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_!