Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 12

Here Mr. Wisk, having given up the wheelbarrow as a bad job, came hobbling up, and with a wheeze by way of greeting, planted his shoulders against the door-jamb. "Nice mornin'!" he said.

"Great!" replied Pippin. "It surely is great! I'd oughter ben on the road an hour ago, but Mr. Brand makes it hard to get away, now I tell ye. I must go in and say good-by to the folks, and then I'm off. Mr.

Brand, I thank you a thousand times for all you've told me, and you may be sure I shan't forget it, no, sir! You'll see me again pretty soon. I shan't be able to keep away from this place more'n just about so long, I see that plain. Good-by, sir!"

They shook hands warmly, the blind man urging him to come sooner and stay longer every time he could.

"Good-by to you, too, Mister." Pippin turned to the lame man.

"I'm goin' into the house!" said the latter. "I'll step along with you.

I want a drink o' water!"

He stumped along beside Pippin. Out of earshot of the barn, he looked back over his shoulder. "Or a drink of something!" he added. "Got a drop about you, young feller?"

"No, I ain't!" said Pippin shortly. He was not drawn toward Mr. Wisk.

"I thought you might have. I'm orful dry, and the water here don't agree with me. Say! Brand ain't the only one is afflicted, young man. I want you should understand that. My limb pains me something fierce; very close veins is what I have. You wouldn't find me in no such place as this if I didn't. Brand's a stand-offish kind of cuss, but he don't measure up so much higher than other folks as what he thinks, mebbe.

They make of him because he's blind, but I'll bet a dollar he don't suffer nights the way I do. Got a mite of tobacker to spare? Ain't? When I was in trade--I was a tin-knocker while I had my health--I allers made out to have a drop and a chew for a gen'leman when he asked for it; it helped trade. I was allers called a good feller. Well, so long! Call again!"

Pippin took an affectionate leave of the inmates of Cyrus Poor Farm.

They would see him again, he a.s.sured them heartily; no fears but they would. All he had to do was say good-by to the Kingdom folks--for a spell. _They'd_ see him again, too. Elegant folks!--and go find that little gal, or young woman, or whatever she was, and then just watch him make a bee line for Cyrus! Yes, sir! He would bring back that gal, sure thing! And he would bring Mr. Brand some of that new basket stuff he'd heard tell of.

"Yes, ma'am!" as he shook hands with Miss Lucilla Pudgkins. "You shall have some perfoomery, the best I can lay hands on. And you shall have them b.u.t.tons, Miss Whetstone, if they are to be had. And Miss Flora May shall--"

He looked about the room, but the girl was not there.

"She's out some place," said Mrs. Bailey. "Feeding the hens, I presume likely. I'll tell her good-by for you, Pippin!"

He shook hands with Old Man Blossom, who was only too eager to be friends. "I'm all friends, Pippin!" he cried in eager, quavering tones.

"Honest I am! You find my little gal, and you can pray yourself black in the face and I won't say a word. It just took me that way, you know; you prayin' as slick as a Gospel shark, and Nipper's wheel out in the shed all the time--tee hee! You're smart, Pippin! Ain't any pious goin' to get round you, hey? 'Tother way round, hey? Gorry! that is rich!"

He grew purple, and the bed shook under him.

"Hold on there!" said Pippin. "Don't you go and have another on me. I'm goin'." And he bolted.

"I'm comin' out to the gate with you!" said Jacob. "Take a look at the stock as you go?"

Pippin nodded gravely. The two went out together to the great barn, fragrant with hay; patted the sleek farm horses, rubbed the noses of the calves. Jacob pointed out briefly the merits of each animal; Pippin responded with suitable encomiums. Both men were absent and constrained.

It was not till they reached the gate that Jacob Bailey spoke out.

Leaning against a post, he drew out his jack knife, looked about for a stick, and finding one, began to whittle.

"Well!" he said at length. "So you found your way here. How do you like?"

"First-rate!" said Pippin. "I never saw a place I liked so well."

Jacob whistled "Yankee Doodle" (his one tune) carefully through; then--

"How about comin' back?" he said. And as Pippin was about to speak, "I mean comin' to stay! There now, I've out with it," he added. "Here it is! Me and m' wife have took a liking to you, and so has all the inmates. I never saw 'em take so to any one, unless 'twas Cap'n Parks, and he's an old friend. What I would say is, Pippin, we're gettin' on in years, and we need young help. We've no boys of our own; I've got a nevy, but--never mind about that now! We'd like first-rate to think that you'd come back bimeby to stay."

"Do you hear that?" Pippin asked himself silently. "He would trust me; knowin' all there is to know, he'd take me right in! Now wouldn't that--" He turned to Mr. Bailey with shining eyes. "You're real good, sir!" he said simply. "You're--you're _darned_ good! I don't know how to say what I feel, but I feel it all the same. Now--want me to say what I've ben thinkin'?"

"Sure!" a.s.sented Jacob with a grave nod. Pippin looked about him vaguely. "Woodpile yonder!"

Jacob nodded over his shoulder. Pippin went to the pile and selected a stick with great care, squinting along it to observe the straightness of the grain. Returning with his prize, he produced his own knife, and silence reigned for a moment while he removed the bark, Jacob critically regarding him the while.

"I've ben thinkin'--the _chance_ of it! Here you've got these folks, and they're nice folks--most of 'em, that is--and you're doin' everything in the world for 'em, and it's _great_. Yes, sir, it's great! And the farm, and the garding--why, it's Mother dear, Jerusalem, right here in Cyrus township, or so it appears to me. But what I'm thinkin' of is the boys!"

A look of pain crossed the kindly face. "The boys!" he repeated.

"Mr. Bailey, I'd love to take care of them old folks, and blind, and like that; but all the time I'm thinkin' of the boys. Boys in the slums, and boys in jug, where I left 'em the other day. It appears to be laid upon me that I am to help the boys; though not to forget the others either, when I git a chance at 'em. Now see! I can't go but a little ways at a time, can I? It's like I was learnin' to walk--if you see what I mean. I don't know just what the Lord has for me to do, 'cept the first thing, to find this old rip's gal. That's plain, ain't it? When I can _see_ a thing, right face to, I can do it--sometimes! But after that--all about it, I can't tell, but I expect the Lord has it all laid out for me, and He'll let me know, 'cordin' to."

There was a pause. Pippin looked up expectantly, and saw his companion looking out over the fields with eyes full of trouble. His face had suddenly fallen into lines of age.

"What's wrong, sir?" asked Pippin impulsively. "Have I said anything I shouldn't? I'll ask you to excuse me if I have."

A shake of the head rea.s.sured him. Jacob Bailey turned the troubled eyes on him, seemed to hesitate; finally, clearing his throat, spoke in a slow, husky voice.

"There's one boy--" He stopped. "Them oats looks good, don't they?" He nodded toward an adjoining field.

"Fine!" Pippin threw a hasty glance toward the oats. "They are dandy, sure. You was speakin' of a boy, Mr. Bailey! What about him?"

Still the gray-haired man hesitated, looking about him with those troubled eyes. At last he seemed to make up his mind, and looked straight at Pippin.

"There's one boy--" he said; "Pippin, there's one boy needs help the worst way. I expect he's right there in Kingdom, where you're stoppin'."

"I want to know!" Pippin was aglow with interest. "Where'll I find him?

What's his name? Has he been run in?"

"Speak low!" the farmer glanced about him. "There's no one round, and yet you never can tell; the folks don't know. It's m' wife's nevy I'm speakin' of, Myron Allen, her sister's son. He's been stayin' with us since his mother died--father dead, too--and he got to be like our own to us. He went to school, and he helped me with the ch.o.r.es and helped m'

wife with hers, and was handy boy all round. Mebbe we worked him too hard; he's only sixteen. We never thought it, but mebbe we did. Yet he seemed happy--whistlin' all over the place, jokin' and like that; and his cheeks was round and red as a Baldwin apple. Yes, sir, he enjoyed good health, and everybody made of him, and he was good as gold. Yes, sir, no one couldn't ask nor wish for a better boy than what Myron was till last summer. Then--well, 'twas bad company begun it."

"You bet it was!" murmured Pippin. "Go on, sir!"

"'Twas hayin' last year done the mischief. Myron hired out to a man over Tinkham way--that was after he'd got through with the hayin' here--and there he met up with some that was no better than they should be by all accounts. Pippin, that boy left us an innocent boy, that never had a bad word in his mouth that ever _I_ heard, nor no one round here. He come back--" the gruff voice faltered--"he come back different, sir. He'd slap through his work and then off he'd go and set down behind the shed and read. He'd got a lot of books from some one he'd met up with; them Sleuth stories, you know, and like that, little paper books. You've seen 'em?"

"I've seen 'em!" Pippin nodded.

"He'd set there by the hour, readin' and readin', and oftentimes the cows bellerin' their hearts out to be milked. I'd come back from the field and find him with his nose in the book, and his eyes startin' out of his head. There warn't no cows nor no farm nor nothin' for him those times. I'd get real worked up, now and then, and give him a good callin'

down, and he'd do better for a spell; but that was only the beginning."

He glanced round again, and his voice dropped to a whisper.

"There's more to it. Things begun to be missed round here! It's been goin' on all winter; nothin' great, just a little here and a little there. Folks begun to talk, and some claimed 'twas tramps, and some begun to wonder--He's only a boy, you understand, Pippin! Oftentimes the thinkin' part grows up slower than what the bodily part does, ain't that so?"

Pippin met the anxious eyes cheerfully.

"That's so! Why, likely he wasn't more than ten years old, come to look inside of him. Where you'll find one boy that knows just where hookin'

ends and stealin' begins, you'll find a dozen that don't. And there's more to it than that; but go on, sir! I'm just as inter_est_ed as I can be!"

"This spring, a feller come along, and Myron knew him; he was one of them he had met over Tinkham way, and he was trampin'. Lookin' for work, he said, but if I ever saw a countenance that said lookin' for mischief, 'twas his. Young man, too! Well, Myron brought him in and we treated him well, because Myron seemed so taken with him. We give him a bed, and next day I set him to work hoein'--said he _wanted_ work, you understand--and he appeared pleased as pie. Myron was hoein', too; we can't keep the witch gra.s.s out of that field, try our best. I was busy in the barn that day, choppin' hay, but yet I'd come out now and then jest to let 'em know I was round, and every time I'd find 'em with their heads together, tongues doin' the work and hoes takin' a noon spell: quick as they saw me they'd shut up and go to work. Well! I'd ought to have known then that they was plottin' mischief, but you don't look for your own folks--"