Laura Richards
Pippin; A Wandering Flame

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

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

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

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

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

He grew purple, and the bed shook under him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pippin met the anxious eyes cheerfully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII
FLORA MAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The girl drew back, her eyes narrowing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That was a close call!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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