PIPPIN LOOKS FOR THE GRACE OF GOD
All day long the rain fell, softly, steadily, without haste and without
rest; all day long the Red Ruffian cowered in his hiding hole, cold,
wet, hungry and miserable. The water trickled in streams down the rock
behind him and gathered in pools about his feet. The dump near by
steamed, and sent off noisome fumes. Rats ran in and out of it; the
Ruffian was afraid of rats.
What did the boy think of as he sat huddled under the partial shelter of
the ledge, munching his sodden crackers? Did he picture to himself the
glories of successful crime, the riches won by skill and daring, the
revels with other chosen spirits? No! He thought of Cyrus Poor Farm. He
saw the bright, cozy kitchen, the wide fireplace, the cheerful glowing
of the stove. He saw the table spread with its homely, hearty fare:
baked beans, done to a turn, with that dusky-gold crisp on the pork that
none save Aunt Bailey could give; the potatoes roasted in their jackets;
the brown bread--at thought of the brown bread the Ruffian groaned aloud
and passed the back of his hand across his eyes.
The long day wore on. The slow hours chimed from the church beyond the
hill. His one comfort was the thought of the cigar inside his shirt, dry
and safe in its oiled paper. The matches were safe, too, in a tin box.
He would wait till along towards dark, and then smoke. It would chirk
him up good, and when Moonlighter came to fetch him, he'd find him as
gay--as gay--a strong shiver seized him, and his teeth chattered. Wasn't
it about time? It was growing dusk. At last, with wet, trembling
fingers, he drew out his prize. Sheltering it with his body from the
pitiless rain, he struck a match and applied it to the cigar. The tiny
flame spurted, clung, shrank to a spark, spurted again--the cigar was
alight.
* * * * *
It was near midnight. The rain had ceased, and a dense white mist was
rising from the drenched earth. A breeze came sighing through the
branches of the trees, rustling the grasses round the hiding hole; it
was answered by a low moan from the sodden figure that lay stretched in
the hollow under the rock. It was his last moan, Myron thought. Death
was coming; this white mist was his shroud. They would find him here--or
maybe they would not. Maybe his bones would whiten in this dismal spot,
and years after, the traveler--Hark! what was that? A sound, that was
not wind or trees or grasses: a long, low, wailing cry.
The wretched boy struggled up on one elbow and peered through the thick
white curtain, then, with a smothered shriek, he scrambled to his hands
and knees. Something was there! Something whiter than the mist;
something that moved--
"Help!" cried the Red Ruffian. "Murder! Help!"
"Hush!" said Pippin. "Hold your darned noise! _Steel is sharp!_"
"Oh! oh, dear! oh--_blood is red_! Is it you, Moonlighter? Why are
you--why are you all in white?"
"Make folks think I was the ha'nt, bonehead! What'd you s'pose? Cute
trick, I thought!"
Pippin stepped down into the hollow and threw off the sheet that covered
him.
"Well, how are you, young feller?" he asked cheerfully.
"I'm dyin'!" said the boy feebly. "Tell the folks I--"
"Oh, shucks! Here, set up--so! It's stopped rainin'. My! you are wet,
ain't you? Feelin' sick? I expect that cigar _was_ a mite--_here!_ lean
up against the ledge here, and take a drink!"
Reader, have you ever tasted spice-draught? Its basic principle is
peppermint. To this is added cinnamon, cloves, cassia, and a liberal
dash of cayenne pepper. "Temp'rance toddy," I have heard it called, but
there is nothing temperate about it. "S'archin'" is the adjective Pippin
used.
"Take a good swig!" he urged, putting the bottle to the boy's lips.
"It's hot stuff, I tell ye!"
The boy drank; next moment he was on his feet, coughing, dancing round,
and holding his throat. A howl of anguish broke from him, but Pippin
checked it with a hand over his mouth.
"Easy, boy, easy! 'Twill het you up good; nothin' like it, Mis'--that
is, they claim. Don't you feel it livenin' of you up? That's hearty! Now
you'll find your legs. Lean against me if you're wobbly still. Time we
was on our job! Foller, Red Ruffi'n!"
As they went along, Pippin explained the nature of the job. A soft snap,
just the thing for a green hand. Nice, quiet folks, sound sleepers,
old-fashioned lock--pick it with one hand while you eat your dinner
with the other. Honest, if he didn't feel that Red Ruffi'n _needed_ a
soft snap, he wouldn't hardly have had the heart to ease them, they
_was_ such nice folks. Been real good to him, too, and would be to any
one come nigh 'em, but Red Ruffi'n was his pal, and pals were bound to
see each other through.
"S'pose--s'pose we was pinched!" said Red Ruffi'n, stumbling along over
the plashy ground. "What would--"
"Shoreham!" Pippin gave a lively sketch of the place; the Red Ruffian
shuddered and coughed.
"Moonlighter," he said, after a pause; "I hadn't ought to get you into
this. I--I ain't feelin' well, either; s'pose we--what say?"
Pippin took his arm with a grip as firm as it was quiet.
"Testin' me, are ye?" he laughed. "Tryin' to see if I'd crawl--what?
There's no crawl in me, not an inch! Just wait till we get in where it's
warm and dry, and you'll see things different: not but I know you was
only foolin'. Crawl _now_, when everything's all ready? Gee! I would be
a softy, wouldn't I? Here's the gully! Now you go first and I'll foller
and keep watch behind; stop when you hear me peep like a chicken!"
With faltering steps the unhappy Ruffian crept along the gully, keeping
well in the shadow, starting at every stray cat, every scrap of
wind-whisked paper. Pippin, stepping lightly and softly a few yards
behind, whistled noiselessly, and pursued an imaginary conversation with
Mrs. Baxter.
"Just you trust me, Mis' Baxter, and you'll see. Why, you don't think
I'd take all this trouble, and _give_ all this trouble, if I weren't
certain sure that I was right? 'He leadeth me,' you know, ma'am, and
the Lord is sure leadin' me this time. There's no harm will come of it,
but only good, if I'm not a bonehead from Bonetown. Now see--"
He peeped low, like a day-old chicken; the slinking figure in advance
stopped.
It was, as Pippin had said, an easy lock to pick. A stout hairpin of
Mrs. Baxter's did the trick; a nice tool, Pippin pronounced it gravely.
The door swung open, revealing blackness. The Red Ruffian, shrinking
back, found himself gently but firmly propelled forward; he stumbled
over the threshold and the door closed noiselessly behind him. "This
way!" Pippin guided him through a passage, over another threshold. "Here
we be!" Closing another door, Pippin produced a match, lighted a bit of
candle. "The bakery!" he whispered. "The money is in here! Hush! Take
your shoes off; one of 'em squeaks."
The flickering light shone on the white tiles, the glittering enamel,
the black doors of the ovens; the further corners of the room were in
deep shadow.
"Did it squeak loud? Do you think--do you think any one heard? Hark!
What was that?"
"Nothin'! Mouse, mebbe! Now look! The cash is in that box, see? Under
the table there; make it out? Now, Red Ruffi'n, this is your job, and
you are goin' to have the credit of it. I'll hold the light; you reach
down and get the box--"
Mr. Baxter had felt all along that when the time came, he would know
what to do. A calm man, he had followed Pippin's instructions
implicitly, had now stood patiently for an hour in his dark corner,
leaning on his "peel," the long broad-bladed, paddle-like implement
which bore the loaves to and from the oven. Mrs. Baxter, in the shop,
might palpitate and wring her hands and moan, only restrained by
thoughts of Buster slumbering above; Mr. Baxter awaited his moment, and
it came.
By the flickering candlelight, he saw a cringing, trembling figure creep
forward, and bend over, displaying to his view a broad expanse of
trouser. To the father of Buster, that expanse suggested but one thing
in the world. Raising the peel, he brought it down with a resounding
thwack which sent the boy flat on his face under the table and brought
Mrs. Baxter shrieking from the shop.
"Elegant!" said Pippin. "Mr. Baxter, sir, that was simply elegant!"
* * * * *
An hour later the Red Ruffian, full, dry, and warm, a plaster over his
injured nose, lay in Pippin's bed; and Pippin ("as per contract with the
Elder," he told himself, "lettin' alone its bein' right and fittin' so
to do") sat on the edge of the bed and looked for the grace of God.
He began by explaining his plot in full: how he had been at the Poor
Farm, heard Mr. Bailey's story, and promised to find the boy if he
could; how the Lord had come into it and played right into his hand; how
the excellent baker and his wife had agreed to help; how everything had
went smooth as greased lightnin'--he never see anything work out neater
and prettier.
"Here! Take another drink of the lemonade! 'Tis some different from
spice-draught. Gee, wasn't that something fierce! I expect it kep' you
from pneumony, though!"
Pippin held the lemonade to the boy's lips, and patted the pillows
tenderly, as a woman might. Meeting his eyes, dark with shame, misery,
and reproach, he beamed on him benevolently.
"There!" he said. "I know how you feel. Look at it one way, 'twas a mean
trick I played you, a mean, low-down trick. I ask your pardon for that!
But look at here! I had to stop you, hadn't I? I'd passed my word, and,
too, the Lord bid me. No gettin' away from that. Well, now, if I'd sat
down there in the wood road that day, talked to you real fatherly and
pious, told you thus and so, and asked wouldn't you be a good boy and go
back to the farm and hoe potatoes--" The boy made a restless motion.
Pippin laid a quiet hand on his arm. "Rest easy! I'll come to that
presently! If I'd have done that, would you have listened to me? Not
you! You'd ha' laughed at me for a gospel shark, and you'd have up and
gone after that mean skunk (you notice he never turned round to look
what become of you?) fast as you could pick up your heels. Then what?
Say you'd caught up with him and gone on to the next town, and started
in breakin' and enterin'! Well, what say? Why, then you'd ben pinched
and run in. Yes siree Bob! You never was built for a crook, my lad;
you're too slow, and you're too--call it clumpsy. You've no quicksilver
in your toes, nor yet in your fingers. You'd ben run in, and then you'd
gone to Shoreham. First offense, they might let you off with six
months--more likely a year, but _say_ six months! For six months, then,
you'd worked as you never worked before in your little life, alongside
of men--well--the Lord made 'em, amen!--only they ain't the kind you're
used to. What I would say, there's no _ro_mance about Shoreham, not a
mite, and don't you forget it! (Say, ain't this a dandy bed? I betcher!
And all ready for the man that comes after me. We'll come to that
bumby, too.) And if you try to hook it, or misbehave anyways, you get
put in solitary. Know what that means? It means four walls with nothin'
on 'em except the bricks, walls four feet apart one way and seven the
other, and a grated door between you and anything else. It means
twenty-four hours every day and each of 'em half of the whole, seems
though! No! You can't understand, 'cause you haven't ben there. It means
no word spoke or heard excep' when your victuals is passed in, and
mighty few then, and what there is is no special pleasure to hear. Now,
bo, that is what I've ben through, and that is what I've saved you from.
Now what about it? Did I do right, or did I do wrong?"
"Right!" faltered the boy. "Oh, Moonlighter--"
"Hold on! Forget that! My name's Pippin, and that's what you call me
from now on. I had to _show_ you what I used to be, or you'd never have
listened to me; _now_, I'm an honest man, and there's nobody I can't
look in the face. Pippin's my name, and straight is my natur'. Praise
the Lord! Amen! Well, sir, that is what I done. Now the question is,
what next? And here comes in Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. Well, those folks are
as good as they make 'em; they're as good as your Uncle and Aunt Bailey,
and more is not to be said. They know all about me, and all about you.
I'm leavin' 'em in a day or two, for good; and gorry, what do you think
them two Bakin' Angels is ready to do? They stand ready to take you and
make a baker of you. Now--rest easy! I got to get it all off my chest!
Bakin' is as nice a trade, as _pretty_ an all-round trade, as a man can
ask for in this world. If I hadn't other things I'd undertaken to
do--well, never mind that! Here you can stay, if you're a mind to, and
if you feel like you've had your bellyful of breakin' and enterin', and
like that; work in daylight and sunlight and free air, and eat choice
food, and hear kind, decent, pleasant language and never anything else.
That's what you've ben used to all your life, you'll say; yes, but
there's more to it. Here you are in a town, and folks all round you,
boys of your own age, nice clean fellers like you--you needn't winch!
The dirt ain't grimed into you yet; 'twill wash off, you see!--boys to
chin with, and play baseball with, and football; girls too, nice,
pretty, refined young ladies, comin' in to buy creamcakes, and--green
grass! I certingly shall miss those young ladies!--and--go to singin'
school evenin's, and church meetin', and like that, and--well, that,
sir, is what we offer, against the life of a crook. You balance them two
in your mind, and think it over a bit!"
He made a motion with his hand, and turning his face away, was about to
take counsel with himself, when the boy spoke hastily.
"Mr. Pippin," he said, "I--no need to think it over! I thank you a
thousand times. I'm a fool, but I didn't know it before. Now I see it
clear, and I thank you--I--I can't say what I feel, but I do sure feel
it. I'd stay here glad and thankful, and I'd do my best, sir, honestly I
would, and try to make good; but--but--"
"Well?" Pippin's eyes were very bright, he bent forward eagerly. "Well,
youngster? What stands in the way?"
"Aunt and Uncle!" broke forth the boy. "I've been mean--mean as dirt,
and they so good to me. If they'll let me, and if Mr. Baxter can wait,
say a week, I'll come back more thankful than I've words to say; but
first I must go home--and--"
A thwack upon his shoulders, almost as loud as that of the peel an hour
before, sent him half out of bed. Looking up in terror, he saw Pippin
standing over him with shining eyes and outstretched hand.
"Shake!" he said simply. "I've found what I was lookin' for. Let us
praise the Lord!"