Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 11

Pippin gave him a helpless look. His eyes wandered over the scene before him: the wide, sunny barnyard, the neat buildings, the trim garden s.p.a.ces, the green, whispering trees; beyond them the white ribbon of the road, and wave upon wave of fair rolling country, sinking gradually to where the river flowed between its darkly wooded banks; overhead a sky of dazzling blue flecked with cloudlets of no less dazzling white. There was a hawk hovering over the chicken yard. Pippin picked up a stone and threw it at the bird, which vanished with a shrill scream. His eyes came back to the figure in the doorway, with bent head and flying fingers.

"Advantages?" he repeated, and his tone was as helpless as his look had been. "Well, you get me, Mr. Brand, every time. You--you was born blind, sir, do I understand?"

Brand nodded. "Sixty years ago this month. When I say advantages, I don't mean I would have chose--" he made a slight, eloquent gesture toward the clear, sightless eyes. "But since so it is, one looks at it from that end, you see, and one finds--advantages. For one thing, changes don't trouble a born-blind man as they do seeing folks. I hear talk about this person looking poorly, and that one having gone gray, and lost his teeth, and like that; that don't trouble me, you see, not a mite. Folks look to me just as they sound. Now take our folks here--Lucy--I would say Mrs. Bailey--and Jacob: well, their voices tell me what they are like, see? They called Lucy handsome when she was a girl; she's just as handsome to me as she was then."

There was a wistful note in his voice, and Pippin responded instantly.

"She's a fine-appearin' lady, now!" he said heartily. "She sure is."

"I presume likely!" said Brand. "She'd have to be, being what she is.

When Lucy first grew up, I made a--a picture (so to say! I never saw a picture) of her in my mind, and I see it as clear to-day as I did then."

He was silent for a time, then went on, in an altered tone: "Then there's other things, things that seeing folks don't have. Take hearing.

I hear twice what most folks do, and I hear things no seeing person _can_ hear; undertones, our music teacher called them, and overtones, too. Now, you hear a woman's dress rustle, and that's all, isn't it?"

"Ye-yes!" Pippin replied. "That is--I can tell a silk rustle from a calico, and a woolen from either."

"Well, that is more than many men can do. Women, of course; but not many men without training." The blind man leaned forward, and felt carefully of Pippin's ear. "A good ear!" he nodded approvingly. "An excellent good ear! There's many hold that the outer ear has nothing to do with hearing, but I don't know! I don't know! The Doctor told me of a king who wanted to know everything that was said in his house--palace, like!--and he built it in the shape of an ear. Long ago, Doctor said it was, and he didn't say he believed it, but I've often wondered. But you've had training, too; you've learned how to listen, which is more than some folks learn all their lives long."

"You bet I had training!"

Not a vision this time, though a dim, brutal figure lurks in the background; not a vision, but a sound!

"Listen! listen, you cursed pup, or I'll cut your heart out. My ears are thick to-night. Is that a cop's whistle, or a pal's? If you get it wrong, I'll make you sweat blood--"

"Yes, I had training!" said Pippin.

"Then--" Brand's face was fairly glowing as he turned it on his young visitor. It was not often that he could speak of his blindness, but there was something about this boy that seemed to draw speech from him like a magnet. "Then--there's the other senses; smell--why, what wonderful pleasure I have in a delicate smell! Whether it's a flower, or my bacon when it's smoked just to the fine point, or--why, take smoke alone, all the various kinds of it! Wood smoke, and good tobacco, and leaves burning in the fall of the year, and brush fires in spring! And there's herbs, southernwood, mint, lemon balm--wonderful pleasure in odors, yes, sir! And when you come to touch, why there's where a blind man has it over a seeing, almost every time. The pleasure of touching a leaf of mullein, say, or soft hair like the little gal's--Flora May's, I would say--or a fruit, or a baby's cheek--wonderful pleasure! I wonder are your fingers as good as your ears? Let me see!" He held out his hand, and Pippin laid his own in it.

How proud you were of your hands, Pippin! How you used to boast that your fingers needed no sandpaper to sharpen their exquisite touch! Is that why you hang your head, and the blood creeps up to the roots of your hair?

"If he's let to live," a husky voice murmurs, "he'll make a ---- ---- good un; but I ain't certain but I'll wring his neck yet. There's things about him ain't right!"

Perfectly consistent, Mr. Bashford, and wholly correct from your point of view!

"A fine hand!" says David Brand. "Strong and yet delicate. You can do a great deal with that hand, young man. Why, with that, and your fine ears, you--why--" he laughs his cheery laugh--"I won't go so far as say you'd ought to have been born blind, but you surely would make a first-rate blind man!"

Pippin puffed at his pipe meditatively for a few minutes, considering the serene face and the flying fingers. What a face it was! the calm, thoughtful brow, the well-cut features, the clear eyes, the patient look--well, there! If an Angel could be old--that is to say, gettin' on in years--and blind, this would sure be him! Now--come to see a face like this, you know the Lord has ben there: _is_ there, right along, same as the devil was with Dod and Nosey and them. Do a person good, now, to hear what he has to tell, how the Lord has dealt with him, what say? He couldn't more than say no, if--

"Mr. Brand!" Pippin spoke timidly, yet eagerly. "You'll excuse me--but when I like folks, I like to know about 'em; what they've no objection to tellin' is what I would say. You must have a lot that's real interestin'--I hope no offense!" he ended lamely.

"None in the world!" Brand laughed cheerily. "Quite the other way, young man. Old folks don't always find young ones that care to hear their old stories. I should be pleased--find a seat, won't you? I haven't much to tell, but you're welcome to what there is!"

Pippin curled his long legs up on the floor, his back against the door jamb. "This is great!" he murmured. "This certainly is great. I'd ought to be gettin' on, but I don't care. Now if you're ready, Mr. Brand!"

Brand reached for a pile of straws, measured, clipped, laid them in orderly piles ready for binding in.

"I was born in Cyrus," he said; "born and raised. I was the only child, and my parents did everything they could for me. I was a happy youngster and had reason to be. Everybody was good to me; Cyrus is a good, kind neighborly place. Yes, sir, I was a happy boy. Always singing and laughing; I recollect hearing folks say, 'Poor child!' or like that when they came to see mother. I used to wonder what poor child they meant. I asked Lucy one day--Lucy Allen, that's Mrs. Bailey now; we lived next door, and played together always, her and Jacob and me. I says, 'Lucy, who are they always saying "Poor child!" about? Is it you?' And Lucy says, 'I wouldn't wonder, Dave! My front teeth has come out, and I am a sight.' Little girl seven years old: she was that thoughtful always, Lucy was. She was doing me good turns every day and all day when we was little: once, I remember, I had a chance to do her one. We was playing together in Uncle Ivory Cheeseman's candy kitchen--he give us the run of it, Lucy and Jacob and me, because he could trust us, he said; he was a kind old man, though crusty where crust was needed. Well, we was playing there, and Lucy went too near the stove and her dress caught fire. I smelled it before it begun to blaze, and caught it in my two hands and squeezed it out. 'Twas a calico skirt; another minute and 'twould have been in a blaze."

Brand paused, and Pippin looked up inquiringly.

"I've always been thankful for that!" said Brand. "There was a girl at the Inst.i.tution who lost her sight by burning, just that way, her skirt catching at the stove."

"Now wouldn't that give you a pain?" murmured Pippin. "I know what burnin' feels like, just a mite of it. Not meanin' to interrupt, Mr.

Brand; I'm just as interested!"

"When I was ten years old, mother died, and father sent me to the Blind Inst.i.tution. I was there many years, and there I learned all I know--except what I learned before or since!" Brand added with a whimsical smile. "That puts me in mind of the first--no, the second--day I was there. I was to see the Doctor, the head of the Inst.i.tution--he was away the day I came--and I was left alone in his office to wait for him. I was always keen to see what kind of place I was in, so I was moving about the room, finding out in my own way, when the door opened and two men came in. One of them was tall--what say?"

"Now! now!" cried Pippin. "How in the airthly did you know he was tall?"

"His voice was high up! That's an easy one, Pippin. Why, _you_ would know that, with those good ears. He was speaking, and the first sound of that voice stays by me yet. A _master_ voice! I've never forgot the words either. 'The first lesson--the hard lesson--you have first to learn is--_to be blind_--to live in the world without light--to look upon your life as still a blessing and a trust, and to resolve to spend it well and cheerfully, in the service of your Maker and for the happiness of those about you.'"[1]

[1] Dr. S.G. Howe to one of his blind pupils.

He paused. Pippin sat spellbound, gazing at the face that was indeed now as the face of an angel.

"The service of your Maker, and the happiness--" he murmured. "Say, that's great! It--it sounds like a song, don't it, Mr. Brand? Or--like Psalms, some way of it! I'd like to learn them words off by heart, sir, if no objection."

"He was a great man!" said Brand reverently. "A great and good man. As he spoke, so he lived, for his Maker and his fellow men. The man he spoke to gave a kind of groan, I remember; he had just lost his sight--a gun that wasn't loaded, the old story! Then the Doctor said a little more, comforting him like, and then he saw me. I had felt all round the room, and now I had my fingers on a raised map that hung on the wall. I had heard of such things and was pleased to death to get hold of one. I suppose it showed in my face, for the Doctor said, 'Here's a little fellow who already knows how to be blind! Come here, my son!' I went straight to him--his voice led me, you understand: I could always follow a voice, from the time I learned to walk. He laid his hand on my head and turned my face up, studying me. I knew that; I felt his eyes, is the only way I can put it. 'Born blind, weren't you, my boy?' he said.

'Twasn't often the Doctor had to be told anything about blind folks--or seeing either, for that matter. Well, sir, that was the beginning of life for me, in a way. I got my education there. 'Twas a happy place, and a happy life. I could tell about it from now till sundown, and not fairly make a beginning. The Doctor was my friend; everybody was my friend. I was quick, and I wanted to learn; and, too, there was a good deal I didn't have to learn, being born blind, you see. There's a pa.s.sage in the Bible about remembering that 'he was born thus'; I used to think--"

A silence fell, while Brand counted strands, Pippin watching him eagerly. A black hen who had been watching, too, her head c.o.c.ked, her bright yellow eye fixed on the blind man with the false air of intelligence affected by hens, came up with a quick, rocking step, and uttered a long, reflective "crawk!" scratching meanwhile on the barn floor.

"Hicketty Picketty wants some corn!" said Brand. "Here, Picketty!" He took a handful of corn from a bag and scattered it. The black hen pecked vigorously, trying to get every grain swallowed before any one else should come; but the motion of Brand's hand brought other hens fluttering, squawking, jostling, to get their share, and there was quite a scrimmage before he could resume his work.

"I spoil that hen!" he said apologetically. "Jacob says I oughtn't, and it's true; but she has such a way with her! There's no other hen I'm so partial to, though I love them all.

"Well! Want to hear any more, or are you tired of listening? 'Tisn't much of a story; I warned you in the beginning."

"Tired? Well, I guess nix! Why, I'm--why, it's _great_, Mr. Brand! I'm learnin' something 'most every word you say. Do go on, sir--if I'm not troublin' you!"

"I don't know as there is so very much more to tell, after all. A man's life goes on steady; there don't things keep happening right along, as they do in stories. I've had a quiet life, but a real pleasant one. I stayed on at the Inst.i.tution quite a spell after I grew up, teaching in the shop. Basketry is what I taught; I liked it best, and was good at it. Then, along when I was thirty years old, father needed me, and I came home. He was getting on in years, and he needed some one, and I was the one. His housekeeper got married, and I was handy about the house.

Yes, we made out to do well, father and I, as long as he lived. Spare time and evenings, I'd make brooms and baskets, and the neighbors took all I could make. Sometimes I'd make a trip round other places, same as you do with your wheel, Pippin. I liked that real well. Lucy and Jacob had married by that time--I always knew they would! I--yes, I always knew they would, and right and fitting it was. Jacob's folks had pa.s.sed on, and he and Lucy lived there next door to us, and was like brother and sister to me, as they always had been. Cyrus is a pleasant place; yes, sir, we've all been happy, only when Lucy lost her little David--named for me, yes, and like my own to me. That was a grief, but grief is part of our lot. Lucy mourned so, Jacob was desirous of making a change for her, and about that time they was changing here, too, and the selectmen beseeched Jacob and Lucy to take the place, and they did.

They wanted me to come with them then, but I wouldn't leave father.

Bimeby, though, father pa.s.sed on, and then--I didn't make up my mind right away to the change. I didn't want to be a care to Lucy, and I thought I could get on by myself, and I _could_; but--well--no need to go into that. Along about ten years back I come to make my home here with my good friends, and I've never regretted, nor I hope they haven't."

"No need to go into that!" Quite right, Brand. Impossible for you, being what you are, to tell of the various persons, male and female, who saw your comfortable cottage and few but fertile acres, and "felt a call to do for you." Lucy Bailey sometimes spoke of it to her husband with amused indignation. "Fairly driven out of his home, David was! The idea!

Lucky we had one to offer him, or he'd have been saddled with the whole pa.s.sel of them, like Cap'n Parks was a while back, and no Mercy Lovely to trim 'em out for him."

A doleful squeak was heard, and a wheelbarrow trundled slowly by with Mr. Wisk as the motive power. "You'd think 'twould go faster by itself!"

Pippin thought; then reproached himself, the man being afflicted.

Brand's fine brows contracted as he listened to the squeak.

"Wisk has been promising to oil that exe for a month!" he said. "It gives me the toothache to hear it."

"Moves kinder moderate, don't he?" said Pippin. "I s'pose his leg henders him."

Brand laughed. "I don't--know! Aunt Mandy Whetstone says the lame leg makes the better time of the two. She's small and spry, you know, and Wisk gets in her way sometimes. He means all right, but he never feels any call to hurry, that I know of."