"Here! Take another drink of the lemonade! 'Tis some different from spice-draught. Gee, wasn't that something fierce! I expect it kep' you from pneumony, though!"
Pippin held the lemonade to the boy's lips, and patted the pillows tenderly, as a woman might. Meeting his eyes, dark with shame, misery, and reproach, he beamed on him benevolently.
"There!" he said. "I know how you feel. Look at it one way, 'twas a mean trick I played you, a mean, low-down trick. I ask your pardon for that! But look at here! I had to stop you, hadn't I? I'd passed my word, and, too, the Lord bid me. No gettin' away from that. Well, now, if I'd sat down there in the wood road that day, talked to you real fatherly and pious, told you thus and so, and asked wouldn't you be a good boy and go back to the farm and hoe potatoes—" The boy made a restless motion. Pippin laid a quiet hand on his arm. "Rest easy! I'll come to that presently! If I'd have done that, would you have listened to me? Not you! You'd ha' laughed at me for a gospel shark, and you'd have up and gone after that mean skunk (you notice he never turned round to look what become of you?) fast as you could pick up your heels. Then what? Say you'd caught up with him and gone on to the next town, and started in breakin' and enterin'! Well, what say? Why, then you'd ben pinched and run in. Yes siree Bob! You never was built for a crook, my lad; you're too slow, and you're too—call it clumpsy. You've no quicksilver in your toes, nor yet in your fingers. You'd ben run in, and then you'd gone to Shoreham. First offense, they might let you off with six months—more likely a year, but say six months! For six months, then, you'd worked as you never worked before in your little life, alongside of men—well—the Lord made 'em, amen!—only they ain't the kind you're used to. What I would say, there's no romance about Shoreham, not a mite, and don't you forget it! (Say, ain't this a dandy bed? I betcher! And all ready for the man that comes after me. We'll come to that bumby, too.) And if you try to hook it, or misbehave anyways, you get put in solitary. Know what that means? It means four walls with nothin' on 'em except the bricks, walls four feet apart one way and seven the other, and a grated door between you and anything else. It means twenty-four hours every day and each of 'em half of the whole, seems though! No! You can't understand, 'cause you haven't ben there. It means no word spoke or heard excep' when your victuals is passed in, and mighty few then, and what there is is no special pleasure to hear. Now, bo, that is what I've ben through, and that is what I've saved you from. Now what about it? Did I do right, or did I do wrong?"
"Right!" faltered the boy. "Oh, Moonlighter—"
"Hold on! Forget that! My name's Pippin, and that's what you call me from now on. I had to show you what I used to be, or you'd never have listened to me; now, I'm an honest man, and there's nobody I can't look in the face. Pippin's my name, and straight is my natur'. Praise the Lord! Amen! Well, sir, that is what I done. Now the question is, what next? And here comes in Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. Well, those folks are as good as they make 'em; they're as good as your Uncle and Aunt Bailey, and more is not to be said. They know all about me, and all about you. I'm leavin' 'em in a day or two, for good; and gorry, what do you think them two Bakin' Angels is ready to do? They stand ready to take you and make a baker of you. Now—rest easy! I got to get it all off my chest! Bakin' is as nice a trade, as pretty an all-round trade, as a man can ask for in this world. If I hadn't other things I'd undertaken to do—well, never mind that! Here you can stay, if you're a mind to, and if you feel like you've had your bellyful of breakin' and enterin', and like that; work in daylight and sunlight and free air, and eat choice food, and hear kind, decent, pleasant language and never anything else. That's what you've ben used to all your life, you'll say; yes, but there's more to it. Here you are in a town, and folks all round you, boys of your own age, nice clean fellers like you—you needn't winch! The dirt ain't grimed into you yet; 'twill wash off, you see!—boys to chin with, and play baseball with, and football; girls too, nice, pretty, refined young ladies, comin' in to buy creamcakes, and—green grass! I certingly shall miss those young ladies!—and—go to singin' school evenin's, and church meetin', and like that, and—well, that, sir, is what we offer, against the life of a crook. You balance them two in your mind, and think it over a bit!"
He made a motion with his hand, and turning his face away, was about to take counsel with himself, when the boy spoke hastily.
"Mr. Pippin," he said, "I—no need to think it over! I thank you a thousand times. I'm a fool, but I didn't know it before. Now I see it clear, and I thank you—I—I can't say what I feel, but I do sure feel it. I'd stay here glad and thankful, and I'd do my best, sir, honestly I would, and try to make good; but—but—"
"Well?" Pippin's eyes were very bright, he bent forward eagerly. "Well, youngster? What stands in the way?"
"Aunt and Uncle!" broke forth the boy. "I've been mean—mean as dirt, and they so good to me. If they'll let me, and if Mr. Baxter can wait, say a week, I'll come back more thankful than I've words to say; but first I must go home—and—"
A thwack upon his shoulders, almost as loud as that of the peel an hour before, sent him half out of bed. Looking up in terror, he saw Pippin standing over him with shining eyes and outstretched hand.