Laura Richards
Pippin; A Wandering Flame

"Of course you are straight, Pippin! Easy, old chap. Take it easy! Look out, officer!"

Mr. Dod Bashford, after one glance at the contents of the secret compartment, had been edging unostentatiously toward the door. As Cassidy stepped aside to let the chaplain enter, he made a sudden dash, amazingly swift for so heavy a man, and diving between the colossal legs, got halfway out of the door; but calculating his chance a little too closely, he upset the equilibrium of Mr. Cassidy, who sat down suddenly and heavily, blocking the doorway more completely than before.

"Hold on, Dod!" he said, seizing Mr. Bashford's legs in a grip of iron. "Hold on! I ain't sure about young Pippin, or whatever his name is, but I've no doubts about you, my man. You're wanted on several counts, and I don't doubt but your respectable son is too. Hold still! You don't want I should have to knock you out before the ladies, do you? I'm ashamed of you!"

Bashford struggled savagely, desperately, muttering curses under his breath. His son moved quietly to the window and investigated the firmness of the fly screen.

But now more footsteps were heard. Two men came running along the lane, into the yard, up the steps; stars shone, truncheons waved, handcuffs clinked. In two minutes all was over, and the Bashfords, relapsing instantly into the hunch, skulk, cringe of the habitual criminal, stood in apparent humility before the Force.

One of the newcomers, surveying the group, broke into a jovial laugh.

"Well done, Dennis Cassidy!" he cried. "Bully for you! Let's hear anyone say again that you go to sleep on your beat!"

CHAPTER XIX
A KNOT IN THE THREAD

IT was afternoon of the next day. Mary's kitchen was in its customary trim perfection, so far as Mary could make it so. She had scrubbed and polished all the morning, determined to remove every trace of the hateful doings of the night before. Such actions going on in her kitchen! Real bad folks there, and policemen, and all! Of course the room needed cleaning; it stood to reason. One trace, however, could not be scrubbed or polished away. It would need more than brush and mop to mend that plaster, cracked and starred where the savage blow had struck it. Mary, gazing at it over her broom, found herself suddenly sobbing, the tears running down her cheek.

"He would have been killed!" she murmured. "But for being so quick, he would have been killed. My soul! Oh, I thank the Lord for saving him. I do thank Him!"

But that was morning. Now, as I said, it was afternoon, and Mary, in her afternoon apron with its saucy pockets and bewildering blue ribbons, was putting away the newly washed luncheon dishes. Pippin had helped her wash them; he would not take no for an answer. Coming a little early for his promised talk with the Elder, he had found Mary still at work, in blue pinafore, and had taken a hand as a matter of course. They were very silent at first over the dishes. Both were shaken by the events of the night. Pippin still felt the theft of the blue ribbon heavy on his soul. Mary, stealing glances at him under her eyelashes, saw again the flash of the brass knuckles; saw – in thought only, thank God! Oh, all her life she would be thanking God – the bright face all crushed and shattered —

She gave a little scream under her breath, lifting her head quickly. Pippin stooped at the same moment to set down a dish, and their heads came together smartly. This brought laughter, and thereafter things went much better. They talked – of trivial things, to be sure, the weather, and crockery, and hardware. Both instinctively avoided the depths, but somehow each found an astonishing quality in the mere sound of the other's voice, something soothing, cheering, uplifting, all at once. So the dishwashing was a singularly pleasant little ceremony, only too short, Pippin thought. Seemed a pity folks didn't eat more. He would not hear of Mary's leaving the kitchen when Mr. Hadley came. The idea! He had nothing to say but he'd say it better for her bein' there; nor would he accept Mrs. Aymer's kindly proffer of the parlor. Full as much obliged to her, but – he looked appealingly at the chaplain, who laughed outright.

"We shall both be more comfortable in the kitchen, Lucy!" he said. "Come on, Pippin!"

So there they were, Pippin and his best friend, sitting by the table with its bright afternoon cloth of Turkey red, talking, listening, talking again; the elder man sitting with his head on his hand, his elbow on the table, in the attitude we all remember, the younger bending eagerly forward, hands on knees, face alight with happiness.

"No!" Pippin was saying. "You don't tell me Pete is pardoned out. Well, that does sound good to me. Old Pete! Green grass! Well, he's airned it, Pete has. And what's he goin' to do, Elder? Pete's no chicken by now!"

"Going back to lobstering. Some friends have bought back his boat for him" – some friends indeed! Lawrence Hadley, where is that new suit you were going to buy without fail this summer? You still have on the old one, white at the seams, threadbare at the cuffs! – "and he and Tom are going into partnership."

"Tom out too? Great! That surely is great, Elder."

"Yes, Tom is out, on parole; but we shall never see him back, I am sure. I took your advice, Pippin, gave him the money test, and he rose to it at once. You were right. He needed some one to trust him, and to show that he trusted him."

"You bet he did!" Pippin sprang up, and began pacing the room with light, eager steps. "You bet he did, and you done it! Green grass! I would say glory to God! And he found the Lord? Did Tom find the Lord, Elder? He couldn't help but, with you showin' him!"

"Why – " the chaplain paused, and a twinkle crept into his blue eyes, "I think he did, Pippin, but not just in the way you mean. The Lord has many ways, and everybody cannot be an evangelist, and go singing and praying about the country as I understand you do."

Pippin's eyes were very large and round.

"Sure I do! What else would I? The Lord give me the voice, didn't He? Behooves me praise Him with it; that's right, ain't it, Elder? Or ain't it? Have I took too much upon me? Say the word, and – "

"Perfectly right! Perfectly right, Pippin! Sing all you possibly can. But Tom cannot sing, and, if you ask me, I think he would make a very poor hand at praying; but he's a good fellow for all that. It's good honest work he's going to do, too; pleasant work. I'd like to go lobstering myself for a change!"

"You wouldn't! Not with all that mess of cold water heavin' up round you all the time – honest, Elder! I never was in a boat in my life, and I never hope to be."

The chaplain sighed and smiled. The sea had been his life dream. It came before him now, blue, alluring, mysterious – he brushed it away, and bade Pippin sit down.

"You've had your innings," he said, "and I've told you all I'm going to; now it's your turn to tell me, young man. How comes it that you are back in the city, Pippin? Didn't I warn you against it? Didn't I tell you you were sure to get into trouble if you came back?"

Pippin sat down and drew out his file.

"You sure did, Elder! and I never meant to set foot in the darned hole, honest I never! But look the way things come round! I had to, hadn't I? I just fair had to! I wrote you about that, didn't I?"

"No! You wrote me that you had found the dandyest place that ever was, and that you wanted to fill it plumb up with boys and bring them up clean and straight, and that you were going to do it soon as ever you had finished the job you had on hand, but you didn't say what the job was, and you didn't say that it would be bringing you back to the last place in the world where you ought to be."

"Is that so?" Pippin ran the file through his hair anxiously. "Now what a lunkhead I be! I sure thought I told you, Elder. Why – well, anyways, I'll tell you now. Why, 'twas at that place, Cyrus Poor Farm – it is a dandy place, now I want you should understand that; and the dandyest folks in it ever I see – almost!" His eye caught the flutter of blue ribbons as Mary entered after hanging out her dish towels. "And – why, 'twas there I found the Old Man, and made him the promise. He's on the blink, you see; in poor shape the Old Man is, and no mistake; and he wants to see his little gal before he goes – well, wherever he is goin'. His little gal, you understand, Elder; his kid, the only kid he ever had, I presume. Mother took her away from him – I'm sure no one can blame her for that – but – well, she's woman grown now, and he's never set eyes on her since she was a kid. Now wouldn't that give you a pain, Elder? He's a rip from Riptown, and he's never done a cent's worth of good that I know of; but there 'tis! And he plead with me, plead real pitiful, I'd find his little gal for him. What would you done, Elder? I looked for grace in him, honest I did, and I couldn't find one smitch, no sir! not one single, solitary smitch, till – what I mean – till – till I see how bad he wanted his little gal; and I thought mebbe that was the way it took him – you get me, Elder?"

"I get you, Pippin! Go on!"

"And – and mebbe if I could find the kid – I can't help but call her a kid, though she's a woman now, if she's alive – if I could take that kid to him, he might – get me? – might find the Lord through the lot he set by her. I ain't puttin' it the right way, but – "

Pippin paused, and his eyes finished the sentence.

"Perfectly clear, Pippin, perfectly clear; I haven't a word to say. You did right. But who is this old man? You speak as if it were some one I knew, yet you wrote me that Nipper Crewe died. What old man is this?"

Pippin stared.

"Ain't I tellin' you? Old Man Blossom! It's him, and it's his little May – "

Crash! Both men sprang to their feet. Mary-in-the-kitchen had dropped a plate, the first thing she had broken since she entered the Aymers' service. She stooped hastily to gather up the fragments. Pippin ran to help her, but she motioned him away, hastily, almost rudely. No, she thanked him – she was just as much obliged – she thought she could fit the pieces together. She didn't know what made her so careless – here she suddenly dropped the pieces again on the floor and ran out of the room and up the stairs.

"Green grass!" said Pippin. "Now wouldn't that give you a pain? Just one plate, and hurt her feelin's like that! They're so delicate in their feelin's, ladies is. Gee! 'Member when I fell downstairs with the whole of A corridor's dishes, Elder? Now that was some smash, it sure was!"

In her own room, standing at the window with wide eyes that staring out yet saw nothing, Mary Blossom wrestled through her dark hour alone. This, then, was what it all meant. This was what had brought him to Blankboro, the bright-eyed singer with his wheel. He was looking for her. That – that man – had sent him to hunt her down, to drag her from her safe, happy, respectable home, to drag her back to him where he lay, in a poorhouse, suffering a little – oh, a very, very little – of what her mother had suffered through him. After all these years, when she had all but – not forgotten mother; never! never! she broke into wild sobbing and crying – but forgotten him, and the shame, and misery, the cold, hunger, nakedness that he stood for. After all these years he had reached out that palsied, shaking hand and laid it on her. Or tried to! Mary stood still, and let the tide of feeling surge through and through her. Grief, resentment, resistance. Back and forth it flowed, till from its surge a thought was cast up. No one knew. He, Pippin, did not know; never would know, unless she told him. Why – should – she – tell him? No one – except Mrs. Appleby, of course; she knew, but she would keep it close. They never told a girl's past at the Home, unless there was reason; unless she was adopted, or – or married, or the like of that. Even Mrs. Aymer knew no more than that she came well recommended. (But here Mary was mistaken: Lucy Aymer knew all about it.) She had had a note from Mrs. Appleby, asking her to come to the Home on her first afternoon out, and she would. She would tell that kind, motherly friend about – about —

The wild tides stopped racing. Her eyes dropped. What should she tell Mrs. Appleby about Pippin?

Straightway his figure rose before her. His eyes, dark, bright, glowing, looked into hers; she forgot Mrs. Appleby. What was it he was saying?

"He plead with me; plead real pitiful, I'd find his little gal for him. What would you done, Elder?"

She knew what he had done himself. He had left everything, he, a stranger – that is, one that had been a sinner – and come back where he knew there was danger for him, to look for the child of an old rascal who was nothing to him. That was what Pippin had done; and she, the old man's child —

New waves this time, Mary! Hot waves of shame and contrition, sweeping resistless through you, driving grief and anger and resistance away into the nothingness of past emotion.

Long she stood there motionless, still staring with unseeing eyes. At last she heaved a long, sobbing sigh. She would be good. God make her a good girl. She would try.

What was it he had said the other night, when he told her that strange thing about the Bible in his room, about the rules of some queer Society or other? She heard his laugh ring out clear and joyous, saw his head thrown back.

"Honest, Miss Mary, I'll never forget the Gideons. Why, since that night, if ever anything gets me riled up, I take and read 13th Corinthians. Then I'll say to myself, 'Have you give all your goods to feed the poor?' I'll say, 'Have you give your body to be burned? Well, then, dry up!'"

Mary laughed, a little broken laugh with tears in it.

"I certainly haven't given my body to be burned!" she said.

Half an hour later, a composed and cheerful Mary came quietly down the back stairs to the kitchen. The traces of tears were nearly gone; cold water can do much in that way. A Mary-in-the-parlor might have blotted them out with powder, but Mary-in-the-kitchen had never used powder in her clean, wholesome, scientific-general life. Her eyes merely looked rather larger than usual, and the long lashes were still curling from the water. She was not smiling yet, but she was ready to smile when she met the eyes of her friend. How they would flash when she told him, when he learned that his search was over, that she was Mary Blossom, that she would go back with him, to do what duty and kindness could do! How he would spring up —

So coming lightly down to the door, she paused a moment, not to listen, just to make sure she was not interrupting anything private. Pippin was still leaning forward, light, alert, as if even sitting he felt the wings on his ankles; he was looking at his friend, with a glance half timid, half whimsical.

"You see, Elder," he said, "I ain't exactly alone, like you think. You're right about it's bein' poor dope for a guy to live all by himself, but lemme tell you! I've got – what I would say is – well, I've got a family of my own a'ready – kind of! Not what you'd call a reg'lar family, but yet they're dandy, sir, they are so! Lemme tell you! I never told a soul about 'em, but – "

I have described the Mary who came down the stairs; it was a different Mary who confronted Pippin as, turning his head, he saw her and sprang to his feet. Marble white, with a blind dazed look, as if she had been struck in the face, the girl stood motionless.

"My soul!" cried Pippin. "What's the matter, Miss Mary?"

"What has happened, Mary?" Mr. Hadley had risen, too; both men stood looking at her in concern. Had she struck her head against something? the chaplain asked anxiously.

Mary was very well, she thanked Mr. Hadley; she had a little headache, that was all. She kept her eyes fixed on the chaplain, not even glancing at Pippin.

"I came," she said, "to tell you – Mr. Hadley, I heard what – what the young man was saying, and I came to tell you. I am Mary Blossom. It's me he is looking for."

"You!" Pippin sprang forward, with a shout that rang through the house. "You, Miss Flower!"

"My mother gave me the name of Flower when I went to the Home!" Mary spoke quickly and steadily, her eyes still fixed on those kind blue ones that always seemed to know what you were going to say before you said it. "She didn't want my father to find me; I didn't either. He was – he – never mind!" she hurried on. "But I am Mary Blossom, and I will go to see my – father, and try to do my duty by him." She paused. "That's all!" she said, and turned, still with that blind, stricken look, as if to leave the room.

"Stay, Mary!" Mr. Hadley took her hand gently. "No wonder you are bewildered, my child. Sit down, won't you? Let us talk it over. This is wonderful news, indeed!"

"I guess it is!" Pippin had found words at last. "Miss Mary – I – I am clean dumbfoundered, I guess. You! You, little May Blossom that I used to play with, back there in the lane? Well, if ever there was a dunderhead in this world it's me, it sure is. Green grass – I would say, Glory to God! Why, little May! Why, of course it is! Why, look at the color of her hair, will you? Just like he said it was, color of a yearlin' heifer! And – did ever you see a bonehead, Elder? 'Cause you see one now. May Blossom!" He moved nearer, and held out both hands with an appealing gesture. "Look at me, won't you? Look at Pippin! Don't you rec'lect how we'd play together? You couldn't say my name plain at first. 'Pittin!' you'd say. 'Pippin!' I'd say. 'Say Pippin, kiddy!' and you says – I can hear you now – 'Pip-pin!' you says; and then – what – what's the matter, Miss – Miss Mary? You ain't mad with me, are you?" He faltered into silence.

Mary's eyes still clung to the chaplain's desperately.

"You must excuse me!" she said. Her voice trembled; she shook as if with cold. "I – my head aches; I must go back – "

"Yes, my dear! – go up and lie down!" said the kindly chaplain. "Take a good rest! I'll tell Mrs. Aymer you are not well."

He led her to the stairs, saw her totter up, feeling her way, watched till the door closed behind her, then turned to comfort as best he might a distracted Pippin who stood motionless, gazing with a stricken look at the door through which Mary had disappeared. As the chaplain advanced with outstretched hand, he turned bewildered eyes on him. "What – what's the matter?" he faltered. "What did I do? She wouldn't speak to me, Elder! she wouldn't look at me! She – gorry to 'Liza, she's mad with me!"

"No, no, Pippin!" The chaplain, puzzled himself, laid a kindly hand on the broad shoulder that was shaking like a frightened child's. "She has a headache, and she very likely didn't sleep last night. I don't believe you slept either; go home, now, like a good chap, and go to bed. But stay! First tell me about this family; what on earth do you mean – hey?"

But Pippin shook his head.

"Not now! I couldn't tell you about 'em now! To-morrow I will, Elder. I – I guess I'll go now, sir! I thank you – " He broke off suddenly, with something like a sob, wrung his friend's hand hard, then went out drooping, like a broken thing.

"Dear me, sirs!" said Lawrence Hadley.

Pippin did not go to bed. He had had little sleep for several nights; this last night he had had none. Excitement and emotion had run riot through him for twenty-four hours, and for the first time in his life he had turned from his food. These things, added to the lightning stroke of Mary's revelation and the strangeness of her manner in making it, brought about a condition which Pippin failed to recognize or to understand. His head seemed to whirl; his knees felt "like they was water in 'em"; black specks danced before his eyes. He was dead tired, and did not know it. Puzzled and bewildered, his simple mind fallen apart, as it were, into incongruous fragments; asking over and over again how and why, and again why and how. Deaf for once to the kindly voices of the creatures of his own brain, which had cheered and companioned him through these past months, he ranged the fields like a hunted animal; finally, long after nightfall, he sought his poor room and dropped exhausted on his bed. Here, as he sat with drooping head and hanging arms, sleep fell upon him like a mantle of lead, yet he struggled against it. He was all wrong inside, he now confided to "Ma" whom he seemed to feel once more beside him. "I'm all wrong!" he repeated. "It's like sin, or somethin', was gnawin' at me. I will – " Pippin struggled to his feet and made his little birch-tree bow, but very wearily, as if the tree had been beaten by tempests, "I will praise the Lord a spell before now I lay me down to sleep."

Why, even his voice was going back on him. At the strange, husky sound, his heart grew cold within him.

"My God!" he muttered. "What's this? Has Satan got a-holt of me?"

Clearing his throat violently, he summoned all his strength, and the great voice broke out like a silver trumpet:

 
"Throw out the life line across the dark wave,
There is a brother whom someone should save;
Somebody's brother! Oh, who, then, will dare
To throw out the life line, his peril to share?"
 

Thump! thump came the unmistakable sound of an angry boot on the wall.

"Shut up!" cried an exasperated voice. "Shut up, you darned gospel shark!"

Pippin stopped dead; his eyes blazed; molten flames coursed through his veins. He darted out of his own door and grasped the handle of the next one. It was locked, but that meant nothing to Pippin the Kid. One dexterous turn of Mrs. Baxter's hairpin (a dandy tool for light work, sure!) and the door flew open.

Mr. Joseph Johnson was a stonemason, and worked hard all day. He needed his sleep, and was not of mystic or dramatic temperament; it was, therefore, perhaps hardly strange that he was annoyed by vehement-tuneful demands for a life line at nine o'clock o' night. At all events, he was just bending forward to deliver another thump on the wall when, as has been said, the door flew open, and to him entered a lightly clad bronze statue, its arm outstretched, its eyes darting flames.

"Say!" cried the statue; "who are you that can't hear the Lord praised a spell? Who are you to stop a man in the middle of his song? Darn your hide! If you can't sing yourself, be thankful other folks can; you hear me? Have you said your prayers to-night? You never! Down you go!"

Mr. Johnson found himself suddenly on his knees, the statue, kneeling also, holding him tightly by the shirt collar. A short, sharp injunction was issued to Deity.

"O Lord, you make this man behave; he don't know how, no way, shape, or manner. Amen!

"Now!" Pippin rose, towering seven feet high, Mr. Johnson told the scandalized landlady next day. "Let me hear another word out of you!"

Mr. Johnson remaining discreetly silent, Pippin, after glaring at him a minute, dropped his fiery crest.

"Good-night, brother!" he said meekly. "I'm sorry if I spoke harsh. Pleasant dreams to you!"