Pippin; A Wandering Flame

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

  CHAPTER XXIV

  PRIMAL FORCES

  "Comin' in to supper, Brand? The horn has blew!" Mr. Wisk paused, onefoot uplifted for the next step.

  To realize what a tribute to the blind man's personality lay in thispause, one must have known Mr. Wisk. As his internal clock pointed theapproach of supper time he had been standing, poised for flight, anelderly and ramshackle Mercury on a half-dug potato hill. At sound ofthe horn he started, head bent forward, nose pointing as straight forthe kitchen as ever porker's for the trough. He would not have stoppedto put away his spade, because the corner behind the right-hand doorjamb of the barn had been long since appropriated by him for thispurpose; he could reach it without breaking step or slackening his pace.Probably nothing on earth would have checked him except the very sightthat now met his eyes: the blind man standing just inside the door,feeling over various things on a shelf so high that he (a very tall man)could but just reach it. Mr. Wisk hesitated; it was his happy boastnever to have been late to a meal since he came to manhood.

  "Want--want I should help you?" he quavered.

  "No, thank you, Wisk! I'll be in presently, tell Mrs. Bailey. I have tolook for something just a minute, tell her."

  He smiled at the sigh of conscious heroism which drifted back from thedeparting Wisk; but the smile faded quickly, and his face was anxiousenough as his fingers closed round one object and another on the shelf;a bottle, a jar, a row of paper bags neatly tied with twine. To thecasual eye these bags were all alike; one must read the label, see theskull and crossbones, to distinguish them; the blind man needed nolabels.

  "Lime, Paris green, Bordeaux mixture, arsenate of lead--one, two, three,four--there should be five. Lime, Paris green, Bordeaux mixture--_whereis the hellebore_?"

  He paused, his hand resting in an empty space between two bags. Thehellebore should be there; it was always there. He had used it himselfyesterday. He had counted these objects every night for the past tenyears, and never before had one been missing. No one but he could reachthe shelf; even Jacob Bailey had to stand on the bucket to get at it,and the rule was strict that none but one of these two was ever to touchany object on it. Brand stood pondering, with bent head, his hand stillon the shelf. Who had been in the barn this afternoon? He himself,Jacob, Pippin, and the child. No one else--except the little girl; Brandalways called Flora May the little girl. She had been there, not half anhour ago; he had heard her step, had spoken to her, but she did notanswer. In one of her odd spells, probably, poor child! But she couldnot reach the shelf, even if--

  The supper table was less gay than usual that evening; silence prevailedinstead of the usual cheerful chatter. A stranger, glancing round thetable, would have seen for the most part faces absent or absorbed. Jacobwas thinking about Pippin, regretting that the chaplain had failed tohave that talk with him, wondering how he should himself make the matterclear to the boy. His wife was disturbed about Flora May who wasevidently on the verge of one of her odd spells, for she had actedstrangely all day, and she looked wrong to-night. When she crumbled herbread and didn't seem to know the way to her mouth, look out fortrouble!

  In the minds of Miss Pudgkins and Mr. Wisk the same thought reignedsupreme. The pie looked to be smaller than common; would she cut it insix and fetch in another, or would she make it go round? Miss Whetstonewas inwardly lamenting that she had not told Mr. Hadley of JonasCattermole's having been two years in the legislature. He'd see plainenough then that folks was folks, even if they found it convenient toboard a spell with relations that happened to hold a town office. MissWhetstone raised her nose loftily, and told Mr. Wisk with a grand airthat she would trouble him for just a mite of them pickles if he couldspare any.

  And Mary?

  Mary had changed her seat, with a murmured excuse about a draft on herback. She had usually sat between Jacob Bailey and Flora May, sat therewith an inward protest. She shrank from contact with the imbecile girl:the instinctive shrinking of the healthy from the sick, the unconsciouscruelty of the normal toward the abnormal. Hitherto she had given nosign of this, ashamed of an instinct that was yet too strong for her;conscious, too, under the skin of her mind, of the warmth of compassion,the tenderness of courtesy, with which Pippin always treated the poorgirl. If she had been the First Lady of the Land, he could have shownher no more attention, Mary thought.

  But to-night there was something more; Mary was afraid. The look she hadmet, out there by the barn, the dreadful look which seemed to strikelike a sword at her springing hope and lay it cold and dead--sheshuddered now at thought of it; she would not meet it again. If she hadturned her eyes toward Flora May, she would have seen the beautiful facesombre but quiet, the eyes cast down, the girl's whole air listless andbrooding; only--if she had looked longer--she might have seen now andthen the heavy white lids tremble, lift a little way, and a glance dartfrom under the long lashes toward Pippin where he sat opposite her.

  Mary dared not look at Pippin either, for she felt his eyes upon her.Not yet, not before all these people, could she give him back look forlook, tell him silently all that was crying out within her; but soon,soon, Pippin! Meantime she had drawn the child Peppino into the seatnext her, and was lavishing on him all the innocent wiles of thechild-hungry woman; and the child nestled close to her, and looked up ather with adoring eyes. Pippin would see, would understand. All would bewell.

  Pippin saw, but did not understand. He had wrestled and overcome, butthe stress of conflict was still upon him, the air was still full of theclash of arms, the sound of great wings. His shadow world was gone,swept away into nothingness; and of the actual flesh-and-blood realitieshe saw nothing except Mary Blossom. There she sat opposite him, in allher loveliness; surely he might look at her now, might for once take hisfill of gazing on the lovely head with its clustering hair ("The colorof a yearlin' heifer--Poor old mutt! What a way to speak of it! Wouldn'tthat give you a pain?"), on the long dark lashes against the exquisitecurve of the rose-white cheek, on the perfect mouth--

  Pippin's eyes grew misty; the world fell away from him--say, rather, itnarrowed to a point, and life and death and every other creature weremerged in that fair head of the love he thought he had lost.

  "Flora May!" Mrs. Bailey spoke abruptly, almost sharply; every onestarted. "Wake up, Flora, and set up straight; you're all slid down inyour chair. Here! Take this cup o' tea to Miss Blossom, dear!"

  The brooding face lightened, sharpened, in a strange way; the girl rosewith a swift, sudden movement, and went obediently to the end of thetable to take the cup. If Mrs. Bailey had looked up then--but she wasbusy over her tea things.

  "You put the sugar in, dearie--she likes two lumps--and cream! Mr.Brand, you ready for another cup?"

  Pippin had started with the rest, when Mrs. Bailey spoke. Now his eyesfollowed Flora May for a moment; she had turned her back to the table,and was--what was she doing?

  An old-fashioned mirror hung against the wall, dim with age, yet not sodim but that Pippin saw in it the graceful figure of the girl reflected.She paused, the cup in her left hand, drew from her bosom a foldedpaper, shook into the cup what looked like a white powder, replaced thepaper carefully. Now what was that poor thing doing? Putting salt inMary's tea for a joke like? Lacking reason, they were like monkeys, someway--

  Then the girl lifted her head, and Pippin saw her eyes. In a flash hewas beside her, and had taken the cup from her hand; now he lifted it,smiling, as if to drink.

  "I guess that's my cup, ain't it, Miss Flora May? I guess Mis' Baileymade a mistake for once!"

  It all happened in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Before the cuptouched his lips, the girl struck it out of his hand. It fell with asharp crash on the floor. She threw up her arms with a cry which rangthrough the house, and darted out into the night.

  "She's got a spell on her!" said Jacob Bailey, rising quickly. "It'sbeen coming on this week past, m' wife says. Come, Pippin; come, Wisk!We'll have to find the poor child and bring her home."

  He spoke sadly,
but without surprise, as of a thing well known.

  "You come too, Brand! Oftentimes she'll answer your voice when she won'tanother. The barn first!"

  "She was there this afternoon," said the blind man, following. "Likelyshe's gone to put back something she--borrowed!"

  Not in the barn; not in the corncrib, where she used to sit by the hour,crooning her wordless songs; not in the kennel with old Rover, wherethey had found her more than once, poor thing, her arms around the dumbcreature who perhaps--who knows?--was nearer her dumb mind than thehuman beings around her.

  "This way!" said Brand. "Here's a thread of her dress on the gatepost.She's gone to the wood lot."

  Not in the wood lot; no answer to the calls of friendly, tender voices.

  "Flora! Flora May! Where be you, little gal? Speak up, won't you?"

  Further on, through the meadows, guided by the blind man's unerringfingers which found here a broken twig, there a shred of cotton, hereagain a knot of ribbon caught in a bramble wreath; searching, calling,searching, through weary hours.

  So at last to the distant pasture where the lily pond gleamed under themoon.

  There they found her, poor Flora May. Lying among the lily pads, herlovely hair twined about the brown stems, her fair face turned upwards,the clear shallow water dimpling and wavering above her, so that sheseemed to smile at them in faint, disdainful mockery; so they found her,lying quietly in the place of her rest.

  * * * * *

  "Don't cry, mother! don't ye! the Lord has took His poor lamb home.Don't take on so, Lucy!"

  Thus Jacob, patting his wife's shoulder with clumsy, tender hand. He hadnever seen her so overcome; the calm, self-contained woman was cryingand sobbing like a child.

  But now she collected herself with an effort, and dried her eyes.

  "I know, Jacob! I know I hadn't ought; I know she's better off;but--'tis so pitiful! Oh, 'tis so pitiful! She couldn't help it, my poorgirl; she couldn't help it. 'Twas stronger than her. And, oh, Jacob, Ican't but think--if her father had been--different--"

  "There, Lucy! There! Such things is beyond us."

  "They hadn't ought to be!" cried Lucy Bailey, and her tears broke outafresh. "They hadn't ought to be beyond us. The Lord intended we shouldlive clean and decent, and made us accordin'; and them as don't, it'stheir children must pay, like the Bible says. But what keeps comin' backand back on my mind is--she was so innocent and so pretty! Full aspretty as what Mary is, to my thinkin'. Seein' her lyin' there, sopretty--oh, so pretty! I couldn't but think--I couldn't but think--ifshe had had a fair chance--"

  If she had had a fair chance! So Pippin thought, as he stood by thelittle white bed in the narrow room. He had carried her home in hisyoung strong arms, had laid her here--reverently, as he would have laida royal princess--on the bed where she had tossed and moaned her heartout for him; now she had no thought for him, she was all for sleep. Hehad left her to the women, and gone to join the older men, a sorrowfullittle group about the kitchen fire; but now, when all the house wasstill, there could be no harm in his entering the quiet room once more,humbly, with bowed head, to say a word of farewell to the poor sweetpretty creatur'; to say a little prayer, too, and maybe--whisperin'like, not to wake a soul--to sing a little hymn, seeing she used to setby his singing. He looked round the room, neat and bare, yet a girl'sroom, with pretty touches here and there: a bird's nest on a mossy twig,a bunch of feathery grasses in a graceful jug, bright Christmas cardsframing the little mirror, drooping over them a necklace of wooden beadscarved by Brand for his little girl. Beside these things, on a stand bythe bedside, some pond lilies in a glass bowl, drooping with foldedpetals. Pippin shivered, and his eyes turned to the still figure, thewhite lovely face.

  Kneeling humbly by the humble bed, he said his prayer; then raised hishead, and softly, softly, a golden thread of sound--sure no one couldhear!--his voice stole out in the hymn she had loved best:

  "There is rest for the weary, There is rest for the weary, There is rest for the weary, There is rest for you!

  "On the other side of Jordan, In the green fields of Eden, Where the tree of life is blooming, There is rest for your soul!"

  Pippin rose and stood for some moments looking down on the quiet face;then he made his reverence--bowing lower than usual, with a gesture ofhis hands as if taking leave of something high and noble--and turnedaway.

  Closing the door softly, he paused, looking into the darkness of thepassage with wistful eyes. He was very, very lonely; his heart was sadas death. Could he--might he not, once more, call up to comfort him theshadow faces he had loved so well? Now? Just this once! He bent forward,his eyes fixed intently.

  "Ma!" he said softly. "You there?"

  A moment's pause; then a sob broke from him and he turned to go.

  But then--oh, then!--came a rustle of something soft, came a flash ofsomething white. Two arms were flung round his neck, pressing him close,close; a radiant head lay on his shoulder.

  "Will I do?" cried Mary Blossom. "Oh, Pippin, Pippin! Will I doinstead?"