you up some day, sir. I will, sure."

"So do! So do, son! Good luck to you, Pippin, if that's your name. Git
up, Nelson!"

Pippin returned the greetings with enthusiasm, and Jacob Bailey drove
off with many a backward wave and glance.

"Real nice man!" said Pippin. "Ain't it great meetin' up with folks like
that? Now behooves me hasten just a mite, if I'm goin' to get to Kingdom
before sundown! He said 'twas about a mile further. Hello! What's goin'
on here?"

Pippin was not to get to Kingdom before sundown. He stopped short. A man
was lying beside the road, motionless, his feet in the ditch, his head
on a tuft of grass: asleep, it seemed. An elderly man, gray and wizened,
his face seamed with wrinkles of greed and cunning. Near him on the
dusty grass lay a scissor-grinder's wheel. Pippin bent over him, looked,
looked again, then knelt down in the dust.

"It's Nipper Crewe!" he said. "He's--no, he isn't! Hi, there! Crewe!
Hold up! What's the matter?"

"Some kind of fit!" said Pippin. "There's no liquor in him. Here, Crewe,
wake up!"

He shook the man gently: the lids quivered, opened; the bleared eyes
wandered, then fixed, and recognition crept into them.

"Pippin!" he said faintly.

"That's right! It's Pippin, all right. How you feelin', Nipper?"

"What's the matter?"

"Search me!" said Pippin cheerfully. "You appear to have had a fit, or
something. You'll come out all right."

"Where is it?"

"Where's what? Your wheel? Right handy by; I expect it dropped when you
did, but it looks to be all O.K. Took up grindin', eh? Good trade, is
it?"

A cunning look crept into the dim eyes.

"Good enough. Gets you into the house, and then--" his breath failed; he
lay back, gasping, in Pippin's arms.

"Now wouldn't that give you a pain?" muttered Pippin. "Nipper," he said
aloud, "you're feelin' bad, ain't you? Now here we be on a good road
leadin' to a town only a mile off. There's three things to do: I can
carry you a little ways at a time till we get to a house; or we can set
right here and wait till somebody comes along; or I can lay you so
you'll rest easy--as easy as you can--and go and fetch somebody. Now--"

"Don't go!" It was only a whisper, but the groping fingers caught
Pippin's sleeve and held it convulsively.

"Go! Not likely, if you feel that way!" Pippin sat down cheerfully.
"It's nice to sit down, anyway. Say we put your head on my knee--so!
That's easier? Good enough! Why, we've been--not to say pals, Nipper,
but we sat side by each for a matter of a year. It's not likely I'd
leave you, is it?"

The man shook his head feebly.

"I ain't comin' out!" he whispered. "I'm goin'! I'm used up, Pip!"

"Sho! What a way to talk!" Pippin glanced round him uneasily.
"Somebody'll be comin' along in a minute, and we'll get you into the
city, into a nice hospital--"

The man shook his head feebly, but vehemently.

"No you don't!" he said. "No more hospital in mine! They had me in one,
and I shammed well till they let me out. No more of that for me! I'll
die on the road."

No one came; it was a lonely road at best, and at this twilight hour the
Kingdom folk were at their suppers. Impossible to leave the man, who was
evidently dying! Pippin rolled up his coat and put it under the
sufferer's head. Still looking about him with keen anxious glance, he
spied a tiny runnel near by, wet in it one of the two new handkerchiefs
the Warden's wife had given him, and bathed the gray face which seemed
to sharpen as he watched it. He bent lower.

"Crewe! Nipper! Have you got any folks? Can I take any message?"

"No! All gone!"

"Nipper!" Pippin's voice grew eager, his face glowed. "You have got some
one! You've got the Lord, and He's got you. You're goin' to Him. Ain't
that great? Listen!"

The sick man raised himself suddenly.

"The wheel!" he said. "Take the wheel, Pippin! You was always white--I
bought it; I leave it to you--"

He was gone. Pippin laid him down gently, and covered his face with the
hankerchief.

"Poor old Nipper!" he said. "But there! He's better so. He hadn't hit it
off, as you may say, Nipper hadn't. I never knew much about him, but I
knew that much. Give him a new start, some place where there's no rum,
and he might do great things. Now what comes next? I expect we've just
got to wait here till somebody comes along. I couldn't leave him this
way, what say?"

Pippin sat down by the roadside. He made no pretense of regret for the
departure of Nipper; seeing that he hadn't hit it off here, what object
in his remaining, bein' he was let to go?

"Nipper's ma, now, may have thought he was a nice kid, and no doubt done
her best by him, but if she'd had any idea how he was goin' to look an'
act when he growed up, why that lady would have been discouraged, she
sure would. Hark! there's somebody comin' at last!"

The disposal of poor Nipper's earthly part was a tedious business, but
it was accomplished finally. Pippin followed the coffin to its resting
place as in duty bound. The authorities questioned him pretty sharply,
but finally let him go with an admonition not to go sittin' round the
ro'ds, but get to work at something. There had been one doubtful
moment by the roadside, when the man who picked them up (he chanced to
be a selectman of Kingdom) asked who owned the wheel. Pippin looked at
him with puzzled eyes, and fingered his file. Why not? he was saying
to himself. He knew scissor-grinding, knew it from A to Z. Why not
take hold, now, since it had dropped right into his hand, so to say?
Yes, but how did he know--he, Pippin, was on the straight now,
forever-and-ever-give-glory-amen, and Nipper was a crook from 'way
back. How did he know--but then again, _did_ he know? 'Twas all right
to stand straight, but no need to straighten so far you fall over
backwards! See? Mebbe this was what the Lord had in view, he wouldn't
wonder!

"I expect it's mine!" he said.

The man looked him over sharply. "You expect it's yours?" he repeated.
"What do you mean by that?"

"It's mine, then!" said Pippin, decidedly, and laid his hand on the
wheel. It was a leading, he decided. The man stood irresolute a moment,
but Pippin smiled at him, and nodded assurance. "It's all right, boss!"
he said. "It's mine right enough, see? And I'll see to it. What we've
got to do now is to get this poor old guy buried, what?"

Finally, here was Pippin with a trade ready to his hand.

"Temp'ry!" he assured himself. "I don't feel that the Lord picked out
scissor-grindin' for me, but while I'm lookin' about, 'twill keep the
pot a-b'ilin', and while I'm grindin', I'll grind good, just watch me!"

Pippin had spent for supper and lodging one of the dollars Elder Hadley
had given him, but he had no idea of spending the other. Sharp-set for
breakfast, he carried his wheel through the main street of Kingdom, his
quick eyes glancing from side to side, and stopped before a door bearing
the legend, "Bakery and Lunch." The window beside the door was polished
to the last point of brilliance; the loaves, rolls, pies and cakes
displayed within were tempting enough. "This for mine!" said Pippin, and
stepped in.

"Mornin'!" he said to the crisp, fresh, rosy-cheeked woman behind the
counter. "Nice mornin', ain't it?"

"It sure is!" was the reply. "What can I serve you?"

"Well! I was wonderin' if we could do a little business, you an' me. Say
I sharpen your knives and you give me a mite of breakfast; how would
that suit?"

The woman looked him over carefully. "You a knife-grinder?" she asked.

"_And_ scissors! Wheel right outside here. I'll grind while you get the
coffee. That's straight, isn't it?"

"'Pears to be! What do you ask for a bread knife?"

"You tell me what you're in the habit of payin', and I'll ask that. I'm
new to the trade, and I aim to please. Here, sonny!" as a black-eyed
urchin bobbed in from the bakery, his arms full of loaves. "Gimme your
jackknife and I'll sharpen it just for luck, so your ma'll see I mean
business! Sing you a song, too! Hand it over. My! that's a handsome
knife!

    "'There was an old man--'"

The stroke succeeded. The jackknife brought to murderous sharpness, the
mistress of the bakery declared that the others could wait. Soon Pippin
was enjoying to the full what he declared a breakfast that a king would
cry for: eggs and bacon, coffee and rolls, all excellent of their kind.

"I wonder why they _call_ it coffee over there!" he confided to his
stick. "'Cause if this is, that ain't, you see! But 'twas good as I
deserved! That's the way they look at it, I take it; and I expect
they're right. No, ma'am, not another morsel. I'm full as much obliged
to you. That sure was a good meal! Now I'm ready to sharpen all the
knives and scissors in the county. I'll stand my wheel close to the door
where it won't be in folks' way, and then just watch me!"

The baker's wife brought an apronful of knives and scissors, and Pippin
set to work, blessing the Old Man, who had put him in the tool shop for
six months and made him keep the tools in order while old Grindstone was
laid up with rheumatism. Old Grindstone! Pippin wondered what his real
name was. "They called him Grindstone, account of a song he used to sing
when he was grindin'. He said 'grinstone' where I say 'grindstone,' and
I always maintained I had reason, because it grinds; but he thought
otherwise, and he'd grind away--wonderful hand he was at it; in for
twenty years, and ground all the time except when laid up as he was now
and again; arson, though he says he never knew there was any one in the
house, and anyway they was got out alive, though some damaged--well--so
he'd grind away, the old man would, and all the time he'd sing in a kind
of dry, wheezy voice:

    "Grin, grinstone, grin!
    Grin, grinstone, grin!
    When you're out
    You roam about,
    But it's otherwise when you're in--grin!
    It's otherwise when you're in! Grin!
    It's otherwise when you're in!"

Pippin's voice rang out round and full; his wheel turned merrily, the
blades flashed in the sun. A little crowd gathered round him, watching
the whirling wheel. Looking up, he saw some children among them. Was
this quite the song for them? He checked himself and broke out with

    "There was an old man
    And he was mad--"

The children clustered nearer.

"Sing another!" said a little flaxen-haired girl in a pink pinafore.

Pippin looked at her approvingly, and reflected that she was the very
moral of the "little gal," that little sister he had--or as good as had,
almost! He ran over his repertory: most of the prison songs were not
what her ma would choose--certainly not! But--there was one the cook's
boy used to sing--how did that go?

    "Dum de rido! dum de rido!
    I had a little dog, and his name was Fido--"

"What's that?" Something seemed to speak in his heart. "Why not sing one
of the Lord's songs? Well, I _am_ a duffer! And tryin' to think of some
that would do!"

He threw back his head, and let out his voice in a shout that made the
listeners start:

    "Oh, Mother dear, Jerusalem,
    When shall I come to thee?
    When shall my sorrows have an end,
    Thy joys when shall I see?"

The baker's wife came to the door and stood, wiping her eyes with her
apron. The baker, flushed and floury, left his ovens and came to peer
over her shoulder, open-mouthed; people appeared in the neighboring
windows and doorways, and the crowd on the sidewalk thickened silently.
Pippin neither saw nor heard them; his voice poured out in waves of
song, longing, rejoicing, triumphant.

    "Thy gardens and thy goodly walks
    Continually are green,
    Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
    As nowhere else are seen."

"You bet they do!"

    "Right through the streets with silver sound
    The living waters flow,
    And on the banks on either side
    The trees of life do grow."

"There, ma'am, there's your knives and scissors as good as I can do 'em,
and I hope it's pretty good, to pay for that good breakfast. I surely
do."

"Good land, young man!" cried the baker's wife. "Who learned you to
sing like that? Why, you'd sing the heart out of a stone statue!"

Pippin laughed joyously, eyes and teeth flashing together.

"I expect the Lord did, ma'am!" he said. "Anyhow it's His song, and you
have to sing it as good as you can, ain't that so? Don't know of a job
goin' beggin', do you, ma'am?"

"What kind of job?"

"'Most any kind! I'm lookin' for a trade to work in with my grindin' for
a spell. I'm handy, var'ous ways: make brooms, set glass, carpenter or
solder, I've done 'em all."

"Ever been in a bakery?"

"Not yet, but I'd admire to, if there was a chance."

Pippin's face kindled, and he looked eagerly from the baker's wife to
the baker himself who was considering him gravely. He was a stout,
kindly-looking man; his right hand was bandaged, and he wore his arm in
a sling.

"I'm in need of an extry hand myself," he said slowly, with a glance at
the bandage. "I don't know--" He looked at his wife, who nodded
emphatically.

"Step inside a minute, young man! Move on, boys, if you'll be so good!
You're cluttering up the whole sidewalk."

The crowd slowly dispersed, one or two neighbors lingering to question
the good woman of the shop about the young stranger who sang so
wonderfully. Who was he? Where'd he come from? Good-lookin', wasn't he?
Their own knives would be none the worse for goin' over--

Inside the neat, fragrant shop, with its tempting display of coffee
cakes, brown and varnished, of shapely loaves and rolls, cookies and
doughnuts, the baker questioned Pippin. At first the questioning
promised to be brief, for when, in response to "Where do you come from?"
he heard, "State Prison!" the good man shook his head resolutely.

"I guess that isn't good enough!" he said, not unkindly. "I'm sorry,
young feller, for I like your looks, and you sing like a bird; but--my
shop has a good name, and--"

"Hold on!" Pippin laid a hand on his arm. "I know how you feel, sir! I'd
feel the same in your place; but it would be because I didn't know. I
won't hurt your shop, nor you! I'm _straight_! Lemme tell you!"

He told his story briefly, the baker listening with anxious, doubtful
looks.

"So you see," he ended, "I couldn't go on the crook again, not if I
wanted to, and I don't!"

Still the comfortable-looking baker shook his head. "I've heard pious
talk before," he said; "it don't always hold good. I'm afraid--" he
rose, as if to close the interview; Pippin rose too. His eyes roved
round the pleasant shop, and came back, meeting the baker's squarely.
"This is a dandy place!" he said slowly; "and you have the look of a
dandy person, if you'll excuse the freedom. I'd like to work for you,
and--I'd hate--to think--that you wouldn't help a guy that wanted help
and wanted to work for it. I think you make a mistake; but it's your
store, and what you say goes."

With a little bow and another regretful look around him, Pippin turned
toward the door. A moment, and he would be gone. His hand was on the
latch.

"Hold on!" said the baker. "I didn't say positive. I'm not a hard man by
nature, only--"

"I bet you ain't!" said Pippin. "That's why I say I think you make a
mistake--" He turned back with his smile that seemed to warm and
brighten the whole shop. "Try me, Mister! Try me a week, and see for
yourself. No satisfaction, no pay, as it says on the medicine bottles.
And I couldn't pinch anything off'n you now if I wanted to. I've put you
wise, and you'll be on the watch, see?"

The baker laughed in spite of himself. "We'll make it a week, then!" he
said. "But not a word to my wife of where you come from. She's
timoreous, and she wouldn't sleep a wink all night."

"Now!" said Pippin, "I wouldn't break that good lady's rest, not for all
the elegant things in this bakeshop."




CHAPTER IV

PIPPIN GOES TO CYRUS


Pippin always looked back on the weeks he spent in Kingdom as one of his
good times. Folks were so everlastingly good to him; they couldn't
hardly have been better, he thought, not unless they had been your own.
Mrs. Baxter, the baker's wife, was like--well, call it an aunt. Yes, she
sure was like a good aunt, and equally so was her uncle; as for Buster,
the boy--well, that was Pippin's moral of a boy. Buster would grow up a
fine man, you see if he didn't. He'd _better_! As to looking for the
grace of God like he promised Elder Hadley, why, he didn't have to. It
stuck right out of 'em, like--like electric lights!

Pippin lodged with the Baxters and paid his board in work, lighting the
fires in the morning, heating the ovens, sweeping out the shop, and
doing a "hand's turn" in many directions. Mrs. Baxter declared
Providence sent him just at that time, when Father had caught his hand
in the oven door and lamed him so; she did not know what upon earth they
would have done without Pippin. Indeed he showed himself so handy that
after the first week Mr. Baxter offered him a permanent job, declared he
would make him the smartest baker in the county. Pippin promised to
think it over. He loved the smell of new bread; he loved to handle the
dough, and rake out the glowing coals; yes, it was a pleasant trade, it
sure was; but yet--but yet--

Other offers came to him. Among the crowd who had gathered to hear him
sing that first day were Father O'Brien of St. Bridget's and Elder
Stebbins, the Methodist Minister. Both were music-lovers. Both made it
in their way to drop in at the bakery in the course of the next few
days, and invite the young scissor-grinder to sing in their choir while
he sojourned in their midst. Was he a Catholic? Father O'Brien asked.
No? More was the pity, but let him come and sing in the church, and
'twould be good for him and the rest besides. Pippin assented joyfully.
He would be real pleased to come, and sing the best he knew how. Then
came Elder Stebbins, ostensibly to buy a coffee cake for supper. Was his
young friend a Christian? "You bet!" replied Pippin, wrapping up the
cake with deft fingers. "I'd have to be, wouldn't I? Unless that the
Lord had seen fit to have me a Chinee, or like that, and I'm just as
glad He didn't!"

Mr. Stebbins hoped his young friend was also a Methodist; but Pippin
shook his head; he guessed not. They were all good, he guessed; he
presumed he belonged to every church there was, in a general way, you
know. Mr. Stebbins looked grave, and said that was not a very safe
doctrine. He hoped his young friend would join their service of song on
Sunday evening; it might be helpful to him, and would assuredly minister
to the enjoyment of others. Pippin assented joyfully, after ascertaining
that service would be over in time for him to set his sponge to rise.

So on Sunday, and other happy Sundays, he went to St. Bridget's in the
morning, and sang stately old Latin hymns and chants; inhaled incense
(which he thought real tasty, but yet nothing to what the Lord could do
with a field of white clover), kneeled reverently with the rest,
listened respectfully to Father O'Brien's excellent little sermon, and
liked it all. And the evening found him behind the green moreen
half-curtains in the Methodist meetinghouse, pouring out his soul in
gospel hymns and assuring his hearers that they would meet beside the
river, the beautiful, the beautiful river, in such tones and with such
feeling that every woman in meeting wept, and there was a mighty blowing
up of nasal trumpets among the men. Elder Stebbins' discourse was rather
long-winded and rambling, but when Pippin lost the thread, he would take
refuge in a psalm, or recall one of Elder Hadley's brief, pistol-shot
addresses, or think how the buttercups shone in the field that day he
found the Lord. And here, too, he loved it all, every bit, and came home
in a glow of happiness and fervor that was enough to make the dough rise
at the sight of him.

The baker was puzzled at first by his new assistant; as the good man
himself expressed it, he didn't get on to Pippin's curves. There were
things that jarred--for a time--on his sensibilities; as thus. They were
together in the shop one evening, and a customer came in for his evening
loaf; the shoemaker it was, Jere Cargo, a man of dry, critical humor. He
commented on the loaf; it was a shade deeper brown than usual.

"One minute more, young man, and that loaf would have been burnt, that's
what!"

Pippin scanned the loaf carefully. "Is that so?" he said. "Now! Why, I
was pleased with this batch, I thought the Lord give me an elegant bake
on it: that's what I _thought_! But if folks likes 'em pale, why, pale
it is!"

The shoemaker stared; Mr. Baxter coughed apologetically as he
accompanied him to the door, and--on a summoning jerk of the
head--followed him outside.

"What have you got there?" asked the shoemaker. "A preacher? Where'd you
get him?"

"No, he isn't a preacher, though I dare say he might have been, if he'd
had education. He's just pious, that's all. It's his way of talking."

His tone was conciliatory, but the shoemaker sniffed.

"'Just pious!'" he repeated. "Look out for 'em, I say, when they're just
pious. They'll bear watching. Where'd you say he come from?"

"He's traveling!" Mr. Baxter knew his customer, and had no idea of
telling him whence Pippin came. "He's a scissor-grinder by trade, and a
master hand at it. I hurt my hand last week, and he come along just in
the nick of time and has been helping me since. Real good help he is,
too."

"Humph!" said Jere Cargo, shrugging his dry shoulders. "You look out for
him, that's all I say. Sharp-looking chap, I call that; he'll bear
watching."

Returning to the shop, Mr. Baxter coughed again, this time with his eye
on Pippin, who was arranging a tray of creamcakes with a lover's ardor.

"Ain't them handsome?" he cried. "I ask you, Boss, ain't them handsome?
And dandy to eat--green grass! Mis' Baxter give me one. _They_ drop
fatness all right, no two ways about that!"

Here Pippin broke into song, proclaiming joyously that he was a pilgrim,
he was a stranger, he could tarry, he could tarry but a night.

    "Do not detain me,
    For I am going--"

"Ahem!" said Mr. Baxter, "I was thinking, Pippin--"

Pippin came to attention instantly. "Yes, sir! You was thinkin'--"

"I was wondering--" the baker spoke slowly, in a tone half admonitory,
half conciliatory, and wholly embarrassed--"whether maybe you--just in a
manner, you understand, just in a manner--was in the habit of making a
mite too free with--with your Maker, so to speak."

Pippin's eye grew very round. "Meanin'--with the Lord?" he said.

"Yes! with--with--as you say, with the Lord!" Mr. Baxter was a godly
man, but his Deity lived in the meetinghouse and was rarely to be
mentioned except within its four walls. "For example," he went on, "I
was wondering whether it was exactly a good plan to bring the--the
Almighty--into the bakeshop."

"Gorry!" said Pippin. "I'd hate to leave Him out of it!" His eyes, still
round and astonished, traveled slowly about the pleasant place. Three
sides of it were filled with glass counters displaying a wealth of pies,
pumpkin, apple, mince and custard, with cakes of every variety, from the
wedding cake which was Mr. Baxter's special pride, to his wife's
creamcakes, eagerly sought by the neighborhood for ten miles round.
Behind the counter, on neat shelves, were stacked the loaves of bread,
white and brown, the crisp rolls and melting muffins. The shop looked as
good as it smelled; "ther nys namoore to seye!"

"I'd hate to leave Him out of it!" repeated Pippin. "Dandy place like
this! Don't know as I get you this time, Boss!" He turned bewildered
brown eyes on Mr. Baxter, who coughed again and reddened slightly.

"What I meant--" the baker ran his eye along a pile of loaves, and
straightened one that had slipped out of place--"isn't it making rather
free with--ahem! what say?"

"Oh!" Pippin's face lightened. "I get you! Now I get you, sir! Lemme
tell you! Lemme tell you just the way it is." Fairly stammering in his
eagerness, Pippin leaned across the counter, his eyes shining. "You see,
sir, I was raised a crook!"

"Hush!" Mr. Baxter looked over his shoulder. "No need to speak out loud,
Pippin. Just as well to keep that between ourselves, you know."

"I was raised," Pippin repeated in a lower tone, "a crook, and I
heard--and used--crooks' language. Nor it isn't only crooks!" he cried,
smiting the counter. "Where I was raised, 'most everybody had the name
of God on their tongues every hour in the day, but not in the way of
praisin' Him; no, sir! There's plenty folks--good folks, too--they can't
name hardly anything, whatever be it, without 'God damn' before it. You
know that, Mr. Baxter. You know what street talk is, sir." The baker
nodded gravely. "Well, then! That's what I was raised to, and it run off
my tongue like water, till--till I come to know Elder Hadley. I'm
tol'able noticin', sir; I expect crooks is, when they're all there; you
have to be, to get on. I noticed right off the way he spoke, clean and
short and pleasant, no damnin' nor cussin'; and I liked it, same as I
liked clean folks and despised dirty ones. That was all there was to it
at first. But yet I couldn't stop all of a sudden; it took time, same as
anything does, to learn it. Then--come to find the Lord, like I told
you, sir, why--I dunno how to put it. I'd ben askin' Him all my life to
damn everything, this, that, and the other, folks, and--everything, I
say; I didn't mean it, 'twas just a fool way of speakin', but what I
thought was, supposin' I was to ask Him to help right along, 'stead of
damn, and _make_ it mean something! What say? You get my idea, Mr.
Baxter, sir?"

Mr. Baxter nodded again. "I get it, Pippin. I won't say anything more."

"But yet--but yet--" Pippin was stammering again, and halfway across the
counter in his passion of eagerness. "I get you, too, Boss! I do, sure
thing. You mean it brings some folks up short, like that gen'leman that
stepped in just now? He's no use for me, I see that right off; I
wondered why, and now 'tis clear as print. I'd oughter sized him up
better. Take that kind of man, and he may be good as they make 'em,
prob'ly is; but yet--well--you say the Lord's name _excep'_ in the way
of cussin'--I don't mean that he's that kind himself--but--_it's like he
stubbed his toe on the Lord's ladder, see?_"

"You've got it! you've got it!" the baker was nodding eagerly in his
turn. He laughed and rubbed his hands. "Stubbed his toe on--on the
Lord's ladder! I--I expect I stub mine a mite, too, Pippin, but I won't
say another word."

"'Cause we're awful glad the ladder's there, ain't we, sir?" Pippin's
voice was wistful enough now.

"Ahem! Yes! yes!" The baker took out a clean red handkerchief and rubbed
an imaginary spot on the shining glass. "That's all right, Pippin. Do
what comes natural to you; only--what _are_ you doing now?"

There was a little stove in the shop, behind the middle counter, used
for "hotting up" coffee or the like when people were in a hurry. Pippin,
after a glance at the clock, had taken some pennies out of the till, and
was laying them carefully on the top of the stove, which glowed red
hot.

"What are you doing?" repeated the baker. Pippin grinned.

"Tryin' an experiment!" he said. "There was a quarter missin' yesterday,
Boss, you rec'lect, and ten cents the day before, and so along back."

"Yes!" Mr. Baxter looked serious. "I'm afraid, Pippin--"

"Don't be afraid, sir! Just watch me!" Pippin tested the pennies
carefully and taking them up one by one on the blade of his jackknife,
deposited them on the counter. "I've noticed along about this time every
night--there they come! Don't say a word, only watch!"

He retired behind the counter as the door opened and two children came
in, a boy and a girl. They were poorly dressed, and there was something
furtive and slinking about their looks and manner, but they came forward
readily, and the girl asked for a five-cent loaf of white bread, putting
at the same moment five pennies on the counter, close beside those which
already lay there. As Pippin was tying up the bread, the girl began to
ask questions. How much was them cookies? Were they molasses or sugar?
What was the price of the custard pie, and when was it baked?

"Baked this mornin'!" Pippin replied cheerfully. "Cost you a quarter,
and worth a dollar. What--"

A piercing howl interrupted him. The tinkle of metal was heard, and the
boy sprang back from the counter and danced about the shop, crying and
spluttering, his fingers in his mouth. Pippin vaulted the counter in an
instant.

"What's the matter, Bo?" he asked kindly. "Hurt your finger? Lemme see!"
The boy clenched his fist, but Pippin forced the fingers open, not
ungently. "Why, you've burnt 'em!" he announced. "My! my! that _must_
hurt! How in the name--why, you must have made a mistake and took up
some of Mr. Baxter's pennies. Yes, sir, that's what you done. Didn't you
know that bakeshop pennies was hot? They be, sure thing! There goes
Sissy!" as the girl, seizing her loaf, slipped noiselessly out of the
door. "Now you foller her, Bo, and go home and tell your ma what I say.
_Bakeshop pennies is hot!_ Think you'll remember that? Here's something
to help your mem'ry!"

Leading the boy to the door, he gave him a carefully modulated kick, and
with a friendly, "So long, Bo!" returned to the shop.

"I've had my eye on them kids for two three days!" he explained. "Smart
kids! If I met 'em in the city, I should say they was in trainin'. I'll
set Father O'Brien on 'em; they go to his gospel shop. I see 'em there."

"I never should have thought it!" said the baker, and he shook his head
sadly. "Those little kids! Why, the boy doesn't look to be more than
eight years old, and the girl only a year or so older."

"That's the time to start 'em!" Pippin spoke with emphasis. "If you're
aimin' to make a first-rate crook, you've got to start in early with
him. But Father O'Brien'll see to 'em; he's smart as a jimmy, Father
O'Brien is."

"We won't tell the wife!" said Mr. Baxter. "She is nervous, and 'twould
ha'nt her, and keep her awake nights. One comfort, they're not Kingdom
born, those kids. They belong to them French folks over by the dump,
down Devildom way."

Weekday mornings Pippin spent mostly in the bakery, working, singing,
whistling, all with a hearty will. After dinner he would take his wheel
and go his way through the pretty shady streets of the country town, or
out along the green roads that led from it in various directions. When
he came to a promising looking corner with houses set within comfortable
reach of one another, he would stop, and leaning on his wheel, would put
up his shingle, as he called it: in other words, sing his grinding song.
He had made it up, bit by bit, as the wheel turned, humming, under his
hands. Here it is: but you should hear Pippin sing it!

    Knives and scissors to grind, oh!
    Have 'em done to your mind, oh!
        Large and small,
        Damaged and all,
    Don't leave any behind, oh!

    Knives and scissors to grind, oh!
    Every specie and kind, oh!
        Bring 'em to me,
        _And_ you will see
    Satisfaction you'll find, oh!

"Yes, sir, made it my own self!" he replied to Elder Stebbins' questions
on the song. "I don't know how I done it. I expect it was a kind of
miracle. I sang the first line through two three times, and lo ye! the
next one turned right up matchin' of it. Now that isn't nature, you
know, but yet it's _right_, and it fits straight in. When a thing comes
like that, I call it a miracle. What say?"

"Very interesting, my young friend! Do you--a--might it perhaps be
better to substitute 'species' for 'specie'? The latter means, as you
doubtless are aware, current coin; and--"

"Great!" said Pippin. "Current coin is what I'm after every time, so I
get it honest. Specie'll do for me, Elder!"

Before he had sung the song through once, doors and windows would be
opening, housewives peering out, children running to gather round the
magic wheel, listening open-mouthed to the singer. It was all play to
Pippin; wonderful, beautiful play.

"I tell you," he would say, "I tell you, seems though just to breathe
was enough to keep gay on. Over there to Shoreham--I dunno--I expect the
air got discouraged, some way of it. They'd open the windows, but the
outside air was shy of comin' in--like the rest of us! But out here in
the open--and things lookin' like this--green grass! I'm happy, and
don't you forget it!"

Sometimes he got a lift on his way. Solitary drivers, plodding along the
road, and seeing the trim, alert figure ahead stepping out briskly with
its wheel, were apt to overhaul it, and after a glance at Pippin's face
would most likely ask, "Goin' along a piece? Like a lift?" and Pippin,
with joyous thanks, would climb eagerly in, all ready to begin a new
chapter of human intercourse.

Once, so clambering, he found himself beside a tall man, brown-eyed and
brown-haired, who drove a brown horse. Pippin's eyes were brown, too,
but they danced and sparkled like running water; the stranger's eyes
were like a quiet pool under shady trees, yet there was light in them,
too.

"Goin' far?" he asked. His voice was grave, and he spoke slowly.

"Four Corners was what I'd aimed at," said Pippin, "but if you ain't
goin' that way--?"

"Goin' right past it, on my reg'lar route! I do business there to the
store. I see you carry your trade with you, same as I do!" He jerked his
head backward toward a neat arrangement of drawers and tiny cupboards
which half filled his roomy wagon. "Nice trade, I expect?"

Pippin laughed his joyous laugh. "Real nice, only it isn't mine, not for
keeps, I would say. 'Twas a--well, you might call it a legacy, and you
wouldn't be far wrong. It come right to my hand when I was lookin' for a
job, and I took it up then and there. Yes, sir, 'tis a good trade, and a
man might do well at it, I don't doubt, but yet I don't feel it to be my
own trade that I was meant for. So I go about seekin' for that one, and
workin' at this one, and helpin' in the bakery--Baxter's to Kingdom; I'm
boardin' there--helpin' there mornin's an' evenin's."

The brown eyes studied him carefully.

"About twenty-one years old, son? Twenty-two? I thought about there!
Well, what have you been doin' up to now?"

Pippin told him, much as he had told Jacob Bailey. The brown man
listened attentively, murmuring, "Sho!" or "Ain't that a sight!"
occasionally to himself.

"So you see," Pippin concluded, "I want to be right down sure I've got
the real thing before I settle down."

"Sure!" the other assented. "That's right!"

"And I keep feelin' at the back of my head that what I want is work with
my hands; not this way, but farmin', or like that. The smell of the
earth, and to see things growin', and--don't you know?"

The stranger assented absently.

"Elegant!" he said. "Farmin's elegant, when you've got the gift,
but--ever thought of goin' to sea?" he asked; an eager look came into
his face.

Pippin shook his head. "Not any!" he said. "I see the sea once, an'
honest, it give me the creeps. Cold water mumblin' over the stones, like
it wanted to eat 'em; and brown--kind o' like hair it was, floatin'
about; and every now and then a big wave would come _Sssss!_ up on the
shore--well, honest, I run! I was a little shaver, but I've never wanted
any more sea in mine!"

The brown man laughed. "You'd feel different, come to get out in blue
water!" he said. "Smell the salt, and get the wind in your face,
and--gorry! I'm a sea-farin' man," he said simply. "I spent good part of
my life at sea. I'm runnin' a candy route at present--have a pep'mint!
Do! 'Twon't cost you a cent, and it's real good for the stummick--but
where I belong is at sea. Well! you can't do better than farmin',
surely. Would you like a temp'ry job pickin' apples? I dunno but Sam--"

"There's more to it than that!" Pippin was speaking absently now; there
was a wistful look in his eyes. "There's all that, the smell of the
ground, and--and buttercups and--things; but there's more to it. There!
You seem so friendly, I'll say it right out. I want to help!"

"That's right!" murmured the brown man. "Help! that's the stuff!"

"I want to help them that needs help. I want there shouldn't be so many
kids in cellars, nor so many boys go wrong. Green grass! Tell you what!"
Pippin's eyes were shining now, and his hands clenched. "I've been
sayin' along, this month past, I'd forget all that time when I was a
kid; I'd forget everything up to where I found the Lord. I kind o' think
there was where I was wrong, mister--?"

"Call it Parks!" said the brown man. "Calvin Parks is what I was
christened, and I'd like to know your name, son."

"Pippin!"

"Meanin'--?"

"Just Pippin!"

"Christian name or surname?"

"All the name there is!"

"But Pippin ain't no given name; it's an apple!"

"That's right! But it's all the name I've got. Fur back as I remember,
Granny Faa called me it, and Dod Bashford called me 'pup' or 'snipe.'
That's all I have to go by, so you see how 'tis!"

How should you remember anything more, Pippin? You were a baby when
Granny Faa, then still able to travel, living in and out of the tilt
cart which was home to her, found you by the roadside with your dying
mother. The woman was almost past speech. "Don't roof me!" she muttered,
flinging her arms out as the old gypsy lifted her. "Don't roof me!" and
so died. Granny Faa felt no responsibility for the corpse. She rifled
the body methodically, but found nothing of value. The shoes were better
than her own, so she put them on. As for the baby, she took it partly
because it smiled in her face and made something stir in that withered
region where her heart was still alive, but more because her son wished
it. Gypsy Gil (short for Gilbert), bent over the child delightedly; he
snapped his fingers, and the baby crowed and jumped in the withered arms
that held it. "Hell! ain't he a pippin?" said Gil. "Say, kid, ain't you
a pippin?" "Goo!" said the baby. That was all. It was very simple.
During the week Gil had still to live, he was "wrop up," as his mother
said, in the child, and declared twenty times a day, with a new oath
each time, that it was a pippin sure enough. Then, a knife thrust in a
drunken scuffle sent Gil wherever he was to go; but he had named the
baby. The old woman, mourning like a she-wolf, tended the child grimly
because Gil had liked it; called it, for the same reason, by the
name-that-was-no-name which he had given it. It was all simple enough,
you see, had Pippin but known.

"That's mighty queer!" the brown man ruminated. "I don't know as ever I
heard of any one without two names to him, and yet it sounds all right,
too. Pippin! Well--well, son, I will say you look it. And now, here we
are at the Poor Farm, and I'm goin' in here in my reg'lar way."

"Poor Farm! is this a Poor Farm?"

Ever since it came in sight, Pippin had been looking with a lover's eye
at the broad low house of mellow brick, standing back from the road
under its giant elms, its neat garden skirts gathered round it, its
prim, trim gravel path leading to its white steps and green fan-lighted
door.

"This a Poor Farm!" he repeated.

"Sure! Jacob Bailey's idea of one, and I wish there was more like it."

"Jacob Bailey!" cried Pippin. "Why, green grass! Why--why, ain't this
great? He's a gentleman I'm acquainted with; he asked me to come and see
him, and I promised I would. Well, if this ain't a leadin', I never see
one. Mr. Parks, I'm pleased enough at meetin' up with you, just your own
self; but add on your bringin' me here--why, I don't know how to thank
you, sir!"

"Nothin' at all! nothin' at all!" said Calvin Parks. "I'm just as
pleased myself. Think of your knowin' Jacob! Well! well! He's pure fruit
and cane sugar, Jacob is, not a mite of glucose in his make-up. Here he
comes this minute!"

Such a welcome as they had! Good Mr. Bailey, coming out to welcome his
old friend, was quite overcome with pleasure and amazement at finding
his new one, too. He had been telling the woman about him ever since
that day, he assured Pippin. Only this morning he had said he wished
that young feller would turn up, and she had said she wished to goodness
he would for there was nothing in the house that would cut except Aunt
Mandy's tongue.

"One of the inmates!" he explained. "Poor old lady! M' wife was a mite
worked up, and she _is_ cuterin', times when her rheumatism ketches her.
Come in! Come in, the two of ye! Make ye welcome, Pippin, to Cyrus Poor
Farm!"

He led them through the neat vestibule, through--with a glance of
pride--the chilly splendor of the parlor, with its embossed plush
rockers and lace curtains, into the kitchen.

"We'll find the woman here!" he said. "Kitchen's home, I always say."

It was a large, brick-paved room, with four broad windows facing south
and east. Most of one side was taken up by a black cavern of a
fireplace, which sheltered grimly the shining trimness of a modern
cookstove. There was plenty of room for the settles on either side, and
warm though the day was, two or three old people were sitting there,
rubbing their chilly knees and warming their poor old hands. They
looked up, and their faces sharpened into lively curiosity at sight of
the visitors; but the girl who sat at the window never glanced at them,
only crooned to the cat in her lap. The blind man in the corner, weaving
willow baskets, listened, and his face lightened at the sound of the
brown man's voice.

"Howdy, folks!" he said. "Well, I am a stranger, as you were saying. Say
we have a pep'mint all round, what? Or a marshmallow? Uncle Ammi, I've
got a treat for you, come all the way from Cyrus!"

While he gossiped cheerily with the old people, a sweet-faced woman came
from an inner room and was introduced by Jacob Bailey as "m' wife."

"This is the young man I was tellin' you about, Lucy!" he said. "Cur'us
he should happen along to-day, what say?"

"That's right! Only I should call it providential myself, Jacob. Be
seated, won't you, Mr.--now Jacob told me your name!--Pippin--to be
sure! Be seated, Mr. Pippin. We'll be having supper soon, and you'll set
right down with us, I hope."

"Thank you, ma'am! If there was some knives I could be sharpenin', to
earn my supper, sort of, I should be tickled to death to stay. Or if
there's anything else you'd rather--what I aim at is to please, you see.
Them scissors the young lady has in her lap don't appear to be what I'd
call real sharp, now."

Mrs. Bailey laid her hand gently on the girl's fair head.

"Flora May can't have sharp scissors!" she said. "She's good as gold,
but she's a little wantin', and she might cut off her lovely hair,
mightn't you, Flora?"

The girl raised a sweet, vacant face. "I might cut off my lovely hair!"
she repeated in a musical singsong. "My lovely, lovely hair! My--" The
quiet hand touched her again, and she was silent.

"After supper we'll have some singin'!" she said. "Flora May admires to
sing."

"Does she?" Pippin looked earnestly at the young face, pure and perfect
in form and tint. "It's like a lamp when you've blown it out!" he
thought.

Now Mrs. Bailey brought an apronful of knives and scissors. Pippin
retreated to the yard where he had left his wheel, and was soon grinding
and singing away, oblivious of all else save flying wheel and shining
steel. Glancing up after a while, he saw all the inhabitants of the Poor
Farm gathered in the doorway, listening; he paid little heed; folks
always listened. That was the way the Lord had given him, to pay folks
for bein' so pleasant to him as they always was. He was real thankful.

"Look at the aidge on this knife, will you? Hardly you can't tell which
is it, and which is air; see?"

He broke out into a wild, sweet air:

    "Oh! carry me 'long!
    Dar's no more trouble for me.
    I's gwine away to a better land,
    Where all de niggers am free.
    Long, long hab I worked,
    I'b handled many a hoe;
    I'll turn my eye before I die,
    And see de sugar cane grow."

Something moved near him. He glanced down and saw the girl Flora May.
She had crept nearer and nearer, till now she was almost at his feet.
She sat, or rather crouched, on the ground, graceful as a creature of
the woods, her blue print gown taking the lovely lines of her figure,
her masses of fair hair, neatly braided, wound round and round her head.
Such a pretty head! Just a little too small, poor Flora May! not for
grace, but for other things. Looking at her, Pippin saw, and wondered to
see, the face which he had likened to a dead lamp, now full of light,
the pale cheeks glowing, the red lips parted, the blue eyes shining.

Yet somehow--what was the matter? They did not shine as other eyes
shone; those brown ones, for instance, of the brown man towering in the
doorway, or the twinkling gray eyes of Jacob Bailey.

"The lamp's burnin'," said Pippin, "but yet it's went wrong, some ways,
but even so--green grass! she's a pictur!"

Coming to the end of his song, he smiled and nodded at the upturned
face.

"Sing more for Flora May!" cried the girl. "Sing more!"

"Sure!" said Pippin. "Wait till I get a start on this aidge, Miss Flora
May--Now! Here's what'll please you, I expect:

    "Joseph was an old man,
      An old man was he;
    He married sweet Mary,
      The Queen of Galilee.

    "As they went a-walking
      In the garden so gay,
    Maid Mary spied cherries
      Hanging over yon tree.

    "Mary said to cherry tree,
      'Bow down to my knee,
    That I may pluck cherries
      By one, two, and three.'"

A long way back to the cellar, and Granny Faa crooning over her black
pot--in her best mood, be sure, or she would not be singing the Cherry
Tree Carol. A far longer way back to an English lane in early summer,
the gypsy tilt halted under a laden cherry tree, the gypsy mother
singing to her little maid as she dangled the cherries over her head. A
long, long road to go, and yet as yesterday, as a watch in the night.

    "O eat your cherries, Mary,
      O eat your cherries now,
    O eat your cherries, Mary,
      That grow upon the bough."--

"Now, Mr. Pippin," called Mrs. Bailey from the doorway, "it's plain to
be seen there'll be no supper in this house till you give over singin'.
I'm full loath to ask you to stop, but my cakes have to be eat hot, or
they're no good."




CHAPTER V

CYRUS POOR FARM


Another lifelong possession for Pippin was that first supper at Cyrus
Poor Farm. "I never forget a good meal!" he was wont to say. "It's one
of the gifts, or so I count it; we've no call to forget 'em, just
because we've eat 'em up. I think about 'em oftentimes, travelin', and
enjoy 'em over again."

The long table was set in the wide doorway of the shed, "for coolth,"
Mrs. Bailey said. All around were piles of fragrant wood, birch and oak,
with here and there a precious little store of apple wood, fruit of
Jacob's thrifty pruning and thinning. The table itself, in the full
light of the westering sun, glowed with many colors: rosy pink of boiled
ham, dull brown of baked potatoes, rich russet of doughnuts, all set off
by the vivid red of the Turkey cotton tablecloth.

Pippin drew a long breath as he surveyed his plate, heaped with the
solids of this repast, the lighter eatables ranged round it in nappies
shaped like a bird's bath. "Lord, _make_ me thankful!" he ejaculated.
"If I wasn't thankful, Mr. Bailey, sir, I'd ask you to take me by the
scruff and heave me out, I would so!"

"Well, son, well!" responded Jacob comfortably. "We aim to set a good
table, m' wife an' I; glad it suits you. You see," he added, "we have
advantages over many other institutions. Some of our inmates is payin'
boarders, sir, payin' boarders, and behooves us set palatable food
before 'em. Why, some of us pays as high as two dollars a week, don't
we?" He smiled round the table. Pippin flung a quick glance, saw two
sharp noses proudly lifted, two pairs of eyes gleaming with
satisfaction, while the serene dignity of the blind man's countenance
proclaimed him third of the paying boarders.

"I've allers paid where I boarded!" said Miss Lucilla Pudgkins.

"I would scorn to do otherwise!" said Aunt Mandy Whetstone.

"And others that doesn't pay in money pays in help!" Jacob Bailey went
on calmly; "so you see we're all comfortable! A little more of the ham,
Pippin? Pass your plate!"

"I don't know," said Pippin, complying, "I don't really know as I ever
eat a ham to compare to this, Mr. Bailey. It's--it's _rich_, that's what
it is!"

A new voice spoke from the bottom of the table, that of a fat old man
with a game leg. "I claim," he said huskily, as if there were crumbs in
his throat, "that it's the second best ham I've ever ate here."

"The _third_ best!" said the blind man calmly. "The fire got low on me
one night, and the smoke was checked. We had a ham last year and one
five years ago that was some better than this."

"Green grass!" ejaculated Pippin in amazement. "Do you mean to tell
me--"

"We're right proud of Mr. Brand here to the Farm!" said Mrs. Bailey
gently. "Wantin' his sight has give him wonderful powers of smell and
taste--and touch, too. He has smoked our hams and bacon for twenty
years, haven't you, Mr. Brand?"

"I have, ma'am!" said the blind man proudly.

"We make good profit out'n 'em," said Jacob. "Far and near, folks wants
our hog p'dooce. Mr. Brand is money in the bank for the Farm and for
himself, too."

As they left the table, a little cold hand was slipped into Pippin's.

"Sing!" said the girl. "Please sing for Flora May!"

"Why, sure!" Pippin was beginning; but Jacob Bailey broke in kindly but
firmly:

"Not the minute he's finished his supper, he can't sing, Flora May!" he
said. "Beside, I promised old Mr. Blossom to fetch Pippin in to see
him."

"Old Mr. _who_?" cried Pippin.

"He said you'd know the name," chuckled Jacob. "This way, Pippin! He's
pretty feeble, the old man is. Keeps his bed mostly, now."

For one moment Pippin hung back. Another! First Nipper, and now--Old Man
Blossom, too! Old boozer, old snipe! Was he goin' to meet up with these
folks right along, think? Wouldn't he ever get rid of 'em?

"Shut up! If the Lord can stand 'em, I expect you can!" and Pippin
followed Mr. Bailey into a clean bare little room, where, propped on
pillows, lay a clean old man. He looked eagerly up as Jacob entered.
"You got him with you?" he asked querulously. "You got Pippin? I heard
his voice--"

"You did, Daddy Blossom!" Pippin advanced and took the hand that was
plucking nervously at the coverlet. "You heard Pippin, and now you see
him! Well! well! And who ever thought of meetin' up with you here,
Daddy? And sick, too! but if I had to _be_ sick, I wouldn't ask no
pleasanter place--" He turned to smile at Jacob Bailey, but Jacob had
disappeared, and the door was closing softly.

"Pardoned out!" whispered the old man in his weak fretful voice.
"Pardoned out, 'count of age and sickness. I ain't a well man, Pippin;
my vitals is all perished; but that ain't what I want to say. I want you
to help me! Say you'll help me, Pippin! I was always friends with you
over There--" he nodded vaguely--"and now I'm old and sick, you'll help
me, won't you?"

"Sure!" Pippin drew a stool beside the bed and sat down. "Put a name to
it, Old Man! What can I do for you?"

"Find my little gal, Pippin, my Mary: you rec'lect her? Sure you do! She
used to bring me candy, and poke it in betwixt the bars with her little
hand--flowers too, she'd bring: sure you rec'lect little Mary, Pippin?"

Pippin did not, but there was no need of saying so.

"What about her, Old Man?"

"I want her! I ain't a well man, nor yet I ain't goin' to be well, and I
want my little gal; I want you to find her, Pippin, and bring her to
me."

"Sure!" said Pippin comfortably. "Where would I be likely--"

"I don't know!" cried the old man wildly. "That--" he gave a brief and
vivid sketch of his wife's character--a wholly inaccurate sketch--"never
would tell me where she sent her. She died herself, and a good job, too,
and she sent word to me that Mary was well and doin' well, but now she'd
got shet of me she was goin' to keep her shet. Now what a way that was
to talk to a father! If little Mary knowed where I was, she'd come like
a shot, but she don't know, nor I don't know--You find her, Pippin! You
rec'let the little gal: you'll find her, won't you?"

"Sure!" said Pippin. For some moments he sat absently, running his
fingers through his brown curls. Taking out the little file, he
considered it unseeingly, tried to whistle a tune on it, and failing,
returned it to its hiding place. Then, waking from his reverie, he put
the old man through a sharp examination. The answers were feeble and
uncertain, but he learned something. Eighteen year old, or mighty nigh
it. Yes, red hair, or--naw! it might be darker by now, like her ma's
was; color of--there! 'member old Mis' Jennings that lived just over the
way from There? Well, sir, she had a heifer, kind o' red brown, like a
hoss chestnut when you break it open; and her skin the white of one,
too, kind o' soft and creamy; and her eyes like her'n too (the heifer's,
Old Man Blossom meant), big and soft and blue with a kind of brown in
'em too--there! he'd know her, Pippin would, by the dimple right corner
of her little mouth. Cur'us thing that was. When she wasn't more than a
baby, 'bout two year old, he gave her a little sunshade--she see her
Ma's and hollered for it, and he said she should have one of her own;
pink it was, and she carried it like the Lady of the Land, sir. But
bimeby she tumbles down, and the p'int of it went right through her
cheek. That's right; instead of a scar, it made a dimple, paint him sky
blue striped if it didn't. Prettiest little gal--hair would curl round
your finger like 'twas a stick--

The whisper broke into crying, and Pippin had to soothe him and sing
"The Factor's Lady, or the Turkish Garland," all through to restore
tranquillity. But when Pippin rose to go, the old man clutched him with
trembling fingers.

"Whisper!" he said. "Whisper, Pippin! The way you go to work--the way
I'd go to work if I wasn't perished in my vitals"--he consigned his
vitals to a warm region--"is, take Brand along!"

"Brand?" repeated Pippin.

"The blind man! he has eyes in his fingers. He can--he can tell the way
the wind blew yesterday by feelin' of it to-day. If I'd had Brand I'd
never been nabbed, and I'd be rollin' in gold to-day, and goin' in my
automobile to find my little gal. But you get Brand along, Pippin! talk
him round first, he's never been in the sportin' line, but--"

"Hold on! hold on!" Pippin loosed the clutching hands gently, and laid
the poor old sinner, still gasping and whispering back on the pillow.
"Old Man, you're makin' one big mistake. I'm not in the line any more; I
guess not!" He threw back his head and laughed joyously. "You didn't
know I found the Lord, did you? Well, I have, and there's no more sport
in mine. But--I'll tell you! I'm runnin' a wheel at present,
knife-grindin', you know. Why--I've got Nipper's wheel! Nipper was a pal
of yours, wasn't he?"

"Nipper's wheel? Where's Nipper? Is he here?"

"He's dead, and before he went he gave me his wheel. It's a real
handy--what now?"

He paused, for the old man, after staring at him a moment, broke into a
fit of cackling, wheezing laughter.

"Nipper's wheel!" he gasped. "He's got Nipper's wheel, and he's found
the Lord, and he isn't in the line no more! Gorry to hemlock, this is
rich! You took me in complete, Pippin, you did so! Go on! You're all
right!"

He grew purple in the face, and his eyes rolled. Pippin stepped to the
door.

"Mr. or Mrs. Bailey!" he called quietly. "Mr. Blossom is having a fit!"

Mrs. Bailey, hastening in, surveyed the situation with practised eyes;
lifted the patient, thumped his back gently, administered remedies,
enjoined silence.

"You've ben talkin' too much, Mr. Blossom; it always brings on a spasm,
and you hadn't ought to. Now lay down and take a nap, that's a good
soul."

Obeying a glance of her kind gray eyes, Pippin slipped out, leaving the
old man still gasping and gurgling. Many more of them kind, Pippin
reflected, would carry the old geezer off, sure thing. He was on the
blink, no two ways to that. "Loony too! Hear him laffin' fit to bust
when I told him Nipper was dead! Now what do you know about that? That's
loony, you see, that is! Behooves me find that little gal pooty quick if
I'm goin' to find her. And how--in--Moses' meal-chist--am I goin' to
find her?"

Pondering deeply, he went back into the kitchen. The table had been
cleared and covered with its decent between-meals cloth of red and white
check; beside it, facing the door, sat Miss Amanda Whetstone and Miss
Lucilla Pudgkins, diligently mending stockings. These ladies, as has
been seen, were paying boarders, and "demeaned themselves accordin'," as
they would have said. They helped Mrs. Bailey in housework, mending,
etc., but always with a touch of condescension and the understanding
that it was "to accommodate." In person they were well contrasted. Miss
Whetstone was a thin active little woman, with eyes like black glass and
thin lips puckered in a sub-acid smile. She was always neat as wax, in
dresses of black and white striped print, the lines so near together
that they seemed to waver constantly. ("Throw her away!" Flora May often
besought her "Uncle Bailey." "Please throw her away! She dazzles!") But
every one knew Aunt Mandy had a black silk in her trunk, and a tatting
collar that the minister's wife might have been glad to possess.

Miss Lucilla Pudgkins was billowy in figure and was addicted to purple
print, with a string tied round the middle to show that she knew where
the waist line ought to be. Her face might have been made by a clever
boy out of a large red apple; and if Aunt Mandy's eyes were like glass,
Miss Lucilla's were like china, two blue china buttons plumped into the
red, on either side of the queerest button of a nose that ever was seen,
Pippin thought. She wore a rather pathetic "front," which was seldom
quite straight; in fact, she was a pathetic figure altogether, poor Miss
Lucilla, but she did not know it, so all was well. She never forgot that
at sixteen she had been Queen of the May at a Sunday school festival,
and her trunk still held, under the scanty stock of petticoats and
aprons, the white muslin frock of her great day. Miss Lucilla was a
little greedy, and somewhat foolish, though not so foolish as Aunt Mandy
thought her; the attitude of the two towards each other was usually an
armed truce, except on occasions of general conflict, when they never
failed to combine against the common enemy--usually Mr. Wisk, the fat
man, who was greedy too.

The two ladies looked up eagerly as Pippin entered. How was Mr. Blossom?
Miss Whetstone asked. He sounded something awful. Was it the death
spasm, did Mr. Pippin think? They had been expecting it any day, and
wishing his folks would come. Wasn't it awful?

"He's all right!" Pippin reassured her. "Choked up a bit, but Mis'
Bailey knows how to handle him. He'll rest easy now, poor old skeezicks.
How long has he ben this way, ladies?"

"Sit down, do, Mr. Pippin!" Miss Whetstone hastened to make room for him
beside her. "That cheer is comfortable; set right down, now do so! He
has been having those spasms ever since he come, a month and more ago,
but none so bad as this. Be you kin to him?"

"Me? Not much!" Pippin shook his head vigorously.

"I only asked because one likes to know, you know, about the folks one
has to associate with. Of course you can keep yourself to yourself, and
oftentimes so do, but any one ought to be sociable when they can, I
claim."

"Sure thing!" murmured Pippin absently, his eyes glancing over the
speaker's head to where Flora May sat rocking in her corner, her hands
folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on him with a curious intentness. She
seemed to be calling him, he thought, though she made no sound. He
nodded, with a friendly glance which said "Presently!" Impossible to go
at this moment, for Miss Whetstone evidently had more to say. She was
bridling, and making little clucking noises in her throat, expressive
(to herself, at least), of delicacy of feeling. Now speech came,
preluded by a genteel titter, and accompanied by a glance round the
room, which took in the blind man quietly whittling splints in his own
special corner, and Flora May, rocking by the window, the latter with a
compassionate depreciatory shrug of Miss Whetstone's shoulders.

"We aim to be as select here as circumstances allow," said the lady. "Of
course it is a town institution, I am well aware of that; but Cyrus is a
select neighborhood, and there's no one feels any call to take boarders
_except_ Mr. Bailey. You can see for yourself how it is, Mr. Pippin. The
house is large and his own family small. He is well connected, Jacob is;
his mother was own cousin to mine, and so--we thought, me and Miss
Pudgkins, we'd like you to understand just how we come to be here. Not
but what we could of went anywhere we pleased, if we _had_ pleased!"

Pippin was aware of a certain wistfulness in the two pairs of eyes fixed
on him. Now wouldn't that give you a pain? Poor old ladies!

"I bet you could, ma'am!" he responded heartily. "I expect you could
pass all your time visitin' round, and find your welcome runnin' ahead
of you like a houn' dog. But if you searched the country over, I bet you
wouldn't find as pleasant a place as this. You show your taste, is what
I would say."

The wistful eyes brightened as they exchanged glances. There was a point
to make with this young man; it had to be made with every newcomer.
People _must_ know that they were here for convenience' sake, and that
alone!

"I knew he would understand!" cried Miss Pudgkins. "He has that way. I
see it first thing. And bein' as it is, Mr. Pippin, we try to keep up
the _tone_, you see. Now Mr. Blossom--you say he's no kin to you? Well,
to speak my mind--and Miss Whetstone holds with me--Mr. Blossom is _not_
just the kind Cyrus folks is accustomed to. Has he--has he led a good
life, are you aware?"

Pippin smiled at her. "Well, no, lady, he ain't; not exactly to call it
_good_, you know; not what _you_ would call good, though there never was
as much harm in the Old Man as in lots of others. But anyway," he added,
"he's on the blink now, you see, liable to croak 'most any day, I should
judge, so it don't so much matter, does it?"

"Liable to--I beg your pardon?"

"I beg yours. No expression to use to ladies. Pass away is what I would
say. I expect his trick is about up, what say? Dandy place to pass away
in, too, when your time's come. Excuse me, ladies, I see Mr. Bailey--"

Pippin saw also his opportunity of escape, and with a little bow of
apology, and appreciation, slipped out of the door, thinking to join his
host who had just walked past it. But Jacob Bailey had already
disappeared in the shed, and it was Flora May's turn. She had followed
Pippin, and now stood before him, looking up at him with clear, lovely,
empty eyes: empty, yet with that curious shining intentness he had
noticed before.

"Sing now for Flora May!" said the girl.

"I will!" Pippin assured her. "Just the moment Mrs. Bailey gets through
with Mr. Blossom, we'll have us a reg'lar singsong, we will so. Real
fond of singin', ain't you, Miss Flora May? Say, that's a dandy necklace
you have on! Them beads are carved elegant, they sure are."

Flora May lifted the beads and glanced carelessly at them. They were of
some hard nut wood, each one adorned with flowers and fruit in delicate
carving: a pretty ornament enough.

"Uncle Brand made them for me," she said. "Take them!" She had slipped
the necklace off and was pressing it into Pippin's hand. He took it and
examined it admiringly, then put it gently back over the girl's head.

"I thank you a thousand times!" he said. "I couldn't wear 'em myself,
not travelin' like I am, you see, and I like to see 'em round your neck,
they look so pretty. It's young ladies ought to wear joolry, you know."

He smiled at her, but her eyes met his anxiously.

"You are not goin' away?" said the girl. "You are goin' to stay? I'll
give you my eagle feathers if you will stay. I'm tired of the folks
here."

"Now what a way that is to talk! You're just jokin' though, I see. It
_would_ be a joke if you was tired of Mr. and Mrs. Bailey, wouldn't it
now?"

"I'll give you the white duck, if you'll stay!" she went on in her sweet
monotonous voice, which yet was strangely eager. "Uncle Bailey gave it
to me, it's mine. I'll give you everything I've got if you'll stay."

At this moment, to Pippin's infinite relief, Mr. Bailey emerged from the
shed. He laid his hand on the girl's shoulder; instantly her whole form
relaxed and she drooped into her customary attitude of listless
indifference.

"Anything wrong, little gal?" asked Jacob Bailey, kindly. Flora May
shook her head and turned away with a pettish movement of her shoulders.

"She was wantin' me to sing for her," said Pippin. "I will, too, Mr.
Bailey, sir, soon as ever you and Mis' Bailey are ready. I don't mean to
brag of my singin', don't you think that, but it's what has ben give me,
and about all I have to give when folks is so dandy to me as what you
folks have been here. So if agreeable, sir, say the word and I'll tune
up!"




CHAPTER VI

PIPPIN SINGS FOR HIS SUPPER


So Pippin sang for his supper, a grateful Tommy Tucker; and the imbecile
girl sat at his feet and listened, rocking to and fro, her lovely face
so full of joy that it was almost--almost--

He sang about the Young Lady who went a-hunting with her dog and her
gun, and about poor bonny sweet Bessie, the Flower of Dundee, and
"Silver Threads among the Gold," which made Mrs. Bailey cry and Jacob
blow his nose loudly. He was about to give them "Nancy Lee," but checked
suddenly. Was he forgetting the Lord, after that elegant supper? Now
wouldn't that give you a pain?

"_That's right!_" Pippin spoke so suddenly that everybody started.
"Excuse _me_!" he said hastily. "I was thinkin'--leastways I wa'n't
thinkin'--well, it don't signify whichever way of it, but if agreeable,
I will praise the Lord a spell!"

A murmur of approval greeted him. Mrs. Bailey's kind face lighted up.

"That will surely be a treat!" she cried. "And--oh, Mr. Pippin, wait one
moment! If you don't mind standing in the doorway of old Mr. Blossom's
room, so he can hear you? He's real quiet now, and I'm sure 'twill do
him good--"

So Pippin stood in the doorway, and threw back his head and sang with
all his heart and soul:

    "When I can read my title clear
      To mansions in the skies,
    I'll bid farewell to every fear,
      And wipe my weeping eyes."

This hymn is left out of many hymn books nowadays; it is old-fashioned,
and some of its lines are patently absurd: but I wish the hymnologists
could hear Pippin sing it. His voice goes soaring up, a golden trump of
victory and triumph:

    "There shall I bathe my weary soul
      In seas of heavenly rest;
    And not a wave of trouble roll
      Across my peaceful breast."

As he finished, he swung round, his eyes blazing, every inch of him
a-thrill. "Old man," he cried, and the passion in his voice made them
all start. "Don't you feel it? Don't you feel somethin' crinklin' all
through you, like sap in a sugar maple? That's the grace of God, Old
man; let her run! Oh, Lord, let her run!"

There was a moment's silence; then Mr. Blossom snickered. It is not a
pretty word, but then it was not a pretty sound.

Pippin was at his side in an instant, his eyes ablaze again, but with a
very different light.

"You old skunk!" he cried, gripping the bony shoulders hunched below the
leering face. "You darned old son of a broken whisky jug, you dare to
snicker before the Lord? For half a quarter of a cent I'd wring your
rooster's neck for you, you--"

He stopped, as if somebody had touched him. His head drooped, his arms
dropped by his side, and he flushed scarlet from throat to forehead. He
stood so for several minutes, no one stirring; then he turned humbly to
Jacob Bailey.

"I ask your pardon, sir, and the company's. I lost holt of myself.
There! I am fairly ashamed." He leaned over the poor old sinner, who was
still gasping from the sudden onslaught. "Hurt you, did I, Old Man? I
ask your pardon, too, I do so. Lemme h'ist you a mite!"

With anxious care he raised the shrunken figure and settled the pillows
under the palsied head.

"There! That comfy, old geezer? Now you go to sleep! I was a mutt to
shake you up that way. Goo' night, Old Man!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Sitting on his neat bed an hour later, Pippin dealt with himself, as
judge with criminal. His vivid fancy saw himself as two distinct beings,
one arraigning, the other replying. He desired to know whether he,
Pippin, thought he was all creation? Because if so, he took leave to
tell him he wasn't, nor anything approachin' it. Reassured on this
point, he further observed that perhaps on the whole it might be best
for him to go back to Shoreham. Most likely he wasn't prepared yet to
live among Christian folks; say he was to go back for another year till
he'd learned to hold his tongue and keep his temper! How would he like
that?

"Well, then, you behave! If you're a Christian, show up, that's what I
say. What was it you promised Elder Hadley? To look for the grace of God
in every one you see, wasn't it? Well, then! _Did_ you look for it in
Old Man Blossom?"

"Why, sure! Didn't I sing, and pray, and all? I couldn't find no grace,
not a mite, so help me!"

Silence; the outward man sitting with bent head and knotted brows, the
inner--both of him--wrestling with a problem. At last the brows cleared,
the head lifted.

"Bonehead!" said Pippin. "You didn't look in the right place. Prayin'
an' singin' wasn't his kind, no more than they were a dumb critter's.
Didn't he want his little gal, want her real bad? Wasn't that mebbe the
way grace took him? I expect the Lord has as many ways as there is
folks."

Finally Pippin concluded that he would do well to say his prayers and go
to bed and let the Lord run things a spell, as He was full able to do.
And start off next morning, sure thing, or the Boss would think he had
cut. Gee! he hated to leave this place!

       *       *       *       *       *

"I don't see how you do it!" said Pippin. "Gorry to 'Liza, Mr. Brand, I
don't see _how_ you do it!"

Brand was making a broom; Pippin, smoking his after-breakfast and
before-departure pipe in the barn doorway, watched him with growing
wonder and admiration. His fingers seemed almost to twinkle, they moved
so fast, knotting, laying together, binding in the fragrant strands of
broom corn.

"I've made many a broom!" Pippin went on. "I was counted a crackerjack
at bindin'; but you work twice as fast blind as what I would seein';
that's what gets me!"

The blind man raised his head with a smile, his hands never ceasing
their swift motion.

"I sometimes think seeing folks don't have half a chance at broom-making
and like that," he said. "There's so many things to take their minds
off. Now, take this minute of time. There's a cloud passing over the
sun, isn't there?"

"Why, yes!" Pippin looked up involuntarily, shifting his position a
little to do so. "Yes, sir, there is. Now how--"

"And you had to look up to see it!" the blind man went on, calmly. "That
takes time and attention. Now I _feel_ the cloud, and that's all there
is to it. There are some advantages in being blind; born blind, that
is."

Pippin gave him a helpless look. His eyes wandered over the scene before
him: the wide, sunny barnyard, the neat buildings, the trim garden
spaces, the green, whispering trees; beyond them the white ribbon of the
road, and wave upon wave of fair rolling country, sinking gradually to
where the river flowed between its darkly wooded banks; overhead a sky
of dazzling blue flecked with cloudlets of no less dazzling white. There
was a hawk hovering over the chicken yard. Pippin picked up a stone and
threw it at the bird, which vanished with a shrill scream. His eyes came
back to the figure in the doorway, with bent head and flying fingers.

"Advantages?" he repeated, and his tone was as helpless as his look had
been. "Well, you get me, Mr. Brand, every time. You--you was born blind,
sir, do I understand?"

Brand nodded. "Sixty years ago this month. When I say advantages, I
don't mean I would have chose--" he made a slight, eloquent gesture
toward the clear, sightless eyes. "But since so it is, one looks at it
from that end, you see, and one finds--advantages. For one thing,
changes don't trouble a born-blind man as they do seeing folks. I hear
talk about this person looking poorly, and that one having gone gray,
and lost his teeth, and like that; that don't trouble me, you see, not a
mite. Folks look to me just as they sound. Now take our folks
here--Lucy--I would say Mrs. Bailey--and Jacob: well, their voices tell
me what they are like, see? They called Lucy handsome when she was a
girl; she's just as handsome to me as she was then."

There was a wistful note in his voice, and Pippin responded instantly.

"She's a fine-appearin' lady, now!" he said heartily. "She sure is."

"I presume likely!" said Brand. "She'd have to be, being what she is.
When Lucy first grew up, I made a--a picture (so to say! I never saw a
picture) of her in my mind, and I see it as clear to-day as I did then."

He was silent for a time, then went on, in an altered tone: "Then
there's other things, things that seeing folks don't have. Take hearing.
I hear twice what most folks do, and I hear things no seeing person
_can_ hear; undertones, our music teacher called them, and overtones,
too. Now, you hear a woman's dress rustle, and that's all, isn't it?"

"Ye-yes!" Pippin replied. "That is--I can tell a silk rustle from a
calico, and a woolen from either."

"Well, that is more than many men can do. Women, of course; but not many
men without training." The blind man leaned forward, and felt carefully
of Pippin's ear. "A good ear!" he nodded approvingly. "An excellent good
ear! There's many hold that the outer ear has nothing to do with
hearing, but I don't know! I don't know! The Doctor told me of a king
who wanted to know everything that was said in his house--palace,
like!--and he built it in the shape of an ear. Long ago, Doctor said it
was, and he didn't say he believed it, but I've often wondered. But
you've had training, too; you've learned how to listen, which is more
than some folks learn all their lives long."

"You bet I had training!"

Not a vision this time, though a dim, brutal figure lurks in the
background; not a vision, but a sound!

"Listen! listen, you cursed pup, or I'll cut your heart out. My ears are
thick to-night. Is that a cop's whistle, or a pal's? If you get it
wrong, I'll make you sweat blood--"

"Yes, I had training!" said Pippin.

"Then--" Brand's face was fairly glowing as he turned it on his young
visitor. It was not often that he could speak of his blindness, but
there was something about this boy that seemed to draw speech from him
like a magnet. "Then--there's the other senses; smell--why, what
wonderful pleasure I have in a delicate smell! Whether it's a flower, or
my bacon when it's smoked just to the fine point, or--why, take smoke
alone, all the various kinds of it! Wood smoke, and good tobacco, and
leaves burning in the fall of the year, and brush fires in spring! And
there's herbs, southernwood, mint, lemon balm--wonderful pleasure in
odors, yes, sir! And when you come to touch, why there's where a blind
man has it over a seeing, almost every time. The pleasure of touching a
leaf of mullein, say, or soft hair like the little gal's--Flora May's, I
would say--or a fruit, or a baby's cheek--wonderful pleasure! I wonder
are your fingers as good as your ears? Let me see!" He held out his
hand, and Pippin laid his own in it.

How proud you were of your hands, Pippin! How you used to boast that
your fingers needed no sandpaper to sharpen their exquisite touch! Is
that why you hang your head, and the blood creeps up to the roots of
your hair?

"If he's let to live," a husky voice murmurs, "he'll make a ---- ----
good un; but I ain't certain but I'll wring his neck yet. There's things
about him ain't right!"

Perfectly consistent, Mr. Bashford, and wholly correct from your point
of view!

"A fine hand!" says David Brand. "Strong and yet delicate. You can do a
great deal with that hand, young man. Why, with that, and your fine
ears, you--why--" he laughs his cheery laugh--"I won't go so far as say
you'd ought to have been born blind, but you surely would make a
first-rate blind man!"

Pippin puffed at his pipe meditatively for a few minutes, considering
the serene face and the flying fingers. What a face it was! the calm,
thoughtful brow, the well-cut features, the clear eyes, the patient
look--well, there! If an Angel could be old--that is to say, gettin' on
in years--and blind, this would sure be him! Now--come to see a face
like this, you know the Lord has ben there: _is_ there, right along,
same as the devil was with Dod and Nosey and them. Do a person good,
now, to hear what he has to tell, how the Lord has dealt with him, what
say? He couldn't more than say no, if--

"Mr. Brand!" Pippin spoke timidly, yet eagerly. "You'll excuse me--but
when I like folks, I like to know about 'em; what they've no objection
to tellin' is what I would say. You must have a lot that's real
interestin'--I hope no offense!" he ended lamely.

"None in the world!" Brand laughed cheerily. "Quite the other way, young
man. Old folks don't always find young ones that care to hear their old
stories. I should be pleased--find a seat, won't you? I haven't much to
tell, but you're welcome to what there is!"

Pippin curled his long legs up on the floor, his back against the door
jamb. "This is great!" he murmured. "This certainly is great. I'd ought
to be gettin' on, but I don't care. Now if you're ready, Mr. Brand!"

Brand reached for a pile of straws, measured, clipped, laid them in
orderly piles ready for binding in.

"I was born in Cyrus," he said; "born and raised. I was the only child,
and my parents did everything they could for me. I was a happy youngster
and had reason to be. Everybody was good to me; Cyrus is a good, kind
neighborly place. Yes, sir, I was a happy boy. Always singing and
laughing; I recollect hearing folks say, 'Poor child!' or like that when
they came to see mother. I used to wonder what poor child they meant. I
asked Lucy one day--Lucy Allen, that's Mrs. Bailey now; we lived next
door, and played together always, her and Jacob and me. I says, 'Lucy,
who are they always saying "Poor child!" about? Is it you?' And Lucy
says, 'I wouldn't wonder, Dave! My front teeth has come out, and I am a
sight.' Little girl seven years old: she was that thoughtful always,
Lucy was. She was doing me good turns every day and all day when we was
little: once, I remember, I had a chance to do her one. We was playing
together in Uncle Ivory Cheeseman's candy kitchen--he give us the run of
it, Lucy and Jacob and me, because he could trust us, he said; he was a
kind old man, though crusty where crust was needed. Well, we was playing
there, and Lucy went too near the stove and her dress caught fire. I
smelled it before it begun to blaze, and caught it in my two hands and
squeezed it out. 'Twas a calico skirt; another minute and 'twould have
been in a blaze."

Brand paused, and Pippin looked up inquiringly.

"I've always been thankful for that!" said Brand. "There was a girl at
the Institution who lost her sight by burning, just that way, her skirt
catching at the stove."

"Now wouldn't that give you a pain?" murmured Pippin. "I know what
burnin' feels like, just a mite of it. Not meanin' to interrupt, Mr.
Brand; I'm just as interested!"

"When I was ten years old, mother died, and father sent me to the Blind
Institution. I was there many years, and there I learned all I
know--except what I learned before or since!" Brand added with a
whimsical smile. "That puts me in mind of the first--no, the second--day
I was there. I was to see the Doctor, the head of the Institution--he
was away the day I came--and I was left alone in his office to wait for
him. I was always keen to see what kind of place I was in, so I was
moving about the room, finding out in my own way, when the door opened
and two men came in. One of them was tall--what say?"

"Now! now!" cried Pippin. "How in the airthly did you know he was tall?"

"His voice was high up! That's an easy one, Pippin. Why, _you_ would
know that, with those good ears. He was speaking, and the first sound of
that voice stays by me yet. A _master_ voice! I've never forgot the
words either. 'The first lesson--the hard lesson--you have first to
learn is--_to be blind_--to live in the world without light--to look
upon your life as still a blessing and a trust, and to resolve to spend
it well and cheerfully, in the service of your Maker and for the
happiness of those about you.'"[1]

        [1] Dr. S.G. Howe to one of his blind pupils.

He paused. Pippin sat spellbound, gazing at the face that was indeed now
as the face of an angel.

"The service of your Maker, and the happiness--" he murmured. "Say,
that's great! It--it sounds like a song, don't it, Mr. Brand? Or--like
Psalms, some way of it! I'd like to learn them words off by heart, sir,
if no objection."

"He was a great man!" said Brand reverently. "A great and good man. As
he spoke, so he lived, for his Maker and his fellow men. The man he
spoke to gave a kind of groan, I remember; he had just lost his sight--a
gun that wasn't loaded, the old story! Then the Doctor said a little
more, comforting him like, and then he saw me. I had felt all round the
room, and now I had my fingers on a raised map that hung on the wall. I
had heard of such things and was pleased to death to get hold of one. I
suppose it showed in my face, for the Doctor said, 'Here's a little
fellow who already knows how to be blind! Come here, my son!' I went
straight to him--his voice led me, you understand: I could always follow
a voice, from the time I learned to walk. He laid his hand on my head
and turned my face up, studying me. I knew that; I felt his eyes, is the
only way I can put it. 'Born blind, weren't you, my boy?' he said.
'Twasn't often the Doctor had to be told anything about blind folks--or
seeing either, for that matter. Well, sir, that was the beginning of
life for me, in a way. I got my education there. 'Twas a happy place,
and a happy life. I could tell about it from now till sundown, and not
fairly make a beginning. The Doctor was my friend; everybody was my
friend. I was quick, and I wanted to learn; and, too, there was a good
deal I didn't have to learn, being born blind, you see. There's a
passage in the Bible about remembering that 'he was born thus'; I used
to think--"

A silence fell, while Brand counted strands, Pippin watching him
eagerly. A black hen who had been watching, too, her head cocked, her
bright yellow eye fixed on the blind man with the false air of
intelligence affected by hens, came up with a quick, rocking step, and
uttered a long, reflective "crawk!" scratching meanwhile on the barn
floor.

"Hicketty Picketty wants some corn!" said Brand. "Here, Picketty!" He
took a handful of corn from a bag and scattered it. The black hen pecked
vigorously, trying to get every grain swallowed before any one else
should come; but the motion of Brand's hand brought other hens
fluttering, squawking, jostling, to get their share, and there was quite
a scrimmage before he could resume his work.

"I spoil that hen!" he said apologetically. "Jacob says I oughtn't, and
it's true; but she has such a way with her! There's no other hen I'm so
partial to, though I love them all.

"Well! Want to hear any more, or are you tired of listening? 'Tisn't
much of a story; I warned you in the beginning."

"Tired? Well, I guess nix! Why, I'm--why, it's _great_, Mr. Brand! I'm
learnin' something 'most every word you say. Do go on, sir--if I'm not
troublin' you!"

"I don't know as there is so very much more to tell, after all. A man's
life goes on steady; there don't things keep happening right along, as
they do in stories. I've had a quiet life, but a real pleasant one. I
stayed on at the Institution quite a spell after I grew up, teaching in
the shop. Basketry is what I taught; I liked it best, and was good at
it. Then, along when I was thirty years old, father needed me, and I
came home. He was getting on in years, and he needed some one, and I was
the one. His housekeeper got married, and I was handy about the house.
Yes, we made out to do well, father and I, as long as he lived. Spare
time and evenings, I'd make brooms and baskets, and the neighbors took
all I could make. Sometimes I'd make a trip round other places, same as
you do with your wheel, Pippin. I liked that real well. Lucy and Jacob
had married by that time--I always knew they would! I--yes, I always
knew they would, and right and fitting it was. Jacob's folks had passed
on, and he and Lucy lived there next door to us, and was like brother
and sister to me, as they always had been. Cyrus is a pleasant place;
yes, sir, we've all been happy, only when Lucy lost her little
David--named for me, yes, and like my own to me. That was a grief, but
grief is part of our lot. Lucy mourned so, Jacob was desirous of making
a change for her, and about that time they was changing here, too, and
the selectmen beseeched Jacob and Lucy to take the place, and they did.
They wanted me to come with them then, but I wouldn't leave father.
Bimeby, though, father passed on, and then--I didn't make up my mind
right away to the change. I didn't want to be a care to Lucy, and I
thought I could get on by myself, and I _could_; but--well--no need to
go into that. Along about ten years back I come to make my home here
with my good friends, and I've never regretted, nor I hope they
haven't."

"No need to go into that!" Quite right, Brand. Impossible for you,
being what you are, to tell of the various persons, male and female, who
saw your comfortable cottage and few but fertile acres, and "felt a call
to do for you." Lucy Bailey sometimes spoke of it to her husband with
amused indignation. "Fairly driven out of his home, David was! The idea!
Lucky we had one to offer him, or he'd have been saddled with the whole
passel of them, like Cap'n Parks was a while back, and no Mercy Lovely
to trim 'em out for him."

A doleful squeak was heard, and a wheelbarrow trundled slowly by with
Mr. Wisk as the motive power. "You'd think 'twould go faster by itself!"
Pippin thought; then reproached himself, the man being afflicted.
Brand's fine brows contracted as he listened to the squeak.

"Wisk has been promising to oil that exe for a month!" he said. "It
gives me the toothache to hear it."

"Moves kinder moderate, don't he?" said Pippin. "I s'pose his leg
henders him."

Brand laughed. "I don't--know! Aunt Mandy Whetstone says the lame leg
makes the better time of the two. She's small and spry, you know, and
Wisk gets in her way sometimes. He means all right, but he never feels
any call to hurry, that I know of."

Here Mr. Wisk, having given up the wheelbarrow as a bad job, came
hobbling up, and with a wheeze by way of greeting, planted his shoulders
against the door-jamb. "Nice mornin'!" he said.

"Great!" replied Pippin. "It surely is great! I'd oughter ben on the
road an hour ago, but Mr. Brand makes it hard to get away, now I tell
ye. I must go in and say good-by to the folks, and then I'm off. Mr.
Brand, I thank you a thousand times for all you've told me, and you may
be sure I shan't forget it, no, sir! You'll see me again pretty soon. I
shan't be able to keep away from this place more'n just about so long, I
see that plain. Good-by, sir!"

They shook hands warmly, the blind man urging him to come sooner and
stay longer every time he could.

"Good-by to you, too, Mister." Pippin turned to the lame man.

"I'm goin' into the house!" said the latter. "I'll step along with you.
I want a drink o' water!"

He stumped along beside Pippin. Out of earshot of the barn, he looked
back over his shoulder. "Or a drink of something!" he added. "Got a drop
about you, young feller?"

"No, I ain't!" said Pippin shortly. He was not drawn toward Mr. Wisk.

"I thought you might have. I'm orful dry, and the water here don't agree
with me. Say! Brand ain't the only one is afflicted, young man. I want
you should understand that. My limb pains me something fierce; very
close veins is what I have. You wouldn't find me in no such place as
this if I didn't. Brand's a stand-offish kind of cuss, but he don't
measure up so much higher than other folks as what he thinks, mebbe.
They make of him because he's blind, but I'll bet a dollar he don't
suffer nights the way I do. Got a mite of tobacker to spare? Ain't? When
I was in trade--I was a tin-knocker while I had my health--I allers made
out to have a drop and a chew for a gen'leman when he asked for it; it
helped trade. I was allers called a good feller. Well, so long! Call
again!"

Pippin took an affectionate leave of the inmates of Cyrus Poor Farm.
They would see him again, he assured them heartily; no fears but they
would. All he had to do was say good-by to the Kingdom folks--for a
spell. _They'd_ see him again, too. Elegant folks!--and go find that
little gal, or young woman, or whatever she was, and then just watch him
make a bee line for Cyrus! Yes, sir! He would bring back that gal, sure
thing! And he would bring Mr. Brand some of that new basket stuff he'd
heard tell of.

"Yes, ma'am!" as he shook hands with Miss Lucilla Pudgkins. "You shall
have some perfoomery, the best I can lay hands on. And you shall have
them buttons, Miss Whetstone, if they are to be had. And Miss Flora May
shall--"

He looked about the room, but the girl was not there.

"She's out some place," said Mrs. Bailey. "Feeding the hens, I presume
likely. I'll tell her good-by for you, Pippin!"

He shook hands with Old Man Blossom, who was only too eager to be
friends. "I'm all friends, Pippin!" he cried in eager, quavering tones.
"Honest I am! You find my little gal, and you can pray yourself black in
the face and I won't say a word. It just took me that way, you know; you
prayin' as slick as a Gospel shark, and Nipper's wheel out in the shed
all the time--tee hee! You're smart, Pippin! Ain't any pious goin' to
get round you, hey? 'Tother way round, hey? Gorry! that is rich!"

He grew purple, and the bed shook under him.

"Hold on there!" said Pippin. "Don't you go and have another on me. I'm
goin'." And he bolted.

"I'm comin' out to the gate with you!" said Jacob. "Take a look at the
stock as you go?"

Pippin nodded gravely. The two went out together to the great barn,
fragrant with hay; patted the sleek farm horses, rubbed the noses of
the calves. Jacob pointed out briefly the merits of each animal; Pippin
responded with suitable encomiums. Both men were absent and constrained.
It was not till they reached the gate that Jacob Bailey spoke out.
Leaning against a post, he drew out his jack knife, looked about for a
stick, and finding one, began to whittle.

"Well!" he said at length. "So you found your way here. How do you
like?"

"First-rate!" said Pippin. "I never saw a place I liked so well."

Jacob whistled "Yankee Doodle" (his one tune) carefully through; then--

"How about comin' back?" he said. And as Pippin was about to speak, "I
mean comin' to stay! There now, I've out with it," he added. "Here it
is! Me and m' wife have took a liking to you, and so has all the
inmates. I never saw 'em take so to any one, unless 'twas Cap'n Parks,
and he's an old friend. What I would say is, Pippin, we're gettin' on in
years, and we need young help. We've no boys of our own; I've got a
nevy, but--never mind about that now! We'd like first-rate to think that
you'd come back bimeby to stay."

"Do you hear that?" Pippin asked himself silently. "He would trust me;
knowin' all there is to know, he'd take me right in! Now wouldn't
that--" He turned to Mr. Bailey with shining eyes. "You're real good,
sir!" he said simply. "You're--you're _darned_ good! I don't know how to
say what I feel, but I feel it all the same. Now--want me to say what
I've ben thinkin'?"

"Sure!" assented Jacob with a grave nod. Pippin looked about him
vaguely. "Woodpile yonder!"

Jacob nodded over his shoulder. Pippin went to the pile and selected a
stick with great care, squinting along it to observe the straightness of
the grain. Returning with his prize, he produced his own knife, and
silence reigned for a moment while he removed the bark, Jacob critically
regarding him the while.

"I've ben thinkin'--the _chance_ of it! Here you've got these folks, and
they're nice folks--most of 'em, that is--and you're doin' everything in
the world for 'em, and it's _great_. Yes, sir, it's great! And the farm,
and the garding--why, it's Mother dear, Jerusalem, right here in Cyrus
township, or so it appears to me. But what I'm thinkin' of is the boys!"

A look of pain crossed the kindly face. "The boys!" he repeated.

"Mr. Bailey, I'd love to take care of them old folks, and blind, and
like that; but all the time I'm thinkin' of the boys. Boys in the slums,
and boys in jug, where I left 'em the other day. It appears to be laid
upon me that I am to help the boys; though not to forget the others
either, when I git a chance at 'em. Now see! I can't go but a little
ways at a time, can I? It's like I was learnin' to walk--if you see what
I mean. I don't know just what the Lord has for me to do, 'cept the
first thing, to find this old rip's gal. That's plain, ain't it? When I
can _see_ a thing, right face to, I can do it--sometimes! But after
that--all about it, I can't tell, but I expect the Lord has it all laid
out for me, and He'll let me know, 'cordin' to."

There was a pause. Pippin looked up expectantly, and saw his companion
looking out over the fields with eyes full of trouble. His face had
suddenly fallen into lines of age.

"What's wrong, sir?" asked Pippin impulsively. "Have I said anything I
shouldn't? I'll ask you to excuse me if I have."

A shake of the head reassured him. Jacob Bailey turned the troubled eyes
on him, seemed to hesitate; finally, clearing his throat, spoke in a
slow, husky voice.

"There's one boy--" He stopped. "Them oats looks good, don't they?" He
nodded toward an adjoining field.

"Fine!" Pippin threw a hasty glance toward the oats. "They are dandy,
sure. You was speakin' of a boy, Mr. Bailey! What about him?"

Still the gray-haired man hesitated, looking about him with those
troubled eyes. At last he seemed to make up his mind, and looked
straight at Pippin.

"There's one boy--" he said; "Pippin, there's one boy needs help the
worst way. I expect he's right there in Kingdom, where you're stoppin'."

"I want to know!" Pippin was aglow with interest. "Where'll I find him?
What's his name? Has he been run in?"

"Speak low!" the farmer glanced about him. "There's no one round, and
yet you never can tell; the folks don't know. It's m' wife's nevy I'm
speakin' of, Myron Allen, her sister's son. He's been stayin' with us
since his mother died--father dead, too--and he got to be like our own
to us. He went to school, and he helped me with the chores and helped m'
wife with hers, and was handy boy all round. Mebbe we worked him too
hard; he's only sixteen. We never thought it, but mebbe we did. Yet he
seemed happy--whistlin' all over the place, jokin' and like that; and
his cheeks was round and red as a Baldwin apple. Yes, sir, he enjoyed
good health, and everybody made of him, and he was good as gold. Yes,
sir, no one couldn't ask nor wish for a better boy than what Myron was
till last summer. Then--well, 'twas bad company begun it."

"You bet it was!" murmured Pippin. "Go on, sir!"

"'Twas hayin' last year done the mischief. Myron hired out to a man over
Tinkham way--that was after he'd got through with the hayin' here--and
there he met up with some that was no better than they should be by all
accounts. Pippin, that boy left us an innocent boy, that never had a bad
word in his mouth that ever _I_ heard, nor no one round here. He come
back--" the gruff voice faltered--"he come back different, sir. He'd
slap through his work and then off he'd go and set down behind the shed
and read. He'd got a lot of books from some one he'd met up with; them
Sleuth stories, you know, and like that, little paper books. You've seen
'em?"

"I've seen 'em!" Pippin nodded.

"He'd set there by the hour, readin' and readin', and oftentimes the
cows bellerin' their hearts out to be milked. I'd come back from the
field and find him with his nose in the book, and his eyes startin' out
of his head. There warn't no cows nor no farm nor nothin' for him those
times. I'd get real worked up, now and then, and give him a good callin'
down, and he'd do better for a spell; but that was only the beginning."
He glanced round again, and his voice dropped to a whisper.

"There's more to it. Things begun to be missed round here! It's been
goin' on all winter; nothin' great, just a little here and a little
there. Folks begun to talk, and some claimed 'twas tramps, and some
begun to wonder--He's only a boy, you understand, Pippin! Oftentimes the
thinkin' part grows up slower than what the bodily part does, ain't that
so?"

Pippin met the anxious eyes cheerfully.

"That's so! Why, likely he wasn't more than ten years old, come to look
inside of him. Where you'll find one boy that knows just where hookin'
ends and stealin' begins, you'll find a dozen that don't. And there's
more to it than that; but go on, sir! I'm just as inter_est_ed as I can
be!"

"This spring, a feller come along, and Myron knew him; he was one of
them he had met over Tinkham way, and he was trampin'. Lookin' for work,
he said, but if I ever saw a countenance that said lookin' for mischief,
'twas his. Young man, too! Well, Myron brought him in and we treated him
well, because Myron seemed so taken with him. We give him a bed, and
next day I set him to work hoein'--said he _wanted_ work, you
understand--and he appeared pleased as pie. Myron was hoein', too; we
can't keep the witch grass out of that field, try our best. I was busy
in the barn that day, choppin' hay, but yet I'd come out now and then
jest to let 'em know I was round, and every time I'd find 'em with their
heads together, tongues doin' the work and hoes takin' a noon spell:
quick as they saw me they'd shut up and go to work. Well! I'd ought to
have known then that they was plottin' mischief, but you don't look for
your own folks--"

He broke off, and was silent a moment. Pippin assured himself that it
was all right; it hurt, and thank the Lord it did! How'd he feel if it
didn't?

"That night one of the neighbors was broke into, and money taken from
his pants pocket. He woke up jest in time to see a man with a mask on
gettin' out of the window. He up and run, but they was too quick for
him--he see from the window there was two of 'em--and though he
hollered and fired his gun, they got off, and he couldn't find hide nor
hair of 'em. Next mornin' the tramp was gone, and Myron with him, and I
found--I found in Myron's room some pieces of black cloth, and one of
'em with eyeholes cut in it."

There was a long silence. The two sticks were beautifully smooth by this
time; Pippin began polishing his thoughtfully on his coat sleeve.
Finally he shut his knife with a snap, and straightened his broad
shoulders. The older man, looking up, met his eyes brimful of light and
joy.

"Mr. Bailey," said Pippin, "the Lord is awful good to me! What did I
tell you just now? That I couldn't see but just one step ahead, wasn't
that it? Well, now I see two, and the second one is ahead of the other."

"I don't--quite--" began Jacob doubtfully.

"Don't you? Why do you s'pose the Lord put in your mind to tell me about
this? Why, green grass! I got to find the boy as well's the gal! That's
plain to see. Look! Where would them two go? They'd strike the nearest
town, wouldn't they, so's they could lay up a bit, and spend their swag?
Well, what's the nearest town? Kingdom, where I'm stayin' at present;
Kingdom, where I'll have to be a spell yet, till I find some one to take
my place--Green grass! I believe--"

Silent again, but in great excitement, Pippin pocketed his knife and
stick, pulled out his file, and ran it through and through his hair
wildly.

"Mr. Bailey, sir," he cried at last, "the Lord is showin' me His hand,
and it's a dandy one. Don't say a word; don't ask me anything; but if
you can trust me--if you _can_ trust me--why, I'm to be trusted, because
the Lord has hired me for the job!"




CHAPTER VII

FLORA MAY


Soon after this, Pippin took the road, sober at first, walking slowly
with bent head, thinking hard; but as the morning got into his blood it
began to tingle, his eyes began to shine, and up went his head.

"Green grass!" he said. "That sure was a nice place, and nice folks.
Most of 'em, I would say; Old Man Blossom is a mite yaller sure, but
some of the others are white enough to make up for him. Mr. and Mis'
Bailey, now, I declare! They are as like as--as peas--to Pa and Ma, that
I thought up to myself along back. How do, Pa? How be you, Ma? Don't you
go back on me! Gee! and think of that young feller goin' back on them
two! If I was him--green grass! wouldn't it have been great if I was! I
tell you I'd make things hum to that nice place. I'd make them two
forget I wasn't their own son, and twins at that. And them old ladies!
Why, all they need is a little humorin'. Real friendly they was to me!
And Mr. Brand! He is a peach, sure thing! I expect he could do more for
me, blind, than I could for him, seein'. But I'd be--call it a nevy--to
him, if I had the chance. And that poor sweet pretty creatur, if I
wouldn't be a brother to her, send me back over There and put me in
solitary! Try and learn her little things, try and make her eyes look a
mite different. Not but they've tried, them good folks, but bein'
nearer her age, and she taken with my singin' and like that--why, an
angel wouldn't be no handsomer than what she would be if she had her
mind. Take and learn her--"

Pippin stopped dead. Something was rustling in the bushes. The dream
light faded from his face; he stiffened to attention like a pointer, his
eyes fixed on the fringe of woods on his left. Something in there! A
critter, or--?

The rustling grew nearer, louder; the bushes crackled, parted; a figure
came out, timidly, eagerly, ran forward, fell down before him, seized
his hand and looked up with dumb, imploring eyes. Flora May!

There are two men in every one of us. I used to think there were ten in
Pippin, but for one instant all ten were paralyzed, looking helplessly
into the blue eyes that burned into his; then one of them woke, the one
who would have been a physician if Pippin had been reared in a home
instead of a cellar.

He took the girl's wrists, and, holding them firmly, raised her to her
feet.

"Why, Miss Flora May!" he said cheerfully. "Don't ever tell me this is
you! Did you come all this way just to say good-by? Now, if that wasn't
pretty of you! I'm just as much obliged as I can be, young lady; and
I'll walk back a piece with you, I will so. This wood lot is a mite
lonely, 'pears to me."

The girl tried to fling herself down again, but he held her tight. "I
wouldn't do that!" His voice was kind, but he spoke with authority. "Get
your nice clean dress all dirty! What would Mis' Bailey say? Why, she'll
be lookin' for you, I expect. She thought you was 'tendin' to the hens,
and all the time--what say?"

"Take me with you!" cried the girl. "I want you! I won't go back. Take
me with you!"

"Now what a way that is to talk! You wouldn't leave Mr. and Mis' Bailey,
good and kind as they be--"

"I want you!" wailed the girl, and again she would have flung herself
down, had not those firm hands held her fast. "Take me with you! Sing to
me! Love me! I belong to you!"

Pippin's face had been full of perplexity, but now it lightened.

"Sing to you! Why, sure I will! There's a song you'll just admire to
hear, Miss Flora May. We'll walk along and I'll sing as we go. No, I
won't let go both your hands; I'll hold this one so--so we can keep step
together. Now let's step out lively!"

The girl drew back, her eyes narrowing.

"This isn't the way you were going!" she said sullenly. "I won't go
back. I'm a big girl, and they treat me like I was a kid. I won't go
back! If you won't take me, I'll drown myself!"

"We'll go along! 'Along' isn't 'back,' is it now? Along, you know:
matches up with song, don't you see? Green grass! see those pretty
yaller flowers! They're along, too, just a piece! Let's we gather some,
see if they're sweet as they are pretty!"

Still holding her wrist in that firm grasp, rambling on about the
flowers, he stooped to pluck them, and managed to turn back in the
direction of Cyrus.

"Now we'll come along!" he proclaimed. "Here's a good clear stretch of
road, and I'll sing--you just listen!"

Never before, it seemed to Pippin, had he let his voice out to its full
power. He felt it fly like a bird before him; it must reach all the way,
it _must_!

    "When I can read my title clear
      To mansions in the skies,

("He'll hear that sure! he'll sense it in a minute, and know it's all
right!")

    "I'll bid farewell to every fear,
      And wipe my weeping eyes!

"So we will, Miss Flora May, won't we? You sing, too, that's a dandy
girl! Let her go, Gallagher!"

Two hundred yards away, a man was driving through the woods at top speed
of his lumbering horse. Brows bent, lips compressed, deadly fear at his
heart, he sat unseeing, silent, save when he urged the clumsy beast to
still further effort. Fear at his heart, and anger, and bewilderment;
but struggling with all these something that said dazedly over and over,

"I don't believe it! He wasn't that kind! I don't believe it!"

Suddenly he checked the horse and threw up his head, listening. Through
the trees, down the wood road, a voice came flying like a bird, ringing
like a trumpet, crying like a great wind in his ears:

    "I'll bid farewell to every fear,
      And wipe my weeping eyes!"

"Lord, forgive me!" cried Jacob Bailey. "Lord, have mercy on me, and
never let him know!"

A glint of blue among the trees, the jingle of a little bell that hung
beside the wheel; next moment they came in sight, Pippin first, chin in
air, mouth open, singing as a bird sings, with every fibre of his being;
the girl hanging back a little, held close by that strong hand, but
singing, too, in a sweet, broken voice.

    "Let cares like a wild deluge come,
      And storms of sorrow fall,
    May I but safely reach my home,
      My God, my heaven, my all!"

"Why, if here isn't our Mr. Bailey, this minute of time!" cried Pippin.
"Why--why, Miss Flora May, he's cryin'! Mr. Bailey, you sick, sir? Miss
Flora May, you climb right in the wagon, and comfort him up pretty!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"That was a close call!"

Pippin stood rubbing his head with his file, gazing after the retreating
wagon. His cheek had blanched under the tan, and his breath came quick
and short. Pippin had been frightened, a thing that had hardly happened
since the days when fear was his yokefellow, day and night.

"That," he repeated, "was a close call, as close as I want in mine.
S'pose I'd got further off, so's he couldn't catch me up. What would he
ha' thought? Poor innocent gal! Gee! The Lord stood by me good that
time! But--gorry! S'pose I'd ben--Gives me the cold shivers to think of
it. Now--now--I wonder--"

Pippin stood fingering his file absently, deep in thought. How to help a
person like that? He had wanted to help her, sure thing, and
now--'peared like all he had done was to hender. He expected 'twas his
being a new person, breakin' in, like that, when she was used to havin'
things quiet and all of a piece, so to say. He sighed, and replaced the
file. Best leave it, after all, to them dandy folks; they was used to
handlin' her and they knowed how. Best he keep away, till he had found
the little gal, what say? Yes--but--now a doctor might know things that
even Mr. and Mrs. Bailey wouldn't. Then he laughed, in spite of his
trouble.

Now! How come he to think of that just now, of all times? Along
back--way along back--they'd say White Patter over a person that was
like that, not to say crazy, but a little wantin'. Old White Patter!
They would, sure! Kind of an old charm; couldn't call it a prayer, but
mebbe as nigh one as Granny Faa could manage to come. Pippin had tried
to say it late times, but he couldn't seem to fetch it: now--now--

He lifted his head; it was coming back, the age-long jargon. Word by
word, dropping into his mind from some limbo of things forgotten; word
by word, he said it over aloud, standing in the wood road, the trees
arching over his head, the moss curling round his feet.

    White paternoster, St. Peter's brother,
    What hast 'ou i' the left hand?
        White-book leaves!
    What hast 'ou i' the right hand?
        Heaven-gate keys!
    Open heaven-gate and steek hell-gate!
        White paternoster, amen!

Back in the cellar! Darkness, foul air, fumes of liquor. Some one
singing in drunken tones snatches of song vile as the liquor. The child,
on his huddle of rags in the corner, shrinks and shudders, he knows not
why. The old woman rises; there is a cuff, a curse, a maudlin whimper;
she makes her way to the corner and bends over the child. "When he gets
singin'," she whispers, "don't 'ee listen, Pippin! Stop your ears and
say White Patter! Hark now, till I larn it 'ee!"

Bending lower, she recites the charm over and over, till the child with
faltering lips can say it after her. "That'll keep 'ee safe!" says
Granny Faa, and hobbles back to the spark of fire that keeps her old
bones alive.

"'Twas all the prayer she knew!" said Pippin. "Green grass! But yet I
expect the Lord understood. There's Amen to it, you see."

Joy of the road on a June morning! Who could taste it as Pippin did? It
stood to reason that no one who had not been behind the bars could
really know what it meant. Blue sky overhead--not a little square patch,
but all you wanted, all there was--clear, deep, stainless, from rim to
rim of the horizon. That would be enough just itself, wouldn't it, after
three years of gray-white walls? But there was all the rest beside;
trees still in their young, exquisite green, birds not in cages but
flitting from branch to branch, singing, singing--

Flowers along the road: buttercups, Pippin's own flower that the Lord
gave him that day; daisies, too; beautiful, wicked orange hawkweed, and
good honest dandelions, each one a broad gold piece of Summer's coinage.
Grass, too--gorry! 'twas in There ("There" was Shoreham) he got the
habit of saying "Green grass!" It did him good just to think of it, and
it filled the mouth full as good as swearin', for all he could see. He
used to think about it; used to wonder, on breathless days when the
gray-white walls radiated heat--and other things than heat--how it would
feel to lie down and roll in grass, cool, moist, fragrant.

Ah! and now here it was under his feet, an elastic, emerald carpet. All
he wanted of that, too! Were ever such uncountable riches as Pippin's
this June morning?

He was to have yet more, Croesus that he was. On the left of the road a
glint of rosy purple showed against the black tree trunks. He stepped
aside and parted the branches. A little ferny hollow, with a tiny stream
babbling through: beside the stream masses of purple blossoms, delicate,
glowing, exquisite.

"Green grass!" said Pippin. He stood for some time gazing; asking no
questions of Rhodora, being no critic, but taking his fill of delight in
simple thankfulness. "Gee!" he murmured, as he let the branches droop
again over the enchanted place. "And that's right here, by the side of
the road, a reg'lar flower show, and no charge for admission. Now what
do you think of that for a world to live in? I tell you, Paradise has
got to toe the mark to get ahead of that. What say?"

The trees grew thinner, fell away to a fringe; the road grew broader and
more even. Presently a house or two came in sight. Yes, this was the
Kingdom road; he remembered that white house. He would be back in time
for dinner; then he'd put in two three days--or a week, mebbe--finding
that boy, and finding--yes, he sure would--the grace of God in him. Take
a boy like that, and he could be no more than egged over with sin, like
you do coffee cake: it hadn't had time to grime into him. And--come to
get him all clean and nice and steppin' the Lord's way again, what was
to hender his steppin' right into his, Pippin's, shoes and bein' handy
man to Mr. Baxter? Green grass! Pippin had planned lays before now, but
he never planned a prettier one than what this would be if it worked out
good--and it would! And then it was the city, and to find that little
gal. He had never meant to go back to the city, chaplain had told him
not to; but if he knew how things was, he would say go, he sure would,
Elder Hadley would. Yes, sir! And when he found her--well! After all,
the Old Man was her father, and he wouldn't be lasting long anyhow, and
if she was a good gal she wouldn't grudge him a portion of time. Mebbe
even she'd be fond of him: you never could tell what a woman wouldn't be
fond of. Why, Sheeny's wife was fond of him. Used to come over There
once a month reg'lar and cry over him 'cause he was in for a long jolt;
now you'd thought, knowin' Sheeny, she'd cry if he wasn't. And, gee!
there was the meetin'-house, and if Pippin wasn't holler for his dinner,
believe _him_!




CHAPTER VIII

PIPPIN SETS BREAD AND LAYS A PLAN


The Baxters received Pippin with open arms. 'Peared like he had been
away a week, they said, instead of just over night. They certainly had
missed him. No, they hadn't set the dough yet: they were just thinking
of it, but they thought likely--well, hadn't he better have his supper
first? No such great hurry, though of course 'twas _about_ time--

"Gimme five minutes," said Pippin, "and then just watch me!"

In five minutes, washed and brushed, spotless in white cap and apron,
his arms bare to the shoulder, he appeared shouting for his task.

Everything was white in the bakery; shining white of tiles and vessels,
soft white of scoured pine, softer white of snowy flour. The great
caldron stood ready, under the chute that led from the upper floor.
Pippin pressed a knob, and down came the flour, in a steady stream.
Pretty, Pippin thought, to watch it piling up in a soft cone, falling
away in tiny avalanches, piling up again.

Another touch; the stream is checked. Now for the salt and sugar. Now
yeast, milk and water, half and half: more whiteness, brimming in a
white pail. In it goes, with wonderful effects of bubbling and creaming,
while snowy clouds float up and settle on Pippin's brown face and sinewy
arms.

He touches another knob; down comes the iron dasher--this, too, shining
in white enamel--and round and round it goes, tossing, dropping,
gathering, tossing again, steadily, patiently; that is the way they mix
bread at Baxter's bakery.

Pippin watches it, fascinated; he never tires of the wonder of it. But
presently Mrs. Baxter calls. "Supper, Pippin, come now! Buster'll mind
Elbert for you."

Elbert is the dasher, named for the brother baker who persuaded Father
Baxter to give up hand mixing and take to machinery. Pippin gives the
machine a friendly pat. "Good old Elbert!" he says. "Keep it up, old
figger-head! I'll be back, time you're ready to lay off. She's all
right, Buster," as the boy enters, munching his final doughnut. "In
great shape, Elbert is! You want to scrape her down a mite--" give it
twenty masculine names, and a machine must still be feminine--"when she
gets balled up, that's all. She's just as sensible--why, she can all but
talk, this machine can."

"Mourns good and plenty," chuckles Buster, "when she's dry."

"Lots of folks mourn when they're dry! I shall be mournin' myself if I
wait any longer for that cup o' coffee your ma's got for me. So long,
old sport!"

"You said you'd tell me that story about Mike Cooney and the turkey!"

"Sure thing! But I didn't say I'd tell you when your ma was keepin'
supper for me. Quit now!"

Seeing he was so late, Mrs. Baxter thought he might as well set right
down here at the kitchen table; here was his ham and eggs and coffee,
and the pie and doughnuts handy by. She'd been flustrated up all day.
Had Pippin heard that there was thieves about? No, Pippin hadn't; he
wanted to know if there was! Well, 'twas so. Mis' Wilkins had two pies
stole last night right off the butt'ry shelf, and a jug of cider, and
matches all over the floor; and night before that they broke into Al
Tibbetts's store, broke open the till and made away with two dollars and
seventy-five cents. There! She was so nervous she thought she should
fly. Did Pippin think the lock was real safe on the bakery door?

Pippin, after reassuring her on this point, grew thoughtful over his
supper, so thoughtful that he was reproached for not eating a thing. He
roused himself.

"Not eatin'! Just you watch me, Mis' Baxter! Know what ailed the man
that wouldn't eat a supper like this? Well, he was dead, that was what
troubled him!"

The table cleared, Pippin washed his hands and arms at the sink, and
joined Mr. and Mrs. Baxter on the back porch. Soon two pipes were
puffing, and three rocking chairs (Buster had unwillingly gone bedward)
creaked and whined comfortably. It was a soft, dark night, just cool
enough for comfort, Pippin thought, and yet warm enough--well, warm
enough for comfort, too. The back porch looked out on a little gully,
the bed of a stream that flowed through Kingdom to join the river near
at hand. White birches grew on the steep banks--you could see them
glimmering through the dark--and the place was full of fireflies; the
stream murmured drowsily over its pebbles.

"Green grass!" murmured Pippin. "Now wouldn't it give you a pain to
think of leavin' this?"

They were three tired people--Mrs. Baxter had done a big ironing, and
the baker had missed Pippin sorely--and for some time were content to
sit silent, rocking softly, breathing tranquilly, "just letting go," as
Mrs. Baxter put it. But after a half-hour of this pleasant peace,
Pippin sighed, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and sat up straight in
his chair.

"Now, folks," he said, "I've got to talk."

Mrs. Baxter woke out of a comfortable doze; Mr. Baxter straightened
himself and knocked out his own ashes. "That's right!" he said. "We'll
be pleased to hear you, Pippin. I heard you tellin' Buster, and it
sounded real interestin'. Fire away!"

"Well!" said Pippin ruefully. "I'm in hopes you won't be any _too_ well
pleased, Father Baxter. The heft of what I have to say is in four words:
I got to leave!"

The rocking chairs creaked with startled emphasis.

"You ain't, Pippin!"

"You don't mean it, Pippin!"

"You're jokin'! He's jokin', mother, can't you see?"

"I wish't I was!" sighed Pippin. "I tell you, Mr. and Mrs., I don't want
to leave, no way, shape, or manner; but yet I got to. Lemme tell you,
and you'll see for yourselves. First place, I got to tell Mis' Baxter
about before I come here. Yes, Boss, I just plain _got_ to! I meant all
along to tell her before I left, but I've kind of put it off--the
further I get from that feller I used to be, the worse I hate him!
Well!"

Slowly and carefully Pippin rehearsed the familiar story, hiding
nothing, glossing nothing over, giving what glory there was to the Lord
and Elder Hadley. When he finished this part, the baker was holding one
of his hands, his wife the other, both uttering exclamations of pity,
sympathy, encouragement.

_That_ wouldn't make no difference, the good people assured him, not the
least mite. "Why, he told me the very first day, mother! I didn't want
to make you nervous, so I kep' it to myself. It don't cut no ice with
us, Pippin, not a--"

Pippin checked them gently; that was only the first chapter. He went on
to tell of his visit to Cyrus Poor Farm (omitting only the episode of
Flora May), and of his promises to Old Man Blossom and to Jacob Bailey.

"Now you see, you nice folks--you nicest kind of folks--here I be! I
_love_ bakin'--if I was to work within four walls there's nothin' else
I'd choose so soon--but it isn't so intended; I make sure of that. Here
I be, promised to the Old Man to find his little gal if she's to be
found (and that means if she's alive), and promised to Mr. Bailey to get
hold of that boy and give him a boost. You see how 'tis, don't you?
Well, of course! I knew you would! Well, now I was studyin' this out all
the way home, and the Lord took hold and showed me His idea, and I think
'twill work out real good, if we have luck. I say 'we,' because you
folks have got to help."

"For pity's sake, Pippin!"

"Yes, Mis' Baxter, for pity's sake! That's the stuff. And that boy's
sake. Suppose it was Buster! This is a good boy, mind you, only weak.
Suppose it was Buster! Look at here! This is the way I've worked it out.
Mr. Bailey is a dandy man, and Mis' Bailey ekally so woman, but they
made a big mistake. What did that boy need? He needed other boys, and
there wasn't none round, so happened. There was old folks, and blind
folks, and wantin' folks, some good as gold and others--well, the
reverse! He didn't want none of 'em; he wanted a pal! Well! He got one,
and he got a crook. That was his streak of bad luck, see? And he's in it
still. Way I look at it, we got to haul him out, ain't it?"

"I'll do my part, Pippin!" said Mrs. Baxter promptly.

"Count me in!" said the baker. "I don't know what I can do, 'less it's
knead the youngster up in a batch of dough and bake him to keep him out
of mischief, but count me in!"

"Well!" said Pippin. He leaned forward, a hand on the knee of either.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "Now--"

He paused abruptly. Something was moving in the gully beneath them. With
a swift gesture of caution, he stole noiselessly to the railing of the
porch and looked down. All was soft darkness, save where the birches
glimmered dusky white, where the fireflies danced and shone. The stream
droned on; the night clung closer. Look! Was that a blacker shadow
there, just where the old willow overhung the stream? Was it a shadow
that moved, followed by a second stealthy shade? A twig snapped; a
branch rustled. Hark! Was that a whisper, a footstep? The fireflies rose
in a wild whirl, scattered, came together, resumed their rhythmic dance,
filling the little glen with golden sparks. Silence fell like a mantle.




CHAPTER IX

PIPPIN ENCOUNTERS THE RED RUFFIAN


The days that followed Pippin's disclosure of his plan were troublous
ones for Mrs. Baxter. She looked under the bed a dozen times a day; she
avoided the broom closet for fear of what might lurk there; if a door
resisted her opening, she made sure it was held on the other side. For
the first time, terror entered her life. It had been a comfortable life:
she had been a good and cheerful baby, child, maiden; she was a good and
cheerful woman. She had known that this was a wicked world, and--in a
general way--that there were bad people even in Kingdom. They never
entered the bakery, but tales of them were whispered over the counter
during the tying up of buns and coffee cakes. And we were all miserable
sinners, of course, especially on Sunday. But now she was living _in_ a
tale! Their own Pippin, Pippin of the bright eyes, the winning smile,
the pleasant, helpful ways--Pippin had been one of the wicked. And now
there were more of them about, walking Kingdom streets, perhaps--she
shuddered--looking in the window the moment while her back was turned;
and she was to be called upon to help save one of them.

"But I've had no experience!" she would say piteously. "I don't know how
to talk to them kind of persons, Pippin. I've had no experience!"

"Well, you're goin' to have!" Pippin told her cheerily. "Woman dear,
crooks is just folks, same as other folks; they ain't painted black,
outside or in. You know how to talk to me well enough, don't you?"

"Oh, Pippin!"

"Well, then! Just bear in mind that what this boy is, I was, only about
a thousand times wuss. Why, he's nothin' _but_ a boy! Say to yourself,
'S'pose it was Buster!' Say it over and over till it comes easy as
breathin'!"

"Yes, Pippin!" said Susan Baxter.

As for Pippin himself, the days were not long enough for him. He was
making the most of his last week of baking. Hitherto he had kept
strictly to bread, rolls and doughnuts; but now he essayed loftier
flights, wrestled with coffee cake, overcame; made his first batch of
pies and glowed with pride to hear them pronounced A No. 1. Between work
hours he ranged the town with his wheel, and at every corner people
gathered round him, ostensibly to have their knives sharpened, though by
this time there was hardly a dull knife in Kingdom--really to watch
Pippin at work and hear him sing. He scanned every group with eager
eyes, but saw no strange faces, only the kindly Kingdom Comers, as he
called them, who were all his friends. After dark, leaving his wheel at
home, he might drop in on Father O'Brien or Elder Stebbins for an hour's
chat, and hear what was going on in the two parishes, to both of which
he considered himself to belong.

"Say, that was a dandy anthem, wasn't it?" he would say to the good
Father. "Suited me down to the ground! Good sermon you preached, too,
Father. Common sense! I liked that sermon. Only, wasn't you just a mite
hard on the heathen? I've known dandy heathen, sir, simply dandy. I
wish't you knew old Sing Lee. He used to tell about a guy they call
Confusion, and I never could see why they called him that, for he was
plain as print, 'peared to me, and his ideas was dandy, they sure was.
Well, so long, Father! Yes, sir, I'd like a blessin' real well; thank
you kindly!"

Taking his leave, he would leave the house very quietly, shutting the
door after him without a sound. Before going home he would wander,
apparently aimlessly, about the town, diving into alleys, coming
suddenly round corners, exploring the quarter of the town known
familiarly as Devildom.

During this week the pilferings hung fire. Anxious housewives counted
their garments on the line, storekeepers looked well to tills, locks and
bolts, and slept with their pocketbooks under their pillows; but nothing
happened, and it began to be whispered about that "the mean folks" had
left town and gone elsewhere.

Toward the end of the week Pippin made an excursion to a neighboring
village on urgent representation from one of its inhabitants, "sharpened
'em up good," as he expressed it, all round, gave them a Gospel concert,
spent a happy day visiting round among the scattered farms, and started
for home with a light heart and a pocketful of dimes. He had covered a
good deal of ground, and became aware that he was distinctly "leg
weary"; but green grass! he thought, what a dandy time he had had, and
how good supper would taste!

It was growing dusk as he drew near Kingdom. There was the patch of
woods that was full of violets a month ago. He wondered if there would
be any still in bloom. Mrs. Baxter was ter'ble fond of violets (and yet
they wa'n't her pattern, you'd think; pineys was more her kind), but if
there _was_ any violets--

Entering the cool shade of the wood path, he was pacing slowly along,
glancing left and right for the "proud virgins of the year," when he
heard a rustling among the bushes by the roadside. Thought flashed back
to that day--only a week ago, was it? It seemed a month--when those
other bushes had rustled. For an instant he dreaded to see the pale,
lovely, imploring face of the imbecile girl; then common sense returned.
"She couldn't have got so far," was his first thought; "nor yet she
wouldn't be wearin' pants!" his second. There was no time for a third.
Out from the shadow stepped two masked figures, one of them with a
leveled pistol.

"Throw up your hands!"

"That's what!" said Pippin.

The holder of the pistol--a slight, youthful-looking fellow, gave a
triumphant laugh, and glanced over his shoulder at his companion. He
laughed too soon. In the act of lifting his hands, Pippin made two
catlike steps forward, tripped, fell heavily against him, and the two
came to the ground together. There was a brief struggle, the two rolling
over and over, silent and breathless. When it ended Pippin was sitting
on his assailant's head, and it was he who held the pistol. Thus seated,
he put two fingers to his mouth and gave a shrill and piercing whistle
in three notes: up, down, up. At sound of this, the second, who had been
hovering in the background, took to his heels and fled as if for his
life.

"Green grass!" said Pippin. "That worked pretty, didn't it?"

The person under him struggled and groaned.

"Like me to move a little ways?" said Pippin, and moved down to his
chest. "There! Breathe easier that way, can't ye? Well, what about it?"

"Lemme up!" cried the sufferer. "---- ---- you, lemme up!"

Pippin drew out his red handkerchief, and calmly stuffed it into the
fellow's mouth. "Just till you can speak pretty!" he said. "You're free
to hold me up, if you know enough, which you don't, but I've no call to
hear your language when I don't like it. That's square, ain't it?"

Presently he removed the handkerchief and tied the fellow's wrists with
it in a workmanlike fashion. "There now, we can chin a spell; what say?"

Quitting his uneasy seat, he helped the other to his feet, and as he did
so, twitched the mask from his face. Then he whistled. It was a boy's
face that scowled at him, angry and frightened. A boy of sixteen or
seventeen, not bad-looking either--

"Green grass!" said Pippin under his breath. "I'll bet--" but he did not
say what he would bet. Instead, he bade the other, kindly, to see what a
fool he had went and made of himself. It was easy to see he was new to
the trade. The other guy was the old hand, eh, what? He judged so from
the way he lifted his feet. Lifted--his--feet--Where had Pippin seen
feet lift like them, pounding that way? Memory seemed to hover for an
instant, but was gone before he could catch it.

"And think of your tryin' it on one of your own trade!" said Pippin
comfortably. "Me, that was old to the fancy when you was nussin' your
bottle. That was hard luck, wasn't it? And yet--who knows? Mebbe 'twas
good luck, too!"

"What--what you mean?" stammered the boy. "Do you mean that you--"

"Well, I guess! Brought up to it from a baby. Ever hear of the Honey
Boys of Blankton? Well, I'd like to know who was boss of the Honey Boys,
if 'twasn't me. Yes, sir! I could tell you stories--Say we sit down a
spell!"

They sat. Pippin told a few stories with apparent gusto. "Now," he said,
"let's hear what you have to tell, bo!"

The boy, nothing loth, poured out a wild, foolish tale enough. How he
was bred to farming, and despised it; how he meant to make his fortune
and come back a rich man, and show them--yes, siree! he'd show them
whether he was a lunkhead or not! How he met up with that feller over
yonder hayin', and heard how things was done, and they went to Kingdom.
There wasn't much doin' there, so to-night Reilly said he'd show him
about road work, and let him try his hand.

"But, honest, I don't believe he'd ha' done any better than I did!"
cried the boy, his weak, handsome face aglow with admiration.
"He wouldn't ha' stood up against you. Say, you done that slick,
Mr.----I don't know what your name is!"

"Try Moonlighter," said Pippin--"Moonlighter or Jack-o'-Lantern; I've
answered to both names. As to your friend, you're well rid of him. If
you ask me, he's a sneak and a skunk. He won't come back; I doubt if he
stops this side of the city. What makes me think so? Why, you heard me
whistle?"

"Yes; what did it mean?"

"Cop's whistle: look out, there's crooks about. He didn't know I wasn't
callin' my mate, did he? No, nor yet you don't know! But I like your
looks, bo! You ain't a sneak, are you? You wouldn't give a pal away, if
he was to show you a firstrate plant--what say?"

The boy stammered protestations and assurances.

"That's right! Oh, you can tell from a guy's looks, when you're used to
sizin' folks up. Now if you really mean business--" Pippin paused, drew
out his file, whistled on it softly, winked and replaced it--"if you
really mean business, bo--" he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Pippin entered Kingdom town again, it was by a back way little
frequented. He trod softly and warily, and at his heels trod his late
assailant, now his slave and devotee.

Pippin would show Red Ruffi'n (thus he had named the lad) a place where
he could rest safe and easy till next night. Things wouldn't be ready
till next night; he had a heap to do. Red Ruffi'n would see; this was a
dandy place, where he'd be as safe as he would to home. Just let him
show him! Go easy now!

Kingdom, neat, prosperous little town though it was, had its slum; a
huddle of ramshackle cottages tumbling up and down a ragged hill. The
cottages were in sad need of paint and shingles, their windows held more
old hats than glass, the linen that flapped about them on sagging
clotheslines did not look particularly clean.

Close by was the village dump, exhaling unsavory odors. By day this spot
was haunted by frowsy children and slatternly women, grubbing about the
edges of the dump for an orange that might be partly good, a box that
would split up for kindling; but now all was quiet in Devildom. The
place was the scandal of Kingdom housewives. Pippin had usually avoided
it, but now he led the way thither eagerly. Skirting the edge of the
dump, he came to a spot where a ledge cropped out, partly overhanging a
tiny hollow. He had seen some children playing here once, and had noted
the spot as a good hiding hole, thanking the Lord that he never would
need to hide, never no more, glory be!

"There!" he said, and turned to his companion. "Here you'll be safe as
you would in your own bed. Folks is scared of this place, think it's
ha'nted; won't nobody come nigh, you see if there does."

"Is--is it?" asked the Red Ruffian, in a tone that might have sounded
timorous had his character been less desperate.

"Is it what? Ha'nted? I dunno. I never see anything here but once, and
then I wasn't quite positive. Somethin' white an' misty went past, sort
o' groanin' to itself; I couldn't pass no judgment what it was. Anyway,
they say if you speak up to 'em, same as you would, they can't do a
person no hurt. But say, ain't this a dandy hole? Now you rest easy
here, and I'll come to-morrow night and fetch you. Here's some crackers:
what say?"

"It--it smells bad, don't it?" The boy was sniffing with evident
disrelish.

"Yes!" Pippin glowed enthusiastic. "Don't it? Real bad. That's another
thing will keep folks away. Oh, you'll be as snug as--what say? Damp?
No, it ain't! It's dry as a lime-burner's wig. Gorry! I wish't I'd had a
place like this, when I was--well, goodnight, Red Ruffi'n! Pleasant
dreams to ye! You've got the countersign?"

"Ye-es! 'Blood is red!' Are you--are you going, Moonlighter?"

"That's what! Just wait till to-morrow night and you'll see stars!
Green grass! we'll--have us--a time!"

His voice died away: the Red Ruffian tried to call him back, but
failing, cowered down in his hiding hole and shivered.

The next day it rained; a gentle, steady downpour that evidently meant
business. Mrs. Baxter, with looks of dismay, called Pippin's attention
to the fact. Pippin chuckled and said it was great.

"But my land! That boy'll be all wet!"

"You bet he will! Wet through to his bones, I tell you!" Pippin chuckled
again. "Might I trouble you for a morsel of the pork, Mrs. Baxter?"

Mrs. Baxter passed the pork absently, stirred her coffee absently.
Presently: "What's he got for breakfast?" she asked.

"Crackers!" said Pippin gleefully. "Nice dry sody crackers; or mebbe
they ain't quite so dry by now; _and_ a cigar!"

"Pippin!" Mrs. Baxter looked reproach.

"Yes, ma'am! Nice long black cigar, the strongest I could find in the
store. Green grass! Mr. Baxter, where'd you s'pose Ed Nevins got them
cigars? Why, they'd knock a bullock stiff!"

"My land! It'll make him _sick_!" cried Mrs. Baxter.

"Well, I guess! If there's a sicker boy in Kingdom than what he'll be,
I'm sorry for him!" Pippin threw back his head and laughed gleefully,
Mr. Baxter joining in with a deep rumble over his pork and beans.

Mrs. Baxter's dark eyes flashed.

"I'd like to know what _you_ find to laugh at, Timothy Baxter! I must
say I think you're real unfeelin', both of you." She brushed the crumbs
from her apron with hands that trembled. "That boy--and you _said_ he
was motherless, Pippin, I heard you--out in the rain all day, half
starved, and then to make him sick--there! I think menfolks is just
_mean_!" She rose from the table. As she turned away, Pippin caught at
the corner of her apron.

"Don't be mad with me, Mis' Baxter!" he pleaded.

"Well, I _am_!" Mrs. Baxter turned squarely upon him. "I am mad with
both of you, and what's more, I'm disgusted. There!"

"Hold on, Ma!" Father Baxter pushed his chair back and came to lay a
calm hand on her shoulder. "Now, Ma, you behave! We agreed to let Pippin
run this show, didn't we? Well, then, what I say is, _let_ him run it!"

"But I never--" Mrs. Baxter began indignantly.

"Hold on, Ma! Pippin knows this kind of boy, and you don't, nor I don't,
over 'n' above. He ain't calculatin' to give him a birthday party, with
a frosted cake and seventeen candles and one to grow on; are you,
Pippin?"

"You bet I ain't!" Pippin was glowing with earnestness. "I'm goin' to
give him--why, look at here, Mis' Baxter! When Buster ate them green
apples last week, what was't you give him? A portion of physic, wasn't
it? I thought so! Well, you physicked his stummick, 'cause he'd got
things in it that didn't belong there; woman dear, I'm goin' to physic
this boy's soul, and don't you forget it!"

At the ring in his voice, the kindling light in his eyes, the good woman
melted. The tears came into her eyes and her lips quivered.

"That's right!" Pippin was stroking her head now and talking as if to a
little child. "You'll see, 'twill all come out nice as pie. And you got
your part to do, you know, Mis' Baxter. You're goin' to have the best
hot supper, and the warmest bed, and the dryest clothes that ever was,
ready by the time we get through to-night. Yes, ma'am! And Mr. Baxter,
he's goin' to do his part--"

"I am!" said the baker solemnly. "I don't know yet just what it'll be,
but I'm goin' to do it all the same."

"Green grass!" cried Pippin. "You _are_ dandy folks, no use talkin'
'bout it!"




CHAPTER X

PIPPIN LOOKS FOR THE GRACE OF GOD


All day long the rain fell, softly, steadily, without haste and without
rest; all day long the Red Ruffian cowered in his hiding hole, cold,
wet, hungry and miserable. The water trickled in streams down the rock
behind him and gathered in pools about his feet. The dump near by
steamed, and sent off noisome fumes. Rats ran in and out of it; the
Ruffian was afraid of rats.

What did the boy think of as he sat huddled under the partial shelter of
the ledge, munching his sodden crackers? Did he picture to himself the
glories of successful crime, the riches won by skill and daring, the
revels with other chosen spirits? No! He thought of Cyrus Poor Farm. He
saw the bright, cozy kitchen, the wide fireplace, the cheerful glowing
of the stove. He saw the table spread with its homely, hearty fare:
baked beans, done to a turn, with that dusky-gold crisp on the pork that
none save Aunt Bailey could give; the potatoes roasted in their jackets;
the brown bread--at thought of the brown bread the Ruffian groaned aloud
and passed the back of his hand across his eyes.

The long day wore on. The slow hours chimed from the church beyond the
hill. His one comfort was the thought of the cigar inside his shirt, dry
and safe in its oiled paper. The matches were safe, too, in a tin box.
He would wait till along towards dark, and then smoke. It would chirk
him up good, and when Moonlighter came to fetch him, he'd find him as
gay--as gay--a strong shiver seized him, and his teeth chattered. Wasn't
it about time? It was growing dusk. At last, with wet, trembling
fingers, he drew out his prize. Sheltering it with his body from the
pitiless rain, he struck a match and applied it to the cigar. The tiny
flame spurted, clung, shrank to a spark, spurted again--the cigar was
alight.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was near midnight. The rain had ceased, and a dense white mist was
rising from the drenched earth. A breeze came sighing through the
branches of the trees, rustling the grasses round the hiding hole; it
was answered by a low moan from the sodden figure that lay stretched in
the hollow under the rock. It was his last moan, Myron thought. Death
was coming; this white mist was his shroud. They would find him here--or
maybe they would not. Maybe his bones would whiten in this dismal spot,
and years after, the traveler--Hark! what was that? A sound, that was
not wind or trees or grasses: a long, low, wailing cry.

The wretched boy struggled up on one elbow and peered through the thick
white curtain, then, with a smothered shriek, he scrambled to his hands
and knees. Something was there! Something whiter than the mist;
something that moved--

"Help!" cried the Red Ruffian. "Murder! Help!"

"Hush!" said Pippin. "Hold your darned noise! _Steel is sharp!_"

"Oh! oh, dear! oh--_blood is red_! Is it you, Moonlighter? Why are
you--why are you all in white?"

"Make folks think I was the ha'nt, bonehead! What'd you s'pose? Cute
trick, I thought!"

Pippin stepped down into the hollow and threw off the sheet that covered
him.

"Well, how are you, young feller?" he asked cheerfully.

"I'm dyin'!" said the boy feebly. "Tell the folks I--"

"Oh, shucks! Here, set up--so! It's stopped rainin'. My! you are wet,
ain't you? Feelin' sick? I expect that cigar _was_ a mite--_here!_ lean
up against the ledge here, and take a drink!"

Reader, have you ever tasted spice-draught? Its basic principle is
peppermint. To this is added cinnamon, cloves, cassia, and a liberal
dash of cayenne pepper. "Temp'rance toddy," I have heard it called, but
there is nothing temperate about it. "S'archin'" is the adjective Pippin
used.

"Take a good swig!" he urged, putting the bottle to the boy's lips.
"It's hot stuff, I tell ye!"

The boy drank; next moment he was on his feet, coughing, dancing round,
and holding his throat. A howl of anguish broke from him, but Pippin
checked it with a hand over his mouth.

"Easy, boy, easy! 'Twill het you up good; nothin' like it, Mis'--that
is, they claim. Don't you feel it livenin' of you up? That's hearty! Now
you'll find your legs. Lean against me if you're wobbly still. Time we
was on our job! Foller, Red Ruffi'n!"

As they went along, Pippin explained the nature of the job. A soft snap,
just the thing for a green hand. Nice, quiet folks, sound sleepers,
old-fashioned lock--pick it with one hand while you eat your dinner
with the other. Honest, if he didn't feel that Red Ruffi'n _needed_ a
soft snap, he wouldn't hardly have had the heart to ease them, they
_was_ such nice folks. Been real good to him, too, and would be to any
one come nigh 'em, but Red Ruffi'n was his pal, and pals were bound to
see each other through.

"S'pose--s'pose we was pinched!" said Red Ruffi'n, stumbling along over
the plashy ground. "What would--"

"Shoreham!" Pippin gave a lively sketch of the place; the Red Ruffian
shuddered and coughed.

"Moonlighter," he said, after a pause; "I hadn't ought to get you into
this. I--I ain't feelin' well, either; s'pose we--what say?"

Pippin took his arm with a grip as firm as it was quiet.

"Testin' me, are ye?" he laughed. "Tryin' to see if I'd crawl--what?
There's no crawl in me, not an inch! Just wait till we get in where it's
warm and dry, and you'll see things different: not but I know you was
only foolin'. Crawl _now_, when everything's all ready? Gee! I would be
a softy, wouldn't I? Here's the gully! Now you go first and I'll foller
and keep watch behind; stop when you hear me peep like a chicken!"

With faltering steps the unhappy Ruffian crept along the gully, keeping
well in the shadow, starting at every stray cat, every scrap of
wind-whisked paper. Pippin, stepping lightly and softly a few yards
behind, whistled noiselessly, and pursued an imaginary conversation with
Mrs. Baxter.

"Just you trust me, Mis' Baxter, and you'll see. Why, you don't think
I'd take all this trouble, and _give_ all this trouble, if I weren't
certain sure that I was right? 'He leadeth me,' you know, ma'am, and
the Lord is sure leadin' me this time. There's no harm will come of it,
but only good, if I'm not a bonehead from Bonetown. Now see--"

He peeped low, like a day-old chicken; the slinking figure in advance
stopped.

It was, as Pippin had said, an easy lock to pick. A stout hairpin of
Mrs. Baxter's did the trick; a nice tool, Pippin pronounced it gravely.
The door swung open, revealing blackness. The Red Ruffian, shrinking
back, found himself gently but firmly propelled forward; he stumbled
over the threshold and the door closed noiselessly behind him. "This
way!" Pippin guided him through a passage, over another threshold. "Here
we be!" Closing another door, Pippin produced a match, lighted a bit of
candle. "The bakery!" he whispered. "The money is in here! Hush! Take
your shoes off; one of 'em squeaks."

The flickering light shone on the white tiles, the glittering enamel,
the black doors of the ovens; the further corners of the room were in
deep shadow.

"Did it squeak loud? Do you think--do you think any one heard? Hark!
What was that?"

"Nothin'! Mouse, mebbe! Now look! The cash is in that box, see? Under
the table there; make it out? Now, Red Ruffi'n, this is your job, and
you are goin' to have the credit of it. I'll hold the light; you reach
down and get the box--"

Mr. Baxter had felt all along that when the time came, he would know
what to do. A calm man, he had followed Pippin's instructions
implicitly, had now stood patiently for an hour in his dark corner,
leaning on his "peel," the long broad-bladed, paddle-like implement
which bore the loaves to and from the oven. Mrs. Baxter, in the shop,
might palpitate and wring her hands and moan, only restrained by
thoughts of Buster slumbering above; Mr. Baxter awaited his moment, and
it came.

By the flickering candlelight, he saw a cringing, trembling figure creep
forward, and bend over, displaying to his view a broad expanse of
trouser. To the father of Buster, that expanse suggested but one thing
in the world. Raising the peel, he brought it down with a resounding
thwack which sent the boy flat on his face under the table and brought
Mrs. Baxter shrieking from the shop.

"Elegant!" said Pippin. "Mr. Baxter, sir, that was simply elegant!"

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later the Red Ruffian, full, dry, and warm, a plaster over his
injured nose, lay in Pippin's bed; and Pippin ("as per contract with the
Elder," he told himself, "lettin' alone its bein' right and fittin' so
to do") sat on the edge of the bed and looked for the grace of God.

He began by explaining his plot in full: how he had been at the Poor
Farm, heard Mr. Bailey's story, and promised to find the boy if he
could; how the Lord had come into it and played right into his hand; how
the excellent baker and his wife had agreed to help; how everything had
went smooth as greased lightnin'--he never see anything work out neater
and prettier.

"Here! Take another drink of the lemonade! 'Tis some different from
spice-draught. Gee, wasn't that something fierce! I expect it kep' you
from pneumony, though!"

Pippin held the lemonade to the boy's lips, and patted the pillows
tenderly, as a woman might. Meeting his eyes, dark with shame, misery,
and reproach, he beamed on him benevolently.

"There!" he said. "I know how you feel. Look at it one way, 'twas a mean
trick I played you, a mean, low-down trick. I ask your pardon for that!
But look at here! I had to stop you, hadn't I? I'd passed my word, and,
too, the Lord bid me. No gettin' away from that. Well, now, if I'd sat
down there in the wood road that day, talked to you real fatherly and
pious, told you thus and so, and asked wouldn't you be a good boy and go
back to the farm and hoe potatoes--" The boy made a restless motion.
Pippin laid a quiet hand on his arm. "Rest easy! I'll come to that
presently! If I'd have done that, would y

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