Rose O'Paradise Part 24

"Put your arm around me, girl," which invitation Jinnie quickly accepted.

Then they two, so unlike, went slowly down the walk toward the tracks to Lafe Grandoken's home.

Jinnie's heart vied with a trip-hammer as they turned into Paradise Road. She did not fear the cobbler, but the thought of Peggy's harsh voice, her ruthless catechizing, worried her not a little.

Nevertheless, she kept her arm about the boy, steadily drawing him on.

When they came to the side door of the house, the girl turned the handle and walked in, leading her weary companion.

Resolutely she pa.s.sed on to the kitchen, for she wanted the disagreeable part over first. She fumbled in hesitation with the k.n.o.b of the door, and Peg, hearing her, opened it. At first, the woman saw only Jinnie, with Happy Pete by her side. Then her gaze fell upon the other child, whose blind, entreating eyes were turned upward in supplication.

"This is Bobbie," announced Jinnie, "and he's come to live with us, Peggy."

Poor Peggy stared, surprised to silence. She could find no words to fit the occasion.

"He hasn't any home!" Jinnie gasped for breath in her excitement.

"Mag, a woman somewhere, beat him and he ran away and I found 'im. So he belongs to us now."

She was gaining a.s.surance every moment. She hoped that Peggy was silently acquiescing, for the woman hadn't uttered a word; she was merely looking from one to the other with her characteristically blank expression.

"I'm going to give him half of Lafe, too," confided Jinnie, nodding her head toward the waiting child.

Then Peggy burst forth in righteous indignation. She demanded to know how another mouth was to be fed, and clothes washed and mended; where the brat was to sleep, and what good he was anyway.

"Do you think, kid," she stormed at Jinnie, "you're so good yourself we're wantin' to take another one worser off'n you are? Don't believe it! He can't stay here!"

Jinnie held her ground bravely.

"Oh, I'll start right out and sell wood all day long, if you'll let him stay, Peg."

A tousled lock of yellow hair hung over Bobbie's eyes.

"Oh, Peggy, dear, Mrs. Good Peggy, let me stay!" he moaned, swaying.

"I'm so tired, s'awful tired. I can't find my mother, nor no place, and my stars're all out!"

Sobbing plaintively, he sank to the floor, and there the childish heart laid bare its misery. Then Jinnie, too, became quite limp, and forgetting all about "Happy in Spite," she knelt alongside of her newly acquired friend, and the two despairing young voices rose to the woman standing over them. Jinnie thrust her arms around the little boy.

"Don't cry, my Bobbie," she sobbed. "I'll go back to the hills with you, because you need me. We'll live with the birds and squirrels, and I'll sell wood so we c'n eat."

When she raised her reproachful eyes to Peg, and finished with a swipe at her offending nose with her sleeve, she had never looked more beautiful, and Peggy glanced away, fearing she might weaken.

"Tell Lafe I love him, and I love you, too, Peggy. I'll come every day and see you both, and bring you some money."

If she had been ten years older or had spent months framing a speech to fit the need of this occasion, Jinnie could not have been more effective, for Peg's rage entirely ebbed at these words.

"Get up, you brats," she ordered grimly. "An' you listen to me, Jinnie Grandoken. Your Bobbie c'n stay, but if you ever, so long as you live, bring another maimed, lame or blind creature to this house, I'll kick it out in the street. Now both of you climb up to that table an' eat some hot soup."

Jinnie drew a long breath of happiness. She had cried a little, she was sorry for that. She had broken her resolve always to smile--to be "Happy in Spite."

"I'll _never_ bring any one else in, Peg," she averred gratefully.

Then she remembered how sweeping was her promise and changed it a trifle.

"Of course if a kid was awful sick in the street and didn't have a home, I'd have to fetch it in, wouldn't I?"

Peggy flounced over to the table, speechless, followed by the two children.

CHAPTER XV

"WHO SAYS THE KID CAN'T STAY?"

Twenty minutes later Mrs. Grandoken entered the shop and sat down opposite her husband.

"Lafe," she began, clearing her throat.

The cobbler questioned her with a glance.

"That girl'll be the death of this hull shanty," she announced huskily. "I hate 'er more'n anything in the world."

Lafe placed a half-mended shoe beside him on the bench.

"What's ailin' 'er now, Peggy?"

"Oh, she ain't sick," interrupted Peg, with curling lip. "She never looked better'n she does this minute, settin' in there huddlin' that pup, but she's brought home another kid, as bad off as a kid can be."

"A what? What'd you say, Peg? You don't mean a youngster!"

Mrs. Grandoken bobbed her head, her face stoically expressionless.

"An' bad off," she repeated querulously. "The young 'un's blind."

Before Lafe's mental vision rose Jinnie's lovely face, her parted lips and self-a.s.sured smile.

"But where'd she get it? It must belong to some 'un."

Mrs. Grandoken shook her head.

"I dunno. It's a boy. He was with a woman--a bad 'un, I gather. She beat 'im until the little feller ran away to find his own folks, he says--and--Jinnie brought 'im home here. She says she's goin' to keep 'im."

The speaker drew her brown skin into a network of wrinkles.

"Where'd she find 'im?" Lafe burst forth, "Of course he can't stay----"

Mrs. Grandoken checked the cobbler's words with a rough gesture.

"Hush a minute! She got 'im over near the plank walk on the hill--he was cryin' for 'is ma."