PIPPIN OVERCOMES
"Well, how about it?" said John Aymer.
A council was being held in the pleasant parlor with the rose-colored
shades. John Aymer, Lucy his wife, and Lawrence Hadley, his wife's
brother, were sitting together, talking of things with which we have
some concern.
"How about it?" repeated the hardware merchant. He planted both elbows
on his knees, rested his chin on his hands, and, as he would have said,
squared away for action. The others looked up inquiringly. "Pippin is
your hunt, Larry, and from your point of view--and his--he is on the
right track, and it's all highcockolorum Erin go Bragh. But Mary is our
hunt, Lucy's and mine, and we don't feel so sure about all this."
"I do part of the time, John!" Mrs. Aymer spoke with a certain timidity,
unlike her usual gay decisiveness. "When I talk with Larry, or see
Pippin--even just look at him--it seems all as right as right; but
then--"
"But then you look at Mary, and it doesn't. See here, Lar!" John Aymer
laid down his pipe, a token of strong interest with him. "Pippin is what
you call a mystic and I call a glorified crank. All he wants in the
world--beside Mary--is a chance to help, as he says; and it's great. I
know it is, and I'm proud to know the chap, and all that. But that
_isn't_ all Mary wants!"
The chaplain looked up with a grave nod of comprehension.
"Mary Blossom," John Aymer went on, "is a fine girl, and she's an
ambitious girl. She has done well herself, got a first-rate education of
its kind, made herself a first-rate all-round young woman, capable of
doing--within limits--anything she sets her hand to. Now--she's as dead
stuck on Pippin as he is on her--"
"John! What language! She adores him, if that is what you mean."
"Well, she adores him, then--doesn't sound half as real--but she doesn't
adore the line of life he is laying out for himself and her. I don't
believe she takes any more stock in it than--than I should. She would
like to see her husband a church member in regular standing: a
vestryman; doing no end of pious work, you know--he has to do _that_ or
bust; even I can see that--but doing it in a regular respectable kind of
way: chairman of Boards--what? Frock coat, handsome rooms,
subcommittees, secretaries, that kind of thing. She wants to see him a
leader, and she believes he can be. This picking up a boy here and a
tramp there, singing and praying, hurrah boys and God bless you, doesn't
cut much ice with Mary. Poor little soul, she cried an hour on Lucy's
shoulder the other night. Lucy cried, too, of course; water works all
over the house, almost drowned me out."
"John!"
"Well, sir, that kind of thing--the chairman, frock coat, committee-room
thing, is what Mary wants for her husband; and who can say but she's
right? I don't say she is, mind! I'm not a spiritual kind of man, and I
know it; but I do say that Pippin ought to realize how she feels and
the kind of life she would choose. Then he can face it, squarely, and
make his own decision, knowing what it means to her. You say--" he
turned to his wife, who was listening intently--"he's had no education.
Granted--in a way! But you can't keep Pippin from education any more
than you can keep a dog from water when he's thirsty. (Nip's bowl is
empty, by the way, Lucy; might cry into that next time, what?) I don't
say it will be book education; much good my books have done me, and as
you say, Lucy, my English resembles a tinker's--well, thought it, if you
didn't say it--well--what do you say, Reverend?"
Lawrence Hadley threw his head back with a little reversed nod that was
all his own.
"Give me a minute, Jack! I'm assimilating! Give me a minute!"
He took a minute, whistling "Am I a soldier of the Cross?" through
slowly and carefully. Then he took three more in silence, walking slowly
up and down the room, the others watching him anxiously.
All true--so far as it went. Pippin ought to see, ought to realize, what
Mary wanted. Ought to realize, too, what power he would have in that
way, the frock coat, roast-turkey, mahogany-and-brass-rail way.
Popularity? He might become the idol of a day--of many days. Men's
hearts would open to him like flowers to the sun. Mass meetings;
hospitals; his voice floating through the wards; "the bright seraphim in
burning row!" Yes! Mary beside him, glorified in him, shining with his
light and her own--Yes!--On the other hand--what? A dying tramp
comforted; a weak boy saved from ruin; a poor old sinner made happy. Not
much, perhaps? And yet--had the Master founded hospitals there in
Judea? Had He healed all the lepers? He healed one, and the world
changed. The hospitals have been building ever since.
At last he spoke.
"Every word you say is true, Jack! Hold on!" as the other reached for
his pipe with an air of relief. "Don't light up yet; you won't be so
pleased in a minute. Every word is true, I say, but it's only half the
truth, and the less important half!"
Hadley's eyes kindled, and he began to beat time with his fist on the
arm of his chair. He was getting up steam.
"What do you mean?" said Aymer, rather shortly.
"You are right about Pippin's realizing Mary's point of view. He ought,
and he shall; you shall put it to him yourself, as strongly as you like;
but--here comes in my half--she must also realize his, and that is what
she doesn't do."
"That is true, John!" Mrs. Aymer started forward, clasping her pretty
hands in an adorable little way she had when strongly moved. "She
_doesn't_ realize, any more than you do; any more than I do, except just
the least little bit. But, oh, I know Lawrence is right! I feel it in
every bone I have. John dear, do as Lar says; put your side--_our_ side,
for, oh, I _am_ such a worldly little animal!--before Pippin plainly,
and then let Lar show Mary the other!"
"Agreed!" said John Aymer.
"No!" said Lawrence Hadley. "Pippin shall show her the other himself."
At this moment came a knock at the door.
"Come in!" said John Aymer impatiently.
The door flew open, and Mary entered, a Mary at sight of whom Mrs.
Aymer sprang forward with inarticulate murmurs, while the two men rose
to their feet in confusion. A wholly unfamiliar Mary; one would have
said an impossible one. Crying, laughing, clasping and unclasping her
hands wildly, she ran to the other woman, and melted into her arms as if
there were no such things as class distinctions in the world.
"Oh! Mrs. Aymer!" she sobbed. "Oh, Mr. Aymer and Mr. Hadley! If you
please! I have been a wicked, wicked girl!"
Sorely puzzled, the three friendly conspirators looked past the bright
head, now resting on Mrs. Aymer's agitated shoulder, to the doorway,
where stood Pippin, silent, motionless, but radiating light and joy and
pride, "Like a torch!" "Like a blooming lighthouse!" said the two men,
each to himself, in his own speech.
"I wouldn't cry, Mary!" Pippin spoke quietly, as he would to a child.
"You would!" Mary flashed round upon him. "You'd cry your eyes out, and
wish you had more to cry out! I've been a wicked, wicked girl! Oh, Mrs.
Aymer! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! No, my kind lady, don't stop me, for it has
to come out. He took me--my Pippin took me--down--down to those dreadful
places where he used to live. I went into a cellar, dark and cold--oh!
and there was a little child, all thin and cold and dirty, not clothes
enough to cover him; and bruises on his little flesh! Oh, my heart! And
Pippin said--Pippin said--'That might be me, Mary!' Oh, Mrs. Aymer! Oh,
Mr. Hadley! _It might have been me, too!_ It all came back. I
remember--I remember--"
The sobs choked her, but she fought them back fiercely, and went on,
struggling for utterance, still clasping and unclasping those eager
hands. "He showed me more, but that was enough. I says to myself, 'Who
am I, to turn him from his own work? Who am I, to come between him and
the Lord? No! no!" She turned, and held out her hands with a passionate
gesture. Pippin stepped forward and clasped the hands in his.
"We're going to work together!" said Mary Blossom. She spoke quietly
now, though the sobs still tried to break out. "I'm going to follow him,
help him, serve with him, every minute of my life from now on. He will
do all the real work, everything that counts; but I can cook, and mend,
and--oh, Mrs. Aymer, I can wa-wa-wash for them!"
She caught Pippin's hand to her lips, then flung it away and ran out. A
silken flutter, and Lucy Aymer was after her like a flash. There was a
tempestuous rustle of petticoats, and the sound of sobs and cooing; then
silence.
The three men looked at one another. Presently John Aymer drew a long
breath. "So _that's_ all right!" he said. "One to you, Parson!"
The chaplain laughed, a contented little laugh. "Very handsome of you,
Jack!" he said. "What do you say, Pippin? Is it all right?"
"It is, sir!" Pippin raised his head, which had been bent for a moment.
"Yes, Elder, and Boss--I would say Mr. Aymer, sir; it is all right. I
knew it would be; I never had no fears. I knew as soon as Mary sensed it
she'd realize how 'twas. Yes, sir, I took her down--" he named a certain
quarter of the city--"and showed her. I didn't need to say a word,
hardly. She saw; Mary saw! And now, Elder--" he turned to Lawrence
Hadley, and his eyes kindled. "Lemme tell you! It's like you said. I've
got to get edication. I'm not fit to take holt of kids yet--not yet--but
I will be! I'd like to start right away, if agreeable to you. You say
where to go, and I'll go, if I have to wheel myself in a barrer!"