Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 18

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!"

CHAPTER XI

THE CHAPLAIN READS HIS MAIL

The chaplain was sorting his morning mail. He did it deftly and quickly, opening (with a thin-bladed paper knife; no ripping or tearing with hasty fingers), glancing over, destroying, filing, or laying in the "Answer immediately" pile. All this with his swift, careful fingers and half of his careful mind; the other half was busy over problems.

Problems of Tom, of d.i.c.k, of Harry; problems mental, moral, physical. If he could only keep them apart, how much simpler it would be! But the three _would_ run together, act and react one upon the other. One of his trusties was "wobbling," the guard told him; growing surly, careless, shirking his work here and there, getting up steam, Wilson the guard opined; liable to turn ugly any minute. What had happened? Well, he thought his egg had been smaller than the rest, last egg day; he'd been chewing the rag ever since. The chaplain sighed. What children they were!

He ran his eyes over a letter. It was from a prisoner's wife, begging to know how Nate was. She had been sick; would chaplain please tell Nate that was why she couldn't come last Tuesday? (Tuesday was visitors'

day.) The children was smart. Joe and Susy was at school, but Benny had no shoes till she got her pay from the factory; she was working extra time to try and have something left over from the rent. They would get along all right till he, Nate, was out, and he could get a place right off in the mill, she guessed.

The chaplain sighed again, and laid the note on the growing pile of "Answer immediately." Poor Susan! She worked so hard, and was so hopeful! She always thought the last spree would remain the last; better so! He shook his head, seeing Nate's weak, comely face, sodden with drink. Poor Susan! Poor women! G.o.d help them all!

He opened another letter, and learned that "yrs. respect'ly, Wm.

Billiam," hadn't got no work yet; no wun appeared to want him though he show them the note, sir and sum sed when they was a plaice he shood have it and a Nother man sed there wos not work enuf for strate men and he gessed crooks wood haf to wate till the pigs begin to fly "but I ramember wot you sed chapple In and i will keep strate sir you betcher life excusin bad writin'." This letter, written all downhill with no sign of punctuation, smudged and smeared by a not too clean shirtsleeve, might have brought a smile to some faces, but the chaplain's face was grave enough. The endless problem, the riddle without an answer. Not work enough for the honest men; yet if the discharged criminal cannot get work, how to prevent him from relapsing into crime? Who can blame him? He goes out with his little newborn resolve, a feeble, tottering thing, and tries for honest work. He has learned a trade behind the bars, perhaps; he can make brooms and mats, weave rough baskets, cobble shoes. He finds a dozen applicants before him. Questions are asked: Where has he worked? What references can he give? If he tells the truth, seven employers out of ten shake their heads. If he lies, he is found out after a time and the result is the same; he is "bounced." Who can blame the boss? Who can blame the man if--Round and round, over and over! No royal road anywhere. Nothing to do but keep on trying.

The chaplain raised his head, and the fighting look came into his eyes.

Keep on! Never say die! The scroll--his eyes fell on the letter with its forlorn smudges; that one looked as if a tear had fallen and been wiped off with a grimy hand--the scroll was growing clearer; slowly, yes, but steadily. You had only to look back twenty years, ten years, five! Line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little and there a little--

"Aha!" The word was spoken aloud, in a tone of pleased surprise.

"Pippin, I verily believe!" said the chaplain. He studied the superscription a moment. How he had labored over those upstrokes! It was a good hand now, though the scamp would never be a professor of calligraphy. Then he opened the envelope and read as follows:

DEAR FRIEND ELDER HADLEY RESPECTED SIR,

This is to state that I am first rate and hoping the same in regard to yourself and all friends there. Well Elder I am having a bully time right straight along. I am still to Kingdom in the bakery and grindin same as I last wrote but dont think I shall stop much longer, though I like first-rate and if I felt the Lord intended bakin for mine there's no dandier place, no sir nor one where I'd feel more at home. If they was my own folks they couldn't be kinder to me than what Mr. and Mrs. Baxter is.

But I have fixed them all right with a nice boy will step right along and make an A 1 baker if he has his health which appears rugged up to the present and he likes real well and so do they.

Well Elder you said to tell you when I found a Leadin; well sir I have, and it seems to squint like the Lord was showin me His hand. I found a dandy place sir, the dandyest you ever see and folks ekally so, and plenty of room; and savin this boy like, or the Lord savin him through me is what I would say, made me feel Elder I wanted to do _sompin for the boys_. Yes sir when I see that dandy place and only a few old folks that pooty soon their time would be up I thought fill that nice big house up with boys and learn em farmin and gardenin and like that, why twould be _great_ elder. Take kids like I was with no folks of their own or b.u.m ones which is worse; what I mean take em away from the city and give em hens to take care of and feed the pigs and learn ploughin and sowin and like that and live out doors with a good house to come in nights and good food and some person that knows boys and _feels for_ em and knows what some of em has ben through, I think it would be great sir dont you. I tell you Elder there's guys in there, and lifers some of 'em, if they'd ben handled different when they was kids they'd _stayed_ different yes sir they would and you said the same often. Now what I mean is when I've got this present job done and found that kid Im going to follow this lead, because I feel Elder the Lord is leadin me yes sir He sure is. I opened the lids of the Testament you give me and looked and first thing I see was "This should ye have done and not to leave the other undone." Now wouldn't that give you a pain and so it did me and I said lo here was I like Samuel and I am Elder so help me. Mr. Bailey would like it firstrate but he thinks twould take time I tell him I want to start right in soon as I have this job done. I am leavin tomorrow so no more from yours in the Lord and thanking you kindly Elder I am sure for all you done.

Yours resp'y.

PIPPIN.

The chaplain read this effusion through twice, a thoughtful frown knitting his brow, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

He tilted his chair back against the wall, and looked out of the window.

Pippin had been much in his mind since their parting two months before.

This was the second letter he had received from him. The first had been written within a week of Pippin's leaving Sh.o.r.eham, and told of his finding Nipper Crewe dying by the roadside, and of the wheel that he considered rightly his. That was a singular meeting, the chaplain thought. The old sinner, full of evil deeds and memories, suspected of many crimes large and small, yet so crafty withal and so pa.s.sionately bent on keeping out of prison that for the most part he had succeeded.

The chaplain shook his head, recalling one inmate and another, who, shaking an impotent fist, choking with rage, had told how after the "deal" for which he was "pinched," Nipper, the instigator of it, had slipped quietly off under the very noses of the police. While his mate and dupe was there, raging and choking, Nipper would be roaming the country at large with his wheel, grinding more or less, observing a great deal, planning the next neat little job. Yes, Nipper was a bad one! And strange to think of Pippin's being chosen to comfort the old sinner in his last hour and inherit the wheel that had been an innocent _particeps criminis_ in so many "deals"! Well, Pippin could comfort him if anyone could, thought the chaplain.

Still looking out of the window, he let his thoughts run back to the day--could it be two years ago? It seemed hardly more than as many months--when he first saw Pippin. His first Sunday as prison chaplain!

He had accepted the call because it seemed right; a new hand seemed needed--his thoughts ran off the track, as other visions came crowding in; he brought them back with an effort.

He felt anew, with almost the same shock of strangeness, the first impression of seeing his new flock in chapel that day. The rows on rows of faces, sharp or lowering, weak or silly or vacant, degenerate or sodden, a few that were actually vicious--they were seldom _really_ vicious, his poor boys. Suddenly a head lifted, and he saw the face as of a strayed seraph; then presently heard the voice, as of the same seraph at home, singing. The chaplain broke into a little laugh.

Let the bright seraphim in burning row--

That line came insistently to his mind whenever he heard Pippin sing; yet he knew perfectly well that Milton's seraphim were not singing, but blowing their loud uplifted angel trumpets. Perhaps--perhaps voices and trumpets were more alike there?--Anyhow, Pippin's voice had a trumpet note in certain hymns that he specially loved.

The process of Pippin's conversion--to call it that; the chaplain sought for a better word, rejecting in turn a dozen or more--had been the happiest episode of the two years. Plenty of good and cheerful and hopeful things, but that--what _had_ it been like? Chipping off the baked ashes--in Herculaneum, say--and coming upon the lucid marble of some perfect statue? No! A statue was after all a statue, and could give back no warmth. Mining, then, in dark and cold and foul air--poor boys!

there was so much good in the worst of them, though!--and finding a vein of virgin gold--No! Gold was nothing but gold, after all. What--Ah! Here it was! Fumbling with the keys of an organ in the dark, feeling about, waking here a mutter, there a discord, there again a shriek--till suddenly one struck the true chord and the music broke out like sunlight--Or wasn't it after all just that, just sunlight, breaking from a cloud--

"Come in!" the chair was brought hastily to its normal position. A guard touched his cap in the doorway. "Beg pardon, sir, but French Bill has broke loose. Keeper said you was to be told--"

The chaplain was on his feet in an instant. "What has happened? Tell me as we go along!"

"Fell foul of Tom Packard with his bucket, and mauled him consid'able.

I've been lookin' for it these two days. Tom was waitin' at his table, and Bill thought he give him a small egg o' purpose."

"Dear me, sirs! Who is with him now?"

The guard chuckled. "There's no one _with_ him! Anybody wouldn't be very comf'table there just now. Jones is handy by, lookin' after him. You can hear him now!"

They could. A m.u.f.fled roar, rising now and then into a bellow. As they drew nearer, the roar became articulate, and resolved itself into a sustained and pa.s.sionate request for the blood, liver, and other vital adjuncts of Thomas Packard. "Lemmegetaholdofhim--lemmegetaholdofhim!"

Coming down B corridor the clamor was deafening, echoed back from side to side of the narrow pa.s.sage; accompanied moreover by banging of fists, kicking of feet against iron bars. The chaplain sighed and longed for Pippin. n.o.body could manage Bill like Pippin. He usually knocked him down and sat on his chest singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" till the fit was over. There wasn't a mite of harm in Bill, Pippin always maintained, only he was nervous, and come to get worked up, he b'iled right over.

The other inmates of B corridor were listening to the uproar, some laughing, others sympathizing with Bill or Tom, as the case might be.

Opposite the grated door of the cell a turnkey leaned against the wall, a stolid, unmoved figure. "Here comes chaplain!" the murmur ran from cell to cell; and every face was pressed eagerly against the grating.

"Here's chaplain! Chaplain'll sort him!"

Bill himself seemed wholly unconscious of Mr. Hadley's approach. He was a French Canadian, a slender, active fellow. In repose, his face was gentle and rather pensive; now it was the face of a mad wildcat. Shaking the bars with all his strength, he continued to pour out in a monotonous roar his request for the vital organs, amply detailed and characterized, of "Tompack_ard_!"

The chaplain surveyed him quietly for a few minutes in silence; then drew a small square phial from his pocket, and uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the metal top, held it between the bars to the man's nose. With a howl of twenty-wildcat power the fellow let go the bars and staggered backward.

Instantly Hadley unlocked the door and stepped inside, closing it quickly after him.

"Now then, Bill," he said quietly, "what's all this row?"

Shaking and glaring, the man cowered in the farthest corner, rubbing his nose, clutching his throat.

"W'at you kill me for?" he muttered hoa.r.s.ely. "W'at you kill me for, _mon pere_? I do you no harm!"

"I haven't killed you. Sit down, Bill. You've been making a horrid row, do you know it? And you've kicked the toe right out of your boot. Now look at that! Those boots were new last month. You'll have to put a new toe cap over that, or the Warden will have you up for untidiness." He bent to examine the toe. "That's too bad! those new boots!"

"I mend heem!" Bill bent eagerly beside him. "I mend heem good, _mon pere_! Warden nevaire see; I mak heem better as new."

"Well, see you do! And while you're about it, I wish you would look over my shoes, the pair you resoled for me, and see if you can't take the squeak out of them. It doesn't do for the chaplain to go round with squeaking boots, you know; he might disturb quiet fellows like you. By the way, what was your row about, Bill? I heard you had been pitching into Tom Packard."

They had sat down on the bed, the better to examine the injured toe cap.

Bill looked up with a shrug, half ashamed, half sulky, wholly Gallic.

"He been treatin' me mean, long time, two t'ree days. He geeve me de smalles' egg he can find for my breakfast; leetle, leetle, like pigeon's egg."

"Well, I got a bad egg the other day; halfway to a chicken it was; but I didn't break the cook's head, as I understand you broke poor Tom's."

"Yes! yes! I break hees head; I kill heem if I could. Yes, sir!"