Pippin; A Wandering Flame

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

  CHAPTER XIV

  PIPPIN LOOKS FOR OLD MAN BLOSSOM'S LITTLE GAL

  Back to the city, Pippin! Leafy suburbs, irradiated by clothes-hanginggoddesses, are all very well, but they are not your affair; or if theyare, you do not know it. All you know is that you have to find a girl, agirl whose rightful name is May Blossom, but likely changed o' purposeto keep the old man from finding the kid, and small blame to her Ma forthat.

  Pippin goes over in his mind such scant information as he possesses. MayBlossom was put in some kind of a Home joint, being then, the Old Manwould judge, six year old, or a year off or on it. Pretty littlegal--pretty little gal--Pippin's mind comes to a dead stop.

  He brushes his hand across his eyes. The vision is upon him, but only toconfuse and bewilder. An alley, or narrow court, where clothes aredrying. A mite of a girl trying to take the clothes down. She cannotreach them, stamps her feet, cries; a boy comes and takes them down forher.

  "Thank you, boy!" she says.

  "Say 'Pippin!'"

  "Pip-_pin_!"

  "Green grass!" Pippin murmurs. "Now--now--could that have been her? Healways said he'd knowed me from a baby; said he lived neighbor to GrannyFaa--I never believed him special; but he sure was a pal of Bashford's.Now wouldn't it give you a pain if that little gal was his little gal;wouldn't it?"

  What he had to do now was find what Homes there was, and ask what becomeof a little gal name of May Blossom--or anyways looking thus and so.Pippin smote his thigh, and threw back his head.

  "One thing at a time, You'll earn a dime: Six things in a pickle You'll lose a nickel!

  like Mr. Baxter says. Now watch me find that joint!"

  We cannot watch Pippin through this search, which took several days.True, there were only two Children's Homes in the city; but theapproaches to them were devious, and Pippin's methods were his own.First he must find a bakery in the neighborhood of the Home, the onemost nearly approaching the perfection of Baxter's. Here he must lingerfor an hour or more, talking bakery gossip, discussing yeast, milkpowder, rotary ovens, and dough dividers; sharpening the knives, too,mostly for brotherly love, for was not he a (temp'ry) baker as well asknife-grinder? Here he would ask casually about the joint whose redbrick or gray stone walls towered near by. Home for kids, was it? Well,that was a dandy _i_dea, sure! Did the baker supply--did? Had their ownbaker, but took his buns and coffee-cake reg'lar? He wanted to know!Well, talkin' of coffee-cake--here yarns might be swapped for a matterof half an hour. Then the baker would be asked what kind of a man theboss was? Or was she a woman? Was? Well--well, even if so! Thursday wasvisitors' day, was it? Well, he wouldn't wonder a mite but what he'dlook in there some Thursday. Pretty to see a lot of kids together,what?

  His first visit to the stone Home with the mullioned windows was a shortone. The black-robed superintendent was courteous, but cool; she was notinterested in either grinding or bakeries. There had been severalred-haired girls at the Home in her time, but none named Mary Blossom,none corresponding with Pippin's description. Was he a relative? No? Shewas much occupied--"Good morning!"

  "She don't want no boes in hers!" said Pippin thoughtfully, as he boreNipper out of the paved courtyard. "I don't blame her, not a mite!"

  At the red-brick Home with the green fanlight over the door hisreception was more cordial. The kindly, rosy face of the Matron beamedresponsive to his smile. The morning was bright, and she had just heardof a thousand-dollar legacy coming to the Home, so her own particularshears needed sharpening, and she superintended the process (she had agrass plot to stand on, too, instead of a pavement) and they had a gooddish of talk, as she told the Assistant later.

  Hearing Pippin's brief account of his quest, she meditated, her mindrunning swiftly back over the years of her superintendence.

  "A child of six or eight!" she repeated thoughtfully. "With hair like ayearling heifer's! Why, we have had many children with red hair; thesandy kind, and the bricky, and the carrotty--_and_ the auburn; but noneof them sound just like the child you describe. Then, the parents! Younever saw the mother, you say? What was the father like?"

  "Like a crook!" said Pippin promptly.

  "Dear me! That is a pity. Can you describe him? Not that I ever saw him,but the child might have resembled him--"

  "Not her!" Pippin averred confidently. "The old man never looked likeanything but--well, call it mud and plaster, and you won't be far off.Now the little gal was a pictur. Hair like I said, and eyes--well, firstthey'd be blue and then they'd be brown, like in runnin' water; knowwhat I mean? And the prettiest way of speakin' you ever--"

  "_Why, you've seen her!_ You didn't say you had seen her."

  Pippin looked helplessly into the clear gray eyes that had suddenlygrown sharp and piercing. "I--don't--know!" he said.

  "Don't know what?"

  "Whether I see her, or whether I just--" He stopped to sigh and run hisfingers through his hair, almost knocking his file out. "I expect I'llhave to explain!" he said.

  "I think you will!" The tone was not harsh, but it was firm and decided.The Matron had seen many people, and was not to be beguiled by thebrightest eyes or the most winning smile. Moreover, the "pictur" Pippinhad conjured up had brought a corresponding image on her mentalkinetoscope; she, too, saw the child with eyes like running water andthe prettiest way of speaking; saw and recognized.

  Pippin sighed again.

  "When I say I don't know," he said slowly, "it's because I don't! Justplain that! When I said the way that gal looked, it--well, it's like itwasn't me that said it, but somebody else inside me. Why, I spoke itright off like it was a piece: 'twas as if _somebody_ knew all alongwhat that little gal looked like. Now--"

  The Matron took him up sharply. "As if somebody knew? What do you meanby 'somebody'?"

  Light came to Pippin. Why, of course!

  "I expect it's a boy!" he said.

  "What boy?"

  "I expect it's the boy I used to be. I forget him most of the time, butnows and thens he speaks up and gives me to understand he's there allright. You see, lady, when I was a boy, there was a littlegal--somewheres near where I lived, I expect; and she had--yes, she surehad hair that color, and eyes that same kind. And when you spoke justnow, it all come back, and seemed like 'twas the boy tellin', not me ina present way of speakin'. I don't know as you see what I'm drivin' at,but I don't know as I can put it any plainer."

  "What kind of boy were you?"

  "Guttersnipe!"

  "Where did you live?"

  Pippin described the cellar as well as he could. It was no longer inexistence, he had ascertained that. Where it had yawned and stunk, amodel tenement now stood prim and cheerful.

  The Matron looked grave. Her clear gaze pierced through and through theman, as if--his own homely simile--she would count the buttons on theback of his shirt.

  "What references have you?" she asked presently.

  "References?" Pippin looked vague.

  "Yes! I don't know anything about you--except that you are certainly agood scissor-grinder!" she smiled, half relenting. "You want to knowabout one of our girls--about some one who might have been one of ourgirls--" she corrected herself hastily--"and you say you were aguttersnipe and her father was a crook. Young man, our girls havenothing to do with crooks or guttersnipes, you must understand that.Unless you can refer me to some one--" her pause was eloquent.

  "I wish't Elder Hadley was here!" said Pippin. "He'd speak for me,lady!"

  "Elder Hadley? Where does he live?"

  Pippin sighed, fingered his file, sighed again. Easy to tell his storyto Jacob Bailey and Calvin Parks, the good plain men who had known goodand evil and chosen good all their lives long; less easy, but still nottoo hard, to tell it to the kind Baxters who knew and loved him: buthere, in the city, to a woman who knew crooks and guttersnipes andprobably feared or despised them--not easy! Still--

  "You see, lady," said Pippin, "'tis this way."

  * * * * *
r />   The Matron heard his story, listening attentively, now and then puttinga shrewd question. When it was over, she excused herself, not unkindlybut with a grave formality unlike her first cheerful aspect. She mustattend to something in the house. If he could wait ten or fifteenminutes--

  "Sure!" said Pippin. "And I might be sharpening the meat knife or likethat? I'll throw it in for luck."

  While he was sharpening the meat knife (which, he said to himself, hadbeen used something awful; you'd think they'd gone over it with acrosscut saw!), he heard a cheerful hubbub in the street outside;distant at first, then louder, as turning a corner; louder still, asclose at hand; till with a deafening outburst of treble and alto thegate of the courtyard was flung open, and--

  "Green grass!" cried Pippin. "Here's the kids!"

  Here they were indeed, just out of school, rosy, tousled, jubilant: boysand girls, the former small, the latter all sizes from kindergartentoddlers to the big sixteen-year-old maiden to whose skirts they clung.At sight of a strange man they checked, and the hubbub fell into suddensilence; only for a moment, though, for Pippin smiled, and in anotherminute they were all around him, hustling and elbowing to get theclosest sight of the wheel.

  "Easy!" said Pippin. "Easy does it! Don't come too nigh her; she bites!"There was an instant recoil, with symptoms of possible flight. "What Iwould say," he went on, "she'll bite if you touch her; no other ways.Look with your eyes and not your hands! _And not your hands!_"

  A swift shove of his elbow saved the fingers of a small boy who thoughthe knew better, and sent him back upon his more prudent neighbors.Shouts resounded.

  "Jimmy got his!"

  "Yeh! Jim-_may_! You got yours!"

  The culprit faced round with crimson cheeks and doubled fists. He hadonly been at the Home a few weeks, and fighting was still his one formof argument; a snub-nosed, freckled bull pup of a boy. Pippin observedhim, and liked his looks.

  "Say!" said Pippin. "Look at here! Want to hear her sing?"

  "Hear who sing, Mister?"

  "The wheel! Stow your noise a sec., while I ask her." He bent over thewheel and seemed to speak and listen. The children waited open-mouthed,goggle-eyed. "Says she's got a cold," he announced cheerfully, "andfeels bashful beside! Say, I'll have to sing for her. What say?"

  "Yep, Mister! Do, Mister! Sing, Mister!" came in chorus.

  "O.K. You'll have to keep still, though. I'm bashful myself, you see.Now then--Where's the smallest kid? Here, kiddy! Come to Pippin! Don'tbe skeered, he won't bite nuther. Gimme your hands--that's a daisy! Nowthen--

  "There was an old man, And he was mad--"

  When the Matron appeared again, accompanied by an older woman of severeaspect, Pippin was sitting on the cellar door, half-buried in children.One little imp was sitting astride his neck, hammering time on his chestwith sturdy heels; a six-year-old girl clung to either shoulder, two orthree more were on his knees, the rest sat or knelt or squatted as closeas they could get; and Pippin, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed onthe maple leaves overhead, was shouting at the top of his lungs:

  "Darling, I am growing o-hold! Silver threads among the gold Shine upon my brow to-day-hay, Life is fading fast away!"

  As the song ended, before the Matron could make her presence known, thebull pup known as Jimmy fell silently upon his nearest neighbor, a boysomewhat bigger than himself, and pommeled him ferociously. The victimshrieking aloud, Pippin seized the pup by the scruff of his neck,dragged him off, and held him at arm's length, wriggling and clawing theair, his eyes darting fire.

  "What ails you?" demanded Pippin. "What d'he do?"

  "Didn't do nothin'!" wailed the bigger boy.

  "He picked on me!" raged the smaller.

  "Didn't neither!"

  "Did teither! And pinched m' leg beside! Lemme go!"

  "Yeth, Mithter!" piped a five-year-old. "He did pinch him! I thee him doit!"

  "Hold still, pup! hold still! I'm bigger'n you be. Now then, you, leavehim be, you hear me? I expect you did pinch him all right, all right;you look like a pincher. Now look at here! Can you wrestle, you two?"

  "Betcher life!" "Nope!" came in a fiery yap and anguished yelp from thetwo.

  "Green grass! What are you made of? Putty, or dough-scrapin's?" This tothe yelper, while still holding the yapper well in hand. "Now if wecould make a ring, and leave you fight it out sensible, and--"

  The Matron stepped quickly forward. Pippin, aware of her, scrambled tohis feet, shaking off (very gently, be sure) all but the urchin on hisneck, who only clung the tighter; and still holding the bull pup--by thecollar now--he beamed on the Matron.

  "I was sayin', lady," he said, "that if you'd leave me make a ring, andthese two pups fight it out, we'd see which would lick, and they'd befriends from now on. What say?"

  The Matron said, "No!" decidedly, and at a word from her the childrenscuttled into the house by their side door, albeit with many a backwardglance.

  Pippin looked longingly after the freckled pup. "There's a kid I like!"he said. "I could do something with that kid if I had him. 'Tother one'sa low-down skeezicks by the look of him. Here's the knife, lady; I hopeit's satisfactory."

  It was; but the two ladies desired a word with Pippin indoors, if hecould leave his wheel. Pippin expected he could; he'd never knowed theNipper to bolt, nor even shy. "After you, ladies!" Now who taught Pippinto hold the door open and bow with the grace of a young birch in thewind?

  The Matron wondered, but said nothing. The three passed into a coolinexpressive parlor which had no opinion about anything, and sat down onthree Mission chairs to match.

  "This is Mrs. Faulkner," said the Matron; "the Assistant Matron. I amMrs. Appleby. Your name is--?"

  "Pippin, ma'am!"

  "Pippin--what?"

  "Pippin Nix--what I would say, it's all the name I've got. Not bein'acquainted with my parents--you see--"

  "I see! It seems a curious name--The point is this. Mrs. Faulkner and Ithink we know--"

  "Think we may possibly know!" struck in Mrs. Faulkner, speaking for thefirst time, and then shutting her mouth with a snap as if she feared aword too much might escape.

  "--May possibly know," Mrs. Appleby corrected herself, "the girl you arelooking for."

  "_Green grass!_ Is that so?" Pippin smote his thigh, was confounded, andasked pardon, all in a breath.

  Mrs. Faulkner bent severe brows on him, and Pippin reflected what ablessing it was Mrs. Baxter didn't ever look like that.

  "We keep in touch with our girls," Mrs. Appleby continued, "till theymarry or reach the age of twenty-five. The young woman we have now inmind is eighteen years old, and a very fine girl."

  "Gee! Ain't that great? Where'll I find her, lady?"

  "Remain seated, if you please! We will come to that presently. We knowher under a name slightly different from the one you have heard. Mrs.Faulkner remembers that her mother told her she had altered the name inorder that the father should not trace the child."

  "Now wouldn't that--" murmured Pippin. "Say, she was a daisy, wasn'tshe?"

  "She was perfectly right!" Mrs. Faulkner's aspect was rigid to the pointof awfulness. "She was a decent woman, and wished her child decentlybrought up. Her husband was a reprobate!"

  "Meanin' long for 'rip'?" Pippin leaned forward eagerly, with pleadingeyes and voice. "He sure was, lady! Yep, Old Man Blossom was a rip fromRiptown, and so remains; but yet there never was any _harm_ in him. WhatI would say--he's a crook, and a bo, and not the guy for family lifeanyways you look at it; but he never was a _mean_ guy. He never hit frombehind; there was no sandbaggin' in his; just he'd give you one on thejaw if he couldn't cop the swag without, you see. Now that's square, yousee, _for_ a crook! But--" Mrs. Faulkner's eyes glared whollyunresponsive. He glanced at Mrs. Appleby, and seeing, or thinking hesaw, a faint glimmer that might mean an inward twinkle, addressedhimself to her.

  "You see how 'tis, lady! And now he's on the blink--that is, near hisend, you see, and he wants his little ga
l; wants her bad. And--bein' abo myself, it ain't for me to p'int out things to ladies like youse, butif she's the kind of gal like you say, mightn't she think, say, 'Well,after all, he's my dad, and I'm his kid, and 'twon't do me a mite ofharm to give him a look in.' What say?"

  "You say he is dying?" said the elder woman. "Has he suffered any changeof heart? Does he repent of his evil ways?"

  "Not yet he ain't!" Pippin flushed and his hands clenched; he seemed tohear the snicker once more. "But the way I look at it is this, lady!" Hebent forward again, all shyness gone now, his brown face aglow. "'Lookout for the grace of God!' says Elder Hadley to me. 'Wherever you lookfor it, you'll find it!' he says. 'If you don't,' he says, 'it's yourown fault, for it's sure there somewhere!' he says. Well, I tried,honest I did, to find grace in Old Man Blossom, and all I could find washe wanted his little gal. So--well! What I would say, God moves in amyster'ous way, His wonders to _per_form; (sung to 'Albayno,' commonmetre, fine hymn, though a mite sober!) and how do I know but wantin'his little gal was the way was took by--by Them as has the handlin' ofthings--" a reverent jerk of the head toward the sky--"and--well--that'sthe way it struck me!" Pippin concluded lamely.

  The tears stood in Mrs. Appleby's kind eyes, and even Mrs. Faulkner'sseverity was perceptibly abated.

  "We only want to be sure--" faltered the former.

  "We _must_ be sure!" said the latter.

  "Yes--of course we must. Pippin, I believe all you say--" she glanced atrifle defiantly at her assistant--"because I cannot help it. I am sureyou have told us the truth; but we cannot take action--we cannot tellyou where Mary Fl--where the young woman is, until we have _proof_ ofyour respectability and the steadiness of your purpose. You willunderstand that, I am sure. Well--now! Bring us a note from Mr. Hadley,and we will tell you where she is, and will recommend her employ--thatis, the people with whom she is staying--to allow her to visit herfather. This is all we can do!"

  She rose as she spoke, and held out her hand; Pippin grasped itheartily.

  "You're a perfect lady, ma'am!" he said. "I see that the minute I laideyes on you. I'll get that note if it takes a leg! 'Twon't take above aweek to get to Shoreham--say a day there, and another weekback--walkin', you understand--say two weeks, and I'll be back if I'malive. I'm a thousand times obliged to you, lady--and you too, ma'am!"His smile loosened the strictures about Mrs. Faulkner's heart--a goodheart, but over-institutionalized by years of routine--and sent a warmglow through her.

  "I'll wish you good day--say!" he stopped suddenly. "About that pup--Iwould say kid: him with the freckles and the bull-dog grip. I like thatkid. He's got sand, a whole bag of it. If you was lookin' for a home forhim when he leaves this joint--but I guess we better leave that till Ibring that note, what say? Good day, ladies! Come up, Nipper!" And witha comprehensive wave and smile that took in every eager face glued tothe playroom window, Pippin went his way.