PIPPIN SINGS FOR HIS SUPPER
So Pippin sang for his supper, a grateful Tommy Tucker; and the imbecile
girl sat at his feet and listened, rocking to and fro, her lovely face
so full of joy that it was almost--almost--
He sang about the Young Lady who went a-hunting with her dog and her
gun, and about poor bonny sweet Bessie, the Flower of Dundee, and
"Silver Threads among the Gold," which made Mrs. Bailey cry and Jacob
blow his nose loudly. He was about to give them "Nancy Lee," but checked
suddenly. Was he forgetting the Lord, after that elegant supper? Now
wouldn't that give you a pain?
"_That's right!_" Pippin spoke so suddenly that everybody started.
"Excuse _me_!" he said hastily. "I was thinkin'--leastways I wa'n't
thinkin'--well, it don't signify whichever way of it, but if agreeable,
I will praise the Lord a spell!"
A murmur of approval greeted him. Mrs. Bailey's kind face lighted up.
"That will surely be a treat!" she cried. "And--oh, Mr. Pippin, wait one
moment! If you don't mind standing in the doorway of old Mr. Blossom's
room, so he can hear you? He's real quiet now, and I'm sure 'twill do
him good--"
So Pippin stood in the doorway, and threw back his head and sang with
all his heart and soul:
"When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I'll bid farewell to every fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes."
This hymn is left out of many hymn books nowadays; it is old-fashioned,
and some of its lines are patently absurd: but I wish the hymnologists
could hear Pippin sing it. His voice goes soaring up, a golden trump of
victory and triumph:
"There shall I bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest;
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast."
As he finished, he swung round, his eyes blazing, every inch of him
a-thrill. "Old man," he cried, and the passion in his voice made them
all start. "Don't you feel it? Don't you feel somethin' crinklin' all
through you, like sap in a sugar maple? That's the grace of God, Old
man; let her run! Oh, Lord, let her run!"
There was a moment's silence; then Mr. Blossom snickered. It is not a
pretty word, but then it was not a pretty sound.
Pippin was at his side in an instant, his eyes ablaze again, but with a
very different light.
"You old skunk!" he cried, gripping the bony shoulders hunched below the
leering face. "You darned old son of a broken whisky jug, you dare to
snicker before the Lord? For half a quarter of a cent I'd wring your
rooster's neck for you, you--"
He stopped, as if somebody had touched him. His head drooped, his arms
dropped by his side, and he flushed scarlet from throat to forehead. He
stood so for several minutes, no one stirring; then he turned humbly to
Jacob Bailey.
"I ask your pardon, sir, and the company's. I lost holt of myself.
There! I am fairly ashamed." He leaned over the poor old sinner, who was
still gasping from the sudden onslaught. "Hurt you, did I, Old Man? I
ask your pardon, too, I do so. Lemme h'ist you a mite!"
With anxious care he raised the shrunken figure and settled the pillows
under the palsied head.
"There! That comfy, old geezer? Now you go to sleep! I was a mutt to
shake you up that way. Goo' night, Old Man!"
* * * * *
Sitting on his neat bed an hour later, Pippin dealt with himself, as
judge with criminal. His vivid fancy saw himself as two distinct beings,
one arraigning, the other replying. He desired to know whether he,
Pippin, thought he was all creation? Because if so, he took leave to
tell him he wasn't, nor anything approachin' it. Reassured on this
point, he further observed that perhaps on the whole it might be best
for him to go back to Shoreham. Most likely he wasn't prepared yet to
live among Christian folks; say he was to go back for another year till
he'd learned to hold his tongue and keep his temper! How would he like
that?
"Well, then, you behave! If you're a Christian, show up, that's what I
say. What was it you promised Elder Hadley? To look for the grace of God
in every one you see, wasn't it? Well, then! _Did_ you look for it in
Old Man Blossom?"
"Why, sure! Didn't I sing, and pray, and all? I couldn't find no grace,
not a mite, so help me!"
Silence; the outward man sitting with bent head and knotted brows, the
inner--both of him--wrestling with a problem. At last the brows cleared,
the head lifted.
"Bonehead!" said Pippin. "You didn't look in the right place. Prayin'
an' singin' wasn't his kind, no more than they were a dumb critter's.
Didn't he want his little gal, want her real bad? Wasn't that mebbe the
way grace took him? I expect the Lord has as many ways as there is
folks."
Finally Pippin concluded that he would do well to say his prayers and go
to bed and let the Lord run things a spell, as He was full able to do.
And start off next morning, sure thing, or the Boss would think he had
cut. Gee! he hated to leave this place!
* * * * *
"I don't see how you do it!" said Pippin. "Gorry to 'Liza, Mr. Brand, I
don't see _how_ you do it!"
Brand was making a broom; Pippin, smoking his after-breakfast and
before-departure pipe in the barn doorway, watched him with growing
wonder and admiration. His fingers seemed almost to twinkle, they moved
so fast, knotting, laying together, binding in the fragrant strands of
broom corn.
"I've made many a broom!" Pippin went on. "I was counted a crackerjack
at bindin'; but you work twice as fast blind as what I would seein';
that's what gets me!"
The blind man raised his head with a smile, his hands never ceasing
their swift motion.
"I sometimes think seeing folks don't have half a chance at broom-making
and like that," he said. "There's so many things to take their minds
off. Now, take this minute of time. There's a cloud passing over the
sun, isn't there?"
"Why, yes!" Pippin looked up involuntarily, shifting his position a
little to do so. "Yes, sir, there is. Now how--"
"And you had to look up to see it!" the blind man went on, calmly. "That
takes time and attention. Now I _feel_ the cloud, and that's all there
is to it. There are some advantages in being blind; born blind, that
is."
Pippin gave him a helpless look. His eyes wandered over the scene before
him: the wide, sunny barnyard, the neat buildings, the trim garden
spaces, the green, whispering trees; beyond them the white ribbon of the
road, and wave upon wave of fair rolling country, sinking gradually to
where the river flowed between its darkly wooded banks; overhead a sky
of dazzling blue flecked with cloudlets of no less dazzling white. There
was a hawk hovering over the chicken yard. Pippin picked up a stone and
threw it at the bird, which vanished with a shrill scream. His eyes came
back to the figure in the doorway, with bent head and flying fingers.
"Advantages?" he repeated, and his tone was as helpless as his look had
been. "Well, you get me, Mr. Brand, every time. You--you was born blind,
sir, do I understand?"
Brand nodded. "Sixty years ago this month. When I say advantages, I
don't mean I would have chose--" he made a slight, eloquent gesture
toward the clear, sightless eyes. "But since so it is, one looks at it
from that end, you see, and one finds--advantages. For one thing,
changes don't trouble a born-blind man as they do seeing folks. I hear
talk about this person looking poorly, and that one having gone gray,
and lost his teeth, and like that; that don't trouble me, you see, not a
mite. Folks look to me just as they sound. Now take our folks
here--Lucy--I would say Mrs. Bailey--and Jacob: well, their voices tell
me what they are like, see? They called Lucy handsome when she was a
girl; she's just as handsome to me as she was then."
There was a wistful note in his voice, and Pippin responded instantly.
"She's a fine-appearin' lady, now!" he said heartily. "She sure is."
"I presume likely!" said Brand. "She'd have to be, being what she is.
When Lucy first grew up, I made a--a picture (so to say! I never saw a
picture) of her in my mind, and I see it as clear to-day as I did then."
He was silent for a time, then went on, in an altered tone: "Then
there's other things, things that seeing folks don't have. Take hearing.
I hear twice what most folks do, and I hear things no seeing person
_can_ hear; undertones, our music teacher called them, and overtones,
too. Now, you hear a woman's dress rustle, and that's all, isn't it?"
"Ye-yes!" Pippin replied. "That is--I can tell a silk rustle from a
calico, and a woolen from either."
"Well, that is more than many men can do. Women, of course; but not many
men without training." The blind man leaned forward, and felt carefully
of Pippin's ear. "A good ear!" he nodded approvingly. "An excellent good
ear! There's many hold that the outer ear has nothing to do with
hearing, but I don't know! I don't know! The Doctor told me of a king
who wanted to know everything that was said in his house--palace,
like!--and he built it in the shape of an ear. Long ago, Doctor said it
was, and he didn't say he believed it, but I've often wondered. But
you've had training, too; you've learned how to listen, which is more
than some folks learn all their lives long."
"You bet I had training!"
Not a vision this time, though a dim, brutal figure lurks in the
background; not a vision, but a sound!
"Listen! listen, you cursed pup, or I'll cut your heart out. My ears are
thick to-night. Is that a cop's whistle, or a pal's? If you get it
wrong, I'll make you sweat blood--"
"Yes, I had training!" said Pippin.
"Then--" Brand's face was fairly glowing as he turned it on his young
visitor. It was not often that he could speak of his blindness, but
there was something about this boy that seemed to draw speech from him
like a magnet. "Then--there's the other senses; smell--why, what
wonderful pleasure I have in a delicate smell! Whether it's a flower, or
my bacon when it's smoked just to the fine point, or--why, take smoke
alone, all the various kinds of it! Wood smoke, and good tobacco, and
leaves burning in the fall of the year, and brush fires in spring! And
there's herbs, southernwood, mint, lemon balm--wonderful pleasure in
odors, yes, sir! And when you come to touch, why there's where a blind
man has it over a seeing, almost every time. The pleasure of touching a
leaf of mullein, say, or soft hair like the little gal's--Flora May's, I
would say--or a fruit, or a baby's cheek--wonderful pleasure! I wonder
are your fingers as good as your ears? Let me see!" He held out his
hand, and Pippin laid his own in it.
How proud you were of your hands, Pippin! How you used to boast that
your fingers needed no sandpaper to sharpen their exquisite touch! Is
that why you hang your head, and the blood creeps up to the roots of
your hair?
"If he's let to live," a husky voice murmurs, "he'll make a ---- ----
good un; but I ain't certain but I'll wring his neck yet. There's things
about him ain't right!"
Perfectly consistent, Mr. Bashford, and wholly correct from your point
of view!
"A fine hand!" says David Brand. "Strong and yet delicate. You can do a
great deal with that hand, young man. Why, with that, and your fine
ears, you--why--" he laughs his cheery laugh--"I won't go so far as say
you'd ought to have been born blind, but you surely would make a
first-rate blind man!"
Pippin puffed at his pipe meditatively for a few minutes, considering
the serene face and the flying fingers. What a face it was! the calm,
thoughtful brow, the well-cut features, the clear eyes, the patient
look--well, there! If an Angel could be old--that is to say, gettin' on
in years--and blind, this would sure be him! Now--come to see a face
like this, you know the Lord has ben there: _is_ there, right along,
same as the devil was with Dod and Nosey and them. Do a person good,
now, to hear what he has to tell, how the Lord has dealt with him, what
say? He couldn't more than say no, if--
"Mr. Brand!" Pippin spoke timidly, yet eagerly. "You'll excuse me--but
when I like folks, I like to know about 'em; what they've no objection
to tellin' is what I would say. You must have a lot that's real
interestin'--I hope no offense!" he ended lamely.
"None in the world!" Brand laughed cheerily. "Quite the other way, young
man. Old folks don't always find young ones that care to hear their old
stories. I should be pleased--find a seat, won't you? I haven't much to
tell, but you're welcome to what there is!"
Pippin curled his long legs up on the floor, his back against the door
jamb. "This is great!" he murmured. "This certainly is great. I'd ought
to be gettin' on, but I don't care. Now if you're ready, Mr. Brand!"
Brand reached for a pile of straws, measured, clipped, laid them in
orderly piles ready for binding in.
"I was born in Cyrus," he said; "born and raised. I was the only child,
and my parents did everything they could for me. I was a happy youngster
and had reason to be. Everybody was good to me; Cyrus is a good, kind
neighborly place. Yes, sir, I was a happy boy. Always singing and
laughing; I recollect hearing folks say, 'Poor child!' or like that when
they came to see mother. I used to wonder what poor child they meant. I
asked Lucy one day--Lucy Allen, that's Mrs. Bailey now; we lived next
door, and played together always, her and Jacob and me. I says, 'Lucy,
who are they always saying "Poor child!" about? Is it you?' And Lucy
says, 'I wouldn't wonder, Dave! My front teeth has come out, and I am a
sight.' Little girl seven years old: she was that thoughtful always,
Lucy was. She was doing me good turns every day and all day when we was
little: once, I remember, I had a chance to do her one. We was playing
together in Uncle Ivory Cheeseman's candy kitchen--he give us the run of
it, Lucy and Jacob and me, because he could trust us, he said; he was a
kind old man, though crusty where crust was needed. Well, we was playing
there, and Lucy went too near the stove and her dress caught fire. I
smelled it before it begun to blaze, and caught it in my two hands and
squeezed it out. 'Twas a calico skirt; another minute and 'twould have
been in a blaze."
Brand paused, and Pippin looked up inquiringly.
"I've always been thankful for that!" said Brand. "There was a girl at
the Institution who lost her sight by burning, just that way, her skirt
catching at the stove."
"Now wouldn't that give you a pain?" murmured Pippin. "I know what
burnin' feels like, just a mite of it. Not meanin' to interrupt, Mr.
Brand; I'm just as interested!"
"When I was ten years old, mother died, and father sent me to the Blind
Institution. I was there many years, and there I learned all I
know--except what I learned before or since!" Brand added with a
whimsical smile. "That puts me in mind of the first--no, the second--day
I was there. I was to see the Doctor, the head of the Institution--he
was away the day I came--and I was left alone in his office to wait for
him. I was always keen to see what kind of place I was in, so I was
moving about the room, finding out in my own way, when the door opened
and two men came in. One of them was tall--what say?"
"Now! now!" cried Pippin. "How in the airthly did you know he was tall?"
"His voice was high up! That's an easy one, Pippin. Why, _you_ would
know that, with those good ears. He was speaking, and the first sound of
that voice stays by me yet. A _master_ voice! I've never forgot the
words either. 'The first lesson--the hard lesson--you have first to
learn is--_to be blind_--to live in the world without light--to look
upon your life as still a blessing and a trust, and to resolve to spend
it well and cheerfully, in the service of your Maker and for the
happiness of those about you.'"[1]
[1] Dr. S.G. Howe to one of his blind pupils.
He paused. Pippin sat spellbound, gazing at the face that was indeed now
as the face of an angel.
"The service of your Maker, and the happiness--" he murmured. "Say,
that's great! It--it sounds like a song, don't it, Mr. Brand? Or--like
Psalms, some way of it! I'd like to learn them words off by heart, sir,
if no objection."
"He was a great man!" said Brand reverently. "A great and good man. As
he spoke, so he lived, for his Maker and his fellow men. The man he
spoke to gave a kind of groan, I remember; he had just lost his sight--a
gun that wasn't loaded, the old story! Then the Doctor said a little
more, comforting him like, and then he saw me. I had felt all round the
room, and now I had my fingers on a raised map that hung on the wall. I
had heard of such things and was pleased to death to get hold of one. I
suppose it showed in my face, for the Doctor said, 'Here's a little
fellow who already knows how to be blind! Come here, my son!' I went
straight to him--his voice led me, you understand: I could always follow
a voice, from the time I learned to walk. He laid his hand on my head
and turned my face up, studying me. I knew that; I felt his eyes, is the
only way I can put it. 'Born blind, weren't you, my boy?' he said.
'Twasn't often the Doctor had to be told anything about blind folks--or
seeing either, for that matter. Well, sir, that was the beginning of
life for me, in a way. I got my education there. 'Twas a happy place,
and a happy life. I could tell about it from now till sundown, and not
fairly make a beginning. The Doctor was my friend; everybody was my
friend. I was quick, and I wanted to learn; and, too, there was a good
deal I didn't have to learn, being born blind, you see. There's a
passage in the Bible about remembering that 'he was born thus'; I used
to think--"
A silence fell, while Brand counted strands, Pippin watching him
eagerly. A black hen who had been watching, too, her head cocked, her
bright yellow eye fixed on the blind man with the false air of
intelligence affected by hens, came up with a quick, rocking step, and
uttered a long, reflective "crawk!" scratching meanwhile on the barn
floor.
"Hicketty Picketty wants some corn!" said Brand. "Here, Picketty!" He
took a handful of corn from a bag and scattered it. The black hen pecked
vigorously, trying to get every grain swallowed before any one else
should come; but the motion of Brand's hand brought other hens
fluttering, squawking, jostling, to get their share, and there was quite
a scrimmage before he could resume his work.
"I spoil that hen!" he said apologetically. "Jacob says I oughtn't, and
it's true; but she has such a way with her! There's no other hen I'm so
partial to, though I love them all.
"Well! Want to hear any more, or are you tired of listening? 'Tisn't
much of a story; I warned you in the beginning."
"Tired? Well, I guess nix! Why, I'm--why, it's _great_, Mr. Brand! I'm
learnin' something 'most every word you say. Do go on, sir--if I'm not
troublin' you!"
"I don't know as there is so very much more to tell, after all. A man's
life goes on steady; there don't things keep happening right along, as
they do in stories. I've had a quiet life, but a real pleasant one. I
stayed on at the Institution quite a spell after I grew up, teaching in
the shop. Basketry is what I taught; I liked it best, and was good at
it. Then, along when I was thirty years old, father needed me, and I
came home. He was getting on in years, and he needed some one, and I was
the one. His housekeeper got married, and I was handy about the house.
Yes, we made out to do well, father and I, as long as he lived. Spare
time and evenings, I'd make brooms and baskets, and the neighbors took
all I could make. Sometimes I'd make a trip round other places, same as
you do with your wheel, Pippin. I liked that real well. Lucy and Jacob
had married by that time--I always knew they would! I--yes, I always
knew they would, and right and fitting it was. Jacob's folks had passed
on, and he and Lucy lived there next door to us, and was like brother
and sister to me, as they always had been. Cyrus is a pleasant place;
yes, sir, we've all been happy, only when Lucy lost her little
David--named for me, yes, and like my own to me. That was a grief, but
grief is part of our lot. Lucy mourned so, Jacob was desirous of making
a change for her, and about that time they was changing here, too, and
the selectmen beseeched Jacob and Lucy to take the place, and they did.
They wanted me to come with them then, but I wouldn't leave father.
Bimeby, though, father passed on, and then--I didn't make up my mind
right away to the change. I didn't want to be a care to Lucy, and I
thought I could get on by myself, and I _could_; but--well--no need to
go into that. Along about ten years back I come to make my home here
with my good friends, and I've never regretted, nor I hope they
haven't."
"No need to go into that!" Quite right, Brand. Impossible for you,
being what you are, to tell of the various persons, male and female, who
saw your comfortable cottage and few but fertile acres, and "felt a call
to do for you." Lucy Bailey sometimes spoke of it to her husband with
amused indignation. "Fairly driven out of his home, David was! The idea!
Lucky we had one to offer him, or he'd have been saddled with the whole
passel of them, like Cap'n Parks was a while back, and no Mercy Lovely
to trim 'em out for him."
A doleful squeak was heard, and a wheelbarrow trundled slowly by with
Mr. Wisk as the motive power. "You'd think 'twould go faster by itself!"
Pippin thought; then reproached himself, the man being afflicted.
Brand's fine brows contracted as he listened to the squeak.
"Wisk has been promising to oil that exe for a month!" he said. "It
gives me the toothache to hear it."
"Moves kinder moderate, don't he?" said Pippin. "I s'pose his leg
henders him."
Brand laughed. "I don't--know! Aunt Mandy Whetstone says the lame leg
makes the better time of the two. She's small and spry, you know, and
Wisk gets in her way sometimes. He means all right, but he never feels
any call to hurry, that I know of."
Here Mr. Wisk, having given up the wheelbarrow as a bad job, came
hobbling up, and with a wheeze by way of greeting, planted his shoulders
against the door-jamb. "Nice mornin'!" he said.
"Great!" replied Pippin. "It surely is great! I'd oughter ben on the
road an hour ago, but Mr. Brand makes it hard to get away, now I tell
ye. I must go in and say good-by to the folks, and then I'm off. Mr.
Brand, I thank you a thousand times for all you've told me, and you may
be sure I shan't forget it, no, sir! You'll see me again pretty soon. I
shan't be able to keep away from this place more'n just about so long, I
see that plain. Good-by, sir!"
They shook hands warmly, the blind man urging him to come sooner and
stay longer every time he could.
"Good-by to you, too, Mister." Pippin turned to the lame man.
"I'm goin' into the house!" said the latter. "I'll step along with you.
I want a drink o' water!"
He stumped along beside Pippin. Out of earshot of the barn, he looked
back over his shoulder. "Or a drink of something!" he added. "Got a drop
about you, young feller?"
"No, I ain't!" said Pippin shortly. He was not drawn toward Mr. Wisk.
"I thought you might have. I'm orful dry, and the water here don't agree
with me. Say! Brand ain't the only one is afflicted, young man. I want
you should understand that. My limb pains me something fierce; very
close veins is what I have. You wouldn't find me in no such place as
this if I didn't. Brand's a stand-offish kind of cuss, but he don't
measure up so much higher than other folks as what he thinks, mebbe.
They make of him because he's blind, but I'll bet a dollar he don't
suffer nights the way I do. Got a mite of tobacker to spare? Ain't? When
I was in trade--I was a tin-knocker while I had my health--I allers made
out to have a drop and a chew for a gen'leman when he asked for it; it
helped trade. I was allers called a good feller. Well, so long! Call
again!"
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 inter_est_ed 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!"