Pippin; A Wandering FlameRichards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
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Pippin; A Wandering Flame
Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
Bildungsromans; Ex-convicts -- Fiction; Love stories; Orphans -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
"Sure!" said Pippin. For some moments he sat absently, running his
fingers through his brown curls. Taking out the little file, he
considered it unseeingly, tried to whistle a tune on it, and failing,
returned it to its hiding place. Then, waking from his reverie, he put
the old man through a sharp examination. The answers were feeble and
uncertain, but he learned something. Eighteen year old, or mighty nigh
it. Yes, red hair, or--naw! it might be darker by now, like her ma's
was; color of--there! 'member old Mis' Jennings that lived just over the
way from There? Well, sir, she had a heifer, kind o' red brown, like a
hoss chestnut when you break it open; and her skin the white of one,
too, kind o' soft and creamy; and her eyes like her'n too (the heifer's,
Old Man Blossom meant), big and soft and blue with a kind of brown in
'em too--there! he'd know her, Pippin would, by the dimple right corner
of her little mouth. Cur'us thing that was. When she wasn't more than a
baby, 'bout two year old, he gave her a little sunshade--she see her
Ma's and hollered for it, and he said she should have one of her own;
pink it was, and she carried it like the Lady of the Land, sir. But
bimeby she tumbles down, and the p'int of it went right through her
cheek. That's right; instead of a scar, it made a dimple, paint him sky
blue striped if it didn't. Prettiest little gal--hair would curl round
your finger like 'twas a stick--
The whisper broke into crying, and Pippin had to soothe him and sing
"The Factor's Lady, or the Turkish Garland," all through to restore
tranquillity. But when Pippin rose to go, the old man clutched him with
trembling fingers.
"Whisper!" he said. "Whisper, Pippin! The way you go to work--the way
I'd go to work if I wasn't perished in my vitals"--he consigned his
vitals to a warm region--"is, take Brand along!"
"Brand?" repeated Pippin.
"The blind man! he has eyes in his fingers. He can--he can tell the way
the wind blew yesterday by feelin' of it to-day. If I'd had Brand I'd
never been nabbed, and I'd be rollin' in gold to-day, and goin' in my
automobile to find my little gal. But you get Brand along, Pippin! talk
him round first, he's never been in the sportin' line, but--"
"Hold on! hold on!" Pippin loosed the clutching hands gently, and laid
the poor old sinner, still gasping and whispering back on the pillow.
"Old Man, you're makin' one big mistake. I'm not in the line any more; I
guess not!" He threw back his head and laughed joyously. "You didn't
know I found the Lord, did you? Well, I have, and there's no more sport
in mine. But--I'll tell you! I'm runnin' a wheel at present,
knife-grindin', you know. Why--I've got Nipper's wheel! Nipper was a pal
of yours, wasn't he?"
"Nipper's wheel? Where's Nipper? Is he here?"
"He's dead, and before he went he gave me his wheel. It's a real
handy--what now?"
He paused, for the old man, after staring at him a moment, broke into a
fit of cackling, wheezing laughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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