"You sure did, Elder! and I never meant to set foot in the darned hole, honest I never! But look the way things come round! I had to, hadn't I? I just fair had to! I wrote you about that, didn't I?" "No! You wrote me that you had found the dandyest place that ever was, and that you wanted to fill it plumb up with boys and bring them up clean and straight, and that you were going to do it soon as ever you had finished the job you had on hand, but you didn't say what the job was, and you didn't say that it would be bringing you back to the last place in the world where you ought to be." "Is that so?" Pippin ran the file through his hair anxiously. "Now what a lunkhead I be! I sure thought I told you, Elder. Why--well, anyways, I'll tell you now. Why, 'twas at that place, Cyrus Poor Farm--it _is_ a dandy place, now I want you should understand that; and the dandyest folks in it ever _I_ see--almost!" His eye caught the flutter of blue ribbons as Mary entered after hanging out her dish towels. "And--why, 'twas there I found the Old Man, and made him the promise. He's on the blink, you see; in poor shape the Old Man is, and no mistake; and he wants to see his little gal before he goes--well, wherever he _is_ goin'. His little gal, you understand, Elder; his kid, the only kid he ever had, I presume. Mother took her away from him--I'm sure no one can blame her for that--but--well, she's woman grown now, and he's never set eyes on her since she was a kid. Now wouldn't that give you a pain, Elder? He's a rip from Riptown, and he's never done a cent's worth of good that I know of; but there 'tis! And he plead with me, plead real pitiful, I'd find his little gal for him. What would you done, Elder? I looked for grace in him, honest I did, and I couldn't find one smitch, no sir! not one single, solitary smitch, till--what I mean--till--till I see how bad he wanted his little gal; and I thought mebbe that was the way it took him--you get me, Elder?" "I get you, Pippin! Go on!" "And--and mebbe if I could find the kid--I can't help but call her a kid, though she's a woman now, if she's alive--if I could take that kid to him, he might--get me?--might find the Lord through the lot he set by her. I ain't puttin' it the right way, but--" Pippin paused, and his eyes finished the sentence. "Perfectly clear, Pippin, perfectly clear; I haven't a word to say. You did right. But who is this old man? You speak as if it were some one I knew, yet you wrote me that Nipper Crewe died. What old man is this?" Pippin stared. "Ain't I tellin' you? Old Man Blossom! It's him, and it's his little May--"