NIPPER
A wealthy young Squire of Plymouth, we hear,
He courted a nobleman's daughter so dear,
And for to be married it was their intent,
All friends and relations had given their consent.
So sang Pippin, on a July morning when all the world was singing too.
Bobolinks hovering, trilling, lighting, half mad with glee; catbirds
giving grand opera in the willows; thrushes quiring psalms in the
birches. Pippin stopped short as a dignified robin with the waistcoat of
an alderman perched on a blackberry vine at his elbow and poured out a
flood of liquid melody. "Like out of a jug!" said Pippin. "How d'you
s'pose he does it? Gorry to 'Liza, how _do_ you s'pose he does it!
"A day was appointed to be the wedding day,
A young farmer was chosen to give her away;
But soon as the lady this farmer did spy,
She cried in her heart, "Oh, my heart!" she did cry.
"Rest easy a spell, Nipper, and I'll rest too, and listen how he does
that."
Nipper was the wheel. Setting it on the ground, Pippin sat down under a
wide-branching oak and listened while the robin, like a certain wise
thrush we know of, sang his song twice over, carefully and thoroughly.
Pippin, his head cocked much as the singer's was, noted each cadence,
and when the music ceased, repeated it in a clear, mellow whistle.
Robin, much intrigued, sang a third time, and a fourth, cocked his head
still further and listened critically. Pippin replied more correctly
than before; so it might have gone on indefinitely, but for an
inquisitive crow who came bustling down to see what it was all about.
Robin flew away scornfully, repudiating intercourse with crows; Pippin
flirted his handkerchief and told the intruder to be off with himself
for an old black juggins.
Leaning against the oak bole, at peace with all mankind, Pippin listened
and looked, looked and listened. Presently he became aware of an
undertone of sound which made so perfect an accompaniment to the bird
concert that he had not at first distinguished it. In the fringe of
weeds beside the road a brook was murmuring over pebbles, gently,
persistently, wooingly. The July sun was hot; he had been walking since
sunrise.
"I'll have me a wash!" quoth Pippin.
"I'll have me a drink, and I'll have me a wash,
And then I'll be clean as a whistle, by--"
He stopped abruptly: he had promised Mrs. Baxter not to say "gosh"; it
wasn't an expression she cared to hear him use, not real nice someways.
"And Nipper shall have a bath too!" he said gleefully. "Nip, all the
bath you've had these two days is squatterin' in the dust like a hen.
I'll show you; just you wait!" Carrying the wheel, he plunged into the
green covert; the trees closed behind him. "Green grass!" said Pippin.
There was grass, certainly, long rank grass, such as leans over in
graceful curves and dips into brooks. There were sweet rushes too, and
jewel weed, and cardinal flowers, which Pippin viewed with respectful
admiration, asking, now honestly did you ever? Flowing between these
lovely things, taking them quite as a matter of course, was the brook,
clear and brown--something like Pippin's eyes, I declare!--babbling over
mossy stones, with here a fairy cataract all cream and silver, there a
round pool where Pippin might have found a trout, if he had known
enough. But he did not know enough, knew in fact nothing whatever about
trout; they are not found in cellars, nor in any part of a slum.
Kneeling on a flat stone, he drank long draughts of delight, now from
his cupped palms, now in sheer boyish glee, putting his mouth to the
bubbling silver, letting it splash and tinkle over his face. No thought
of germs disturbed his joy; he knew no more of germs than of trout.
Next he pulled off his shirt, pulled out his file and bestowed it safely
in a pocket, and producing a bit of soap, fell to splashing about at a
tremendous rate, sending trout, lucky bugs, germs and all helter-skelter
off in a fright.
A sculptor, watching Pippin at his ablutions, would have wondered how
the child of the slums should have developed such muscles as rippled
under his brown satin skin. Pippin could have told him. Dod Bashford
kept his boys lithe and active as young eels; if they didn't move quick,
the rawhide curled about their backs and legs in good shape, Pippin
could tell the sculptor. Sometimes the vision would come back even now:
boys fighting in a cellar or in the reeking court outside, rolling over
and over on the ground, pommelling, kicking, scratching, biting--there
were no sporting rules in Bashford's gang. The big brute would stand
watching the little ones with an occasional "Go it, pup!" till he was
tired or bored, when "Hook it!" followed by the hiss and sting of the
rawhide, sent them apart, bleeding, cursing, often weeping with sheer
rage and unsated lust of battle. Gee! Remember that fight he had with
Nosey, last winter he was with Bashford? Slim, long-legged, snaky kind
of guy, Nosey was. Some like a fox; some like a rat, too, a sandy rat:
sharp p'inted nose on him. Gee! Pippin gave him a good one on that
p'inted nose. Gee! He didn't guess it had p'inted so straight since!
Far enough from Bashford's, here in the green thicket, Pippin splashed
to his heart's content: at last, dripping and joyous, he rose and shook
himself like a water-dog, spattering the leaves and rushes with crystal
drops. "Green grass!" he sighed, "that was great!" Next he washed his
red handkerchief and his "other" pair of socks, and hung them on a bush
to dry; filed a callous on the sole of his foot that had made him walk
"pumple-footed" the last day or two; ran his fingers through and through
his hair till it curled like that of the Borghese Hermes.
"Now it's Nipper's turn; come on, Nip!"
He had grown fond of the wheel. It was a faithful creature, following
obediently whither he would, whizzing cheerfully, singing, Pippin made
no doubt, the only song was give it to sing. This last day or two,
though, it had developed a squeak and rattle that was new to him;
behooved him look her over and see what was loose.
Having wiped the dust off and oiled the whole apparatus, he proceeded to
examine it carefully, inch by inch. He had done this many times before;
had in fact kept the little machine in apple-pie order, partly for its
own sake and his, partly as in duty bound to the departed Nipper. Old
Nipper! He had been a rip, Pippin reflected, same as Old Man Blossom;
but yet he sure had done him a good turn leaving him the wheel.
Now--here was a thing had oftentimes puzzled him of late--what did Old
Man Blossom know about Nipper? They might have been pals, he presumed
likely; birds of a feather, you know! Well, yes, that; but Old Man
seemed to have some hunch about the wheel; laffed fitterbust, and said
them things, you rec'lect. Pippin had studied 'em over and studied 'em
over, but he didn't get no--
A clock strikes when it is ready, not before. Pippin's clock struck now.
Something he had never yet touched, or never in the right way, moved
under his hand. A click, and the metal plate bearing the maker's name
slid aside, revealing a long narrow cavity. Who could have guessed such
a possibility in the compact little contrivance? With a smothered "Gee!"
Pippin peered eagerly into the hole or box, thrust in his hand, and
brought out a small object. He turned it over and over in his hand,
still muttering suppressed "Gee's!" opened it, and sat staring,
motionless.
A leather case containing a set of small tools. Nothing strange about
that, Pippin, is there? Very ingenious to pack in this little space the
tools needed for his trade! Clever Nipper! Why do you stare so, Pippin,
and why does your face flush under its wholesome tan?
His eyes riveted to the tools, Pippin sank down on the grass. He handled
them, one by one, and a bright spark came into his eye.
"Green grass!" he muttered. "Now wouldn't that--"
If you or I had looked over his shoulder, we should have seen at once
that some of these were unfamiliar tools. A screw driver--yes! a pair of
nippers--yes! a file--yes! but what were these three little shining
objects which Pippin was fitting together with eager, trembling fingers?
Now they are joined and make a slender bar of solid steel, one end
flattened to a sharp edge. That is a jimmy, and Pippin is looking with
shining eyes at a miniature but perfect set of burglar's tools.
"Now wouldn't that--" said Pippin. Sitting back on his heels, he took
the tools out one by one and examined them carefully, handling them
like a lover, whistling meantime, slowly and thoughtfully, the air
devoted to the aged steeple-climber. He ran his eye along their edges;
he rang them on a stone to test their perfection. "_Com_-plete!" he
muttered. "These certingly are a complete outfit. Now I ask you
honest, would--not--that--give you a pain in your--" Pippin confused
the human interior with the gallinaceous. How should he know that we
have no gizzard?
"Old Nipper!" he continued. "Only to think of the slickness of him! Went
round with his wheel, innocent appearin' as you please, and when he saw
a likely crib, he'd up and crack it with these little daisies, just as
easy--"
He stopped abruptly, as a light broke in upon him. _This_ was what Old
Man Blossom meant. This was why he laffed and 'most had a pupplectic
fit; and no wonder! Here was he, Pippin, singing and praying, and all
the time taking a cracksman's kit along with him wherever he went! No
wonder the old rip laughed! Now question was, what to do with 'em?
What say? No one was near; he was alone in the green murmuring place;
yet some one did certainly seem to be speaking. Pippin cocked his ear to
listen.
A shame to destroy good tools, pretty set like this, prettiest he ever
saw or like to see? Might come in handy for any kind of work--even the
jimmy? Any one might want to use a bar--farmin' like, or--
The strong brown fingers seemed to close of themselves, without will of
his, round the tools, fondling them. Something like quicksilver ran
crinkling through him--
"Now HONEST!" said Pippin. "Just watch me, will you?"
A flash in the sunlight where it broke through the leafy screen; a
silver splash--the lucky bugs scattered in terror, and a solemn bullfrog
tumbled headfirst off the stone from which he had been watching. Another
flash and splash, and now a whole shower of them. Sang Pippin:
"There was an old man,
And he was mad,
And he ran up the steeple.
He took off
His great big hat,
And waved it over the people!"
Later, he sat under the wayside oak and communed with himself. How did
he account for that? he asked. Honest, now, wouldn't it gave you a pain?
Here he was, the Lord's boy, a professin' Christian, belongin' to every
church they was, he expected, startin' out all so gay to do the Lord's
work, and Him knowledgeable to it, and helpin' along; and then all in a
minute some part of him--something he couldn't get a holt of--give a
jump, and _wanted_ them things, wanted 'em like--Gorry to 'Liza! You
couldn't have no idea _how_ he wanted 'em! and yet 'twasn't him,
neither: all the time he was lookin' on, you might say, struck all of a
heap. Now how would you make that out? Honest, how would you?
After some thought, Pippin expected that it was the devil. He was always
round, you know, like a roarin' line, seekin' whom he could devour 'em
up. Behooved him keep a sharp lookout!
_But_, said another part of his brain, ekally the Lord was round, and
more so, let him bear in mind. The Lord was mindful of His own; Elder
Hadley had wrote that in the Testament and Psalms he give him, and 'twas
_so_; and the Lord was stronger than the devil, never let Pippin have no
doubts about that.
"You bet He is!" Up went Pippin's head; he smote his knee with a
resounding smack. "You bet He is! Satan, you beat it while your shoes
are new! I've got no more use for you, and don't you forget it!"