Dear Friend Elder Hadley Respected Sir,This is to state that I am first rate and hoping the same in regard to yourself and all friends there. Well Elder I am having a bully time right straight along. I am still to Kingdom in the bakery and grindin same as I last wrote but dont think I shall stop much longer, though I like first-rate and if I felt the Lord intended bakin for mine there's no dandier place, no sir nor one where I'd feel more at home. If they was my own folks they couldn't be kinder to me than what Mr. and Mrs. Baxter is. But I have fixed them all right with a nice boy will step right along and make an A 1 baker if he has his health which appears rugged up to the present and he likes real well and so do they.Well Elder you said to tell you when I found a Leadin; well sir I have, and it seems to squint like the Lord wasshowin me His hand. I found a dandy place sir, the dandyest you ever see and folks ekally so, and plenty of room; and savin this boy like, or the Lord savin him through me is what I would say, made me feel Elder I wanted to dosompin for the boys. Yes sir when I see that dandy place and only a few old folks that pooty soon their time would be up I thought fill that nice big house up with boys and learn em farmin and gardenin and like that, why twould begreatelder. Take kids like I was with no folks of their own or bum ones which is worse; what I mean take em away from the city and give em hens to take care of and feed the pigs and learn ploughin and sowin and like that and live out doors with a good house to come in nights and good food and some person that knows boys andfeels forem and knows what some of em has ben through, I think it would be great sir dont you. I tell you Elder there's guys in there, and lifers some of 'em, if they'd ben handled different when they was kids they'dstayeddifferent yes sir they would and you said the same often. Now what I mean is when I've got this present job done and found that kid Im going to follow this lead, because I feel Elder the Lord is leadin me yes sir He sure is. I opened the lids of the Testament you give me and looked and first thing I see was "This should ye have done and not to leave the other undone." Now wouldn't that give you a pain and so it did me and I said lo here was I like Samuel and I am Elder so help me. Mr. Bailey would like it firstrate but he thinks twould take time I tell him I want to start right in soon as I have this job done. I am leavin tomorrow so no more from yours in the Lord and thanking you kindly Elder I am sure for all you done.Yours resp'y.Pippin.
Dear Friend Elder Hadley Respected Sir,
This is to state that I am first rate and hoping the same in regard to yourself and all friends there. Well Elder I am having a bully time right straight along. I am still to Kingdom in the bakery and grindin same as I last wrote but dont think I shall stop much longer, though I like first-rate and if I felt the Lord intended bakin for mine there's no dandier place, no sir nor one where I'd feel more at home. If they was my own folks they couldn't be kinder to me than what Mr. and Mrs. Baxter is. But I have fixed them all right with a nice boy will step right along and make an A 1 baker if he has his health which appears rugged up to the present and he likes real well and so do they.
Well Elder you said to tell you when I found a Leadin; well sir I have, and it seems to squint like the Lord wasshowin me His hand. I found a dandy place sir, the dandyest you ever see and folks ekally so, and plenty of room; and savin this boy like, or the Lord savin him through me is what I would say, made me feel Elder I wanted to dosompin for the boys. Yes sir when I see that dandy place and only a few old folks that pooty soon their time would be up I thought fill that nice big house up with boys and learn em farmin and gardenin and like that, why twould begreatelder. Take kids like I was with no folks of their own or bum ones which is worse; what I mean take em away from the city and give em hens to take care of and feed the pigs and learn ploughin and sowin and like that and live out doors with a good house to come in nights and good food and some person that knows boys andfeels forem and knows what some of em has ben through, I think it would be great sir dont you. I tell you Elder there's guys in there, and lifers some of 'em, if they'd ben handled different when they was kids they'dstayeddifferent yes sir they would and you said the same often. Now what I mean is when I've got this present job done and found that kid Im going to follow this lead, because I feel Elder the Lord is leadin me yes sir He sure is. I opened the lids of the Testament you give me and looked and first thing I see was "This should ye have done and not to leave the other undone." Now wouldn't that give you a pain and so it did me and I said lo here was I like Samuel and I am Elder so help me. Mr. Bailey would like it firstrate but he thinks twould take time I tell him I want to start right in soon as I have this job done. I am leavin tomorrow so no more from yours in the Lord and thanking you kindly Elder I am sure for all you done.
Yours resp'y.Pippin.
The chaplain read this effusion through twice, a thoughtful frown knitting his brow, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.
He tilted his chair back against the wall, and looked out of the window. Pippin had been much in his mind since their parting two months before. This was the second letter he had received from him. The first had been written within a week of Pippin's leaving Shoreham, and told of his finding Nipper Crewe dying by the roadside, and of the wheel that he considered rightly his. That was a singular meeting, the chaplain thought. The old sinner, full of evil deeds and memories, suspected of many crimes large and small, yet so crafty withal and so passionately bent on keeping out of prison that for the most part he had succeeded. The chaplain shook his head, recalling one inmate and another, who, shaking an impotent fist, choking with rage, had told how after the "deal" for which he was "pinched," Nipper, the instigator of it, had slipped quietly off under the very noses of the police. While his mate and dupe was there, raging and choking, Nipper would be roaming the country at large with his wheel, grinding more or less, observing a great deal, planning the next neat little job. Yes, Nipper was a bad one! And strange to think of Pippin's being chosen to comfort the old sinner in his last hour and inherit the wheel that had been an innocentparticeps criminisin so many "deals"! Well, Pippin could comfort him if anyone could, thought the chaplain.
Still looking out of the window, he let his thoughts run back to the day—could it be two years ago? It seemed hardly more than as many months—when he first saw Pippin. His first Sunday as prison chaplain! He had accepted the call because it seemed right; a new hand seemed needed—his thoughts ran off the track, as other visions came crowding in; he brought them back with an effort.
He felt anew, with almost the same shock of strangeness, the first impression of seeing his new flock in chapel that day. The rows on rows of faces, sharp or lowering, weak or silly or vacant, degenerate or sodden, a few that were actually vicious—they were seldomreallyvicious, his poor boys. Suddenly a head lifted, and he saw the face as of a strayed seraph; then presently heard the voice, as of the same seraph at home, singing. The chaplain broke into a little laugh.
Let the bright seraphim in burning row—
Let the bright seraphim in burning row—
That line came insistently to his mind whenever he heard Pippin sing; yet he knew perfectly well that Milton's seraphim were not singing, but blowing their loud uplifted angel trumpets. Perhaps—perhaps voices and trumpets were more alike there?—Anyhow, Pippin's voice had a trumpet note in certain hymns that he specially loved.
The process of Pippin's conversion—to call it that; the chaplain sought for a better word, rejecting in turn a dozen or more—had been the happiest episode of the two years. Plenty of good and cheerful and hopeful things, but that—whathadit been like? Chipping off the baked ashes—in Herculaneum, say—and coming upon the lucid marble of some perfect statue? No! A statue was after all a statue, and could give back no warmth. Mining, then, in dark and cold and foul air—poor boys! there was so much good in the worst of them, though!—and finding a vein of virgin gold—No! Gold was nothing but gold, after all. What—Ah! Here it was! Fumbling with the keys of an organ in the dark, feeling about, waking here a mutter, there a discord, there again a shriek—till suddenly one struck the true chord andthe music broke out like sunlight—Or wasn't it after all just that, just sunlight, breaking from a cloud—
"Come in!" the chair was brought hastily to its normal position. A guard touched his cap in the doorway. "Beg pardon, sir, but French Bill has broke loose. Keeper said you was to be told—"
The chaplain was on his feet in an instant. "What has happened? Tell me as we go along!"
"Fell foul of Tom Packard with his bucket, and mauled him consid'able. I've been lookin' for it these two days. Tom was waitin' at his table, and Bill thought he give him a small egg o' purpose."
"Dear me, sirs! Who is with him now?"
The guard chuckled. "There's no onewithhim! Anybody wouldn't be very comf'table there just now. Jones is handy by, lookin' after him. You can hear him now!"
They could. A muffled roar, rising now and then into a bellow. As they drew nearer, the roar became articulate, and resolved itself into a sustained and passionate request for the blood, liver, and other vital adjuncts of Thomas Packard. "Lemmegetaholdofhim—lemmegetaholdofhim!" Coming down B corridor the clamor was deafening, echoed back from side to side of the narrow passage; accompanied moreover by banging of fists, kicking of feet against iron bars. The chaplain sighed and longed for Pippin. Nobody could manage Bill like Pippin. He usually knocked him down and sat on his chest singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" till the fit was over. There wasn't a mite of harm in Bill, Pippin always maintained, only he was nervous, and come to get worked up, he b'iled right over.
The other inmates of B corridor were listening to the uproar, some laughing, others sympathizing with Bill or Tom, as the case might be. Opposite the grated door of the cell a turnkey leaned against the wall, a stolid, unmoved figure. "Here comes chaplain!" the murmur ran from cell to cell; and every face was pressed eagerly against the grating. "Here's chaplain! Chaplain'll sort him!"
Bill himself seemed wholly unconscious of Mr. Hadley's approach. He was a French Canadian, a slender, active fellow. In repose, his face was gentle and rather pensive; now it was the face of a mad wildcat. Shaking the bars with all his strength, he continued to pour out in a monotonous roar his request for the vital organs, amply detailed and characterized, of "Tompackard!"
The chaplain surveyed him quietly for a few minutes in silence; then drew a small square phial from his pocket, and unscrewing the metal top, held it between the bars to the man's nose. With a howl of twenty-wildcat power the fellow let go the bars and staggered backward. Instantly Hadley unlocked the door and stepped inside, closing it quickly after him.
"Now then, Bill," he said quietly, "what's all this row?"
Shaking and glaring, the man cowered in the farthest corner, rubbing his nose, clutching his throat.
"W'at you kill me for?" he muttered hoarsely. "W'at you kill me for,mon père? I do you no harm!"
"I haven't killed you. Sit down, Bill. You've been making a horrid row, do you know it? And you've kicked the toe right out of your boot. Now look at that! Those boots were new last month. You'll have to put anew toe cap over that, or the Warden will have you up for untidiness." He bent to examine the toe. "That's too bad! those new boots!"
"I mend heem!" Bill bent eagerly beside him. "I mend heem good,mon père! Warden nevaire see; I mak heem better as new."
"Well, see you do! And while you're about it, I wish you would look over my shoes, the pair you resoled for me, and see if you can't take the squeak out of them. It doesn't do for the chaplain to go round with squeaking boots, you know; he might disturb quiet fellows like you. By the way, what was your row about, Bill? I heard you had been pitching into Tom Packard."
They had sat down on the bed, the better to examine the injured toe cap. Bill looked up with a shrug, half ashamed, half sulky, wholly Gallic. "He been treatin' me mean, long time, two t'ree days. He geeve me de smalles' egg he can find for my breakfast; leetle, leetle, like pigeon's egg."
"Well, I got a bad egg the other day; halfway to a chicken it was; but I didn't break the cook's head, as I understand you broke poor Tom's."
"Yes! yes! I break hees head; I kill heem if I could. Yes, sir!"
"And now you're ashamed, eh? You know you are, Bill, you may as well own up." After some argument, Bill owned that he was ashamed and promised amendment. "Then that's all right!" The chaplain rose with an air of relief. "I'll speak a word to Father O'Neill, and he'll give you a nice little penance, and you'll make it up with Tom. I'm going to see him now, and I shall tell him you are sorry—yes, I shall, because you are, you know, sorry and ashamed. But remember!" Hedrew out the square green phial and held it up. "The next time you'll get it stronger!"
The man recoiled in terror, clasping his hands over his nose. "Non! non, mon père!Not kill me again! W'at ees eet? W'at you call eet?"
"Aromatic spirits of ammonia." The chaplain eyed the bottle gravely, shook his head, and put it back into his pocket. "No joke, is it, Bill! Well, good-by, old sport. Remember!"
A wealthy young Squire of Plymouth, we hear,He courted a nobleman's daughter so dear,And for to be married it was their intent,All friends and relations had given their consent.
A wealthy young Squire of Plymouth, we hear,He courted a nobleman's daughter so dear,And for to be married it was their intent,All friends and relations had given their consent.
SO sang Pippin, on a July morning when all the world was singing too. Bobolinks hovering, trilling, lighting, half mad with glee; catbirds giving grand opera in the willows; thrushes quiring psalms in the birches. Pippin stopped short as a dignified robin with the waistcoat of an alderman perched on a blackberry vine at his elbow and poured out a flood of liquid melody. "Like out of a jug!" said Pippin. "How d'you s'pose he does it? Gorry to 'Liza, howdoyou s'pose he does it!
"A day was appointed to be the wedding day,A young farmer was chosen to give her away;But soon as the lady this farmer did spy,She cried in her heart, "Oh, my heart!" she did cry.
"A day was appointed to be the wedding day,A young farmer was chosen to give her away;But soon as the lady this farmer did spy,She cried in her heart, "Oh, my heart!" she did cry.
"Rest easy a spell, Nipper, and I'll rest too, and listen how he does that."
Nipper was the wheel. Setting it on the ground, Pippin sat down under a wide-branching oak and listened while the robin, like a certain wise thrush we know of, sanghis song twice over, carefully and thoroughly. Pippin, his head cocked much as the singer's was, noted each cadence, and when the music ceased, repeated it in a clear, mellow whistle. Robin, much intrigued, sang a third time, and a fourth, cocked his head still further and listened critically. Pippin replied more correctly than before; so it might have gone on indefinitely, but for an inquisitive crow who came bustling down to see what it was all about. Robin flew away scornfully, repudiating intercourse with crows; Pippin flirted his handkerchief and told the intruder to be off with himself for an old black juggins.
Leaning against the oak bole, at peace with all mankind, Pippin listened and looked, looked and listened. Presently he became aware of an undertone of sound which made so perfect an accompaniment to the bird concert that he had not at first distinguished it. In the fringe of weeds beside the road a brook was murmuring over pebbles, gently, persistently, wooingly. The July sun was hot; he had been walking since sunrise.
"I'll have me a wash!" quoth Pippin.
"I'll have me a drink, and I'll have me a wash,And then I'll be clean as a whistle, by—"
"I'll have me a drink, and I'll have me a wash,And then I'll be clean as a whistle, by—"
He stopped abruptly: he had promised Mrs. Baxter not to say "gosh"; it wasn't an expression she cared to hear him use, not real nice someways.
"And Nipper shall have a bath too!" he said gleefully. "Nip, all the bath you've had these two days is squatterin' in the dust like a hen. I'll show you; just you wait!" Carrying the wheel, he plunged into the green covert; the trees closed behind him. "Green grass!" said Pippin.
There was grass, certainly, long rank grass, such as leans over in graceful curves and dips into brooks. There were sweet rushes too, and jewel weed, and cardinal flowers, which Pippin viewed with respectful admiration, asking, now honestly did you ever? Flowing between these lovely things, taking them quite as a matter of course, was the brook, clear and brown—something like Pippin's eyes, I declare!—babbling over mossy stones, with here a fairy cataract all cream and silver, there a round pool where Pippin might have found a trout, if he had known enough. But he did not know enough, knew in fact nothing whatever about trout; they are not found in cellars, nor in any part of a slum. Kneeling on a flat stone, he drank long draughts of delight, now from his cupped palms, now in sheer boyish glee, putting his mouth to the bubbling silver, letting it splash and tinkle over his face. No thought of germs disturbed his joy; he knew no more of germs than of trout.
Next he pulled off his shirt, pulled out his file and bestowed it safely in a pocket, and producing a bit of soap, fell to splashing about at a tremendous rate, sending trout, lucky bugs, germs and all helter-skelter off in a fright.
A sculptor, watching Pippin at his ablutions, would have wondered how the child of the slums should have developed such muscles as rippled under his brown satin skin. Pippin could have told him. Dod Bashford kept his boys lithe and active as young eels; if they didn't move quick, the rawhide curled about their backs and legs in good shape, Pippin could tell the sculptor. Sometimes the vision would come back even now: boys fighting in a cellar or in the reeking court outside, rolling over and over on the ground, pommelling, kicking, scratching,biting—there were no sporting rules in Bashford's gang. The big brute would stand watching the little ones with an occasional "Go it, pup!" till he was tired or bored, when "Hook it!" followed by the hiss and sting of the rawhide, sent them apart, bleeding, cursing, often weeping with sheer rage and unsated lust of battle. Gee! Remember that fight he had with Nosey, last winter he was with Bashford? Slim, long-legged, snaky kind of guy, Nosey was. Some like a fox; some like a rat, too, a sandy rat: sharp p'inted nose on him. Gee! Pippin gave him a good one on that p'inted nose. Gee! He didn't guess it had p'inted so straight since!
Far enough from Bashford's, here in the green thicket, Pippin splashed to his heart's content: at last, dripping and joyous, he rose and shook himself like a water-dog, spattering the leaves and rushes with crystal drops. "Green grass!" he sighed, "that was great!" Next he washed his red handkerchief and his "other" pair of socks, and hung them on a bush to dry; filed a callous on the sole of his foot that had made him walk "pumple-footed" the last day or two; ran his fingers through and through his hair till it curled like that of the Borghese Hermes.
"Now it's Nipper's turn; come on, Nip!"
He had grown fond of the wheel. It was a faithful creature, following obediently whither he would, whizzing cheerfully, singing, Pippin made no doubt, the only song was give it to sing. This last day or two, though, it had developed a squeak and rattle that was new to him; behooved him look her over and see what was loose.
Having wiped the dust off and oiled the whole apparatus, he proceeded to examine it carefully, inch by inch. He had done this many times before; had in fact kept thelittle machine in apple-pie order, partly for its own sake and his, partly as in duty bound to the departed Nipper. Old Nipper! He had been a rip, Pippin reflected, same as Old Man Blossom; but yet he sure had done him a good turn leaving him the wheel. Now—here was a thing had oftentimes puzzled him of late—what did Old Man Blossom know about Nipper? They might have been pals, he presumed likely; birds of a feather, you know! Well, yes, that; but Old Man seemed to have some hunch about the wheel; laffed fitterbust, and said them things, you rec'lect. Pippin had studied 'em over and studied 'em over, but he didn't get no—
A clock strikes when it is ready, not before. Pippin's clock struck now. Something he had never yet touched, or never in the right way, moved under his hand. A click, and the metal plate bearing the maker's name slid aside, revealing a long narrow cavity. Who could have guessed such a possibility in the compact little contrivance? With a smothered "Gee!" Pippin peered eagerly into the hole or box, thrust in his hand, and brought out a small object. He turned it over and over in his hand, still muttering suppressed "Gee's!" opened it, and sat staring, motionless.
A leather case containing a set of small tools. Nothing strange about that, Pippin, is there? Very ingenious to pack in this little space the tools needed for his trade! Clever Nipper! Why do you stare so, Pippin, and why does your face flush under its wholesome tan?
His eyes riveted to the tools, Pippin sank down on the grass. He handled them, one by one, and a bright spark came into his eye.
"Green grass!" he muttered. "Now wouldn't that—"
If you or I had looked over his shoulder, we should have seen at once that some of these were unfamiliar tools. A screw driver—yes! a pair of nippers—yes! a file—yes! but what were these three little shining objects which Pippin was fitting together with eager, trembling fingers? Now they are joined and make a slender bar of solid steel, one end flattened to a sharp edge. That is a jimmy, and Pippin is looking with shining eyes at a miniature but perfect set of burglar's tools.
"Now wouldn't that—" said Pippin. Sitting back on his heels, he took the tools out one by one and examined them carefully, handling them like a lover, whistling meantime, slowly and thoughtfully, the air devoted to the aged steeple-climber. He ran his eye along their edges; he rang them on a stone to test their perfection. "Com-plete!" he muttered. "These certingly are a complete outfit. Now I ask you honest, would—not—that—give you a pain in your—" Pippin confused the human interior with the gallinaceous. How should he know that we have no gizzard?
"Old Nipper!" he continued. "Only to think of the slickness of him! Went round with his wheel, innocent appearin' as you please, and when he saw a likely crib, he'd up and crack it with these little daisies, just as easy—"
He stopped abruptly, as a light broke in upon him.Thiswas what Old Man Blossom meant. This was why he laffed and 'most had a pupplectic fit; and no wonder! Here was he, Pippin, singing and praying, and all the time taking a cracksman's kit along with him wherever he went! No wonder the old rip laughed! Now question was, what to do with 'em?
What say? No one was near; he was alone in thegreen murmuring place; yet some one did certainly seem to be speaking. Pippin cocked his ear to listen.
A shame to destroy good tools, pretty set like this, prettiest he ever saw or like to see? Might come in handy for any kind of work—even the jimmy? Any one might want to use a bar—farmin' like, or—
The strong brown fingers seemed to close of themselves, without will of his, round the tools, fondling them. Something like quicksilver ran crinkling through him—
"Now HONEST!" said Pippin. "Just watch me, will you?"
A flash in the sunlight where it broke through the leafy screen; a silver splash—the lucky bugs scattered in terror, and a solemn bullfrog tumbled headfirst off the stone from which he had been watching. Another flash and splash, and now a whole shower of them. Sang Pippin:
"There was an old man,And he was mad,And he ran up the steeple.He took offHis great big hat,And waved it over the people!"
"There was an old man,And he was mad,And he ran up the steeple.He took offHis great big hat,And waved it over the people!"
Later, he sat under the wayside oak and communed with himself. How did he account for that? he asked. Honest, now, wouldn't it gave you a pain? Here he was, the Lord's boy, a professin' Christian, belongin' to every church they was, he expected, startin' out all so gay to do the Lord's work, and Him knowledgeable to it, and helpin' along; and then all in a minute some part of him—something he couldn't get a holt of—give a jump, andwantedthem things, wanted 'em like—Gorry to 'Liza!You couldn't have no ideahowhe wanted 'em! and yet 'twasn't him, neither: all the time he was lookin' on, you might say, struck all of a heap. Now how would you make that out? Honest, how would you?
After some thought, Pippin expected that it was the devil. He was always round, you know, like a roarin' line, seekin' whom he could devour 'em up. Behooved him keep a sharp lookout!
But, said another part of his brain, ekally the Lord was round, and more so, let him bear in mind. The Lord was mindful of His own; Elder Hadley had wrote that in the Testament and Psalms he give him, and 'twasso; and the Lord was stronger than the devil, never let Pippin have no doubts about that.
"You bet He is!" Up went Pippin's head; he smote his knee with a resounding smack. "You bet He is! Satan, you beat it while your shoes are new! I've got no more use for you, and don't you forget it!"
IN a certain pleasant suburb—yes, the city has pleasant suburbs, though when you are in the slums you do not believe it—stands a white house with green blinds. It stands in the middle of a square yard (by which I mean an inclosure, not a measure of space); its front looks on a pleasant street, with a sidewalk, and sentinel maples set at regular intervals; the back gives, as the French say, on a road that is not yet paved, with neither sidewalk nor maples, only a straggling procession of elms, with grass or dust, as may happen, under foot. Yet it is more sympathetic, some people think, than the proper street, and Mary-in-the-kitchen, whose windows both above and below stairs look out upon it, privately thinks she has the best part of the house. So thinks the visitor in the back corner room, too; but we have not come to him yet.
Mary-in-the-kitchen is not in it just now. She is in the yard, hanging out the clothes, for all the world like the maid in the nursery song. She is standing on a raised platform; her face is toward the house, her back toward the road. So standing, with her arms raised, pinning linen along a line, Mary is such a picture that you really must stop and look at her. She is neither tall nor short, but just the right height, and her blue cotton gown takes the lines and curves of as pretty a figure as ever sculptorsighed for. Her forehead is broad and smooth, and her hair ripples round it as if for pure pleasure. Her brows are black and straight, her lashes black and curled, and her eyes violet blue with brown shadows; you may see the color in clear water when the wind ruffles it. A short straight nose, a chin like Mary Donnelly's, "very neat and pert, and smooth as a china cup," a mouth with kisses tucked in at the corners: all these things Mary has, and her hair beside. Hair too dark for gold, too bright for brown; rather like October oak leaves when the sun shines through them at a certain angle—but you must know the right kind of oak. Well, then, like a red heifer, a yearling, when her coat is new and glossy in the spring. There is so much of it that Mary hardly knows what to do with it; being a very tidy girl, she has it well braided and pinned in shining coils at the back of her head, but little tendrils will escape and curl round her face just because they cannot keep away; and on the nape of her neck are two little curls that know themselves for the prettiest in the world.
If you asked Mary what she was, she would reply promptly, "A scientific general." By this she would not mean that she was prepared to conduct warfare on approved modern principles; not at all. She means that she has taken courses in General Housework at a certain Institute; and that she is able to do (and does) the work of two "domestics" of yesterday's class, with ease and precision. It stands to reason—Mary's favorite phrase—that she would. Knowing not only how but why a thing should be done, you know what came next, and there you were, all ready. So Mary was the joy and comfort of her employers ("the nicest folks in the world!") and the distraction of all the youthful tradesmenof the suburbs. And here I am still keeping her standing on that platform with her arms uplifted, pinning the tablecloth on the line. Scientific generals do not wash clothes nowadays, nor any other generals for that matter, but this was the employeress's best tablecloth, and Mary knew the stuff the laundry put in, and see beautiful linen destroyed was a thing she could not; it stood to reason.
The intelligent reader knows why I am keeping her there; I do not even attempt to deceive him. Yes, Pippin is coming round the corner this moment. Here he is, wheel and all; high time, too, says the intelligent reader. He is walking slowly, not looking round him, as is his wont, with quick, darting glances, but with intent look fixed on the ground a little way ahead, as if he were searching for something; as indeed he is. Pippin is very busy this morning. He has just established ten or twenty boys (he is not sure which) in Cyrus Poor Farm, and he is now looking for the right kind of guy to teach them the use of their hands. He has never heard of manual training—Bashford taught it in a way, but it was called by other names—but there were several guys in There (remember that this meant Shoreham) that would have made first-rate mechanics, give 'em the chance. Now take 'em young, and—why—why—
At this point Fate tapped Pippin smartly on the shoulder. He looked up, and saw Mary on the platform, with her back to him, pinning out the tablecloth.
Cyrus Poor Farm vanished, boys and all! "Green grass!" said Pippin. He stopped short, and silently bade himself see if there wasn't some pictur to look at. He joyfully absorbed Mary, from head to trim feet and back again, his eyes resting finally on the nape of herneck where the two little curls were displaying themselves, and on the heavy coils of shining hair. Nowtherewas a color! 'Twas the color of a hoss chestnut—no! lighter than that. A bay hoss, then—bright bay, kind o' squintin' toward sorrel; no! lighter than that. Green grass! 'Twas like a heifer, a yearlin' heifer. Now—Pippin smote his thigh lightly—that was the very color Old Man Blossom named in regards to his little gal. Now would you call that a reminder, p'inter like, fear he should forget? Or was it showin' him that gals as had a chance might grow up beauts like this young lady? No, he hadn't see her face, that was a fact, but—here Mary turned round.
Probably neither thought anything in that minute they stood at gaze, save that here was the goodliest person ever seen of their respective eyes; as to how the Fates busied themselves at the time, I am not in a position to say, but the next moment, when Pippin pulled off his cap and smiled, and Mary smiled back, possibly—I cannot say—exceptionally keen ears might have heard the whir of Clotho's distaff.
To both the smile seemed somehow familiar; it was as if—this was not thought, only a sunlit gleam of something too far and bright to recognize—as if each had known how the other would smile; thus, and not otherwise the gracious lines would curve and melt and deepen. How is this? Is there no flash of vision, Pippin? Think! Pippin is too bewildered to think.
"Mornin'!" said Pippin. "Nice day!"
"Real nice!" Mary assented.
"Havin' nice weather right along; seasonable, you might say. Any knives or scissors to grind, lady?"
"Why, I don't know!" Mary came daintily down thesteps of the platform (demonstrating the while a seeming impossibility, that her foot was as pretty as the rest of her), and advanced, looking from Pippin to the wheel and back again. "Are you a p'fessional?" she asked.
"That's what! I expect I can give satisfaction, knives, scissors, or tools; anything except razors; them I don't undertake. Like to have a look at the wheel, lady? She's a beaut, too—what I would say, Nipper is her name, not a female name, but all she's got—same as me."
"Nipper!" the girl paused a fraction of a second. It was as if some faint air stirred, not enough to ruffle ever so delicately the clear pool of memory; it passed and was gone. "'Tis a pretty wheel!" said Mary.
"Take it from me, lady, she's O.K., the Nipper is. Runs slick as greased lightning; I'd show you if you had a knife handy."
"I'll fetch the carving knife!" said Mary. "It's dull as anything."
She vanished, to the perceptible darkening of the daylight, but soon reappeared, bringing not only the sun but a handful of knives, big and little.
Looking at them, and still more closely at the strong shapely hand that proffered the first of them, an idea came to Pippin, which he withheld for the moment. He took the carving knife, pronounced it a dandy but been used some.
"Now watch me, lady!" he said.
A pretty trade! Temp'ry, as Pippin never failed to assure himself, but pretty. See now how lovingly he lays the blade to the wheel. His foot presses the pedal, and the wheel turns; slowly at first, then faster and ever faster till all Mary sees is a blur of gray and blue withnow and then a darting spark. Pippin, holding the blade tenderly yet firmly against the flying stone, bends over it intent; then as the edge begins to fine and taper, he whistles, then hums under his breath, finally breaks out into full-throated song:
"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!"
Mary looks and listens; looks first at the wheel, then at the man. On him her eyes linger, studying his trim khaki-clad figure (his new road suit, a parting gift from Mrs. Baxter, a good wish set in every stitch), his close-curling hair, the sharp, bold chiseling of cheek and chin. My! thinks Mary, if he's as good as he is lookin'!
A distant whistle sounds; a clock in the kitchen strikes twelve, with an insistence almost personal. Mary jumps up from the step where she has been sitting with her feet tucked under her and her hands clasping her knees. There! She's no idea 'twas so late. She must go in and get dinner. She thanks him ever so; that is an elegant edge. How much, please?
Pippin, resisting the impulse to say, "Nothing at all toyou!" names his lowest price. Mary runs into the house for the change, and again the sun goes and comeswith her. "How about the other knives?" she asks, a little breathless with her run. Will he finish them now, and bring them in, or—
Pippin will come again, if 'tis all the same to her. He does not think it necessary to say that this was the idea that had come to him, winning his instant approval. If he times his coming so as to do one knife a day—why—there's quite a plenty of knives and mebbe she'd scare up some scissors too—Pippin sees a long vista of Mary-brightened days stretching before him. He bids her good day—since it must be so—almost cheerfully. Then, if agreeable, he'll see her again soon. "So long, lady!"
Mary stands looking after him—it is strange (or not, 'cordin' to, as Mrs. Baxter would say) how often people stand looking after Pippin when he goes away—till conscience nips her sharply; and she flies into the kitchen and all in a moment becomes severely scientific and unbelievably general, executing amazing manœuvres with saucepans and double-boilers. So scientific is she that when an amorous greengrocer looks in with suggestions of spinach and strawberries, he is hustled off in short order with a curt, "Nothing to-day, thank you!" He hesitating in the doorway with the information that it is a fine day, Mary, with some asperity, presumes likely, but has not time to look. Now, Mary! As if you had not been a good half-hour out on that clothes platform!
She is even a little—a very little short with her employeress, who saw the departing grocer from her window and thinks they might have liked a box of strawberries. Her brother is fond of—
"He's fonder of shortcake!" Mary says briefly, "and it's all ready in the 'frigerator." Relenting, she explains with her own particular smile that there was enough strawberriesleft from supper last night, and she remembered that the Elder liked her shortcake last time he was here. "Besides," she adds irrelevantly, "'twas that fellow with the crooked nose, and I do despise him. He's always making excuses to hang round when I'm extra busy."
This was not really meant as a hint, but still the employeress vanished promptly; to see to something, she said. Mary's smile was even more in evidence at dinner, when the employer complimented her on the carving knife.
"Mary, what have you been doing to this knife? It was dull as a hoe yesterday, and now it's a Toledo blade. I didn't get you the steel you asked for, either!"
Mary, standing at attention with an extra plate, an entrancing vision in blue and white, just enough flushed from her manœuvres over the stove, dimples and smiles and says itisa lovely edge, she does think. A knife-grinder came along, this morning, and he did appear to be a master hand. He did it just as easy!
"Knows his business!" The employer, who is "in" wholesale cutlery, runs the eye of a connoisseur along the blade. "I'd like to turn him on to my pruning shears. Keep a lookout for him, will you, Mary? He may come by again!"
Mary demurely promises to do so. The visitor, who is the employeress's brother, a quiet man in clerical dress, yet with a certain military air and carriage, and blue eyes as keen as they are kind, notices that the girl's color deepens a little, and that a new and distracting dimple appears at the corner of her mouth, as if a smile were trying to escape.
"If I were in the habit of betting," he says when Mary has left the room, "I would lay a considerable sum thatthe knife-grinder will come again, and moreover, that he is young and possibly not ill looking!"
"I certainly would if I were he!" says the employer heartily. "I'd go round a block just to look at Mary!"
The employeress here develops dimples of her own, and says there is a pair of them, and they'd better let her Mary alone, or there will be trouble.
"There are enough people going round blocks to look at Mary as it is!" she says. "She's not that kind, either. She huffed Babbitt's man right out of the kitchen to-day, before I had time to get downstairs."
The visitor says nothing. He did not see the knife-grinder, being too busy with his writing—he was preparing a paper for a conference—to look out of the window; but he has a strong impression that he, the knife-grinder, had not been huffed out of the yard an hour or so ago. And here was Mary with the shortcake!
BACK to the city, Pippin! Leafy suburbs, irradiated by clothes-hanging goddesses, are all very well, but they are not your affair; or if they are, you do not know it. All you know is that you have to find a girl, a girl whose rightful name is May Blossom, but likely changed o' purpose to keep the old man from finding the kid, and small blame to her Ma for that.
Pippin goes over in his mind such scant information as he possesses. May Blossom was put in some kind of a Home joint, being then, the Old Man would judge, six year old, or a year off or on it. Pretty little gal—pretty little gal—Pippin's mind comes to a dead stop.
He brushes his hand across his eyes. The vision is upon him, but only to confuse and bewilder. An alley, or narrow court, where clothes are drying. A mite of a girl trying to take the clothes down. She cannot reach them, stamps her feet, cries; a boy comes and takes them down for her.
"Thank you, boy!" she says.
"Say 'Pippin!'"
"Pip-pin!"
"Green grass!" Pippin murmurs. "Now—now—could that have been her? He always said he'd knowed me from a baby; said he lived neighbor to Granny Faa—I never believed him special; but he sure was a pal ofBashford's. Now wouldn't it give you a pain if that little gal was his little gal; wouldn't it?"
What he had to do now was find what Homes there was, and ask what become of a little gal name of May Blossom—or anyways looking thus and so. Pippin smote his thigh, and threw back his head.
"One thing at a time,You'll earn a dime:Six things in a pickleYou'll lose a nickel!
"One thing at a time,You'll earn a dime:Six things in a pickleYou'll lose a nickel!
like Mr. Baxter says. Now watch me find that joint!"
We cannot watch Pippin through this search, which took several days. True, there were only two Children's Homes in the city; but the approaches to them were devious, and Pippin's methods were his own. First he must find a bakery in the neighborhood of the Home, the one most nearly approaching the perfection of Baxter's. Here he must linger for an hour or more, talking bakery gossip, discussing yeast, milk powder, rotary ovens, and dough dividers; sharpening the knives, too, mostly for brotherly love, for was not he a (temp'ry) baker as well as knife-grinder? Here he would ask casually about the joint whose red brick or gray stone walls towered near by. Home for kids, was it? Well, that was a dandyidea, sure! Did the baker supply—did? Had their own baker, but took his buns and coffee-cake reg'lar? He wanted to know! Well, talkin' of coffee-cake—here yarns might be swapped for a matter of half an hour. Then the baker would be asked what kind of a man the boss was? Or was she a woman? Was? Well—well, even if so! Thursday was visitors' day, was it? Well, he wouldn't wonder a mite but what he'd look in theresome Thursday. Pretty to see a lot of kids together, what?
His first visit to the stone Home with the mullioned windows was a short one. The black-robed superintendent was courteous, but cool; she was not interested in either grinding or bakeries. There had been several red-haired girls at the Home in her time, but none named Mary Blossom, none corresponding with Pippin's description. Was he a relative? No? She was much occupied—"Good morning!"
"She don't want no boes in hers!" said Pippin thoughtfully, as he bore Nipper out of the paved courtyard. "I don't blame her, not a mite!"
At the red-brick Home with the green fanlight over the door his reception was more cordial. The kindly, rosy face of the Matron beamed responsive to his smile. The morning was bright, and she had just heard of a thousand-dollar legacy coming to the Home, so her own particular shears needed sharpening, and she superintended the process (she had a grass plot to stand on, too, instead of a pavement) and they had a good dish of talk, as she told the Assistant later.
Hearing Pippin's brief account of his quest, she meditated, her mind running swiftly back over the years of her superintendence.
"A child of six or eight!" she repeated thoughtfully. "With hair like a yearling heifer's! Why, we have had many children with red hair; the sandy kind, and the bricky, and the carrotty—andthe auburn; but none of them sound just like the child you describe. Then, the parents! You never saw the mother, you say? What was the father like?"
"Like a crook!" said Pippin promptly.
"Dear me! That is a pity. Can you describe him? Not that I ever saw him, but the child might have resembled him—"
"Not her!" Pippin averred confidently. "The old man never looked like anything but—well, call it mud and plaster, and you won't be far off. Now the little gal was a pictur. Hair like I said, and eyes—well, first they'd be blue and then they'd be brown, like in runnin' water; know what I mean? And the prettiest way of speakin' you ever—"
"Why, you've seen her!You didn't say you had seen her."
Pippin looked helplessly into the clear gray eyes that had suddenly grown sharp and piercing. "I—don't—know!" he said.
"Don't know what?"
"Whether I see her, or whether I just—" He stopped to sigh and run his fingers through his hair, almost knocking his file out. "I expect I'll have to explain!" he said.
"I think you will!" The tone was not harsh, but it was firm and decided. The Matron had seen many people, and was not to be beguiled by the brightest eyes or the most winning smile. Moreover, the "pictur" Pippin had conjured up had brought a corresponding image on her mental kinetoscope; she, too, saw the child with eyes like running water and the prettiest way of speaking; saw and recognized.
Pippin sighed again.
"When I say I don't know," he said slowly, "it's because I don't! Just plain that! When I said the way that gal looked, it—well, it's like it wasn't me that said it, but somebody else inside me. Why, I spoke it right offlike it was a piece: 'twas as ifsomebodyknew all along what that little gal looked like. Now—"
The Matron took him up sharply. "As if somebody knew? What do you mean by 'somebody'?"
Light came to Pippin. Why, of course!
"I expect it's a boy!" he said.
"What boy?"
"I expect it's the boy I used to be. I forget him most of the time, but nows and thens he speaks up and gives me to understand he's there all right. You see, lady, when I was a boy, there was a little gal—somewheres near where I lived, I expect; and she had—yes, she sure had hair that color, and eyes that same kind. And when you spoke just now, it all come back, and seemed like 'twas the boy tellin', not me in a present way of speakin'. I don't know as you see what I'm drivin' at, but I don't know as I can put it any plainer."
"What kind of boy were you?"
"Guttersnipe!"
"Where did you live?"
Pippin described the cellar as well as he could. It was no longer in existence, he had ascertained that. Where it had yawned and stunk, a model tenement now stood prim and cheerful.
The Matron looked grave. Her clear gaze pierced through and through the man, as if—his own homely simile—she would count the buttons on the back of his shirt.
"What references have you?" she asked presently.
"References?" Pippin looked vague.
"Yes! I don't know anything about you—except that you are certainly a good scissor-grinder!" she smiled, half relenting. "You want to know about one of ourgirls—about some one who might have been one of our girls—" she corrected herself hastily—"and you say you were a guttersnipe and her father was a crook. Young man, our girls have nothing to do with crooks or guttersnipes, you must understand that. Unless you can refer me to some one—" her pause was eloquent.
"I wish't Elder Hadley was here!" said Pippin. "He'd speak for me, lady!"
"Elder Hadley? Where does he live?"
Pippin sighed, fingered his file, sighed again. Easy to tell his story to Jacob Bailey and Calvin Parks, the good plain men who had known good and evil and chosen good all their lives long; less easy, but still not too hard, to tell it to the kind Baxters who knew and loved him: but here, in the city, to a woman who knew crooks and guttersnipes and probably feared or despised them—not easy! Still—
"You see, lady," said Pippin, "'tis this way."
The Matron heard his story, listening attentively, now and then putting a shrewd question. When it was over, she excused herself, not unkindly but with a grave formality unlike her first cheerful aspect. She must attend to something in the house. If he could wait ten or fifteen minutes—
"Sure!" said Pippin. "And I might be sharpening the meat knife or like that? I'll throw it in for luck."
While he was sharpening the meat knife (which, he said to himself, had been used something awful; you'd think they'd gone over it with a crosscut saw!), he heard a cheerful hubbub in the street outside; distant at first, then louder, as turning a corner; louder still, as close athand; till with a deafening outburst of treble and alto the gate of the courtyard was flung open, and—
"Green grass!" cried Pippin. "Here's the kids!"
Here they were indeed, just out of school, rosy, tousled, jubilant: boys and girls, the former small, the latter all sizes from kindergarten toddlers to the big sixteen-year-old maiden to whose skirts they clung. At sight of a strange man they checked, and the hubbub fell into sudden silence; only for a moment, though, for Pippin smiled, and in another minute they were all around him, hustling and elbowing to get the closest sight of the wheel.
"Easy!" said Pippin. "Easy does it! Don't come too nigh her; she bites!" There was an instant recoil, with symptoms of possible flight. "What I would say," he went on, "she'll bite if you touch her; no other ways. Look with your eyes and not your hands!And not your hands!"
A swift shove of his elbow saved the fingers of a small boy who thought he knew better, and sent him back upon his more prudent neighbors. Shouts resounded.
"Jimmy got his!"
"Yeh! Jim-may! You got yours!"
The culprit faced round with crimson cheeks and doubled fists. He had only been at the Home a few weeks, and fighting was still his one form of argument; a snub-nosed, freckled bull pup of a boy. Pippin observed him, and liked his looks.
"Say!" said Pippin. "Look at here! Want to hear her sing?"
"Hear who sing, Mister?"
"The wheel! Stow your noise a sec., while I ask her." He bent over the wheel and seemed to speak and listen. The children waited open-mouthed, goggle-eyed. "Says she'sgot a cold," he announced cheerfully, "and feels bashful beside! Say, I'll have to sing for her. What say?"
"Yep, Mister! Do, Mister! Sing, Mister!" came in chorus.
"O.K. You'll have to keep still, though. I'm bashful myself, you see. Now then—Where's the smallest kid? Here, kiddy! Come to Pippin! Don't be skeered, he won't bite nuther. Gimme your hands—that's a daisy! Now then—