CHAPTER X
PIPPIN LOOKS FOR THE GRACE OF GOD
All day long the rain fell, softly, steadily, without haste and withoutrest; all day long the Red Ruffian cowered in his hiding hole, cold,wet, hungry and miserable. The water trickled in streams down the rockbehind him and gathered in pools about his feet. The dump near bysteamed, and sent off noisome fumes. Rats ran in and out of it; theRuffian was afraid of rats.
What did the boy think of as he sat huddled under the partial shelter ofthe ledge, munching his sodden crackers? Did he picture to himself theglories of successful crime, the riches won by skill and daring, therevels with other chosen spirits? No! He thought of Cyrus Poor Farm. Hesaw the bright, cozy kitchen, the wide fireplace, the cheerful glowingof the stove. He saw the table spread with its homely, hearty fare:baked beans, done to a turn, with that dusky-gold crisp on the pork thatnone save Aunt Bailey could give; the potatoes roasted in their jackets;the brown bread--at thought of the brown bread the Ruffian groaned aloudand passed the back of his hand across his eyes.
The long day wore on. The slow hours chimed from the church beyond thehill. His one comfort was the thought of the cigar inside his shirt, dryand safe in its oiled paper. The matches were safe, too, in a tin box.He would wait till along towards dark, and then smoke. It would chirkhim up good, and when Moonlighter came to fetch him, he'd find him asgay--as gay--a strong shiver seized him, and his teeth chattered. Wasn'tit about time? It was growing dusk. At last, with wet, tremblingfingers, he drew out his prize. Sheltering it with his body from thepitiless rain, he struck a match and applied it to the cigar. The tinyflame spurted, clung, shrank to a spark, spurted again--the cigar wasalight.
* * * * *
It was near midnight. The rain had ceased, and a dense white mist wasrising from the drenched earth. A breeze came sighing through thebranches of the trees, rustling the grasses round the hiding hole; itwas answered by a low moan from the sodden figure that lay stretched inthe hollow under the rock. It was his last moan, Myron thought. Deathwas coming; this white mist was his shroud. They would find him here--ormaybe they would not. Maybe his bones would whiten in this dismal spot,and years after, the traveler--Hark! what was that? A sound, that wasnot wind or trees or grasses: a long, low, wailing cry.
The wretched boy struggled up on one elbow and peered through the thickwhite curtain, then, with a smothered shriek, he scrambled to his handsand knees. Something was there! Something whiter than the mist;something that moved--
"Help!" cried the Red Ruffian. "Murder! Help!"
"Hush!" said Pippin. "Hold your darned noise! _Steel is sharp!_"
"Oh! oh, dear! oh--_blood is red_! Is it you, Moonlighter? Why areyou--why are you all in white?"
"Make folks think I was the ha'nt, bonehead! What'd you s'pose? Cutetrick, I thought!"
Pippin stepped down into the hollow and threw off the sheet that coveredhim.
"Well, how are you, young feller?" he asked cheerfully.
"I'm dyin'!" said the boy feebly. "Tell the folks I--"
"Oh, shucks! Here, set up--so! It's stopped rainin'. My! you are wet,ain't you? Feelin' sick? I expect that cigar _was_ a mite--_here!_ leanup against the ledge here, and take a drink!"
Reader, have you ever tasted spice-draught? Its basic principle ispeppermint. To this is added cinnamon, cloves, cassia, and a liberaldash of cayenne pepper. "Temp'rance toddy," I have heard it called, butthere is nothing temperate about it. "S'archin'" is the adjective Pippinused.
"Take a good swig!" he urged, putting the bottle to the boy's lips."It's hot stuff, I tell ye!"
The boy drank; next moment he was on his feet, coughing, dancing round,and holding his throat. A howl of anguish broke from him, but Pippinchecked it with a hand over his mouth.
"Easy, boy, easy! 'Twill het you up good; nothin' like it, Mis'--thatis, they claim. Don't you feel it livenin' of you up? That's hearty! Nowyou'll find your legs. Lean against me if you're wobbly still. Time wewas on our job! Foller, Red Ruffi'n!"
As they went along, Pippin explained the nature of the job. A soft snap,just the thing for a green hand. Nice, quiet folks, sound sleepers,old-fashioned lock--pick it with one hand while you eat your dinnerwith the other. Honest, if he didn't feel that Red Ruffi'n _needed_ asoft snap, he wouldn't hardly have had the heart to ease them, they_was_ such nice folks. Been real good to him, too, and would be to anyone come nigh 'em, but Red Ruffi'n was his pal, and pals were bound tosee each other through.
"S'pose--s'pose we was pinched!" said Red Ruffi'n, stumbling along overthe plashy ground. "What would--"
"Shoreham!" Pippin gave a lively sketch of the place; the Red Ruffianshuddered and coughed.
"Moonlighter," he said, after a pause; "I hadn't ought to get you intothis. I--I ain't feelin' well, either; s'pose we--what say?"
Pippin took his arm with a grip as firm as it was quiet.
"Testin' me, are ye?" he laughed. "Tryin' to see if I'd crawl--what?There's no crawl in me, not an inch! Just wait till we get in where it'swarm and dry, and you'll see things different: not but I know you wasonly foolin'. Crawl _now_, when everything's all ready? Gee! I would bea softy, wouldn't I? Here's the gully! Now you go first and I'll follerand keep watch behind; stop when you hear me peep like a chicken!"
With faltering steps the unhappy Ruffian crept along the gully, keepingwell in the shadow, starting at every stray cat, every scrap ofwind-whisked paper. Pippin, stepping lightly and softly a few yardsbehind, whistled noiselessly, and pursued an imaginary conversation withMrs. Baxter.
"Just you trust me, Mis' Baxter, and you'll see. Why, you don't thinkI'd take all this trouble, and _give_ all this trouble, if I weren'tcertain sure that I was right? 'He leadeth me,' you know, ma'am, andthe Lord is sure leadin' me this time. There's no harm will come of it,but only good, if I'm not a bonehead from Bonetown. Now see--"
He peeped low, like a day-old chicken; the slinking figure in advancestopped.
It was, as Pippin had said, an easy lock to pick. A stout hairpin ofMrs. Baxter's did the trick; a nice tool, Pippin pronounced it gravely.The door swung open, revealing blackness. The Red Ruffian, shrinkingback, found himself gently but firmly propelled forward; he stumbledover the threshold and the door closed noiselessly behind him. "Thisway!" Pippin guided him through a passage, over another threshold. "Herewe be!" Closing another door, Pippin produced a match, lighted a bit ofcandle. "The bakery!" he whispered. "The money is in here! Hush! Takeyour shoes off; one of 'em squeaks."
The flickering light shone on the white tiles, the glittering enamel,the black doors of the ovens; the further corners of the room were indeep shadow.
"Did it squeak loud? Do you think--do you think any one heard? Hark!What was that?"
"Nothin'! Mouse, mebbe! Now look! The cash is in that box, see? Underthe table there; make it out? Now, Red Ruffi'n, this is your job, andyou are goin' to have the credit of it. I'll hold the light; you reachdown and get the box--"
Mr. Baxter had felt all along that when the time came, he would knowwhat to do. A calm man, he had followed Pippin's instructionsimplicitly, had now stood patiently for an hour in his dark corner,leaning on his "peel," the long broad-bladed, paddle-like implementwhich bore the loaves to and from the oven. Mrs. Baxter, in the shop,might palpitate and wring her hands and moan, only restrained bythoughts of Buster slumbering above; Mr. Baxter awaited his moment, andit came.
By the flickering candlelight, he saw a cringing, trembling figure creepforward, and bend over, displaying to his view a broad expanse oftrouser. To the father of Buster, that expanse suggested but one thingin the world. Raising the peel, he brought it down with a resoundingthwack which sent the boy flat on his face under the table and broughtMrs. Baxter shrieking from the shop.
"Elegant!" said Pippin. "Mr. Baxter, sir, that was simply elegant!"
* * * * *
An hour later the Red Ruffian, full, dry, and warm, a plaster over hisinjured nose, l
ay in Pippin's bed; and Pippin ("as per contract with theElder," he told himself, "lettin' alone its bein' right and fittin' soto do") sat on the edge of the bed and looked for the grace of God.
He began by explaining his plot in full: how he had been at the PoorFarm, heard Mr. Bailey's story, and promised to find the boy if hecould; how the Lord had come into it and played right into his hand; howthe excellent baker and his wife had agreed to help; how everything hadwent smooth as greased lightnin'--he never see anything work out neaterand prettier.
"Here! Take another drink of the lemonade! 'Tis some different fromspice-draught. Gee, wasn't that something fierce! I expect it kep' youfrom pneumony, though!"
Pippin held the lemonade to the boy's lips, and patted the pillowstenderly, as a woman might. Meeting his eyes, dark with shame, misery,and reproach, he beamed on him benevolently.
"There!" he said. "I know how you feel. Look at it one way, 'twas a meantrick I played you, a mean, low-down trick. I ask your pardon for that!But look at here! I had to stop you, hadn't I? I'd passed my word, and,too, the Lord bid me. No gettin' away from that. Well, now, if I'd satdown there in the wood road that day, talked to you real fatherly andpious, told you thus and so, and asked wouldn't you be a good boy and goback to the farm and hoe potatoes--" The boy made a restless motion.Pippin laid a quiet hand on his arm. "Rest easy! I'll come to thatpresently! If I'd have done that, would you have listened to me? Notyou! You'd ha' laughed at me for a gospel shark, and you'd have up andgone after that mean skunk (you notice he never turned round to lookwhat become of you?) fast as you could pick up your heels. Then what?Say you'd caught up with him and gone on to the next town, and startedin breakin' and enterin'! Well, what say? Why, then you'd ben pinchedand run in. Yes siree Bob! You never was built for a crook, my lad;you're too slow, and you're too--call it clumpsy. You've no quicksilverin your toes, nor yet in your fingers. You'd ben run in, and then you'dgone to Shoreham. First offense, they might let you off with sixmonths--more likely a year, but _say_ six months! For six months, then,you'd worked as you never worked before in your little life, alongsideof men--well--the Lord made 'em, amen!--only they ain't the kind you'reused to. What I would say, there's no _ro_mance about Shoreham, not amite, and don't you forget it! (Say, ain't this a dandy bed? I betcher!And all ready for the man that comes after me. We'll come to thatbumby, too.) And if you try to hook it, or misbehave anyways, you getput in solitary. Know what that means? It means four walls with nothin'on 'em except the bricks, walls four feet apart one way and seven theother, and a grated door between you and anything else. It meanstwenty-four hours every day and each of 'em half of the whole, seemsthough! No! You can't understand, 'cause you haven't ben there. It meansno word spoke or heard excep' when your victuals is passed in, andmighty few then, and what there is is no special pleasure to hear. Now,bo, that is what I've ben through, and that is what I've saved you from.Now what about it? Did I do right, or did I do wrong?"
"Right!" faltered the boy. "Oh, Moonlighter--"
"Hold on! Forget that! My name's Pippin, and that's what you call mefrom now on. I had to _show_ you what I used to be, or you'd never havelistened to me; _now_, I'm an honest man, and there's nobody I can'tlook in the face. Pippin's my name, and straight is my natur'. Praisethe Lord! Amen! Well, sir, that is what I done. Now the question is,what next? And here comes in Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. Well, those folks areas good as they make 'em; they're as good as your Uncle and Aunt Bailey,and more is not to be said. They know all about me, and all about you.I'm leavin' 'em in a day or two, for good; and gorry, what do you thinkthem two Bakin' Angels is ready to do? They stand ready to take you andmake a baker of you. Now--rest easy! I got to get it all off my chest!Bakin' is as nice a trade, as _pretty_ an all-round trade, as a man canask for in this world. If I hadn't other things I'd undertaken todo--well, never mind that! Here you can stay, if you're a mind to, andif you feel like you've had your bellyful of breakin' and enterin', andlike that; work in daylight and sunlight and free air, and eat choicefood, and hear kind, decent, pleasant language and never anything else.That's what you've ben used to all your life, you'll say; yes, butthere's more to it. Here you are in a town, and folks all round you,boys of your own age, nice clean fellers like you--you needn't winch!The dirt ain't grimed into you yet; 'twill wash off, you see!--boys tochin with, and play baseball with, and football; girls too, nice,pretty, refined young ladies, comin' in to buy creamcakes, and--greengrass! I certingly shall miss those young ladies!--and--go to singin'school evenin's, and church meetin', and like that, and--well, that,sir, is what we offer, against the life of a crook. You balance them twoin your mind, and think it over a bit!"
He made a motion with his hand, and turning his face away, was about totake counsel with himself, when the boy spoke hastily.
"Mr. Pippin," he said, "I--no need to think it over! I thank you athousand times. I'm a fool, but I didn't know it before. Now I see itclear, and I thank you--I--I can't say what I feel, but I do sure feelit. I'd stay here glad and thankful, and I'd do my best, sir, honestly Iwould, and try to make good; but--but--"
"Well?" Pippin's eyes were very bright, he bent forward eagerly. "Well,youngster? What stands in the way?"
"Aunt and Uncle!" broke forth the boy. "I've been mean--mean as dirt,and they so good to me. If they'll let me, and if Mr. Baxter can wait,say a week, I'll come back more thankful than I've words to say; butfirst I must go home--and--"
A thwack upon his shoulders, almost as loud as that of the peel an hourbefore, sent him half out of bed. Looking up in terror, he saw Pippinstanding over him with shining eyes and outstretched hand.
"Shake!" he said simply. "I've found what I was lookin' for. Let uspraise the Lord!"