Ben Pepper Part 33

"You're so awful big," said Pip, squirming in, and snuggling up to Ben as tightly as he could in quite an ecstatic frame of mind. "Oh, I wish you'd draw something, Ben, I really do."

"Well, so I will," said Ben, after a bit of consideration. "Now then, you sit still and I'll get my bag," which he soon did, from the rack overhead. And extracting the drawing materials, every movement being superintended by Pip in the greatest satisfaction, he soon had them all laid out, ready to begin operations.

"Well, sir, and now what shall we draw?" he asked, balancing his pencil thoughtfully on his fingers.

Pip turned around, his pale eyes searching the parlor car in all directions. "Draw that old woman," he said at last, pointing to the subject of his choice; "she's awful funny."

"Hush!" said Ben, pulling down his finger.

"Oh, no, I couldn't draw the people in the car; they wouldn't like it.

Choose something else, Pip."

"There isn't anything else," said Pip, in a disconsolate voice.

"Everything outside is running so fast."

"I tell you, I'll draw something from memory," said Ben, quickly. "I'll show you the little brown house where I used to live--that'll be nice.

You'd like that, Pip."

"Yes," said Pip, "I should."

If Ben said so, that was quite enough, so he crowded as closely to the scene of operations as he could get.

"See here," said Ben, twisting off, "you don't leave me room enough. You mustn't crowd so, Pip."

"I can't see, then," said Pip, dreadfully disappointed.

"Well, I tell you, get on my other side, then,--there, that's fine," as Pip hopped over. "Now my right hand is free. Well, here goes!" And in two minutes the little brown house began to stare right up at them from the paper, and Ben was drawing furiously away, until it seemed as if every revolution of the car wheels was whirling them to Badgertown.

"Oh, do teach me to draw houses, Ben," cried Pip, as the little lane down to Grandma Bascom's began to come in sight. "Do, Ben, please," he begged.

"So I will," promised Ben, kindly. "Now you can take the pencil when I've finished this, Pip, and I'll give you your first lesson."

"May I? May I?" and Pip ended up with a glad little crow.

"Hush! You'll wake Jasper," warned Ben. "Yes, and I'll sharpen you up a nice new point on my best pencil, and you shall make a try. There, this is almost done." He put in a few more strokes, and held it off to examine with a critical eye, "All except a bit of shading in those trees,--there, now it's all right," and he laid the sketch in Pip's hands.

"I'm going to draw just like that," declared Pip, with the utmost confidence, devouring the picture with his eyes.

"Oh, you'll draw one better than that, sometime," said Ben, laughing, as he whittled away on his best pencil. "Now then, that _is_ a point for you," and he held it up in satisfaction.

Pip seized the pencil, and made some quick, jerky strokes that snapped the beautiful point quite off.

"O dear, dear!" he exclaimed, ready to cry.

"Never mind, we'll soon have another point on, just as good," said Ben, rea.s.suringly, opening his knife. "Now then, Pip, I'll begin your lesson," holding up the pencil; "here you are, all ready."

"I want to draw a picture first, just as you did," said Pip, with an eager hand for the pencil.

"You can't," said Ben, st.u.r.dily, "not the first go. You must learn how, Pip."

"Let me try, do," begged Pip, earnestly, and his thin little face twitched.

"Oh, well, you may if you want to," said Ben, laughing; "but you mustn't be discouraged if you don't succeed. Now then, go at it if you wish."

For the next few moments nothing was to be heard but Pip's hard breathing and the scratching of his fine pencil over the paper. Ben yawned and looked longingly at the book on the floor. And there was Bob, and the shark in full pursuit, with the prospect of the sailor putting in an appearance at the last moment. No, it wouldn't do to desert Pip--and--why, really there was something worth while coming on the big piece of white paper. Ben leaned over the thin little figure. "Why, Pip!"

Pip said nothing, but drew his breath harder yet, with every effort on his work. He gripped the pencil as if it were to run away from him, and bent lower yet to his task.

"Don't clutch it so; hold it easier," said Ben, laying his hand on the little thin one, guiding the pencil.

Pip released his grasp for just one moment, then tightened it up again.

Seeing which, Ben wisely let him alone. "It'll make him nervous," he said to himself, and turned his attention to watching the sketch grow.

"My goodness, to think he can draw like that!"

For there unmistakably was an old man, very withered and bent, holding out his hand, and by his side a little girl in a tattered shawl. Anybody with half an eye could see that the old beggar was blind, and that the girl had been crying.

"Pip! why, where,"--Ben was beaming at him now, as Pip lifted his face,--"how did you learn to draw like that?" and he seized the sketch.

It was very rough and uneven, but there they were, sure enough, the two figures.

"I used to see them," said Pip, explaining. "They stood on the corner, don't you know, when the master let us go up to town from school."

"Well, I guess you don't want any lessons from me," declared Ben, not able to take his eyes from the picture.

"Oh, yes, I do, I do," cried Pip, in mortal terror that he was going to lose the very thing above all others that he prized. "I'll tear it up,"

he cried, with a savage lunge at the picture, and venom written all over his little pale face.

"No, you don't, sir," declared Ben, with a laugh, and holding the sketch off at arm's length; "this picture is mine in return for the one I gave you. And I'll teach you all I know, Pip, I really will. So now we will set to work."

And the first thing that either of them knew, Grandpapa was leaning over them and smiling, to say, "The next station, and we are home!"

XVII

"NOW WE CAN HAVE OUR CHRISTMAS!"

And so it turned out that Joel, who had to go down in the big brougham with Madam Van Ruypen to meet the mountain children, only just got home from that expedition in time to be whisked off to the other railroad station with the welcoming party to meet Grandpapa, Jasper, and Ben--oh, yes, and Pip!

"Whatever you do," Ben had taken special pains to write Joel long before, "be glad to see Pip."

And then, n.o.body knew exactly how they got home. But they did all right, and, of course, with a procession of friends to follow. There was Alexia--why, it goes without saying that she was there--and Pickering Dodge; Jasper wouldn't believe he was at home, really he wouldn't, without seeing Pick's face, while Pick's voice cried out, "h.e.l.lo, old chap!" as no one else but Pickering could say it.

Well, and there was Pip's white little face with the scared eyes, for somehow the turmoil made him dreadfully afraid he was going to lose sight of Ben. So he clutched him with a desperate grip, getting in and out between all the welcoming groups with marvellous dexterity.

"Hulloa there, you little beggar!" It was Pickering Dodge who seized him. "Let Ben alone, can't you, a minute, till we've seen him." But the small figure struggled, his little wiry legs becoming so nimble around Pickering's longer ones, that the tall boy fell back. "Whew! Well, I must say I wouldn't be in your shoes, Ben!"