Rose O'Paradise Part 12

"She said she had to have money to-night. I hope she gets it; if she doesn't I can't stay and live with you."

"I hope she gets it, too," sighed the cobbler.

Of a sudden a thought seemed to strike him. The girl noticed it and looked a question.

"Peggy's bark's worser'n her bite," Lafe explained in answer. "She's like a lot of them little pups that do a lot of barkin' but wouldn't set their teeth in a biscuit."

"Does that mean," Jinnie asked eagerly, "if she don't get the two dollars to-night, Mrs. Peggy might let me stay?"

"That's just what it means," replied Lafe, making loud whacks on the sole of a shoe. "You'll stay, all right."

The depth of Virginia's grat.i.tude just then could only be estimated by one who had pa.s.sed through the same fires of deep uncertainty, and in the ardor of it she flung her arms around the cobbler's neck and kissed him.

When Lafe, with useless legs, had been brought home to his wife, she had stoically taken up the burden that had been his. At her husband's suggestion that he should cobble, Mrs. Grandoken had fitted up the little shop, telling him grimly that every hand in the world should do its share. And that was how Lafe Grandoken, laborer and optimist, began his life's great work--of cobbling a ray of comfort to every soul entering the shack. Sometimes he would insist that the sun shone brighter than the day before; then again that the clouds had a cooling effect. But if in the world outside Lafe found no comfort, he always spoke of to-morrow with a ring of hope in his voice.

Hope for another day was all Lafe had save Peggy, and to him these two--hope and the woman--were Heaven's choicest gifts. Now Peggy didn't realize all these things, because the world, with its trials and vicissitudes, gave her a different aspect of life, and she was not in even her ordinary good humor this day as she prepared the midday meal. Her mind was busy with thoughts of the new burden which the morning had brought.

Generally Lafe consulted her about any problem that presented itself before him, but, that day, he had taken a young stranger into their home, and Mrs. Grandoken had used all kinds of arguments to persuade him to send the girl away. Peggy didn't want another mouth to feed.

She didn't care for any one in the world but Lafe anyway.

When the dinner was on the table, she grimly brought her husband's wheel chair to the kitchen. Virginia, by the cobbler's invitation, followed.

"Any money paid in to-day?" asked Peggy gruffly, drawing the cobbler to his place at the table.

"No," he said, smiling up at her, "but there'll be a lot to-morrow....

Is there some bread for----for Jinnie, too?"

Peggy replied by sticking her fork into a biscuit and pus.h.i.+ng it off on Virginia's plate with her finger.

Virginia acknowledged it with a shy upward glance. Peg's stolid face and quick, insistent movements filled her with vague discomfort. If the woman had tempered her harsh, "Take it, kid," with a smile, the little girl's heart might have ached less.

Lafe nodded to her when his wife left the room for a moment.

"That biscuit's Peg's bite," said he, "so she'll bark a lot the rest of the day, but don't you mind."

CHAPTER VII

JUST A JEW

When the cobbler was at work again, Virginia, after picking up a few nails and tacks scattered on the floor, sat down.

"Would you like to hear something about me and Peggy, la.s.sie?" he inquired, "an' will you take my word for things?"

Jinnie nodded trustfully. She had already grown to love the cobbler, and her affection grew stronger as she stated:

"There isn't anything you'd tell me, cobbler, I wouldn't believe!"

With slow importance Lafe put down his hammer.

"I'm a Israelite," he announced.

"What's that?" asked the girl, immediately interested.

The cobbler looked over his spectacles and smiled.

"A Jew, just a plain Jew."

"I don't know what a Jew is either," confessed Jinnie.

Lafe groped for words to explain his meaning.

"A Jew," he ventured presently, "is one of G.o.d's----chosen----folks. I mean one of them chose by Him to believe."

"Believe what?"

"All that G.o.d said would be," explained Lafe, reverently.

"And you believe it, cobbler?"

"Sure, kid; sure."

The shoemaker saw a question mirrored in the depths of the violet eyes.

"And thinking that way makes you happy, eh, Mr. Lafe? Does it make you smile the way you do at girls without homes?"

As she put this question sincerely to him, Jinnie reminded the cobbler of a beautiful flower lifting its proud head to the sun. In his experience with young people, he had never seen a girl like this one.

"It makes me happier'n anything!" he replied, cheerfully. "The wonderful part is I wouldn't know about it if I hadn't lost my legs.

I'll tell you about it, la.s.s."

Jinnie settled back contentedly.

"A long time ago," began Mr. Grandoken, "G.o.d led a bunch of Jews out of a town where a king was torturin' 'em----"

The listener's eyes darkened in sympathy.

"They was made to do a lot of things that hurt 'em; their babies and women, too."

Jinnie leaned forward and covered the h.o.r.n.y hand with her slender fingers.

"Have you ever had any babies, Lafe?" she ventured.

A perceptible shadow crossed the man's face.