"There was an old man,
And he was mad,
And he ran up the steeple.
He took off
His great big hat,
And waved it over the people!"
Later, he sat under the wayside oak and communed with himself. How did he account for that? he asked. Honest, now, wouldn't it gave you a pain? Here he was, the Lord's boy, a professin' Christian, belongin' to every church they was, he expected, startin' out all so gay to do the Lord's work, and Him knowledgeable to it, and helpin' along; and then all in a minute some part of him—something he couldn't get a holt of—give a jump, and wanted them things, wanted 'em like—Gorry to 'Liza! You couldn't have no idea how he wanted 'em! and yet 'twasn't him, neither: all the time he was lookin' on, you might say, struck all of a heap. Now how would you make that out? Honest, how would you?
After some thought, Pippin expected that it was the devil. He was always round, you know, like a roarin' line, seekin' whom he could devour 'em up. Behooved him keep a sharp lookout!
But, said another part of his brain, ekally the Lord was round, and more so, let him bear in mind. The Lord was mindful of His own; Elder Hadley had wrote that in the Testament and Psalms he give him, and 'twas so; and the Lord was stronger than the devil, never let Pippin have no doubts about that.
"You bet He is!" Up went Pippin's head; he smote his knee with a resounding smack. "You bet He is! Satan, you beat it while your shoes are new! I've got no more use for you, and don't you forget it!"
[CHAPTER XIII]
ENTER MARY-IN-THE-KITCHEN
IN a certain pleasant suburb—yes, the city has pleasant suburbs, though when you are in the slums you do not believe it—stands a white house with green blinds. It stands in the middle of a square yard (by which I mean an inclosure, not a measure of space); its front looks on a pleasant street, with a sidewalk, and sentinel maples set at regular intervals; the back gives, as the French say, on a road that is not yet paved, with neither sidewalk nor maples, only a straggling procession of elms, with grass or dust, as may happen, under foot. Yet it is more sympathetic, some people think, than the proper street, and Mary-in-the-kitchen, whose windows both above and below stairs look out upon it, privately thinks she has the best part of the house. So thinks the visitor in the back corner room, too; but we have not come to him yet.
Mary-in-the-kitchen is not in it just now. She is in the yard, hanging out the clothes, for all the world like the maid in the nursery song. She is standing on a raised platform; her face is toward the house, her back toward the road. So standing, with her arms raised, pinning linen along a line, Mary is such a picture that you really must stop and look at her. She is neither tall nor short, but just the right height, and her blue cotton gown takes the lines and curves of as pretty a figure as ever sculptor sighed for. Her forehead is broad and smooth, and her hair ripples round it as if for pure pleasure. Her brows are black and straight, her lashes black and curled, and her eyes violet blue with brown shadows; you may see the color in clear water when the wind ruffles it. A short straight nose, a chin like Mary Donnelly's, "very neat and pert, and smooth as a china cup," a mouth with kisses tucked in at the corners: all these things Mary has, and her hair beside. Hair too dark for gold, too bright for brown; rather like October oak leaves when the sun shines through them at a certain angle—but you must know the right kind of oak. Well, then, like a red heifer, a yearling, when her coat is new and glossy in the spring. There is so much of it that Mary hardly knows what to do with it; being a very tidy girl, she has it well braided and pinned in shining coils at the back of her head, but little tendrils will escape and curl round her face just because they cannot keep away; and on the nape of her neck are two little curls that know themselves for the prettiest in the world.