Pippin; A Wandering Flame
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Long she stood there motionless, still staring with unseeing eyes. At last she heaved a long, sobbing sigh. She would be good. God make her a good girl. She would try.
What was it he had said the other night, when he told her that strange thing about the Bible in his room, about the rules of some queer Society or other? She heard his laugh ring out clear and joyous, saw his head thrown back.
"Honest, Miss Mary, I'll never forget the Gideons. Why, since that night, if ever anything gets me riled up, I take and read 13th Corinthians. Then I'll say to myself, 'Have you give all your goods to feed the poor?' I'll say, 'Have you give your body to be burned? Well, then, dry up!'"
Mary laughed, a little broken laugh with tears in it.
"I certainly haven't given my body to be burned!" she said.
Half an hour later, a composed and cheerful Mary came quietly down the back stairs to the kitchen. The traces of tears were nearly gone; cold water can do much in that way. A Mary-in-the-parlor might have blotted them out with powder, but Mary-in-the-kitchen had never used powder in her clean, wholesome, scientific-general life. Her eyes merely looked rather larger than usual, and the long lashes were still curling from the water. She was not smiling yet, but she was ready to smile when she met the eyes of her friend. How they would flash when she told him, when he learned that his search was over, that she was Mary Blossom, that she would go back with him, to do what duty and kindness could do! How he would spring up —
So coming lightly down to the door, she paused a moment, not to listen, just to make sure she was not interrupting anything private. Pippin was still leaning forward, light, alert, as if even sitting he felt the wings on his ankles; he was looking at his friend, with a glance half timid, half whimsical.
"You see, Elder," he said, "I ain't exactly alone, like you think. You're right about it's bein' poor dope for a guy to live all by himself, but lemme tell you! I've got – what I would say is – well, I've got a family of my own a'ready – kind of! Not what you'd call a reg'lar family, but yet they're dandy, sir, they are so! Lemme tell you! I never told a soul about 'em, but – "
I have described the Mary who came down the stairs; it was a different Mary who confronted Pippin as, turning his head, he saw her and sprang to his feet. Marble white, with a blind dazed look, as if she had been struck in the face, the girl stood motionless.
"My soul!" cried Pippin. "What's the matter, Miss Mary?"
"What has happened, Mary?" Mr. Hadley had risen, too; both men stood looking at her in concern. Had she struck her head against something? the chaplain asked anxiously.
Mary was very well, she thanked Mr. Hadley; she had a little headache, that was all. She kept her eyes fixed on the chaplain, not even glancing at Pippin.
"I came," she said, "to tell you – Mr. Hadley, I heard what – what the young man was saying, and I came to tell you. I am Mary Blossom. It's me he is looking for."
"You!" Pippin sprang forward, with a shout that rang through the house. "You, Miss Flower!"
"My mother gave me the name of Flower when I went to the Home!" Mary spoke quickly and steadily, her eyes still fixed on those kind blue ones that always seemed to know what you were going to say before you said it. "She didn't want my father to find me; I didn't either. He was – he – never mind!" she hurried on. "But I am Mary Blossom, and I will go to see my – father, and try to do my duty by him." She paused. "That's all!" she said, and turned, still with that blind, stricken look, as if to leave the room.
"Stay, Mary!" Mr. Hadley took her hand gently. "No wonder you are bewildered, my child. Sit down, won't you? Let us talk it over. This is wonderful news, indeed!"
"I guess it is!" Pippin had found words at last. "Miss Mary – I – I am clean dumbfoundered, I guess. You! You, little May Blossom that I used to play with, back there in the lane? Well, if ever there was a dunderhead in this world it's me, it sure is. Green grass – I would say, Glory to God! Why, little May! Why, of course it is! Why, look at the color of her hair, will you? Just like he said it was, color of a yearlin' heifer! And – did ever you see a bonehead, Elder? 'Cause you see one now. May Blossom!" He moved nearer, and held out both hands with an appealing gesture. "Look at me, won't you? Look at Pippin! Don't you rec'lect how we'd play together? You couldn't say my name plain at first. 'Pittin!' you'd say. 'Pippin!' I'd say. 'Say Pippin, kiddy!' and you says – I can hear you now – 'Pip-pin!' you says; and then – what – what's the matter, Miss – Miss Mary? You ain't mad with me, are you?" He faltered into silence.
Mary's eyes still clung to the chaplain's desperately.
"You must excuse me!" she said. Her voice trembled; she shook as if with cold. "I – my head aches; I must go back – "
"Yes, my dear! – go up and lie down!" said the kindly chaplain. "Take a good rest! I'll tell Mrs. Aymer you are not well."
He led her to the stairs, saw her totter up, feeling her way, watched till the door closed behind her, then turned to comfort as best he might a distracted Pippin who stood motionless, gazing with a stricken look at the door through which Mary had disappeared. As the chaplain advanced with outstretched hand, he turned bewildered eyes on him. "What – what's the matter?" he faltered. "What did I do? She wouldn't speak to me, Elder! she wouldn't look at me! She – gorry to 'Liza, she's mad with me!"
"No, no, Pippin!" The chaplain, puzzled himself, laid a kindly hand on the broad shoulder that was shaking like a frightened child's. "She has a headache, and she very likely didn't sleep last night. I don't believe you slept either; go home, now, like a good chap, and go to bed. But stay! First tell me about this family; what on earth do you mean – hey?"
But Pippin shook his head.
"Not now! I couldn't tell you about 'em now! To-morrow I will, Elder. I – I guess I'll go now, sir! I thank you – " He broke off suddenly, with something like a sob, wrung his friend's hand hard, then went out drooping, like a broken thing.
"Dear me, sirs!" said Lawrence Hadley.
Pippin did not go to bed. He had had little sleep for several nights; this last night he had had none. Excitement and emotion had run riot through him for twenty-four hours, and for the first time in his life he had turned from his food. These things, added to the lightning stroke of Mary's revelation and the strangeness of her manner in making it, brought about a condition which Pippin failed to recognize or to understand. His head seemed to whirl; his knees felt "like they was water in 'em"; black specks danced before his eyes. He was dead tired, and did not know it. Puzzled and bewildered, his simple mind fallen apart, as it were, into incongruous fragments; asking over and over again how and why, and again why and how. Deaf for once to the kindly voices of the creatures of his own brain, which had cheered and companioned him through these past months, he ranged the fields like a hunted animal; finally, long after nightfall, he sought his poor room and dropped exhausted on his bed. Here, as he sat with drooping head and hanging arms, sleep fell upon him like a mantle of lead, yet he struggled against it. He was all wrong inside, he now confided to "Ma" whom he seemed to feel once more beside him. "I'm all wrong!" he repeated. "It's like sin, or somethin', was gnawin' at me. I will – " Pippin struggled to his feet and made his little birch-tree bow, but very wearily, as if the tree had been beaten by tempests, "I will praise the Lord a spell before now I lay me down to sleep."
Why, even his voice was going back on him. At the strange, husky sound, his heart grew cold within him.
"My God!" he muttered. "What's this? Has Satan got a-holt of me?"
Clearing his throat violently, he summoned all his strength, and the great voice broke out like a silver trumpet:
"Throw out the life line across the dark wave,There is a brother whom someone should save;Somebody's brother! Oh, who, then, will dareTo throw out the life line, his peril to share?"Thump! thump came the unmistakable sound of an angry boot on the wall.
"Shut up!" cried an exasperated voice. "Shut up, you darned gospel shark!"
Pippin stopped dead; his eyes blazed; molten flames coursed through his veins. He darted out of his own door and grasped the handle of the next one. It was locked, but that meant nothing to Pippin the Kid. One dexterous turn of Mrs. Baxter's hairpin (a dandy tool for light work, sure!) and the door flew open.
Mr. Joseph Johnson was a stonemason, and worked hard all day. He needed his sleep, and was not of mystic or dramatic temperament; it was, therefore, perhaps hardly strange that he was annoyed by vehement-tuneful demands for a life line at nine o'clock o' night. At all events, he was just bending forward to deliver another thump on the wall when, as has been said, the door flew open, and to him entered a lightly clad bronze statue, its arm outstretched, its eyes darting flames.
"Say!" cried the statue; "who are you that can't hear the Lord praised a spell? Who are you to stop a man in the middle of his song? Darn your hide! If you can't sing yourself, be thankful other folks can; you hear me? Have you said your prayers to-night? You never! Down you go!"
Mr. Johnson found himself suddenly on his knees, the statue, kneeling also, holding him tightly by the shirt collar. A short, sharp injunction was issued to Deity.
"O Lord, you make this man behave; he don't know how, no way, shape, or manner. Amen!
"Now!" Pippin rose, towering seven feet high, Mr. Johnson told the scandalized landlady next day. "Let me hear another word out of you!"
Mr. Johnson remaining discreetly silent, Pippin, after glaring at him a minute, dropped his fiery crest.
"Good-night, brother!" he said meekly. "I'm sorry if I spoke harsh. Pleasant dreams to you!"
CHAPTER XX
THE PERPLEXITIES OF PIPPIN
I DON'T know what to do with Mary!" said Mrs. Aymer. "I am really distracted about her, Larry. I don't think she's fit to go with you to-morrow, yet I don't believe anything can stop her."
"She certainly looks ill." The chaplain glanced thoughtfully toward the pantry door, as if he expected to see through it. "Have you had any talk with her, Lucy?"
"I've tried, but I had to do all the talking. She just pulls this little wooden smile – it's just that, Lawrence! it's as if she pulled a string and twitched the corners of her mouth up; there is no smile in her eyes. It's tragic! And all she will say is, 'It is my duty to go to my father; I must go, because it is my duty!' over and over; in fact – " with a petulant outburst – "I seem to have lost my Mary, and got a very beautiful talking doll in exchange – Only dolls do look cheerful," she added, "and they don't cry their eyes out all night."
"Have you heard her crying?" asked John Aymer.
"Heard her? No! But I see her in the morning, don't I? I am not an owl, my dear John!"
"No, my love, certainly not!"
The two men gazed meditatively at each other over their pipes. ("Since my husband must either smoke or fidget," Mrs. Aymer was wont to say, "I prefer to have him smoke; and there shall be no room in my house that he is obliged to fidget in.") But the pipes did not make for peace as usual; the atmosphere of the rose-shaded room was anxious and troubled, reflecting the mood of its little ruler. However things might be with Mary-in-the-kitchen, Lucy-in-the-parlor was not herself this evening. She would knit diligently for a few minutes, then spring up to turn down the lamp, to poke the fire, to straighten an already straight window blind, then plunge at her knitting again, and make the needles fly at a bewildering rate.
"It certainly is an extremely rum start!" said John Aymer thoughtfully. "Makes one feel as if one were living behind the scenes at the – ," he named a popular theatre.
"John Aymer!" The knitting was dropped, and two indignant sapphires burned on the guilty husband. "I don't like to think you are heartless, John," said Lucy; "but sometimes there seems nothing else to think. To make game of a poor girl's misery! Men are – "
"Not at all, my love, not at all! I am as sorry as sorry can be, and you know it. But none the less I cannot help feeling as if I were in a movie. Here are all the materials, black-hearted ruffian, lovely maiden, gallant youth – if that wasn't a movie scene the other night, I never saw one, that's all! – By the way, Larry, what of the gallant youth? How has pet-lamb Pippin been to-day? Or haven't you seen him?"
"Oh, yes, I have seen him. I don't believe he cried last night, but he doesn't look as if he'd slept much for several nights. The boy is as thoroughly upset as the girl." The chaplain stooped to pick up a coal from the hearth; then went on slowly. "On the one hand he is all joy at having found Mary; on the other he is all despair because he thinks he has offended her in some way. How about that, Lucy? They have been good friends up to yesterday, have they?" He looked inquiringly at his sister.
"Good friends!" Mrs. Aymer sprang up again and moved restlessly to the fire.
"Hold on!" her husband grasped her skirt and drew her resolutely back. "My child, if you put the Cape Cod fire-lighter hot into the kerosene, there will be an explosion, and we shall all be burned very painfully. This is the fourth time I have caught you on the point of doing it; the next time, I shall take the thing away and give it to your cousin Selina, who has never moved quickly in her life. Now, my dear girl, sit down, and stay down for ten minutes."
Mrs. Aymer subsided in temporary eclipse of meekness, and John Aymer turned to his brother-in-law, who also had sprung forward when he saw the glowing sponge approaching the brass pot.
"All right, Lar! She will do it, but I am generally on the lookout. You ask if Mary and Pippin have been good friends. Lawrence, I have been conscious for the last two weeks that while Lucy's body has had many occupations, her mind has done little except marry these two young people, establish them in a shed-apartment-elect (to be furnished, I gather, with all our belongings except those actually in use), and assist in bringing up their family. I feel quite the godfather already, I assure you!"
"Dear me, sirs!" the chaplain blew smoke rings and watched them with a critical eye. "I had no idea it had gone as far as that!"
"It hasn't, except in Lucy's fertile brain. Possibly neither of them has thought of it, though I admit the possibility to be highly improbable, at least on the boy's side. If I were in his place – "
Here Mrs. Aymer was discovered to be weeping quietly and drying her eyes with her knitting, to their imminent peril. Both men sprang to caress and comfort her. Her husband vowed that he would, if necessary, hale both the potentially contracting parties to the altar and make Larry marry them then and there. Anything, he declared, rather than have his wife blinded by knitting needles or destroyed by fire. Incidentally, he himself was a brute, and if his little girl cried any more, he would touch himself off with the Cape Cod fire-lighter and have done with it. Her brother said nothing, but took hold of her little finger and shook it in a particular way which had meant consolation ever since he was six and big, and Lucy was three and little. Finally, between them, they coaxed a smile from her, and a declaration that they were dear boys and she was a goose. Then it occurred to her that Mary might sleep better with a hot water bottle; this cleared up matters wonderfully, and she bustled off quite cheerfully, promising John that she would have one herself, and giving Larry a good-night hug as the best of brothers.
The brothers-in-law exchanged an affectionate nod as the door closed behind the little woman they both adored; a nod which said many things, all kind and patient and loving. They smoked in silence for ten minutes, then one asked the other where he got his boots; the other replied, and they talked boots with absent-minded ardor for ten minutes more, then fell silent again.
"But," John Aymer exploded suddenly, "it is, as I said, an extremely rum start. I suppose you feel perfectly sure of your pet lamb, Lar?"
"Perfectly – humanly speaking!"
"Then that's all right. The fellow is so infernally attractive – you understand! If I thought he would make Mary unhappy, or – or anything – I'd wring his neck for him, see?"
The chaplain nodded gravely. "I see! you won't have to wring his neck, Jack."
"Then that's all right," repeated John Aymer. "Glad of it! He certainly is as taking a scamp as ever I saw. Is he – has he any family? Nice comfortable mother or sister who would be good to Mary, eh?"
Lawrence Hadley shook his head; a slow, humorous smile curled the corners of his mouth. He heard Pippin's voice, eager, imploring. "You won't tell any one, will you, Elder? About Pa and Ma, I mean. Honest, sir, they've ben more help to me than lots of real folks I've seen. What I mean – well, I've seen folks act real ugly, you know, to their own flesh and blood; speak up real hateful, the way you wouldn't speak, no, nor I wouldn't, to a houn' dog! But these folks of mine, so good and – and so – well, kind of holy is what I mean, and yet ready to joke and laugh any time – gorry to 'Liza! Elder, I do wish you could see Ma and Pa, I do so!"
"No, John," said the chaplain, "I'm afraid – I have always understood that Pippin was an orphan."
The friendly silence fell again, and the chaplain's thoughts reverted to his conversation with Pippin that morning. What a child the boy was! How almost incredible – if the things of God could ever be incredible, mused the chaplain – that after such a bringing-up (say, rather, dragging, kicking, cuffing up) he should be what he was. Hadley's mind, always with a whimsical thread running through its earnestness, recalled a visit to an aquarium, and certain creatures of living crystal through which such organs as they had were visible as through glass. Pippin was like that, he thought. An Israelite without guile; the child of the slums, the young desperado; Pippin the Kid, alias Moonlighter, alias Jack-o'-lantern. Strange and true, and blessed! Out of the mouths of babes – gutter babes as well as those of Christian homes! But how absurd, how utterly unreasonable, this very crystalline quality made the boy! He had thought that once he found the girl, all would be plain sailing. He had actually expected Mary to start with him, hand in hand like two children, that very morning for Cyrus Poor Farm, thirty miles away. There was folks he knowed all along the road, dandy folks, would be tickled to death to take them in; what say? The chaplain vetoing this proposal decidedly, the eager light had died out of Pippin's eyes, the anxious cloud settled again on his brow.
"She's mad with me!" he lamented. "Green grass! She's mad with me, and I don't know no more than the dead what I done. Why, don't you rec'lect, Elder, she was puttyin' round there [Pippin meant "puttering"] while we was talkin', smilin' and – and lookin' pleasant, the way she does – why, you'd said I was welcome, wouldn't you? Sure you would! Why, sir, we was friends! There's things I've told that young lady – and she 'peared to understand, too, and to – what I mean – not be opposed to hearin' 'em – and then all of a sudden – I tell you, Elder, I don't know what I'll do if she stays mad with me, honest I don't." Pippin's voice broke, and he brushed his hand across his eyes. "Have you any idea why she's mad with me, Elder?" he asked simply.
The chaplain patted his shoulder as he would a child's.
"No, Pippin, I have no idea. I don't even know that she is 'mad with you.' She has had a shock, and a great deal of excitement and – and emotion, and I don't think she is quite herself now. You must be patient, Pippin. A young woman's feelings are very sensitive, as you said yourself yesterday. Mary is very much upset, and she probably feels – she is a very sensible girl, and a very intelligent one" – "You bet she's all that!" Pippin murmured – "probably feels that as you are connected with all this excitement and emotion, it is better for her not to see you just now. Start along with your wheel, and Mary and I will follow by rail. Mr. Bailey can meet us at Cyrus Centre – it's a four-mile drive, you say? We'll be there as soon as you, Pippin, or before. Be off with you! And cheer up!" he added with his friendly hand on the broad shoulder that drooped as it had never drooped before since that hour among the buttercups. "Cheer up, Pippin! 'Praise the Lord with gladness,' you know, my son!"
"Amen, Elder! 'And come before His presence with a song.' I will, sir! Gimme a little start, and I will. So long, sir!"
It was not Pippin's own flashing smile that greeted the chaplain from the gate, as with Nipper on his back, the boy turned into the lane; but still it was a smile, and his chin was up, and his shoulders square once more. Yes, Pippin was all right again. But – the chaplain sank deep and deeper into reverie – what was to become of Pippin eventually? He could not go pirouetting across the stage of life as if it were – Hadley glanced at his brother-in-law, and saw him also deep in thought – a moving picture show. If he had only taken his, the chaplain's, advice in the beginning, and let him find an opening for him in some safe, steady business!
As if in answer to his thoughts, John Aymer looked up suddenly.
"How would Pet-Lamb fit into the hardware line?" he asked. "About as well as a salmon in a lobster pot, eh? Well, we must fit him in somewhere, Lar. I want Mary to stand by Lucy this winter, you understand!"
"Of course. And anyhow, Jack, the boy cannot expect to support a wife by scissor-grinding."
"All right!" John Aymer rose with an air of relief. "I was afraid that you might have some idea in your visionary old noddle. Come on! Let's have an apple and go to bed!"
When Pippin went his way that morning, with many a wistful backward glance at the friendly house and yard where now no blue shape of grace and youth smiled on him, he did not start at once for Cyrus Poor Farm. There was a visit to make first. He plodded along the streets, looking neither to right nor to left, his bell tinkling in vain (two or three housewives waved their aprons and called to him, but he did not hear them) until he came to the now familiar brick wall and the wrought-iron gate opening on the cheerful courtyard. He was a frequent visitor now at the Home; he knew every child intimately, and had won every adult heart, even that of Mrs. Faulkner, who declared that there was certainly no resisting him and that she had given up trying. Mrs. Appleby's heart had been his from the start, as we have seen, and it was she he had come to see, for the children, he knew, would be at school. Still, as a matter of habit he glanced at the upper windows, and was rewarded by the sight of a forlorn little freckled face which lighted into ecstasy at sight of him.
"Gee!" said Pippin. "Now wouldn't that – "
He waved his cap to the little prisoner, and a lively sign dialogue ensued. Had Jim, Pippin asked with expressive action of his hands, run away again and got behind the bars? Vehement denial, the red head shaken till it seemed in danger of coming off. Been cutting up, then, and got spanked good and hard and sent to quod? This also was rendered with dramatic effect, was also denied, with some show of indignation. Then what the didoes was the matter? Pippin spread his arms abroad with uplifted brows. For reply the window was pushed up behind the nursery bars, and a hoarse little voice croaked "Tonsilitis! Been abed – " Here the speaker was withdrawn swiftly from behind, and the window closed again. Mrs. Appleby looked down and nodded to Pippin, intimating that she would be down directly; then turned to the child, with admonition in every line of her firm, substantial figure.
Soon she came, with friendly hand extended; soon Pippin was sitting opposite her in the mission-furnished parlor, pouring out his artless tale of woe and bewilderment.
Mrs. Appleby had been expecting Mary for several days, had rather wondered at her non-appearance. She listened round-eyed to Pippin's account of the attempted burglary – his own part in the drama lightly dismissed with, "I knowed the guys, and I just put a spoke in their wheel. See?"