Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 14

"That," he repeated, "was a close call, as close as I want in mine.

S'pose I'd got further off, so's he couldn't catch me up. What would he ha' thought? Poor innocent gal! Gee! The Lord stood by me good that time! But--gorry! S'pose I'd ben--Gives me the cold s.h.i.+vers to think of it. Now--now--I wonder--"

Pippin stood fingering his file absently, deep in thought. How to help a person like that? He had wanted to help her, sure thing, and now--'peared like all he had done was to hender. He expected 'twas his being a new person, breakin' in, like that, when she was used to havin'

things quiet and all of a piece, so to say. He sighed, and replaced the file. Best leave it, after all, to them dandy folks; they was used to handlin' her and they knowed how. Best he keep away, till he had found the little gal, what say? Yes--but--now a doctor might know things that even Mr. and Mrs. Bailey wouldn't. Then he laughed, in spite of his trouble.

Now! How come he to think of that just now, of all times? Along back--way along back--they'd say White Patter over a person that was like that, not to say crazy, but a little wantin'. Old White Patter!

They would, sure! Kind of an old charm; couldn't call it a prayer, but mebbe as nigh one as Granny Faa could manage to come. Pippin had tried to say it late times, but he couldn't seem to fetch it: now--now--

He lifted his head; it was coming back, the age-long jargon. Word by word, dropping into his mind from some limbo of things forgotten; word by word, he said it over aloud, standing in the wood road, the trees arching over his head, the moss curling round his feet.

White paternoster, St. Peter's brother, What hast 'ou i' the left hand?

White-book leaves!

What hast 'ou i' the right hand?

Heaven-gate keys!

Open heaven-gate and steek h.e.l.l-gate!

White paternoster, amen!

Back in the cellar! Darkness, foul air, fumes of liquor. Some one singing in drunken tones s.n.a.t.c.hes of song vile as the liquor. The child, on his huddle of rags in the corner, shrinks and shudders, he knows not why. The old woman rises; there is a cuff, a curse, a maudlin whimper; she makes her way to the corner and bends over the child. "When he gets singin'," she whispers, "don't 'ee listen, Pippin! Stop your ears and say White Patter! Hark now, till I larn it 'ee!"

Bending lower, she recites the charm over and over, till the child with faltering lips can say it after her. "That'll keep 'ee safe!" says Granny Faa, and hobbles back to the spark of fire that keeps her old bones alive.

"'Twas all the prayer she knew!" said Pippin. "Green gra.s.s! But yet I expect the Lord understood. There's Amen to it, you see."

Joy of the road on a June morning! Who could taste it as Pippin did? It stood to reason that no one who had not been behind the bars could really know what it meant. Blue sky overhead--not a little square patch, but all you wanted, all there was--clear, deep, stainless, from rim to rim of the horizon. That would be enough just itself, wouldn't it, after three years of gray-white walls? But there was all the rest beside; trees still in their young, exquisite green, birds not in cages but flitting from branch to branch, singing, singing--

Flowers along the road: b.u.t.tercups, Pippin's own flower that the Lord gave him that day; daisies, too; beautiful, wicked orange hawkweed, and good honest dandelions, each one a broad gold piece of Summer's coinage.

Gra.s.s, too--gorry! 'twas in There ("There" was Sh.o.r.eham) he got the habit of saying "Green gra.s.s!" It did him good just to think of it, and it filled the mouth full as good as swearin', for all he could see. He used to think about it; used to wonder, on breathless days when the gray-white walls radiated heat--and other things than heat--how it would feel to lie down and roll in gra.s.s, cool, moist, fragrant.

Ah! and now here it was under his feet, an elastic, emerald carpet. All he wanted of that, too! Were ever such uncountable riches as Pippin's this June morning?

He was to have yet more, Croesus that he was. On the left of the road a glint of rosy purple showed against the black tree trunks. He stepped aside and parted the branches. A little ferny hollow, with a tiny stream babbling through: beside the stream ma.s.ses of purple blossoms, delicate, glowing, exquisite.

"Green gra.s.s!" said Pippin. He stood for some time gazing; asking no questions of Rhodora, being no critic, but taking his fill of delight in simple thankfulness. "Gee!" he murmured, as he let the branches droop again over the enchanted place. "And that's right here, by the side of the road, a reg'lar flower show, and no charge for admission. Now what do you think of that for a world to live in? I tell you, Paradise has got to toe the mark to get ahead of that. What say?"

The trees grew thinner, fell away to a fringe; the road grew broader and more even. Presently a house or two came in sight. Yes, this was the Kingdom road; he remembered that white house. He would be back in time for dinner; then he'd put in two three days--or a week, mebbe--finding that boy, and finding--yes, he sure would--the grace of G.o.d in him. Take a boy like that, and he could be no more than egged over with sin, like you do coffee cake: it hadn't had time to grime into him. And--come to get him all clean and nice and steppin' the Lord's way again, what was to hender his steppin' right into his, Pippin's, shoes and bein' handy man to Mr. Baxter? Green gra.s.s! Pippin had planned lays before now, but he never planned a prettier one than what this would be if it worked out good--and it would! And then it was the city, and to find that little gal. He had never meant to go back to the city, chaplain had told him not to; but if he knew how things was, he would say go, he sure would, Elder Hadley would. Yes, sir! And when he found her--well! After all, the Old Man was her father, and he wouldn't be lasting long anyhow, and if she was a good gal she wouldn't grudge him a portion of time. Mebbe even she'd be fond of him: you never could tell what a woman wouldn't be fond of. Why, Sheeny's wife was fond of him. Used to come over There once a month reg'lar and cry over him 'cause he was in for a long jolt; now you'd thought, knowin' Sheeny, she'd cry if he wasn't. And, gee!

there was the meetin'-house, and if Pippin wasn't holler for his dinner, believe _him_!

CHAPTER VIII

PIPPIN SETS BREAD AND LAYS A PLAN

The Baxters received Pippin with open arms. 'Peared like he had been away a week, they said, instead of just over night. They certainly had missed him. No, they hadn't set the dough yet: they were just thinking of it, but they thought likely--well, hadn't he better have his supper first? No such great hurry, though of course 'twas _about_ time--

"Gimme five minutes," said Pippin, "and then just watch me!"

In five minutes, washed and brushed, spotless in white cap and ap.r.o.n, his arms bare to the shoulder, he appeared shouting for his task.

Everything was white in the bakery; s.h.i.+ning white of tiles and vessels, soft white of scoured pine, softer white of snowy flour. The great caldron stood ready, under the chute that led from the upper floor.

Pippin pressed a k.n.o.b, and down came the flour, in a steady stream.

Pretty, Pippin thought, to watch it piling up in a soft cone, falling away in tiny avalanches, piling up again.

Another touch; the stream is checked. Now for the salt and sugar. Now yeast, milk and water, half and half: more whiteness, br.i.m.m.i.n.g in a white pail. In it goes, with wonderful effects of bubbling and creaming, while snowy clouds float up and settle on Pippin's brown face and sinewy arms.

He touches another k.n.o.b; down comes the iron dasher--this, too, s.h.i.+ning in white enamel--and round and round it goes, tossing, dropping, gathering, tossing again, steadily, patiently; that is the way they mix bread at Baxter's bakery.

Pippin watches it, fascinated; he never tires of the wonder of it. But presently Mrs. Baxter calls. "Supper, Pippin, come now! Buster'll mind Elbert for you."

Elbert is the dasher, named for the brother baker who persuaded Father Baxter to give up hand mixing and take to machinery. Pippin gives the machine a friendly pat. "Good old Elbert!" he says. "Keep it up, old figger-head! I'll be back, time you're ready to lay off. She's all right, Buster," as the boy enters, munching his final doughnut. "In great shape, Elbert is! You want to sc.r.a.pe her down a mite--" give it twenty masculine names, and a machine must still be feminine--"when she gets balled up, that's all. She's just as sensible--why, she can all but talk, this machine can."

"Mourns good and plenty," chuckles Buster, "when she's dry."

"Lots of folks mourn when they're dry! I shall be mournin' myself if I wait any longer for that cup o' coffee your ma's got for me. So long, old sport!"

"You said you'd tell me that story about Mike c.o.o.ney and the turkey!"

"Sure thing! But I didn't say I'd tell you when your ma was keepin'

supper for me. Quit now!"

Seeing he was so late, Mrs. Baxter thought he might as well set right down here at the kitchen table; here was his ham and eggs and coffee, and the pie and doughnuts handy by. She'd been fl.u.s.trated up all day.

Had Pippin heard that there was thieves about? No, Pippin hadn't; he wanted to know if there was! Well, 'twas so. Mis' Wilkins had two pies stole last night right off the b.u.t.t'ry shelf, and a jug of cider, and matches all over the floor; and night before that they broke into Al Tibbetts's store, broke open the till and made away with two dollars and seventy-five cents. There! She was so nervous she thought she should fly. Did Pippin think the lock was real safe on the bakery door?

Pippin, after rea.s.suring her on this point, grew thoughtful over his supper, so thoughtful that he was reproached for not eating a thing. He roused himself.

"Not eatin'! Just you watch me, Mis' Baxter! Know what ailed the man that wouldn't eat a supper like this? Well, he was dead, that was what troubled him!"

The table cleared, Pippin washed his hands and arms at the sink, and joined Mr. and Mrs. Baxter on the back porch. Soon two pipes were puffing, and three rocking chairs (Buster had unwillingly gone bedward) creaked and whined comfortably. It was a soft, dark night, just cool enough for comfort, Pippin thought, and yet warm enough--well, warm enough for comfort, too. The back porch looked out on a little gully, the bed of a stream that flowed through Kingdom to join the river near at hand. White birches grew on the steep banks--you could see them glimmering through the dark--and the place was full of fireflies; the stream murmured drowsily over its pebbles.

"Green gra.s.s!" murmured Pippin. "Now wouldn't it give you a pain to think of leavin' this?"

They were three tired people--Mrs. Baxter had done a big ironing, and the baker had missed Pippin sorely--and for some time were content to sit silent, rocking softly, breathing tranquilly, "just letting go," as Mrs. Baxter put it. But after a half-hour of this pleasant peace, Pippin sighed, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and sat up straight in his chair.

"Now, folks," he said, "I've got to talk."

Mrs. Baxter woke out of a comfortable doze; Mr. Baxter straightened himself and knocked out his own ashes. "That's right!" he said. "We'll be pleased to hear you, Pippin. I heard you tellin' Buster, and it sounded real interestin'. Fire away!"

"Well!" said Pippin ruefully. "I'm in hopes you won't be any _too_ well pleased, Father Baxter. The heft of what I have to say is in four words: I got to leave!"

The rocking chairs creaked with startled emphasis.

"You ain't, Pippin!"

"You don't mean it, Pippin!"

"You're jokin'! He's jokin', mother, can't you see?"