Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 30

Dennis Ca.s.sidy, with a ma.s.sive shove, sent Nosey staggering back, then thrust his finger into the narrow cavity and drew out, and held up--a little bow of blue ribbon.

It was at this instant, before any one had time to speak, that a firm, quick foot crunched on the gravel outside. Some one came up the step, and looking over the policeman's shoulder, stood in silent amazement.

Pippin looked up, uttered a great cry, and sprang forward.

"Elder!" he cried. "Elder Hadley, sir! I'm straight! As G.o.d is above us in Heaven, sir! I'm straight."

The air turned black about him, and for a moment he saw nothing but whirling sparks of fire. When his vision cleared, he found himself leaning on Lawrence Hadley's shoulder. A sob broke from him.

"I'm straight, Elder!" he repeated.

"Of course you are straight, Pippin! Easy, old chap. Take it easy! Look out, officer!"

Mr. Dod Bashford, after one glance at the contents of the secret compartment, had been edging unostentatiously toward the door. As Ca.s.sidy stepped aside to let the chaplain enter, he made a sudden dash, amazingly swift for so heavy a man, and diving between the colossal legs, got halfway out of the door; but calculating his chance a little too closely, he upset the equilibrium of Mr. Ca.s.sidy, who sat down suddenly and heavily, blocking the doorway more completely than before.

"Hold on, Dod!" he said, seizing Mr. Bashford's legs in a grip of iron.

"Hold on! I ain't sure about young Pippin, or whatever his name is, but I've no doubts about you, my man. You're wanted on several counts, and I don't doubt but your respectable son is too. _Hold still!_ You don't want I should have to knock you out before the ladies, do you? I'm ashamed of you!"

Bashford struggled savagely, desperately, muttering curses under his breath. His son moved quietly to the window and investigated the firmness of the fly screen.

But now more footsteps were heard. Two men came running along the lane, into the yard, up the steps; stars shone, truncheons waved, handcuffs clinked. In two minutes all was over, and the Bashfords, relapsing instantly into the hunch, skulk, cringe of the habitual criminal, stood in apparent humility before the Force.

One of the newcomers, surveying the group, broke into a jovial laugh.

"Well done, Dennis Ca.s.sidy!" he cried. "Bully for you! Let's hear anyone say again that you go to sleep on your beat!"

CHAPTER XIX

A KNOT IN THE THREAD

It was afternoon of the next day. Mary's kitchen was in its customary trim perfection, so far as Mary could make it so. She had scrubbed and polished all the morning, determined to remove every trace of the hateful doings of the night before. Such actions going on in her kitchen! Real _bad folks_ there, and policemen, and all! Of course the room needed cleaning; it stood to reason. One trace, however, could not be scrubbed or polished away. It would need more than brush and mop to mend that plaster, cracked and starred where the savage blow had struck it. Mary, gazing at it over her broom, found herself suddenly sobbing, the tears running down her cheek.

"He would have been killed!" she murmured. "But for being so quick, he would have been killed. _My soul!_ Oh, I thank the Lord for saving him.

I do thank Him!"

But that was morning. Now, as I said, it was afternoon, and Mary, in her afternoon ap.r.o.n with its saucy pockets and bewildering blue ribbons, was putting away the newly washed luncheon dishes. Pippin had helped her wash them; he would not take no for an answer. Coming a little early for his promised talk with the Elder, he had found Mary still at work, in blue pinafore, and had taken a hand as a matter of course. They were very silent at first over the dishes. Both were shaken by the events of the night. Pippin still felt the theft of the blue ribbon heavy on his soul. Mary, stealing glances at him under her eyelashes, saw again the flash of the bra.s.s knuckles; saw--in thought only, thank G.o.d! Oh, all her life she would be thanking G.o.d--the bright face all crushed and shattered--

She gave a little scream under her breath, lifting her head quickly.

Pippin stooped at the same moment to set down a dish, and their heads came together smartly. This brought laughter, and thereafter things went much better. They talked--of trivial things, to be sure, the weather, and crockery, and hardware. Both instinctively avoided the depths, but somehow each found an astonishing quality in the mere sound of the other's voice, something soothing, cheering, uplifting, all at once. So the dishwashing was a singularly pleasant little ceremony, only too short, Pippin thought. Seemed a pity folks didn't eat more. He would not hear of Mary's leaving the kitchen when Mr. Hadley came. The idea! He had nothing to say but he'd say it better for her bein' there; nor would he accept Mrs. Aymer's kindly proffer of the parlor. Full as much obliged to her, but--he looked appealingly at the chaplain, who laughed outright.

"We shall both be more comfortable in the kitchen, Lucy!" he said. "Come on, Pippin!"

So there they were, Pippin and his best friend, sitting by the table with its bright afternoon cloth of Turkey red, talking, listening, talking again; the elder man sitting with his head on his hand, his elbow on the table, in the att.i.tude we all remember, the younger bending eagerly forward, hands on knees, face alight with happiness.

"No!" Pippin was saying. "You don't tell me Pete is pardoned out. Well, that does sound good to me. Old Pete! Green gra.s.s! Well, he's airned it, Pete has. And what's he goin' to do, Elder? Pete's no chicken by now!"

"Going back to lobstering. Some friends have bought back his boat for him"--some friends indeed! Lawrence Hadley, where is that new suit you were going to buy without fail this summer? You still have on the old one, white at the seams, threadbare at the cuffs!--"and he and Tom are going into partnership."

"Tom out too? Great! That surely is great, Elder."

"Yes, Tom is out, on parole; but we shall never see him back, I am sure.

I took your advice, Pippin, gave him the money test, and he rose to it at once. You were right. He needed some one to trust him, and to show that he trusted him."

"You bet he did!" Pippin sprang up, and began pacing the room with light, eager steps. "You bet he did, and you done it! Green gra.s.s! I would say glory to G.o.d! And he found the Lord? Did Tom find the Lord, Elder? He couldn't help but, with you showin' him!"

"Why--" the chaplain paused, and a twinkle crept into his blue eyes, "I think he did, Pippin, but not just in the way you mean. The Lord has many ways, and everybody cannot be an evangelist, and go singing and praying about the country as I understand you do."

Pippin's eyes were very large and round.

"Sure I do! What else would I? The Lord give me the voice, didn't He?

Behooves me praise Him with it; that's right, ain't it, Elder? Or ain't it? Have I took too much upon me? Say the word, and--"

"Perfectly right! Perfectly right, Pippin! Sing all you possibly can.

But Tom cannot sing, and, if you ask me, I think he would make a very poor hand at praying; but he's a good fellow for all that. It's good honest work he's going to do, too; pleasant work. I'd like to go lobstering myself for a change!"

"You wouldn't! Not with all that mess of cold water heavin' up round you all the time--honest, Elder! I never was in a boat in my life, and I never hope to be."

The chaplain sighed and smiled. The sea had been his life dream. It came before him now, blue, alluring, mysterious--he brushed it away, and bade Pippin sit down.

"You've had your innings," he said, "and I've told you all I'm going to; now it's your turn to tell me, young man. How comes it that you are back in the city, Pippin? Didn't I warn you against it? Didn't I tell you you were sure to get into trouble if you came back?"

Pippin sat down and drew out his file.

"You sure did, Elder! and I never meant to set foot in the darned hole, honest I never! But look the way things come round! I had to, hadn't I?

I just fair had to! I wrote you about that, didn't I?"

"No! You wrote me that you had found the dandyest place that ever was, and that you wanted to fill it plumb up with boys and bring them up clean and straight, and that you were going to do it soon as ever you had finished the job you had on hand, but you didn't say what the job was, and you didn't say that it would be bringing you back to the last place in the world where you ought to be."

"Is that so?" Pippin ran the file through his hair anxiously. "Now what a lunkhead I be! I sure thought I told you, Elder. Why--well, anyways, I'll tell you now. Why, 'twas at that place, Cyrus Poor Farm--it _is_ a dandy place, now I want you should understand that; and the dandyest folks in it ever _I_ see--almost!" His eye caught the flutter of blue ribbons as Mary entered after hanging out her dish towels. "And--why, 'twas there I found the Old Man, and made him the promise. He's on the blink, you see; in poor shape the Old Man is, and no mistake; and he wants to see his little gal before he goes--well, wherever he _is_ goin'. His little gal, you understand, Elder; his kid, the only kid he ever had, I presume. Mother took her away from him--I'm sure no one can blame her for that--but--well, she's woman grown now, and he's never set eyes on her since she was a kid. Now wouldn't that give you a pain, Elder? He's a rip from Riptown, and he's never done a cent's worth of good that I know of; but there 'tis! And he plead with me, plead real pitiful, I'd find his little gal for him. What would you done, Elder? I looked for grace in him, honest I did, and I couldn't find one smitch, no sir! not one single, solitary smitch, till--what I mean--till--till I see how bad he wanted his little gal; and I thought mebbe that was the way it took him--you get me, Elder?"

"I get you, Pippin! Go on!"

"And--and mebbe if I could find the kid--I can't help but call her a kid, though she's a woman now, if she's alive--if I could take that kid to him, he might--get me?--might find the Lord through the lot he set by her. I ain't puttin' it the right way, but--"

Pippin paused, and his eyes finished the sentence.

"Perfectly clear, Pippin, perfectly clear; I haven't a word to say. You did right. But who is this old man? You speak as if it were some one I knew, yet you wrote me that Nipper Crewe died. What old man is this?"

Pippin stared.

"Ain't I tellin' you? Old Man Blossom! It's him, and it's his little May--"

_Crash!_ Both men sprang to their feet. Mary-in-the-kitchen had dropped a plate, the first thing she had broken since she entered the Aymers'

service. She stooped hastily to gather up the fragments. Pippin ran to help her, but she motioned him away, hastily, almost rudely. No, she thanked him--she was just as much obliged--she thought she could fit the pieces together. She didn't know what made her so careless--here she suddenly dropped the pieces again on the floor and ran out of the room and up the stairs.

"Green gra.s.s!" said Pippin. "Now wouldn't that give you a pain? Just one plate, and hurt her feelin's like that! They're so delicate in their feelin's, ladies is. Gee! 'Member when I fell downstairs with the whole of A corridor's dishes, Elder? Now _that_ was some smash, it sure was!"