CHAPTER IVPIPPIN GOES TO CYRUS

"'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 theycallit 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 outYou 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 manAnd 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, Iama 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 walksContinually are green,Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowersAs nowhere else are seen."

"You bet they do!"

"Right through the streets with silver soundThe living waters flow,And on the banks on either sideThe 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 loavesand 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'mstraight! 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."

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'dbetter! 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—

Otheroffers 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 ofwhite 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 Ithought! But if folks likes 'em pale, why, pale it is!"

The shoemaker stared; Mr. Baxter coughed apologeticallyas 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.Theydrop 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 pileof 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 foolway of speakin', but what I thought was, supposin' I was to ask Him to help right along, 'stead of damn, andmakeit 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 nameexcep'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—whatareyou 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 waslaying 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! thatmusthurt! 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,Andyou will seeSatisfaction you'll find, oh!

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,Andyou will seeSatisfaction 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'sright, 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 comeSssss!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 beensayin' 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 sheiscuterin', 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 poorold 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 offmy 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 ofthe 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-walkingIn the garden so gay,Maid Mary spied cherriesHanging over yon tree."Mary said to cherry tree,'Bow down to my knee,That I may pluck cherriesBy one, two, and three.'"

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

"As they went a-walkingIn the garden so gay,Maid Mary spied cherriesHanging over yon tree.

"Mary said to cherry tree,'Bow down to my knee,That I may pluck cherriesBy 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."

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,makeme 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'srich, 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."

"Thethirdbest!" 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 tobesick, I wouldn't ask no pleasanter place—" He turned to smile at JacobBailey, 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 neatas 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 anyday, 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 boardersexceptMr. 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 wehadpleased!"

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. Peoplemustknow 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 thetone, 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 isnotjust 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 itgood, you know; not whatyouwould 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. "Takethem!" 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. Itwouldbe 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!"

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