PIPPIN MAKES A FRIEND
Elder Hadley had tried hard to persuade Pippin to commit himself to some
definite plan when his time was up. He wanted to give him letters to
this friend or that, who would help him to this or that position.
"Give you a leg up!" said the good man. "Why not? I'll guarantee your
conduct, Pippin, and they'll be glad to help you, and give you a good
start. It may make all the difference in the world to you."
"No offense, Elder," replied Pippin, "but I'd ruther not. I'd ruther
walk on my own feet than other folkses', even yours. Long as I've ben
here, I've took all you gave, and thankful; but now it's up to me and
the Lord, and we'll go on our own. No offense in the world, and thanking
you kindly, sir!"
"But what are you going to do?" asked Mr. Hadley.
"Haven't the first _i_dea!" replied Pippin cheerfully. "But I'll find
the right thing, just watch me! You see, Elder, this is the way I look
at it. I was fetched up to a trade, and it was the devil's, wasn't it?
Well! So I got a wrong start, you see. Now I've got to find the Lord's
trade, the one He meant for me to find, and you can't find unless you
look. That's the way I see it. I'm going to take the road and find my
own trade that I was meant for: I'll know it when I see it, don't you
have no fear!"
Pippin fared merrily onward, walking briskly. As he went, he talked
aloud, now addressing the stick, which he called his pal, now an
imaginary comrade, now the beloved figure of the chaplain. This habit of
talking aloud had been formed in his prison days. A wholly social
creature, he loved the kindly sound of the human voice, and when there
was no other to hear he must listen to his own. He even called up the
family that his fancy had fashioned, and pictured them walking the road
with him, "Ma" in her blue dress, with her pink cheeks and bright eyes,
"Pa" brown and stalwart as himself ("only he'd wear a beard, kind of
ancient-like and respectable"), the little girl, even the baby. A
fanciful Pippin; but "I like to have things inter_est_in'," he would
say, "and they can't be real interestin' unless you have somebody to
chin with. See?"
He was deep in an imaginary argument with the chaplain concerning the
merits and demerits of Chiney Pottle, who had occupied the next cell to
his.
"I don't say he's lively company, Elder, nor I don't say he's han'some.
Take a guy like that, color of last week's lemon, and he's got somethin'
wrong with his liver, most likely, and Chiney sure has. He has pains
something fierce; I hear him groanin' nights. I see a yarn in a book
about a bird interferin' with some guy's liver: well, Chiney sounded
like that. But what I would say, you start anybody else groanin' or
belly-achin', any way, shape, or manner, and Chiney's _all there_! Shuts
up on his own, and is orful sorry you--"
"Hi!" said a voice close beside him. Pippin started violently. He had
been so absorbed in talk that he had not heard the sound of wheels in
the soft dust of the road.
The driver of the wagon pulled up his horse and surveyed him curiously.
"Who were you talkin' to?" he asked.
Pippin blushed, but met his questioner's look cheerfully. A thickset,
grizzled man with an honest face, now screwed up in a puzzled
expression, bent forward over the dasher.
"Who were you talkin' to?" he repeated.
"I was just talkin'!" said Pippin. "I admire to talk, don't you?"
The man looked about, to see if any one else were near: then again at
Pippin. "You don't look like a drinkin' man!" he said.
"That's because I ain't!" Pippin smiled.
"Nor yet you don't look loony! Yet there you was, footin' it along, and
talkin' nineteen to the dozen. Looks queer, to me!"
"Does it? Now I maintain that it's more natural for a man to talk than
to keep still."
The man studied Pippin with shrewd, observant eyes. At last, "Like a
lift?" he said.
"Thank'ee!" said Pippin, and in another minute they were jogging along
the road.
"Nice day!" said the stranger.
"Dandy! Havin' elegant weather right along. Don't know as ever I see
better. As I was sayin'," Pippin turned toward his companion, "talkin'
is the way of natur', or so I view it. When a man keeps still--well, it
may mean one thing and it may mean another. He may be gettin' religion:
I never spoke for three days when the Lord was havin' it out with me:
but then again it may mean that he's plannin' to get out, or that he's
goin' home. Why, I've known men that never stopped talkin', mornin'
till night, fear they'd lose their minds if they did; in solitary, they
was."
The man looked at him sharply. "What are you talkin' about?" he asked in
a different tone.
Pippin's eyes met his squarely. "When a thing is so," he said, "it's so.
I found the grace of God, and there's no lyin' in mine from now on. I've
ben doin' time, sir! I'm just out of State Prison."
"Is that so?" The man was silent, his kindly face grave. "What were you
in for?" the question came at last.
"Breakin' and enterin'!"
"Whew!" The gray-haired man drew in his breath with a long, slow
whistle. Again he studied Pippin's face intently. "You foolin'?" he
asked at length.
Pippin shook his head. "Poor kind o' foolin' I'd call that, wouldn't
you? I'm tellin' you the truth."
"Whoa up!" the man checked his horse, and looked about him. A lonely
road, no house in sight, no sound in the air save the distant barking of
an invisible dog. After scanning the landscape, he took a careful survey
of his horse, leaning forward to scrutinize every buckle of the harness;
at last his eyes came back to Pippin with a very grave look. "I guess
we'd better go into this a mite!" he said. "I ain't accustomed to--no,
you needn't get down! I don't mean that. I want to understand where I
am, that's all. Out on parole, are you, or--"
Pippin stared at him; then broke into a laugh. "Or run away? That what
you was thinkin', sir? Why, if I'd run away, would I be tellin'? I guess
nix! No parole, neither. I'm out for good; served my turn--and had my
lesson!" he added in a different tone.
"Breakin' and enterin', too!" the gray-haired man repeated. "How come
you to be breakin' and enterin'? Weren't you sayin' something about
religion just now? That don't go along with burglary, young chap!"
"Brought up to it!" Pippin replied briefly. "My trade, from a baby as
you may say. I've give it up now, and lookin' for another."
"How long were you there? In prison, I mean!"
"Three years. It'll sound queer to you, sir, but I count them three
years the best I've had yet in my life."
Glancing at Pippin, and seeing the bright eagerness of his face, the
stern look of the elder man softened. "How's that?" he said, not
unkindly. "Git up, Nelson!" he clucked to the horse, which started
obediently on a jog trot. Pippin drew a long breath, and threw his head
back with a little upward glance. One would have thought he was giving
thanks for something. Then he looked at his companion, timidly yet
eagerly.
"I don't know as you'd care to hear about it, sir," he said, "but
perhaps if you had a boy of your own--"
"I had! I'd like to hear, son!"
Pippin breathed deeply again, and squared his shoulders, settling
himself in his seat. "I thank you, sir. I'll make it as short as I can.
Well! I hadn't no parents, to know them, and I growed up anyhow, as you
might say, kickin' round the streets. Come about ten years old, a man
bought my time of the old woman who had a kind of an eye to me--she was
no kin, but she was good to me sometimes--and I went with him, and
learned sneakin'."
"Sneaking?"
"Sneak-thievin'! Hallways, overcoats, umbrellas, like that! I hated it,
but I learned it good. Shopliftin', too, and pocket-pickin'! I could
pick your pocket, sir, and you'd never know I'd moved my hands. Your
pocket-book is in your inside breast pocket--" the man recoiled
involuntarily--"and I'd advise you to change it, for you see, sir, in a
crowd, any one in that line that knew his business would slit your coat
and pinch it just as easy--Well! So I learned that, and at the same time
I was taken on breakin's. I was small up to about twelve, and I did the
openin' and gettin' in part. I always hated that. You may not believe
me, but I didn't really like any of it much, but it was my trade, and I
wanted to do my best; and anyhow--anyhow I had to or I'd been killed."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that! He was that kind of man, the boss who bought my time. I saw
him kill a boy--I guess I won't go into that! Well, sir, I grew up big,
as you see, and I cut loose from Bashford's gang. I'd learned all he had
to teach--all that was worth learnin'--and I was counted a master hand
for a young un. Pippin the Kid--I had other names, too, but no need to
go into that. I was as proud of 'em as I am ashamed now, and I guess
that's enough. He tried to keep me, but I was fed up with him and his
kind, so I licked him in good shape and went over to Blankton, 'crost
the river. Along about then I got in with some fellers of my own age,
who thought breakin' was the only trade in the world. They were keen on
it, and they meant to be gentleman burglars, and get rich, and own the
earth, or as much of it as they could cover. They'd been readin' a book
about a feller named Snaffles; I called him a mean skunk, but they
thought he was all creation; well, they were good fellers, and we
chummed up together, and pretty soon I got my pride up and wanted to
show 'em that I knew all they did ten times over. _I did_! They had
growed up in homes, nice clean homes, with mothers--green grass! mothers
that took care of 'em, taught 'em to say prayers, kept their clothes
mended; wouldn't that give you a pain? If I saw them boys now, wouldn't
I put the grace of God into them with a jimmy--not that I carry a jimmy
now!" he added hastily. "I wouldn't, not if it was handier than it is,
and it's dreadful handy! Now a file's different!"
"Why is it different?" asked his companion, half smiling at his earnest
look.
Pippin's hair curled thick and close all over his head, like an elastic
cushion. He ran his fingers through it and produced a small file.
"Anybody needs a file, you see!" he explained. "There's your nails, for
one thing; a crook has to keep his nails and hands just so, or he'd lose
his touch--and yet an honest man takes care of 'em too, or ought so to
do! This file is a good friend to me!" He replaced it carefully, the
other following his motions with wondering eyes. "But a jimmy, you see,
sir," turning an animated face toward his companion, "is a crook's tool,
and no one else's. Well! Where was I? Oh, yes, I had joined them
fellers. Well, we made up a gang, and we got us a name; the Honey Boys
we were. Crooks are real childish, or apt to be; I expect most folks
are, one way or another, but there's lots of crooks that ain't all
there, or maybe they wouldn't be crooks. Elder Hadley would say--but I
haven't come to him yet. So we was the Honey Boys, and we was goin' to
steal di'monds and jool'ry, and the kings of the earth wouldn't be in it
with us."
"My! My!" said the stranger. "An' you lookin' like an honest feller! I'm
real sorry--"
"I _am_ an honest feller!" cried Pippin. He leaned forward and laid his
hand on the other's knee. "Just look me in the eye! I couldn't pinch the
Kimberley di'mond, not if it was stickin' out in your shirt front this
minute. There's no pinch in me! Just you wait! Now was the time when the
Lord began to take a hand. That is, of course He was playin' the game
right along, but you couldn't see the cards; now they was on the table,
so to say. He'd give me just so much rope, and that was all I was goin'
to have. The first big job we undertook I got pinched and run in. Green
grass! how mad I was! You see, it wasn't my fault. One of our gang had a
hunch against me--I'd licked him one day when he robbed a kid. Brought
home a little gal's bracelet he'd took off her at the movies; wouldn't
that make your nose bleed? Well, I made his, I tell you, and he laid it
up; kind of Dago he was, with an ugly streak in him. There was four of
us on the job--country house job, and him and me was the two to go in
while the others kep' watch. So we went through the rooms, did it in
good shape too, got quite a lot of swag and didn't wake a soul till just
as we was gettin' out the window. He got out first and I give him the
bag; just then a door opened into the pantry where we was. He caught me
on the sill, give me a shove with all his strength and knocked me back
into the room, then he slammed the window and run off. I was too mad to
move for a minute, and then before I could get the window open, there
was a woman standin' by me--a tall woman she was, in a white gown. She
just looked at me and says she, 'Why, it's a boy! Oh, your poor mother!'
That took me kind of sudden, because I hadn't no mother, so to say--and
I guess she see the way I felt. I believe she would have let me off, but
just then her husband came in, and--well, it wasn't to be expected he
would look at it any such way. So I was run in, and I got three years."
"In Shoreham?"
"In Shoreham! P'raps you know the place, sir?" Pippin's eyes lightened
inquiringly.
The stranger shook his head. "I never was in it, but I've seen some that
have been--and more that ought to be. Pretty hard place, I'm told!"
"It used to be!" said Pippin. "They tell tales--and there's things still
that don't seem to belong, someway, to the Lord's world. Left-over
barber--barberries--no! barbarisms, Elder Hadley calls 'em. That's it,
barbarisms! Him and the Old Man--that's the Warden, sir--are doin' of
'em away as fast as they can, but you can't clean a ward with one pail
of water. And there's old crooks that wouldn't understand; they--I
dono--" Pippin shook his curly head, and was silent, seeing visions. His
companion jogged him with his elbow. The story was proving interesting.
"You say you found the Lord there; or the Lord found you! How was that?"
"I found Him!" Pippin laughed joyously. "He didn't find me, and reason
good: He never lost me. He knowed where I was all the time. I'll cut it
as short as I can. The first year I was no good. I was mad, and I stayed
mad: there was nobody I inclined to chum up with. There was some kind o'
made up to me, but I didn't take to 'em someway. They was dirty, too.
One thing I'll always lay kind to the Honey Boys, they was clean.
Brought up clean, you see; learned to wash, and brush their hair, and
that; mothers learned 'em. Green grass! and think o' their--Well,
anyhow, I took to that like a cat to cream; I've never been dirty since,
nor I can't abide dirty folks. I just grouched off by myself, and
planned what I'd do when my time was up; nobody thought I was any good,
and I wasn't. All I thought of was how to get out, and then get back at
Chunky--he was the Dago guy I was tellin' about. I'd study over it all
day long. I wouldn't kill him, I thought, just smash his face
(good-lookin' guy, great on the girls, an' they on him), or break his
back so he'd never walk again, or--_I'm tellin' you this because I am
ashamed to tell it_, and because I want you should know what the Lord
raised me up out of. I tell you I'd sit there after workin' hours,
hunched up in my cheer, never speakin' to a soul, just feelin' him under
my hands, feelin' his flesh go soft and his bones crunch--"
Pippin stopped abruptly, flushing scarlet. "Lord, forgive me!" he said
simply.
"Amen!--Well?" The gray-haired man was looking expectantly at him. "Go
on, young feller! You can't stop there." Pippin gave a gulp and went on.
"The chaplain used to come and see me once or twice a week, and he give
me papers to read--nice papers they was, too; I liked 'em--and said I
was in a bad way and didn't I repent, and I said no, I didn't, and he'd
shake his head and say, 'Hardened! hardened!' kind of sad, and go away.
He'd ben there a long time, and it had soaked into him, as you may say.
He'd lost his spring, if ever he had any. Well! come one day--I'll never
forget that day! bright, sunshiny day it was, just like this--I went to
chapel as usual. I liked to go to chapel, 'count of the singin'. I'd
rather sing than eat, any day. I never noticed the words, you
understand, but I liked the tunes, and I sang out good whenever I got a
chance. So I went in with the rest, like a sheep, and sat down, never
lookin' up. I'd got a piece of string, and a feller had showed me a new
knot, and I sat tyin' it, waitin' for the singin'. I never took no
notice of anything else. Then a voice spoke, and I jumped, and looked
up. It was a strange voice, and a strange man. Tall and well set up, he
was, kind o' sandy hair and beard, and eyes that looked right through
you and counted the buttons on the back of your shirt. Yes, and his
voice went through you, too; it wasn't loud nor yet sharp, but you
couldn't help but listen. '_The Lord is here!_' he said. He let that
sink in a minute; then, 'Right here,' he said, 'in this chapel. And
what's more, you left Him behind you in your cell. And what's more,
you'll find Him there when you go back. _You can't get away from Him!_'
I can't tell you all he said, but every word come straight as a rifle
bullet. I wasn't the only one that sat up, I tell ye! 'Twas different
talk from what we was used to. He spoke about ten minutes, and it didn't
seem three; then he stops short and says, 'That's enough. Now let's
sing! Hymn 464!' Well, there was some sung, like me, because they liked
it, and there was a few here and there was professors, but half of 'em
didn't pay no attention special, just sat there. After the first verse
he held up his hand. 'I said _sing_!' says he. 'And when I say sing I
mean _sing_! Never mind whether you know how or not; _make a noise_! I
ain't goin' to sing alone!'
"Gorry! I can see him now, standin' there with his head up, clappin' two
hymn books together to beat the time and singin' away for all he was
worth. In two minutes every man in the place was singin', or crowin', or
gruntin', or makin' what kind of noise was give him to make. Yes, sir!
that was Elder Hadley all over. I let out my voice to the last hole; I
expect I bellered like a bull, for he looked at me kind o' quick; then
in another minute he looked again, and that time he saw all there was to
see. I felt it crinkle down to my toes, so to say. Bimeby, as we were
goin' out, after service, he come down and shook hands with us all,
every man Jack, and said somethin' pleasant. Come to me, he looks me
right through again, and says he, 'Well, boy, what are _you_ doin'
here?' I choked up, and couldn't say a word. It wasn't so much what he
said, mind you, as the way he said it. Why, you was a real person, and
he _cared_; you bet he cared! Well, sir, 'twould take the day to tell
what that man did for me. He told me that 'twas true, the Lord _was_
there. And that--that _He_ cared too. It took a long time to get that
into my head. I'd been kicked about from one gutter to another; nobody
ever had cared--except old Granny Faa; she give me snuff sometimes, when
she was sober, and she kep' Bashford off me as much as she could--but
still--
"Well! I'll bile it down. Come one day, somethin' started me wrong; I
don't know what it was. My head ached, and the mush was burnt, and I
didn't give a tinker's damn for anything or anybody. I did what I had
to, and then I sat down and just grouched, the way I told you. Crooks is
childish, as I said; maybe other folks is too, I dono. Well! So Elder
Hadley come along, and he says, 'Hello, Pippin! What's the matter? You
look like you'd been frostbit!' he says. I tried to fetch a grin, but it
wouldn't come. 'Nothin' doin', Elder!' I says.
"'What's the matter?' he says again, his kind way.
"'Hell's the matter!' I says. I used language, them days; never have
since, but I did then.
"He sits down and looks me over careful. 'What's "hell"?' he says.
"'Everything's hell!' I says: and then I biled over, and I guess that
mush was burnt all right. He listened quiet, his head kind o' bent down.
At last he says, 'How about takin' the Lord into this, and askin' Him to
help?'
"'Nothin' doin'!' I says. 'There's no Lord in mine!'
"'_Stop that!_' says he. I looked up; and his eyes was like on fire, but
yet they was lovin' too, and--I dono--somethin' in his look made me
straighten up and hold up my head. 'None of that talk!' he said. 'That's
no talk for God's boy. Now, hark to me! You like me, don't you, Pippin?'
"'You bet I like you, Elder!' I says. 'There's nothin' doin' in your
line here, but you bet I like you. You've treated me white, and you're a
gentleman besides.'
"'Now,' he says, slow and careful, 'what you like in me is just the
little bit of God that's in me. The little bit that's in you finds the
little bit that's in me, do you see? And _likes_ it, because they belong
together. There's another bit in the Warden, and another in Tom Clapp
there, though I'll own he doesn't look it (and he didn't); and there's a
bit in everybody here and elsewhere. And that's not all! Go you out into
that field yonder and sit there for an hour, and you'll find other
little bits, see if you don't! And see if they don't fit together.'
"He pointed out of the window to a field a little ways off: I could see
the buttercups shinin' in it from where I sat. I stared at him. 'Go
along!' says he. 'What do you mean?' I says. 'I mean _go_!' he says.
'I've the Warden's leave for you whenever I see fit, and I see fit now.'
I looked at him, and I see 'twas true. I got up kind o' staggerin',
like, and he tucked his arm into mine, and he opened the door and we
went out. Out! I'd been in there a year, sir. I don't believe you could
guess what 'twas like. He marched me over to that field--we clum over
the fence, and _that_ done me a sight of good--and told me to set down.
Then he give me his watch--gold watch and chain, handsome as they make
'em--and said, 'Come back in an hour. Good-by, boy!' and he went off and
left me there. Green grass! do you understand? He never turned round
even. He left _me_--a crook, a guttersnipe, a jailbird--out there alone
in the sunshine, with the buttercups all round me."
Pippin's voice broke. Mr. Bailey produced a voluminous bandanna
handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. There was silence for a few
moments. Pippin went on.
"Then, after a while, I found the Lord, like the Elder said. He come all
round me, like the air; I couldn't get away from Him. A little bird come
and tilted on a bush by where I was sittin', and he sang, and there was
a bit of the Lord in him, and he said so, over and over, plain, and I
heard him. And the sun shined on the buttercups, and they had a bit too,
and appeared like they knowed it, and kind o' nodded and was pleased;
and the leaves on the trees rustled, and they appeared pleased, too. And
like a voice said inside me, 'It all belongs, and you belong too!' and
all at once I was down on my knees. 'It's the Lord!' I says. 'I've found
Him, and He's the Whole Show!'"