Pippin did not, but there was no need of saying so.
"What about her, Old Man?"
"I want her! I ain't a well man, nor yet I ain't goin' to be well, and I want my little gal; I want you to find her, Pippin, and bring her to me."
"Sure!" said Pippin comfortably. "Where would I be likely—"
"I don't know!" cried the old man wildly. "That—" he gave a brief and vivid sketch of his wife's character—a wholly inaccurate sketch—"never would tell me where she sent her. She died herself, and a good job, too, and she sent word to me that Mary was well and doin' well, but now she'd got shet of me she was goin' to keep her shet. Now what a way that was to talk to a father! If little Mary knowed where I was, she'd come like a shot, but she don't know, nor I don't know—You find her, Pippin! You rec'let the little gal: you'll find her, won't you?"
"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.