Pippin; A Wandering Flame Part 28

"Certainly, Mr. Pippin! I'll be pleased to hear, as I said."

Mary laid down her work, and looked straight at Pippin with her honest blue eyes. That made Pippin blush and feel as if a blue knife had gone through him. To cover his confusion, he felt for his file, drew it out and whistled softly on it; then, seeing Mary's look change to one of open amazement, he fell into still deeper confusion.

"It's a file!" he explained. "I always carry it. It's handy--" He broke off short, and made a desperate plunge. "I wondered if--if _you_ wondered--how I come to be so c.o.c.ksure of that guy's bein' a crook. Did you?"

"Well!" Mary hesitated a moment. "Yes! I didn't doubt but you did know, but--yes, I did wonder some."

"That's what I've got to tell you. I've knowed that guy ever since we was little shavers. We was--you may say--raised together, for a spell; that is, we was learned together, anyway."

"You mean--you went to school together?"

Pippin leaned forward, his eyes very bright.

"Bashford's school!" he said. "Bashford's gang. Sneak-thievin', pocket-pickin', breakin' and enterin'. Instruction warranted _com_plete.

That's the school we went to, young lady. I know Nosey Bashford because I was a crook like him--only I will say I could do a better job--"

Pippin's chin lifted a little--"till the Lord took holt of me. Now you know where I stand! And gorry to 'Liza!'" he added silently; "do you s'pose I've got to git off this song and dance every time I meet any person that I value their good opinion? I want you to understand the Lord ain't lettin' me off any too easy, now I tell you!"

"But think," he a.s.sured himself, "how much easier you breathe when it's off your chest! I expect the Lord knows full well just who ought to be told things, and plans accordin'."

But Pippin had never heard of the _Ancient Mariner_.

Mary Flower had gone very pale, and her sweet face was grave; but her eyes still met Pippin's frankly. "Go on!" she said. "You've said too much, or you've said too little; either way you'll have to finish now.

But be careful, for I shall believe everything you say."

"Now wouldn't that--" murmured Pippin; then he was silent for a little, fingering his file absently. Mary thought he must hear the beating of her heart, but he did not, for his own was sounding trip hammers in his ears. She would believe everything--she would _believe_! Lord make him worthy--at least not leave him be more un-so than--Pippin drew a long, sobbing breath. At last he lifted his head.

"I left that gang when I was eighteen years old. I'd broke Nosey's beak for him long before that, fightin' when we was kids. He was a mean kid.

I see he has it in for me still, and though I'm sorry, in the way of a Christian, that I broke it, still I'm kind o' glad too."

"So am I!" Mary spoke impulsively.

Pippin looked up in surprise, and a smile broke over his anxious face.

"Is that so?" he said. "Well, Nosey never was real attractive, any time that I remember. Anyhow, come to grow to my stren'th, I quit. I didn't like them nor their ways; low-down is what I call Bashford's. But yet I didn't quit the trade: no, ma'am! Not then. The Lord didn't judge me ready by then. I stayed in it, and I done well in it--"

"Excuse me!" Mary's voice faltered a little. "What trade? I don't quite understand--"

Pippin stared at her.

"Like I said. Sneakin', breakin' and enterin'--burglary, to say the real word. There! I wasn't ashamed to do it then, nor I won't be afraid to say it now. I told you I was a crook, and I was--till goin' on four year ago. Then--" a curious softness always came into Pippin's voice when he reached this part of his story--"I found the Lord! Yes, young lady, I found the Lord, for keeps. I--" he glanced at the clock. "'Twould take too long to tell you all about it to-night; some day I will, if you'll take time to listen. I was in prison, and He visited me. All along of a good man who _cared_, and took holt of me and raised me up where I could see and hear, and know it _was_ the Lord. If ever you hear of a man named Elder Hadley--"

"_What!_" said Mary Flower.

Had Pippin seen her face at that moment, he might have stopped; but he stooped to pick up the ball she dropped. Mary opened her lips, hesitated, seemed to reflect, finally thanked him for the ball and went on with her work.

"That's his name!" Pippin was looking at the table now, his chin propped in his hands. "Best man the Lord ever made, bar none. I was in darkness, and he brought me out. He brought me out. Amen!"

There was another pause, while the clock ticked and the kettle purred gently on the stove. Presently Pippin pushed his chair back and rose to his feet, his shoulders very square, his chin well up.

"I'll ask you to believe that I've kep' straight since then!" he said gravely.

"I do believe it!" said Mary Flower. Again brown eyes and blue met in a long earnest look; again Pippin drew a long breath.

"That sounds good to me!" he said simply. "I thank the Lord for that, Miss Flower. I don't know what I'd have done if you--had felt otherways.

Now--" he glanced at the clock--"I mustn't stay another moment, keepin'

you up like this. It's nigh on ten o'clock. There's more to it, a heap more. I'd like you to know why I come here to the city, and what I'm tryin' to do, and all about it. You--you'll try to--I'd like to regard you as a friend, if I might take the liberty. I've never had a lady friend, except Mis' Baxter, and though she is a wonder, and more than kind, yet she's--"

Married and stout, and middle-aged, and altogether aunt-like; speak out, Pippin. But Pippin did not speak out; he stood and looked with bright, asking eyes, at once brave and timid. Mary held out her hand frankly.

"Sure, we will be friends!" she said. "I haven't ever--that is--I'll be glad of your friends.h.i.+p, I am sure, Mr. Pippin. And now I will say good night, and hoping you will sleep well and no disturbance for anyone."

Having witnessed two _tete-a-tetes_, we may as well glance at a third, which was held about the same time, though in a place wholly unlike either rose-shaded parlor or s.h.i.+ning kitchen.

A back room in a slum grog shop: dingy, dirty, reeking with stale tobacco, steeped in fumes of vilest liquor. Some of the liquor is on the table now, in two gla.s.ses; some of the tobacco is in the pipes, which two men are smoking as they sit, one sprawling, the other hunched, in their respective chairs. An elderly man, low-browed, heavy-jawed, the brutal-criminal type that every prison knows; the other young, slight, narrow-chested, with a crooked nose and small eyes set too near together.

"All ready for to-night?" the elder was saying, in a hoa.r.s.e, whispering voice, that matched his face. "What's your hurry, Bill? I'm takin'

things easy these days. I'm gettin' on in years, and when I take on a night job, I want to be sure it's all slick as grease. What's your hurry?"

The other clenched his fist and brought it down on the table with an oath.

"I want Pippin!" he said. "That's what I'm after. You can have the swag, Dad; it's all straight, I tell you--silver locked up nights in the sideboard, locks that a kid could pick. No money kep' in the house, but good silver; you can have the whole bag, but let--me--get--my hands on Pippin!"

The elder ruffian looked at him curiously. The little eyes were aflame with something more than greed and cunning.

"Go slow, Bill!" said the affectionate father. "Go slow and easy! You don't want to get twenty years for a job like this."

"I'd take h.e.l.l," said the other, "to smash his face for him!"

"That's it, is it?" the older man whistled, and a grim smile broke over his countenance. "He did maul you bad, Bill, no mistake. Not that you ever were a beauty!" he added musingly. "Your mother's folks is all homely. Well, if that's all you want, to get even with Pippin, why not happen on him in that lane some night and--hey? Then we could take our time about gettin' the swag, and he be out of the way, see?"

"That ain't all!" The young man's face flamed with pa.s.sion as he bent forward. "I want to get him _there_, Dad! I want to show her--to show them folks--that he's a crook from way back. Didn't I tell you he'd got old Nipper Crewe's wheel? Goin' about smilin' and singin'--d.a.m.n him!--workin' his way in smooth as oil, and all the time fitted out with the best set of tools in the city. He's ben watchin' the house all the week, an' I've a hunch he's there to-night. I want to show him up! I want they should see his face when I do it--see it before I smash--" He choked with pa.s.sion; his upper lip curled back, and his breath hissed through the bared teeth.

The older Bashford laughed outright. "Boys is boys!" he said. "You're really mad, ain't you, Bill? Well, I shan't stand in your way. I owe Pippin one myself, ---- ---- him! But--h.e.l.l! he is a slick one, no two ways about that. Jos.h.i.+n' on the pious, is he? And Nipper's kit handy by?

That's good, that is! We'll get in ahead of him, Bill, sure thing we will. Now le's go home and get a mou'ful of sleep before we start in."

And all this time, while these three couples were spinning their unconscious threads for the Shuttle, under the quiet starlit sky the night train was drawing nearer and nearer, bringing among its hundred-odd pa.s.sengers a quiet, bright-eyed man in clerical dress.

CHAPTER XVIII

PIPPIN KEEPS WATCH, WITH RESULTS

Mary was a long time going to bed that night. In the first place she could not find her blue ribbon bow, and being as economical as she was methodical, this distressed her. It was a new ribbon, bought at a special sale, and marked down almost unbelievably low, because there was a flaw in the weaving which would never be seen when made up. It was a good bow too; it is not everyone who can make a pretty bow; and Mary was perfectly sure that she had pinned it on her neat collar this evening.

She searched the room thoroughly--such a pretty, tidy room, all white and blue like her kitchen--even peeping under bed and bureau, but no blue bow was to be found.