Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 32

"Good-night, brother!" he said meekly. "I'm sorry if I spoke harsh.

Pleasant dreams to you!"

CHAPTER XX

THE PERPLEXITIES OF PIPPIN

"I don't know _what_ to do with Mary!" said Mrs. Aymer. "I am really distracted about her, Larry. I don't think she's _fit_ to go with you to-morrow, yet I don't believe anything can stop her."

"She certainly looks ill." The chaplain glanced thoughtfully toward the pantry door, as if he expected to see through it. "Have you had any talk with her, Lucy?"

"I've tried, but I had to do all the talking. She just pulls this little wooden smile--it's just that, Lawrence! it's as if she pulled a string and twitched the corners of her mouth up; there is no smile in her eyes.

It's _tragic_! And all she will say is, 'It is my duty to go to my father; I must go, because it is my duty!' over and over; in fact--"

with a petulant outburst--"I seem to have lost my Mary, and got a very beautiful talking doll in exchange--Only dolls _do_ look cheerful," she added, "and they don't cry their eyes out all night."

"Have you heard her crying?" asked John Aymer.

"Heard her? No! But I see her in the morning, don't I? _I_ am not an _owl_, my dear John!"

"No, my love, certainly not!"

The two men gazed meditatively at each other over their pipes. ("Since my husband must either smoke or fidget," Mrs. Aymer was wont to say, "I prefer to have him smoke; and there shall be no room in my house that he is obliged to fidget in.") But the pipes did not make for peace as usual; the atmosphere of the rose-shaded room was anxious and troubled, reflecting the mood of its little ruler. However things might be with Mary-in-the-kitchen, Lucy-in-the-parlor was not herself this evening.

She would knit diligently for a few minutes, then spring up to turn down the lamp, to poke the fire, to straighten an already straight window blind, then plunge at her knitting again, and make the needles fly at a bewildering rate.

"It certainly is an extremely rum start!" said John Aymer thoughtfully.

"Makes one feel as if one were living behind the scenes at the ----," he named a popular theatre.

"John Aymer!" The knitting was dropped, and two indignant sapphires burned on the guilty husband. "I don't _like_ to think you are heartless, John," said Lucy; "but sometimes there seems nothing else _to_ think. To _make game_ of a poor girl's misery! Men are--"

"Not at all, my love, not at all! I am as sorry as sorry can be, and you know it. But none the less I cannot help feeling as if I were in a movie. Here are all the materials, black-hearted ruffian, lovely maiden, gallant youth--if that wasn't a movie scene the other night, I never saw one, that's all!-- By the way, Larry, what of the gallant youth? How has pet-lamb Pippin been to-day? Or haven't you seen him?"

"Oh, yes, I have seen him. I don't believe he cried last night, but he doesn't look as if he'd slept much for several nights. The boy is as thoroughly upset as the girl." The chaplain stooped to pick up a coal from the hearth; then went on slowly. "On the one hand he is all joy at having found Mary; on the other he is all despair because he thinks he has offended her in some way. How about that, Lucy? They have been good friends up to yesterday, have they?" He looked inquiringly at his sister.

"_Good friends!_" Mrs. Aymer sprang up again and moved restlessly to the fire.

"_Hold on!_" her husband grasped her skirt and drew her resolutely back.

"My child, if you put the Cape Cod fire-lighter _hot_ into the kerosene, there will be an explosion, and we shall all be burned very painfully.

This is the fourth time I have caught you on the point of doing it; the next time, I shall take the thing away and give it to your cousin Selina, who has never moved quickly in her life. Now, my dear girl, sit down, and _stay_ down for ten minutes."

Mrs. Aymer subsided in temporary eclipse of meekness, and John Aymer turned to his brother-in-law, who also had sprung forward when he saw the glowing sponge approaching the bra.s.s pot.

"All right, Lar! She _will_ do it, but I am generally on the lookout.

You ask if Mary and Pippin have been good friends. Lawrence, I have been conscious for the last two weeks that while Lucy's body has had many occupations, her mind has done little except marry these two young people, establish them in a shed-apartment-elect (to be furnished, I gather, with all our belongings except those actually in use), and a.s.sist in bringing up their family. I feel quite the G.o.dfather already, I a.s.sure you!"

"Dear me, sirs!" the chaplain blew smoke rings and watched them with a critical eye. "I had no idea it had gone as far as that!"

"It hasn't, except in Lucy's fertile brain. Possibly neither of them has thought of it, though I admit the possibility to be highly improbable, at least on the boy's side. If I were in his place--"

Here Mrs. Aymer was discovered to be weeping quietly and drying her eyes with her knitting, to their imminent peril. Both men sprang to caress and comfort her. Her husband vowed that he would, if necessary, hale both the potentially contracting parties to the altar and make Larry marry them then and there. Anything, he declared, rather than have his wife blinded by knitting needles or destroyed by fire. Incidentally, he himself was a brute, and if his little girl cried any more, he would touch himself off with the Cape Cod fire-lighter and have done with it.

Her brother said nothing, but took hold of her little finger and shook it in a particular way which had meant consolation ever since he was six and big, and Lucy was three and little. Finally, between them, they coaxed a smile from her, and a declaration that they were dear boys and she was a goose. Then it occurred to her that Mary might sleep better with a hot water bottle; this cleared up matters wonderfully, and she bustled off quite cheerfully, promising John that she would have one herself, and giving Larry a good-night hug as the best of brothers.

The brothers-in-law exchanged an affectionate nod as the door closed behind the little woman they both adored; a nod which said many things, all kind and patient and loving. They smoked in silence for ten minutes, then one asked the other where he got his boots; the other replied, and they talked boots with absent-minded ardor for ten minutes more, then fell silent again.

"_But_," John Aymer exploded suddenly, "it _is_, as I said, an extremely rum start. I suppose you feel perfectly sure of your pet lamb, Lar?"

"Perfectly--humanly speaking!"

"Then that's all right. The fellow is so infernally attractive--you understand! If I thought he would make Mary unhappy, or--or anything--I'd wring his neck for him, see?"

The chaplain nodded gravely. "I see! you won't have to wring his neck, Jack."

"Then that's all right," repeated John Aymer. "Glad of it! He certainly is as taking a scamp as ever I saw. Is he--has he any family? Nice comfortable mother or sister who would be good to Mary, eh?"

Lawrence Hadley shook his head; a slow, humorous smile curled the corners of his mouth. He heard Pippin's voice, eager, imploring. "You won't tell any one, will you, Elder? About Pa and Ma, I mean. Honest, sir, they've ben more help to me than lots of real folks I've seen. What I mean--well, I've seen folks act real ugly, you know, to their own flesh and blood; speak up real hateful, the way you wouldn't speak, no, nor I wouldn't, to a houn' dog! But these folks of mine, so good and--and so--well, kind of holy is what I mean, and yet ready to joke and laugh any time--gorry to 'Liza! Elder, I do wish you could _see_ Ma and Pa, I do so!"

"No, John," said the chaplain, "I'm afraid--I have always understood that Pippin was an orphan."

The friendly silence fell again, and the chaplain's thoughts reverted to his conversation with Pippin that morning. What a child the boy was! How almost incredible--if the things of G.o.d could ever be incredible, mused the chaplain--that after such a bringing-up (say, rather, dragging, kicking, cuffing up) he should be what he was. Hadley's mind, always with a whimsical thread running through its earnestness, recalled a visit to an aquarium, and certain creatures of living crystal through which such organs as they had were visible as through gla.s.s. Pippin was like that, he thought. An Israelite without guile; the child of the slums, the young desperado; Pippin the Kid, alias Moonlighter, alias Jack-o'-lantern. Strange and true, and blessed! Out of the mouths of babes--gutter babes as well as those of Christian homes! But how absurd, how utterly unreasonable, this very crystalline quality made the boy! He had thought that once he found the girl, all would be plain sailing. He had actually expected Mary to start with him, hand in hand like two children, that very morning for Cyrus Poor Farm, thirty miles away.

There was folks he knowed all along the road, dandy folks, would be tickled to death to take them in; what say? The chaplain vetoing this proposal decidedly, the eager light had died out of Pippin's eyes, the anxious cloud settled again on his brow.

"She's mad with me!" he lamented. "Green gra.s.s! She's mad with me, and I don't know no more than the dead what I done. Why, don't you rec'lect, Elder, she was puttyin' round there [Pippin meant "puttering"] while we was talkin', smilin' and--and lookin' pleasant, the way she does--why, you'd said I was welcome, wouldn't you? Sure you would! Why, sir, we was _friends_! There's things I've told that young lady--and she 'peared to understand, too, and to--what I mean--not be opposed to hearin' 'em--and then all of a sudden--I tell you, Elder, I don't know what I'll do if she stays mad with me, honest I don't." Pippin's voice broke, and he brushed his hand across his eyes. "Have you any _i_dea why she's mad with me, Elder?" he asked simply.

The chaplain patted his shoulder as he would a child's.

"No, Pippin, I have no idea. I don't even know that she is 'mad with you.' She has had a shock, and a great deal of excitement and--and emotion, and I don't think she is quite herself now. You must be patient, Pippin. A young woman's feelings are very sensitive, as you said yourself yesterday. Mary is very much upset, and she probably feels--she is a very sensible girl, and a very intelligent one"--"You bet she's all that!" Pippin murmured--"probably feels that as you are connected with all this excitement and emotion, it is better for her not to see you just now. Start along with your wheel, and Mary and I will follow by rail. Mr. Bailey can meet us at Cyrus Centre--it's a four-mile drive, you say? We'll be there as soon as you, Pippin, or before. Be off with you! And cheer up!" he added with his friendly hand on the broad shoulder that drooped as it had never drooped before since that hour among the b.u.t.tercups. "Cheer up, Pippin! 'Praise the Lord with gladness,' you know, my son!"

"Amen, Elder! 'And come before His presence with a song.' I will, sir!

Gimme a little start, and I will. So long, sir!"

It was not Pippin's own flas.h.i.+ng smile that greeted the chaplain from the gate, as with Nipper on his back, the boy turned into the lane; but still it was a smile, and his chin was up, and his shoulders square once more. Yes, Pippin was all right again. But--the chaplain sank deep and deeper into reverie--what was to become of Pippin eventually? He could not go pirouetting across the stage of life as if it were--Hadley glanced at his brother-in-law, and saw him also deep in thought--a moving picture show. If he had only taken his, the chaplain's, advice in the beginning, and let him find an opening for him in some safe, steady business!

As if in answer to his thoughts, John Aymer looked up suddenly.

"How would Pet-Lamb fit into the hardware line?" he asked. "About as well as a salmon in a lobster pot, eh? Well, we must fit him in somewhere, Lar. I want Mary to stand by Lucy this winter, you understand!"

"Of course. And anyhow, Jack, the boy cannot expect to support a wife by scissor-grinding."

"All right!" John Aymer rose with an air of relief. "I was afraid that you might have some idea in your visionary old noddle. Come on! Let's have an apple and go to bed!"

When Pippin went his way that morning, with many a wistful backward glance at the friendly house and yard where now no blue shape of grace and youth smiled on him, he did not start at once for Cyrus Poor Farm.

There was a visit to make first. He plodded along the streets, looking neither to right nor to left, his bell tinkling in vain (two or three housewives waved their ap.r.o.ns and called to him, but he did not hear them) until he came to the now familiar brick wall and the wrought-iron gate opening on the cheerful courtyard. He was a frequent visitor now at the Home; he knew every child intimately, and had won every adult heart, even that of Mrs. Faulkner, who declared that there was certainly no resisting him and that she had given up trying. Mrs. Appleby's heart had been his from the start, as we have seen, and it was she he had come to see, for the children, he knew, would be at school. Still, as a matter of habit he glanced at the upper windows, and was rewarded by the sight of a forlorn little freckled face which lighted into ecstasy at sight of him.

"Gee!" said Pippin. "Now wouldn't that--"

He waved his cap to the little prisoner, and a lively sign dialogue ensued. Had Jim, Pippin asked with expressive action of his hands, run away again and got behind the bars? Vehement denial, the red head shaken till it seemed in danger of coming off. Been cutting up, then, and got spanked good and hard and sent to quod? This also was rendered with dramatic effect, was also denied, with some show of indignation. Then what the didoes was the matter? Pippin spread his arms abroad with uplifted brows. For reply the window was pushed up behind the nursery bars, and a hoa.r.s.e little voice croaked "Tonsilitis! Been abed--" Here the speaker was withdrawn swiftly from behind, and the window closed again. Mrs. Appleby looked down and nodded to Pippin, intimating that she would be down directly; then turned to the child, with admonition in every line of her firm, substantial figure.