Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 40

"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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sionate 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!"

CHAPTER XXVI

PIPPIN PRAISES THE LORD

Two years have pa.s.sed, as yesterday, as a watch in the night. Once more the chaplain sits in his office, the bare, unlovely little room where we first saw him. Once more he is opening, sorting, reading his morning mail, his brow saddening, lightening, saddening again. Finally, once more the cloud rolls away entirely, and he settles himself in his chair with a comfortable sigh.

"Pippin!" he says, and composes himself to read. Let us look over his shoulder and read with him!

HONORED AND RESPECTED SIR,

I take up my pen with pleasure, to express the hope that the present seasonable weather may find you in good health and the enjoyment of every blessing. Well, Elder, I haven't written this good while past, because I wanted to wait and see would I be able to tell you what I _wanted_ to tell you. Well, Elder, I want you should know it's _all right_, I have got that degree! I had a talk with the Old Man last winter, and he surely is great.

He said I was all right on chemistry and crops and soils and like that, and similar on social economics, and mathematics, but where I fell down was on rhetoric and English literature. I said did he think that cut any great amount of ice when all I wanted was know how to run a farm and bring up boys straight and white.

He said he didn't know as it did, but yet I didn't want those boys to grow up speaking ignorant. You bet I don't says I, but what's to hinder me learning 'em? I says, and learning myself at the same time? Have the books, and study right along with 'em I says, and there would be others could teach me, I says.

Then I told him how it was about me and Mary, and how it didn't seem as if I _could wait any longer_. He laughed real pleasant, and said he guessed I wouldn't be called upon to wait very long, and I should have the degree all right first minute he could give it to me. Then he explained just how it was, and of course I saw in a minute; he couldn't give a degree to a guy for knowing a thing when he didn't know it. He knew how 'twas with me, and that I was doing ch.o.r.es and odd jobs to pay my way. And grinding! Elder, I was thankful to Nipper for that wheel. I sure was. I kept the whole show sharpened up good, now I tell you.

Well, Elder, now I want to tell you. When you first said, and Mr. Bailey upheld you, that it behooved me wait two years, and go to State Agricultural, and do thus and so, before I'd be fit to handle boys and be trusted by them as had 'em in charge--I tell you, sir, it seemed as if I _couldn't_, no way in the world. It appeared like I couldn't do it. It was like as if I was in Heaven, and you took me by my scruff and pants and hove me out. "It's more than reason," I says to myself. "It's more than flesh and blood can stand; it's like I was white-hot metal, and they took and threw cold water over me!" Well, Elder! You see where that was leading me? I bet you do! But I didn't, not at first. I went out to the barn, you rec'lect, and just set there by myself, humped up on the meal bucket, sayin' over and over, "I was all white hot to do the Lord's work, and they've took and threw cold water over me!"

And then, all of a sudden, it come to me, and I laughed right out. You must have heard me over to the house, I expect.

Mary did, and she come running--bless her! "You lunkhead!" I says. "You lunkhead from way back everlasting, how do they temper metal _but_ with cold water? Nice kind of steel you'd get without it, what say? Like to shave with soft iron, what say?

And when you put it in the water it hisses," I says, "and so does the old gander hiss, and I know which you are most like!" I says.

I was laughing, you rec'lect, when I come back to tell you 'twas all right; I expect you knew pretty well how twas. You were whistling "Soldier of the Cross," and that showed me.

Well, Elder, I have had a _great time_ over to State Agricultural, I sure have. The folks have been dandy, sir, simply dandy. Folks couldn't _be_ no dandier than what they have to me. I used to think college folks and like that was _wanting_ somehow, but I found the boot was on the other leg, it was me that was a nut to think so. I've made friends--why, they are _all_ friends, I do believe. I'll tell you all about it first chance I get, but what I want to say _now_ is, Elder, _my time is up_! I've got my degree, and Mr. Bailey is satisfied, and the cottage is ready (I've put in all my vacations on it, you know, and Mr. Bailey and the selectmen have been more than kind, the neighbors too), and Mary is ready; bless her heart! and Mrs.

Aymer can spare her all right, or at least she says she _can't_, but she _will_, the kiddo learning to walk and like that; and she's got Mary the dandiest outfit ever you saw, Elder! If she was the President's wife, it couldn't be no dandier. And I've been to see all those gentlemen you said, the Boards and like that, and they was all dandy too, and said "Go ahead," and _I'm going_! So name the day you can come over, Elder, and _Mary and I will be there_. The Lord is so good to me--I don't know why He is so good, except that He _is_ good. And all my life long, sir, I'll try my best to make other folks happy, I sure will. So no more but thanking you Elder, because under the Lord you really done it all sir. With a grateful heart though faltering pen I beg to convey to you, reverend and highly respected Sir, the a.s.surance of my being

Your most obedient humble servant PIPPIN.

P.S. I could have written and spelled it better if I had have taken time and followed this book, the "Polite Letter Writer"; a guy loaned it to me over to State Agricultural.

I began this letter with it, but it balled me up so I couldn't keep on and I'm in hopes you will excuse bad writing and spelling. But I aim at a correct and elegant style, dear Sir, in epistolary communication--green gra.s.s! maybe when I have _more time_, Elder, I can do it, but it's no use, I cannot now.

The chaplain read this letter through twice. Then, after docketing and filing it carefully, he rose, and tucking his coat tails under his arm, proceeded to dance gravely up and down the little bare room, singing the song that was his high water mark of joy and triumph:

"Green is for Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Green is for Ireland, fiddle dal day!"

The day was named; the day was here. Boards, councils and committees sent each a kindly delegate to the opening of the new Boys' Cottage at Cyrus Poor Farm. The opening was to take place in the afternoon; eight of the ten boys were to be brought over from the city by the president of a certain inst.i.tution; there were to be addresses and formalities.

But a few delegates had been asked to come early, to attend the wedding of the young couple who were to take charge of the new cottage. These delegates came smiling, full of cheerful expectation. This, they told one another, was Lawrence Hadley's venture. Good fellow, Hadley, excellent fellow! Yes, he vouched for this young chap, absolutely.

Seemed to be an extraordinary chap; State Agricultural College gone wild over him. Kind of athletic evangelist, it appeared; led 'em all by the nose, they say. This cottage was his idea; yes. And there it was; pretty cottage!

A pretty cottage indeed; red brick, like the mother building which smiles friendly upon it across the green yard; its creepers already started, its flower beds already in bloom; its bra.s.s knocker defying the sun. Inside, all fresh and bright, homelike and--full! Full to overflowing, so that the kindly delegates pause astonished, and wonder whence all these people have found their way to so remote a district as North Cyrus. Who are all these people? Come and see!

First, in the shining kitchen, which has walked bodily over, it would appear, from Mr. Aymer's home in the city suburb, who are these two busy, rosy, white-capped and ap.r.o.ned people, man and woman? Why, these are Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, who are preparing the wedding breakfast. Who else should prepare it, they would like to know? Weren't they the first to welcome Pippin when he came to Kingdom? Wasn't he like their own, a son to them, a brother to Buster? Buster is in the shed now, "spelling"

Myron at the ice cream freezer, both so eager that they are making five-minute shifts at the handle. Glancing through the open shed door, you may see Jacob Bailey in his Sunday suit, deep in talk with Father O'Brien and Elder Stebbins--pleasant talk, to judge from their faces.

From the barn comes Brand, he too in his decent best, threadbare but spotless, carrying in careful hands the wonderful nest of baskets on which his spare hours for the past year have been spent: his wedding present for Pippin and Mary. Look at him! He has never seen light, but we see it in his face.

Who is in the dining-room of the cottage? Mrs. Bailey, of course, with Aunt Mandy Whetstone and Miss Pudgkins. Miss Whetstone opines that if there was need of city folks to do their table settin' for them, it was time they give up! With trembling hands she is laying out on the table the four silver teaspoons and the gravy ladle which commonly repose with her burial money at the bottom of her trunk. The trunk is kept locked, strapped and corded, the key hangs round Miss Whetstone's neck on a string; you never know, and in case of fire, there you are! Miss Pudgkins has no teaspoons, but she has "loaned" for the occasion the chief ornament of her bedroom, a magnificent wreath of "preserved"

funeral flowers in a gla.s.s case. The cloud on her brow at this moment comes from Mrs. Bailey's kindly but firm refusal to use the wreath for a centrepiece.

"Fresh flowers is rill common!" Miss Pudgkins thinks.

One cannot say that Mr. Wisk is in any special room, because he is in them all, following his unerring nose from dining-room to kitchen, from kitchen to pantry, wherever the smell of food leads him; pointing industriously, and whispering in any willing ear that that ham, sir, is the "pick and peer of swine p'dooce the country over, let the others be who they will." Mr. Wisk has unearthed from some mouldering portmanteau an enormous red velvet waistcoat with gla.s.s b.u.t.tons, reaching halfway to his knees. He is proud of every inch of it, and struts gloriously when glances are cast toward it.

Who is in the parlor? Why, who but Mrs. Appleby and Mrs. Faulkner, both in holiday guise; both beaming with the same effulgence of joy that lights every face in this astonishing cottage? Here in the parlor also is the chaplain, holding in either hand Peppino and Jimmy Mather, who are straining like puppies on a leash.

"Keep still, youngsters!" commands the chaplain. "You nearly had me over that time. I'll tell you as soon as I see--ah! there they are!"

The mellow note of a Gabriel horn is heard; an automobile comes dashing down the road. It is John Aymer's new car, the "Son and Heir," and John Aymer is driving it. Beside him sits Mrs. Aymer, all smiles and roses and pink muslin, as becomes a matron of honor, in her arms the son and heir himself, _almost_ big enough, she thinks, for a page, (but not quite, since every third step still brings his nose to the earth). And in the tonneau--are these two glorified spirits from another world, radiating light and joy and triumph? No! These are Pippin and Mary; she in white, with white roses in her pretty hat, he--but no one could ever tell what Pippin had on.

At sight of him the chaplain looses his hold of the two boys. They make one bolt for the door, fall out of it together, wriggle up again, and rush like a double whirlwind to the gate, rolling under the wheels of the car, which has fortunately come to a standstill.