In her own room, standing at the window with wide eyes that staring out yet saw nothing, Mary Blossom wrestled through her dark hour alone.
This, then, was what it all meant. This was what had brought him to Blankboro, the bright-eyed singer with his wheel. He was looking for her. That--that man--had sent him to hunt her down, to drag her from her safe, happy, respectable home, to drag her back to him where he lay, in a poorhouse, suffering a little--oh, a very, _very_ little--of what her mother had suffered through him. After all these years, when she had all but--not forgotten mother; never! never! she broke into wild sobbing and crying--but forgotten him, and the shame, and misery, the cold, hunger, nakedness that he stood for. After all these years he had reached out that palsied, shaking hand and laid it on her. Or tried to! Mary stood still, and let the tide of feeling surge through and through her. Grief, resentment, resistance. Back and forth it flowed, till from its surge a thought was cast up. _No one knew._ He, Pippin, did not know; never would know, unless she told him. Why--should--she--tell him? No one--except Mrs. Appleby, of course; she knew, but she would keep it close. They never told a girl"s past at the Home, unless there was reason; unless she was adopted, or--or married, or the like of that.
Even Mrs. Aymer knew no more than that she came well recommended. (But here Mary was mistaken: Lucy Aymer knew all about it.) She had had a note from Mrs. Appleby, asking her to come to the Home on her first afternoon out, and she would. She would tell that kind, motherly friend about--about--
The wild tides stopped racing. Her eyes dropped. What should she tell Mrs. Appleby about Pippin?
Straightway his figure rose before her. His eyes, dark, bright, glowing, looked into hers; she forgot Mrs. Appleby. What was it he was saying?
"He plead with me; plead real pitiful, I"d find his little gal for him.
What would you done, Elder?"
She knew what he had done himself. He had left everything, he, a stranger--that is, one that had been a sinner--and come back where he knew there was danger for him, to look for the child of an old rascal who was nothing to him. That was what Pippin had done; and she, the old man"s child--
New waves this time, Mary! Hot waves of shame and contrition, sweeping resistless through you, driving grief and anger and resistance away into the nothingness of past emotion.
Long she stood there motionless, still staring with unseeing eyes. At last she heaved a long, sobbing sigh. She would be good. G.o.d make her a good girl. She would try.
What was it he had said the other night, when he told her that strange thing about the Bible in his room, about the rules of some queer Society or other? She heard his laugh ring out clear and joyous, saw his head thrown back.
"Honest, Miss Mary, I"ll never forget the Gideons. Why, since that night, if ever anything gets me riled up, I take and read 13th Corinthians. Then I"ll say to myself, "Have you give all your goods to feed the poor?" I"ll say, "Have you give your body to be burned? Well, then, dry up!""
Mary laughed, a little broken laugh with tears in it.
"I certainly haven"t given my body to be burned!" she said.
Half an hour later, a composed and cheerful Mary came quietly down the back stairs to the kitchen. The traces of tears were nearly gone; cold water can do much in that way. A Mary-in-the-parlor might have blotted them out with powder, but Mary-in-the-kitchen had never used powder in her clean, wholesome, scientific-general life. Her eyes merely looked rather larger than usual, and the long lashes were still curling from the water. She was not smiling yet, but she was ready to smile when she met the eyes of her friend. How they would flash when she told him, when he learned that his search was over, that she was Mary Blossom, that she would go back with him, to do what duty and kindness could do! How he would spring up--
So coming lightly down to the door, she paused a moment, not to listen, just to make sure she was not interrupting anything private. Pippin was still leaning forward, light, alert, as if even sitting he felt the wings on his ankles; he was looking at his friend, with a glance half timid, half whimsical.
"You see, Elder," he said, "I _ain"t_ exactly alone, like you think.
You"re right about it"s bein" poor dope for a guy to live all by himself, but lemme tell you! I"ve got--what I would say is--well, I"ve got a family of my own a"ready--kind of! Not what you"d call a _reg"lar_ family, but yet they"re dandy, sir, they are so! Lemme tell you! I never told a soul about "em, but--"
I have described the Mary who came down the stairs; it was a different Mary who confronted Pippin as, turning his head, he saw her and sprang to his feet. Marble white, with a blind dazed look, as if she had been struck in the face, the girl stood motionless.
"_My soul!_" cried Pippin. "What"s the matter, Miss Mary?"
"What has happened, Mary?" Mr. Hadley had risen, too; both men stood looking at her in concern. Had she struck her head against something?
the chaplain asked anxiously.
Mary was very well, she thanked Mr. Hadley; she had a little headache, that was all. She kept her eyes fixed on the chaplain, not even glancing at Pippin.
"I came," she said, "to tell you--Mr. Hadley, I heard what--what the young man was saying, and I came to tell you. I am Mary Blossom. It"s me he is looking for."
"_You!_" Pippin sprang forward, with a shout that rang through the house. "You, Miss Flower!"
"My mother gave me the name of Flower when I went to the Home!" Mary spoke quickly and steadily, her eyes still fixed on those kind blue ones that always seemed to know what you were going to say before you said it. "She didn"t want my father to find me; I didn"t either. He was--he--never mind!" she hurried on. "But I am Mary Blossom, and I will go to see my--father, and try to do my duty by him." She paused. "That"s all!" she said, and turned, still with that blind, stricken look, as if to leave the room.
"Stay, Mary!" Mr. Hadley took her hand gently. "No wonder you are bewildered, my child. Sit down, won"t you? Let us talk it over. This is wonderful news, indeed!"
"I guess it is!" Pippin had found words at last. "Miss Mary--I--I am clean dumbfoundered, I guess. You! You, little May Blossom that I used to play with, back there in the lane? Well, if ever there was a dunderhead in this world it"s me, it sure is. Green gra.s.s--I would say, Glory to G.o.d! Why, little May! Why, of course it is! Why, look at the color of her hair, will you? Just like he said it was, color of a yearlin" heifer! And--did ever you see a bonehead, Elder? "Cause you see one now. May Blossom!" He moved nearer, and held out both hands with an appealing gesture. "Look at me, won"t you? Look at Pippin! Don"t you rec"lect how we"d play together? You couldn"t say my name plain at first. "Pittin!" you"d say. "Pippin!" I"d say. "Say Pippin, kiddy!" and you says--I can hear you now--"Pip-_pin!_" you says; and then--what--what"s the matter, Miss--Miss Mary? You ain"t mad with me, are you?" He faltered into silence.
Mary"s eyes still clung to the chaplain"s desperately.
"You must excuse me!" she said. Her voice trembled; she shook as if with cold. "I--my head aches; I must go back--"
"Yes, my dear!--go up and lie down!" said the kindly chaplain. "Take a good rest! I"ll tell Mrs. Aymer you are not well."
He led her to the stairs, saw her totter up, feeling her way, watched till the door closed behind her, then turned to comfort as best he might a distracted Pippin who stood motionless, gazing with a stricken look at the door through which Mary had disappeared. As the chaplain advanced with outstretched hand, he turned bewildered eyes on him. "What--what"s the matter?" he faltered. "What did I do? She wouldn"t speak to me, Elder! she wouldn"t look at me! She--gorry to "Liza, she"s mad with me!"
"No, no, Pippin!" The chaplain, puzzled himself, laid a kindly hand on the broad shoulder that was shaking like a frightened child"s. "She has a headache, and she very likely didn"t sleep last night. I don"t believe you slept either; go home, now, like a good chap, and go to bed. But stay! First tell me about this family; what on earth do you mean--hey?"
But Pippin shook his head.
"Not now! I couldn"t tell you about "em now! To-morrow I will, Elder.
I--I guess I"ll go now, sir! I thank you--" He broke off suddenly, with something like a sob, wrung his friend"s hand hard, then went out drooping, like a broken thing.
"Dear me, sirs!" said Lawrence Hadley.
Pippin did not go to bed. He had had little sleep for several nights; this last night he had had none. Excitement and emotion had run riot through him for twenty-four hours, and for the first time in his life he had turned from his food. These things, added to the lightning stroke of Mary"s revelation and the strangeness of her manner in making it, brought about a condition which Pippin failed to recognize or to understand. His head seemed to whirl; his knees felt "like they was water in "em"; black specks danced before his eyes. He was dead tired, and did not know it. Puzzled and bewildered, his simple mind fallen apart, as it were, into incongruous fragments; asking over and over again how and why, and again why and how. Deaf for once to the kindly voices of the creatures of his own brain, which had cheered and companioned him through these past months, he ranged the fields like a hunted animal; finally, long after nightfall, he sought his poor room and dropped exhausted on his bed. Here, as he sat with drooping head and hanging arms, sleep fell upon him like a mantle of lead, yet he struggled against it. He was all wrong inside, he now confided to "Ma"
whom he seemed to feel once more beside him. "I"m all wrong!" he repeated. "It"s like sin, or somethin", was gnawin" at me. I will--"
Pippin struggled to his feet and made his little birch-tree bow, but very wearily, as if the tree had been beaten by tempests, "I will praise the Lord a spell before now I lay me down to sleep."
Why, even his voice was going back on him. At the strange, husky sound, his heart grew cold within him.
"My G.o.d!" he muttered. "What"s this? Has Satan got a-holt of me?"
Clearing his throat violently, he summoned all his strength, and the great voice broke out like a silver trumpet:
"Throw out the life line across the dark wave, There is a brother whom someone should save; Somebody"s brother! Oh, who, then, will dare To throw out the life line, his peril to share?"
Thump! thump came the unmistakable sound of an angry boot on the wall.
"Shut up!" cried an exasperated voice. "Shut up, you darned gospel shark!"
Pippin stopped dead; his eyes blazed; molten flames coursed through his veins. He darted out of his own door and grasped the handle of the next one. It was locked, but that meant nothing to Pippin the Kid. One dexterous turn of Mrs. Baxter"s hairpin (a dandy tool for light work, sure!) and the door flew open.
Mr. Joseph Johnson was a stonemason, and worked hard all day. He needed his sleep, and was not of mystic or dramatic temperament; it was, therefore, perhaps hardly strange that he was annoyed by vehement-tuneful demands for a life line at nine o"clock o" night. At all events, he was just bending forward to deliver another thump on the wall when, as has been said, the door flew open, and to him entered a lightly clad bronze statue, its arm outstretched, its eyes darting flames.
"Say!" cried the statue; "who are you that can"t hear the Lord praised a spell? Who are you to stop a man in the middle of his song? Darn your hide! If you can"t sing yourself, be thankful other folks can; you hear me? Have you said your prayers to-night? You never! Down you go!"
Mr. Johnson found himself suddenly on his knees, the statue, kneeling also, holding him tightly by the shirt collar. A short, sharp injunction was issued to Deity.
"O Lord, you make this man behave; he don"t know how, no way, shape, or manner. Amen!
"_Now!_" Pippin rose, towering seven feet high, Mr. Johnson told the scandalized landlady next day. "Let me hear another word out of you!"
Mr. Johnson remaining discreetly silent, Pippin, after glaring at him a minute, dropped his fiery crest.