Rose O'Paradise Part 34

"Dear child," Lafe murmured, dropping a tender hand on her s.h.i.+ning head, "dear, dear girl!"

"It must be a joyful thing, Lafe, for your face s.h.i.+nes as bright as Bobbie's stars."

"I'm blessed happy to-day!" he sighed, with twitching lips.

Jinnie took his hand in hers and smoothed it fondly.

"What is it, Lafe, dear?" she asked.

"Do you want to kneel while I tell you?" queried the cobbler.

"Yes, right here."

"Then look right at me, Jinnie la.s.s!"

Jinnie _was_ looking at him with her whole soul in her eyes.

"I'm looking at you, Lafe," she said.

"An' don't take your eyes from me; will you?"

"Sure not!"

It must be a great surprise for Lafe to act like this, thought the girl.

"La.s.sie," commenced Lafe, "I want you to be awful good to Peggy....

It's about her I'm goin' to speak."

Jinnie sank back on the tips of her toes.

"What about Peg? There isn't----"

"Dear Peggy," interrupted Lafe softly, his voice quick with tears, "dear, precious Peggy!" Then as he bent over Jinnie and Jinnie bent nearer him, Lafe placed his lips to her ear and whispered something.

She struggled to her feet, strange and unknown emotions rising in her eyes.

"Lafe!" she cried. "Lafe dear!"

"Yes," nodded the cobbler. "Yes, if you want to know the truth, the good G.o.d's goin' to send me an' Peg another little Jew baby."

Jinnie sat down in her chair quite dazed. Lafe's secret was much greater than she had expected! Much!

"Tell me about it," she pleaded.

Keen anxiety erased the cobbler's smiling expression.

"Poor Peggy!" he groaned again. "She can't see where the bread's comin' from to feed another mouth, but as I says, 'Peggy, you said the same thing when Jinnie came, an' the blind child, an' this little one's straight from G.o.d's own tender breast.'"

"That's so, Lafe," accorded Jinnie, "and, Oh, dearie, I'll work so hard, so awful hard to get in more wood, and tell me, tell me when, Lafe; when is he coming to us, the Jew baby?"

Lafe smiled at her eagerness.

"You feel the same way as I do, honey," he observed. "The very same way!... Why, girlie, when Peg first told me I thought I'd get up and fly!"

"I should think so, but--but--I want to know how soon, Lafe, dear."

"Oh, it's a long time, a whole lot of weeks!"

"I wish it was to-morrow," lamented Jinnie, disappointedly. "I wonder if Peg'll let me hug and kiss him."

"Sure," promised Lafe, and they lapsed into silence.

At length, Jinnie stole to the kitchen. She returned with her violin box and Milly Ann in her arms.

"Hold the kitty, darling," she said softly, placing the cat on his lap. "She'll be happy, too. Milly Ann loves us all, Milly Ann does."

Then she took out the fiddle and thrummed the strings.

"I'm going to play for you," she resumed, "while you think about Peggy and the--and--the baby."

The cobbler nodded his head, and wheeled himself a bit nearer the window, from where he could see the hill rise upward to the blue, making a skyline of exquisite beauty.

Jinnie began to play. What tones she drew from that small brown fiddle! The rapture depicted in her face was but a reflection of the cobbler's. And as he meditated and listened, Lafe felt that each tone of Jinnie's fiddle had a soul of its own--that the instrument was peopled with angel voices--voices that soothed him when he suffered beyond description--voices that now expressed in rhythmical harmony the peace within him. Jinnie was able to put an estimate on his moods, and knew just what comfort he needed most. Until that moment the cobbler's wife had seemed outside the charm of the beloved home circle. But to-day, ah, to-day!--Jinnie's bow raced over the strings like a mad thing. To-day Peggy Grandoken became in the girl's eyes a glorified woman, a woman set apart by G.o.d Himself to bring to the home a new baby.

Jinnie played and played and played, and Theodore in spirit-fancy stood beside her. Lafe thought and thought and thought, while Peggy walked through his day dreams like some radiant being.

"A baby----my baby, in the house," sang the cobbler's heart.

"A baby, our baby, in the house," poured from Jinnie's soul, and "Baby, little baby," sprang from the fiddle over and over, as golden flashes of the sun warms the earth. Truly was Lafe being revivified; truly was Jinnie! Theodore King! How infinitely close he seemed to her! How the memory of his smile cheered and strengthened her!

From the tip of the fiddle tucked under a rounded chin to the line of purple-black hair, the blood rushed in riotous confusion over the fiddler's lovely face. What was it in Lafe's story that had brought Theodore King so near?

Jinnie couldn't have told, but she was sure the fiddle knew. It was intoning to Lafe--to her--the language of the birds and the mystery of the flower blossoms, the invisible riddles of Heaven and earth, of all the concealed secrets beyond the blue of the sky; all the panorama of Nature strung out in a wild, sweet forest song. Jinnie had backed against the wall as she played, and when out of her soul came the twitter of the morning birds, the babbling of the brook on its way to the sea, the scream of the owl in a high woodland tree, Lafe turned to watch her, and from that moment until she dropped exhausted into a chair, he did not take his eyes from her.

"Jinnie!" he gasped, as he thrust forth his hand and took hers.

"You've made me happier to-day'n I've been in many a week. Peg'll be all right.... Everybody'll be all right.... G.o.d bless us!"

Jinnie sat up with bright, inquiring eyes.

"Did you tell Peg I was to know about----"

"About our baby?" intervened Lafe tenderly.

He dwelt lovingly on those precious words.

"Yes, about your baby," repeated Jinnie.

"Yes, I told 'er, dear. I said you'd want to be happy too."