And her arms were aching for the child! She wanted to hold him close, close, to fret him with sallies of her kisses, to twine his curls round her finger. From the tail of her eye she absorbed his beauty, the roundness of his cheek, the deliciousness of his chin, the dark stars that were his eyes. But she set her lips, and turned away toward the window, and Pippin, with a murmured, "Come, kiddo! Best we go along!" went his sad way out into the sunshine.
Instinctively he turned his steps toward the barn, and there the chaplain found him soon after. He was sitting on the upturned bucket, leaning listlessly against the door jamb. Peppino was playing beside him with a box of red and white beans, very wonderful. Now and then he held up a handful of the pretty things with a gleeful shout; and Pippin would nod and smile and say, "Some beans, kiddo! They sure are!" His whole air and attitude were so wholly unlike himself that Mr. Hadley said involuntarily,
"What's the matter, Pippin?"
Pippin rose and bowed, with the ghost of his own smile.
"That you, Elder? Well, now! That was a nice funeral, wasn't it? He couldn't ask for no nicer, not if he was the President!" He spoke with obvious effort; his eyes, meeting the chaplain's keen glance, dropped.
"What's the matter?" repeated Hadley.
Pippin sat down again, the other beside him. There was a pause; then—
"I've lost my grip!" he said heavily. Hadley waited. The father in him, the son in Pippin, must meet in silence, if they were to meet at all.
Presently the words came in a rush. "I've lost my grip; things has got away from me. I don't know what I done—" his eyes, dark with pain and trouble, roved hither and thither, as if seeking enlightenment—"but I done something I hadn't ought to. She has no use for me any more!"