The Matron heard his story, listening attentively, now and then putting a shrewd question. When it was over, she excused herself, not unkindly but with a grave formality unlike her first cheerful aspect. She must attend to something in the house. If he could wait ten or fifteen minutes--
"Sure!" said Pippin. "And I might be sharpening the meat knife or like that? I"ll throw it in for luck."
While he was sharpening the meat knife (which, he said to himself, had been used something awful; you"d think they"d gone over it with a crosscut saw!), he heard a cheerful hubbub in the street outside; distant at first, then louder, as turning a corner; louder still, as close at hand; till with a deafening outburst of treble and alto the gate of the courtyard was flung open, and--
"Green gra.s.s!" cried Pippin. "Here"s the kids!"
Here they were indeed, just out of school, rosy, tousled, jubilant: boys and girls, the former small, the latter all sizes from kindergarten toddlers 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 sudden silence; only for a moment, though, for Pippin smiled, and in another minute they were all around him, hustling and elbowing to get the closest 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 I would 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 thought he 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 had only been at the Home a few weeks, and fighting was still his one form of argument; a snub-nosed, freckled bull pup of a boy. Pippin observed him, 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 the wheel and seemed to speak and listen. The children waited open-mouthed, goggle-eyed. "Says she"s got a cold," he announced cheerfully, "and feels 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"t be skeered, he won"t bite nuther. Gimme your hands--that"s a daisy! Now then--
"There was an old man, And he was mad--"
When the Matron appeared again, accompanied by an older woman of severe aspect, Pippin was sitting on the cellar door, half-buried in children.
One little imp was sitting astride his neck, hammering time on his chest with st.u.r.dy heels; a six-year-old girl clung to either shoulder, two or three more were on his knees, the rest sat or knelt or squatted as close as they could get; and Pippin, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the 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, the bull pup known as Jimmy fell silently upon his nearest neighbor, a boy somewhat bigger than himself, and pommeled him ferociously. The victim shrieking aloud, Pippin seized the pup by the scruff of his neck, dragged him off, and held him at arm"s length, wriggling and clawing the air, 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 do it!"
"Hold still, pup! hold still! I"m bigger"n you be. Now then, you, leave him 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 the two.
"Green gra.s.s! What are you made of? Putty, or dough-sc.r.a.pin"s?" This to the yelper, while still holding the yapper well in hand. "Now if we could make a ring, and leave you fight it out sensible, and--"
The Matron stepped quickly forward. Pippin, aware of her, scrambled to his feet, shaking off (very gently, be sure) all but the urchin on his neck, who only clung the tighter; and still holding the bull pup--by the collar now--he beamed on the Matron.
"I was sayin", lady," he said, "that if you"d leave me make a ring, and these two pups fight it out, we"d see which would lick, and they"d be friends from now on. What say?"
The Matron said, "No!" decidedly, and at a word from her the children scuttled into the house by their side door, albeit with many a backward glance.
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"s a low-down skeezicks by the look of him. Here"s the knife, lady; I hope it"s satisfactory."
It was; but the two ladies desired a word with Pippin indoors, if he could leave his wheel. Pippin expected he could; he"d never knowed the Nipper to bolt, nor even shy. "After you, ladies!" Now who taught Pippin to hold the door open and bow with the grace of a young birch in the wind?
The Matron wondered, but said nothing. The three pa.s.sed into a cool inexpressive parlor which had no opinion about anything, and sat down on three Mission chairs to match.
"This is Mrs. Faulkner," said the Matron; "the a.s.sistant Matron. I am Mrs. 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 I think we know--"
"Think we may possibly know!" struck in Mrs. Faulkner, speaking for the first time, and then shutting her mouth with a snap as if she feared a word too much might escape.
"--May possibly know," Mrs. Appleby corrected herself, "the girl you are looking for."
"_Green gra.s.s!_ Is that so?" Pippin smote his thigh, was confounded, and asked pardon, all in a breath.
Mrs. Faulkner bent severe brows on him, and Pippin reflected what a blessing it was Mrs. Baxter didn"t ever look like that.
"We keep in touch with our girls," Mrs. Appleby continued, "till they marry or reach the age of twenty-five. The young woman we have now in mind is eighteen years old, and a very fine girl."
"Gee! Ain"t that great? Where"ll I find her, lady?"