Pippin; A Wandering Flame
Page 12
CHAPTER XII
NIPPER
A wealthy young Squire of Plymouth, we hear, He courted a nobleman's daughter so dear, And for to be married it was their intent, All friends and relations had given their consent.
So sang Pippin, on a July morning when all the world was singing too.Bobolinks hovering, trilling, lighting, half mad with glee; catbirdsgiving grand opera in the willows; thrushes quiring psalms in thebirches. Pippin stopped short as a dignified robin with the waistcoat ofan alderman perched on a blackberry vine at his elbow and poured out aflood of liquid melody. "Like out of a jug!" said Pippin. "How d'yous'pose he does it? Gorry to 'Liza, how _do_ you s'pose he does it!
"A day was appointed to be the wedding day, A young farmer was chosen to give her away; But soon as the lady this farmer did spy, She cried in her heart, "Oh, my heart!" she did cry.
"Rest easy a spell, Nipper, and I'll rest too, and listen how he doesthat."
Nipper was the wheel. Setting it on the ground, Pippin sat down under awide-branching oak and listened while the robin, like a certain wisethrush we know of, sang his song twice over, carefully and thoroughly.Pippin, his head cocked much as the singer's was, noted each cadence,and when the music ceased, repeated it in a clear, mellow whistle.Robin, much intrigued, sang a third time, and a fourth, cocked his headstill further and listened critically. Pippin replied more correctlythan before; so it might have gone on indefinitely, but for aninquisitive crow who came bustling down to see what it was all about.Robin flew away scornfully, repudiating intercourse with crows; Pippinflirted his handkerchief and told the intruder to be off with himselffor an old black juggins.
Leaning against the oak bole, at peace with all mankind, Pippin listenedand looked, looked and listened. Presently he became aware of anundertone of sound which made so perfect an accompaniment to the birdconcert that he had not at first distinguished it. In the fringe ofweeds beside the road a brook was murmuring over pebbles, gently,persistently, wooingly. The July sun was hot; he had been walking sincesunrise.
"I'll have me a wash!" quoth Pippin.
"I'll have me a drink, and I'll have me a wash, And then I'll be clean as a whistle, by--"
He stopped abruptly: he had promised Mrs. Baxter not to say "gosh"; itwasn't an expression she cared to hear him use, not real nice someways.
"And Nipper shall have a bath too!" he said gleefully. "Nip, all thebath you've had these two days is squatterin' in the dust like a hen.I'll show you; just you wait!" Carrying the wheel, he plunged into thegreen covert; the trees closed behind him. "Green grass!" said Pippin.
There was grass, certainly, long rank grass, such as leans over ingraceful curves and dips into brooks. There were sweet rushes too, andjewel weed, and cardinal flowers, which Pippin viewed with respectfuladmiration, asking, now honestly did you ever? Flowing between theselovely things, taking them quite as a matter of course, was the brook,clear and brown--something like Pippin's eyes, I declare!--babbling overmossy stones, with here a fairy cataract all cream and silver, there around pool where Pippin might have found a trout, if he had knownenough. But he did not know enough, knew in fact nothing whatever abouttrout; they are not found in cellars, nor in any part of a slum.Kneeling on a flat stone, he drank long draughts of delight, now fromhis cupped palms, now in sheer boyish glee, putting his mouth to thebubbling silver, letting it splash and tinkle over his face. No thoughtof germs disturbed his joy; he knew no more of germs than of trout.
Next he pulled off his shirt, pulled out his file and bestowed it safelyin a pocket, and producing a bit of soap, fell to splashing about at atremendous rate, sending trout, lucky bugs, germs and all helter-skelteroff in a fright.
A sculptor, watching Pippin at his ablutions, would have wondered howthe child of the slums should have developed such muscles as rippledunder his brown satin skin. Pippin could have told him. Dod Bashfordkept his boys lithe and active as young eels; if they didn't move quick,the rawhide curled about their backs and legs in good shape, Pippincould tell the sculptor. Sometimes the vision would come back even now:boys fighting in a cellar or in the reeking court outside, rolling overand over on the ground, pommelling, kicking, scratching, biting--therewere no sporting rules in Bashford's gang. The big brute would standwatching the little ones with an occasional "Go it, pup!" till he wastired or bored, when "Hook it!" followed by the hiss and sting of therawhide, sent them apart, bleeding, cursing, often weeping with sheerrage and unsated lust of battle. Gee! Remember that fight he had withNosey, last winter he was with Bashford? Slim, long-legged, snaky kindof guy, Nosey was. Some like a fox; some like a rat, too, a sandy rat:sharp p'inted nose on him. Gee! Pippin gave him a good one on thatp'inted nose. Gee! He didn't guess it had p'inted so straight since!
Far enough from Bashford's, here in the green thicket, Pippin splashedto his heart's content: at last, dripping and joyous, he rose and shookhimself like a water-dog, spattering the leaves and rushes with crystaldrops. "Green grass!" he sighed, "that was great!" Next he washed hisred handkerchief and his "other" pair of socks, and hung them on a bushto dry; filed a callous on the sole of his foot that had made him walk"pumple-footed" the last day or two; ran his fingers through and throughhis hair till it curled like that of the Borghese Hermes.
"Now it's Nipper's turn; come on, Nip!"
He had grown fond of the wheel. It was a faithful creature, followingobediently whither he would, whizzing cheerfully, singing, Pippin madeno doubt, the only song was give it to sing. This last day or two,though, it had developed a squeak and rattle that was new to him;behooved him look her over and see what was loose.
Having wiped the dust off and oiled the whole apparatus, he proceeded toexamine it carefully, inch by inch. He had done this many times before;had in fact kept the little machine in apple-pie order, partly for itsown sake and his, partly as in duty bound to the departed Nipper. OldNipper! He had been a rip, Pippin reflected, same as Old Man Blossom;but yet he sure had done him a good turn leaving him the wheel.Now--here was a thing had oftentimes puzzled him of late--what did OldMan Blossom know about Nipper? They might have been pals, he presumedlikely; birds of a feather, you know! Well, yes, that; but Old Manseemed to have some hunch about the wheel; laffed fitterbust, and saidthem things, you rec'lect. Pippin had studied 'em over and studied 'emover, but he didn't get no--
A clock strikes when it is ready, not before. Pippin's clock struck now.Something he had never yet touched, or never in the right way, movedunder his hand. A click, and the metal plate bearing the maker's nameslid aside, revealing a long narrow cavity. Who could have guessed sucha possibility in the compact little contrivance? With a smothered "Gee!"Pippin peered eagerly into the hole or box, thrust in his hand, andbrought out a small object. He turned it over and over in his hand,still muttering suppressed "Gee's!" opened it, and sat staring,motionless.
A leather case containing a set of small tools. Nothing strange aboutthat, Pippin, is there? Very ingenious to pack in this little space thetools needed for his trade! Clever Nipper! Why do you stare so, Pippin,and why does your face flush under its wholesome tan?
His eyes riveted to the tools, Pippin sank down on the grass. He handledthem, one by one, and a bright spark came into his eye.
"Green grass!" he muttered. "Now wouldn't that--"
If you or I had looked over his shoulder, we should have seen at oncethat some of these were unfamiliar tools. A screw driver--yes! a pair ofnippers--yes! a file--yes! but what were these three little shiningobjects which Pippin was fitting together with eager, trembling fingers?Now they are joined and make a slender bar of solid steel, one endflattened to a sharp edge. That is a jimmy, and Pippin is looking withshining eyes at a miniature but perfect set of burglar's tools.
"Now wouldn't that--" said Pippin. Sitting back on his heels, he tookthe tools out one by one and examined them carefully, handling themlike a lover, whistling meantime, slowly and thoughtfully, the airdevoted to the aged steeple-climber. He ran his eye alo
ng their edges;he rang them on a stone to test their perfection. "_Com_-plete!" hemuttered. "These certingly are a complete outfit. Now I ask youhonest, would--not--that--give you a pain in your--" Pippin confusedthe human interior with the gallinaceous. How should he know that wehave no gizzard?
"Old Nipper!" he continued. "Only to think of the slickness of him! Wentround with his wheel, innocent appearin' as you please, and when he sawa likely crib, he'd up and crack it with these little daisies, just aseasy--"
He stopped abruptly, as a light broke in upon him. _This_ was what OldMan Blossom meant. This was why he laffed and 'most had a pupplecticfit; and no wonder! Here was he, Pippin, singing and praying, and allthe time taking a cracksman's kit along with him wherever he went! Nowonder the old rip laughed! Now question was, what to do with 'em?
What say? No one was near; he was alone in the green murmuring place;yet some one did certainly seem to be speaking. Pippin cocked his ear tolisten.
A shame to destroy good tools, pretty set like this, prettiest he eversaw or like to see? Might come in handy for any kind of work--even thejimmy? Any one might want to use a bar--farmin' like, or--
The strong brown fingers seemed to close of themselves, without will ofhis, round the tools, fondling them. Something like quicksilver rancrinkling through him--
"Now HONEST!" said Pippin. "Just watch me, will you?"
A flash in the sunlight where it broke through the leafy screen; asilver splash--the lucky bugs scattered in terror, and a solemn bullfrogtumbled headfirst off the stone from which he had been watching. Anotherflash and splash, and now a whole shower of them. Sang Pippin:
"There was an old man, And he was mad, And he ran up the steeple. He took off His great big hat, And waved it over the people!"
Later, he sat under the wayside oak and communed with himself. How didhe account for that? he asked. Honest, now, wouldn't it gave you a pain?Here he was, the Lord's boy, a professin' Christian, belongin' to everychurch they was, he expected, startin' out all so gay to do the Lord'swork, and Him knowledgeable to it, and helpin' along; and then all in aminute some part of him--something he couldn't get a holt of--give ajump, and _wanted_ them things, wanted 'em like--Gorry to 'Liza! Youcouldn't have no idea _how_ he wanted 'em! and yet 'twasn't him,neither: all the time he was lookin' on, you might say, struck all of aheap. Now how would you make that out? Honest, how would you?
After some thought, Pippin expected that it was the devil. He was alwaysround, you know, like a roarin' line, seekin' whom he could devour 'emup. Behooved him keep a sharp lookout!
_But_, said another part of his brain, ekally the Lord was round, andmore so, let him bear in mind. The Lord was mindful of His own; ElderHadley had wrote that in the Testament and Psalms he give him, and 'twas_so_; and the Lord was stronger than the devil, never let Pippin have nodoubts about that.
"You bet He is!" Up went Pippin's head; he smote his knee with aresounding smack. "You bet He is! Satan, you beat it while your shoesare new! I've got no more use for you, and don't you forget it!"