Martin Pippin

“ And he turned his face to the dark of the malthouse, and there, sitting on a barrel, with a slice of the sunset falling through a slit on her corn-colored hair, was Gillian.
"In love's name," cried Martin Pippin, putting his hands to his head, "what more do you want?"
"A husband worthy of her," moaned Robin Rue, "and how can I suppose that I am he? Oh, that I were only good enough for her! oh, that she could be happily mated, as after all her sorrows she deserves to be!" ”

“ At the sound of his voice the six milkmaids rose up in the grass like golden fountains. And fountains indeed they were, for their eyes were running over with tears.
"We did not hear you coming," said little Joan.
"Go away at once!" commanded Joscelyn.
Then all the girls cried "Go away!" together.
"My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, "I entreat you to let me in. For the moon is up, and it is time to be sleeping or waking, in sweet company. So I beseech you to admit me, dear maidens—if maidens in truth you be, and not six apples bobbed off their stems." ”

“ Maids' memories are longer than men's. At all events, the milkmaids knew instantly to whom she referred, although nearly a month had passed since his coming.
'Has he his lute with him?' asked little Joan.
'He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his hand. Man, go away immediately!'
Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. ”

“ When he came down again Martin observed, 'It must be a very bitter sorrow that will put a man off his dinner.'
'It is the bitterest,' said the youth, and went his way.
At his next coming Martin inquired, 'What is the name of your sorrow?'
'Love,' said the youth. By now he was somewhat distant from the gate when he came abreast of it, and Martin Pippin did not catch the word. So he called loudly:
'What?'
'Love!' shouted the youth. His voice cracked on it. He appeared slightly annoyed. Martin chewed a grass and watched him up and down the meadow. ”

“ Robin Rue looked out of doors, saw by the sun that it was so, put down his spade, and went home to supper.
"Gillian," said Martin Pippin, "the Squire did not come himself to fetch her away because he was a young fool. There was no eighth floret on the grass-blade, so the rime stayed at the seventh. The letter I threw with the Lady-peel was a G. There are apples all round your silver ring because it was once my ring. I do, you dear, I do, I do. And now I have answered your many questions, answer me one. ”

“ The young man turned his eyes upward.
"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to sweeten the fruits that are watered by my sorrows."
"Then here is a waste of good quassia," said Martin, "and I think your name is Robin Rue."
"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this five-and-twenty days."
"And what of your Gillian?" ”

“ But romance gathers round an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of Martin Pippin in the Apple-Orchard is so old now—some say a year old, some say even two. How can the children be expected to remember? ”

“ I was a little overworked. I had been reading a great number of manuscripts in the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of typescript was a burden to me. But before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten that it was a manuscript submitted for my judgment. I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, and humor. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my reading was done.
My most earnest wish is that there may be many minds and imaginations among the American people who will be able to share that pleasure with me. ”

“ Direct me to your Gillian's apple orchard.'
'It is useless,' Robin said. 'For even if you could cross the duck-pond, and evade the ducks, and compass the green gate, my sweetheart's father's milkmaids are not to be come over by any man; and they watch the well-house day and night.'
'Yet direct me to the orchard,' repeated Martin Pippin, and thrummed his lute a little. ”

“ And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told her that wherever she went men, women, and children would run to their snowy doorsteps, for she would be as welcome as swallows in spring. And Jane got the Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must have blessed her birth, since she was to live and die with the peals of heaven in her ears. And Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer.
"What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?" asked Joscelyn.
"Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers," said Martin. "They're a poor lot. I'm sorry for you." ”

“ The first bubble in the pipe was always crystal, and sometimes had a jewel hanging from it which made it fall to the earth; and the second was tinged with color, and the third gleamed like sunset, or like peacocks' wings, or rainbows, or opals. All the colors of earth and heaven chased each other on their surfaces in all the swift and changing shapes that tobacco smoke plays at on the air; but of all their colors they take the deepest glow of one or two, and now Martin would blow a world of flame and orange through the trees, or one of blue and gold, or another of green and rose. ”

“ But you are the first who has cared whether or no my heart should break since my lovely Gillian was locked with six keys into her father's Well-House, and six young milkmaids, sworn virgins and man-haters all, to keep the keys."
"The thirsty," said Martin, "make little of padlocks when within a rope's length of water."
"But, sir," continued the youth earnestly, "this Well-House is set in the midst of an Apple-Orchard enclosed in a hawthorn hedge full six feet high, and no entrance thereto but one small green wicket, bolted on the inner side." ”

“ In return, you treat him like a dog! Instead of gratitude, you give him the cold shoulder. Shame on you, Mary Blossom! your conduct is heartless and wicked. You know Pippin loves you. You know there is no one in the world but you—"
He paused involuntarily, for Mary had risen and faced him, white as marble.
"No one but me?" she cried in a voice that shook with the cold passion of a sword. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Hadley. Hasn't he got his family?"
"His family?" repeated the chaplain. ”

“ Flora May!
There are two men in every one of us. I used to think there were ten in Pippin, but for one instant all ten were paralyzed, looking helplessly into the blue eyes that burned into his; then one of them woke, the one who would have been a physician if Pippin had been reared in a home instead of a cellar. ”

“ And he loved her, both for her fault and her redemption of it, more than he had ever thought that he could love her; for he had believed that in their kiss love had reached its uttermost. But love has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest. ”

“ If there's one job I like better than another, it's grind a new tip."
Mary brought the knife, which he pronounced a dandy from Dandyville. He didn't suppose she would care to see him do it? Some thought 'twas pretty to watch. Mary, with a glance at the clock, thought she had time. Soon, bright head and dark were bending over Nipper, the wheel was flying, the rough edge of blue steel was fining, thinning, brightening, shaping—yes, it certainly was pretty to watch. Pippin had a strong notion that something else would have been pretty to watch, too, could he have looked two ways at once ”

“ And all provided themselves with apples.
"Begin," said Joscelyn.
"A story-teller," said Martin, "as much as any other craftsman, needs his instruments, of which his auditors are the chief. And of these I lack one." And he fixed his eyes of the weeper in the Well-House.
"You have six already," said Joscelyn. "The seventh you must acquire as you proceed. So begin."
"Without the vital tool?" cried Martin. "As well might you bid Madam Toad to spin flax without her distaff."
"What folly is this?" said Joscelyn. "Toads don't spin."
"Don't they?" said Martin, much astonished. ”

“ Bailey. "Feeding the hens, I presume likely. I'll tell her good-by for you, Pippin!"
He shook hands with Old Man Blossom, who was only too eager to be friends. "I'm all friends, Pippin!" he cried in eager, quavering tones. "Honest I am! You find my little gal, and you can pray yourself black in the face and I won't say a word. It just took me that way, you know; you prayin' as slick as a Gospel shark, and Nipper's wheel out in the shed all the time—tee hee! You're smart, Pippin! Ain't any pious goin' to get round you, hey? 'Tother way round, hey? Gorry! that is rich!" ”

“ Pippin was like that, he thought. An Israelite without guile; the child of the slums, the young desperado; Pippin the Kid, alias Moonlighter, alias Jack-o'-lantern. Strange and true, and blessed! Out of the mouths of babes—gutter babes as well as those of Christian homes! But how absurd, how utterly unreasonable, this very crystalline quality made the boy! He had thought that once he found the girl, all would be plain sailing. He had actually expected Mary to start with him, hand in hand like two children, that very morning for Cyrus Poor Farm, thirty miles away. ”

“ These are Pippin and Mary; she in white, with white roses in her pretty hat, he—but no one could ever tell what Pippin had on.
At sight of him the chaplain looses his hold of the two boys. They make one bolt for the door, fall out of it together, wriggle up again, and rush like a double whirlwind to the gate, rolling under the wheels of the car, which has fortunately come to a standstill.
Pippin and Mary spring down. Seeing them, the cottage becomes all eyes, guests, helpers, delegates, crowding to the windows. Most of the women begin to cry. Foolish creatures! What is the matter with them? ”

“ Brand?"
[Pg 64]
"I have, ma'am!" said the blind man proudly.
"We make good profit out'n 'em," said Jacob. "Far and near, folks wants our hog p'dooce. Mr. Brand is money in the bank for the Farm and for himself, too."
As they left the table, a little cold hand was slipped into Pippin's.
"Sing!" said the girl. "Please sing for Flora May!"
"Why, sure!" Pippin was beginning; but Jacob Bailey broke in kindly but firmly:
"Not the minute he's finished his supper, he can't sing, Flora May!" he said. "Beside, I promised old Mr. Blossom to fetch Pippin in to see him."
"Old Mr. who?" cried Pippin. ”

“ I see 'em there."
"I never should have thought it!" said the baker, and he shook his head sadly. "Those little kids! Why, the boy doesn't look to be more than eight years old, and the girl only a year or so older."
"That's the time to start 'em!" Pippin spoke with emphasis. "If you're aimin' to make a first-rate crook, you've got to start in early with him. But Father O'Brien'll see to 'em; he's smart as a jimmy, Father O'Brien is."
"We won't tell the wife!" said Mr. Baxter. "She is nervous, and 'twould ha'nt her, and keep her awake nights. One comfort, they're not Kingdom born, those kids. ”

“ Now behooves me hasten just a mite, if I'm goin' to get to Kingdom before sundown! He said 'twas about a mile further. Hello! What's goin' on here?"
Pippin was not to get to Kingdom before sundown. He stopped short. A man was lying beside the road, motionless, his feet in the ditch, his head on a tuft of grass: asleep, it seemed. An elderly man, gray and wizened, his face seamed with wrinkles of greed and cunning. Near him on the dusty grass lay a scissor-grinder's wheel. Pippin bent over him, looked, looked again, then knelt down in the dust.
"It's Nipper Crewe!" he said. "He's—no, he isn't! ”

“ She had usually sat between Jacob Bailey and Flora May, sat there with an inward protest. She shrank from contact with the imbecile girl: the instinctive shrinking of the healthy from the sick, the unconscious cruelty of the normal toward the abnormal. Hitherto she had given no sign of this, ashamed of an instinct that was yet too strong for her; conscious, too, under the skin of her mind, of the warmth of compassion, the tenderness of courtesy, with which Pippin always treated the poor girl. If she had been the First Lady of the Land, he could have shown her no more attention, Mary thought. ”

“ To the father of Buster, that expanse suggested but one thing in the world. Raising the peel, he brought it down with a resounding thwack which sent the boy flat on his face under the table and brought Mrs. Baxter shrieking from the shop.
"Elegant!" said Pippin. "Mr. Baxter, sir, that was simply elegant!"
An hour later the Red Ruffian, full, dry, and warm, a plaster over his injured nose, lay in Pippin's bed; and Pippin ("as per contract with the Elder," he told himself, "lettin' alone its bein' right and fittin' so to do") sat on the edge of the bed and looked for the grace of God. ”

“ Pippin cleared his throat and spoke huskily.
"Elder," he said, "say the word and I'll stay! Honest I will. I'd be proud, sir, if I could help you, any way, shape, or manner. I would so!"
The chaplain laughed rather ruefully, and rose from his chair. "That would never do!" he said. "No, no, Pippin, you mustn't think I'm not just as glad to have you go as I am sorry to lose you. You'll be helping outside instead of inside, that's all. We shall not let go of you altogether. How about Sandy Colt, Pippin?" ”