[CHAPTER XXVI]
PIPPIN PRAISES THE LORD
TWO years have passed, as yesterday, as a watch in the night. Once more the chaplain sits in his office, the bare, unlovely little room where we first saw him. Once more he is opening, sorting, reading his morning mail, his brow saddening, lightening, saddening again. Finally, once more the cloud rolls away entirely, and he settles himself in his chair with a comfortable sigh.
"Pippin!" he says, and composes himself to read. Let us look over his shoulder and read with him!
Honored and Respected Sir,
I take up my pen with pleasure, to express the hope that the present seasonable weather may find you in good health and the enjoyment of every blessing. Well, Elder, I haven't written this good while past, because I wanted to wait and see would I be able to tell you what I wanted to tell you. Well, Elder, I want you should know it's all right, I have got that degree! I had a talk with the Old Man last winter, and he surely is great. He said I was all right on chemistry and crops and soils and like that, and similar on social economics, and mathematics, but where I fell down was on rhetoric and English literature. I said did he think that cut any great amount of ice when all I wanted was know how to run a farm and bring up boys straight and white. He said he didn't know as it did, but yet I didn't want those boys to grow up speaking ignorant. You bet I don't says I, but what's to hinder me learning 'em? I says, and learning myself at the same time? Have the books, and study right along with 'em I says, and there would be others could teach me, I says. Then I told him how it was about me and Mary, and how it didn't seem as if I could wait any longer. He laughed real pleasant, and said he guessed I wouldn't be called upon to wait very long, and I should have the degree all right first minute he could give it to me. Then he explained just how it was, and of course I saw in a minute; he couldn't give a degree to a guy for knowing a thing when he didn't know it. He knew how 'twas with me, and that I was doing chores and odd jobs to pay my way. And grinding! Elder, I was thankful to Nipper for that wheel. I sure was. I kept the whole show sharpened up good, now I tell you.
Well, Elder, now I want to tell you. When you first said, and Mr. Bailey upheld you, that it behooved me wait two years, and go to State Agricultural, and do thus and so, before I'd be fit to handle boys and be trusted by them as had 'em in charge—I tell you, sir, it seemed as if I couldn't, no way in the world. It appeared like I couldn't do it. It was like as if I was in Heaven, and you took me by my scruff and pants and hove me out. "It's more than reason," I says to myself. "It's more than flesh and blood can stand; it's like I was white-hot metal, and they took and threw cold water over me!" Well, Elder! You see where that was leading me? I bet you do! But I didn't, not at first. I went out to the barn, you rec'lect, and just set there by myself, humped up on the meal bucket, sayin' over and over, "I was all white hot to do the Lord's work, and they've took and threw cold water over me!"
And then, all of a sudden, it come to me, and I laughed right out. You must have heard me over to the house, I expect. Mary did, and she come running—bless her! "You lunkhead!" I says. "You lunkhead from way back everlasting, how do they temper metal but with cold water? Nice kind of steel you'd get without it, what say? Like to shave with soft iron, what say? And when you put it in the water it hisses," I says, "and so does the old gander hiss, and I know which you are most like!" I says.
I was laughing, you rec'lect, when I come back to tell you 'twas all right; I expect you knew pretty well how twas. You were whistling "Soldier of the Cross," and that showed me.
Well, Elder, I have had a great time over to State Agricultural, I sure have. The folks have been dandy, sir, simply dandy. Folks couldn't be no dandier than what they have to me. I used to think college folks and like that was wanting somehow, but I found the boot was on the other leg, it was me that was a nut to think so. I've made friends—why, they are all friends, I do believe. I'll tell you all about it first chance I get, but what I want to say now is, Elder, my time is up! I've got my degree, and Mr. Bailey is satisfied, and the cottage is ready (I've put in all my vacations on it, you know, and Mr. Bailey and the selectmen have been more than kind, the neighbors too), and Mary is ready; bless her heart! and Mrs. Aymer can spare her all right, or at least she says she can't, but she will, the kiddo learning to walk and like that; and she's got Mary the dandiest outfit ever you saw, Elder! If she was the President's wife, it couldn't be no dandier. And I've been to see all those gentlemen you said, the Boards and like that, and they was all dandy too, and said "Go ahead," and I'm going! So name the day you can come over, Elder, and Mary and I will be there. The Lord is so good to me—I don't know why He is so good, except that He is good. And all my life long, sir, I'll try my best to make other folks happy, I sure will. So no more but thanking you Elder, because under the Lord you really done it all sir. With a grateful heart though faltering pen I beg to convey to you, reverend and highly respected Sir, the assurance of my being
Your most obedient humble servant
Pippin.