83CHAPTER XON THE BROAD BOSOM OF THE “HAPPY IN SPITE”
Thus for one year Jinnie went forth in the morning to gather her shortwood, and to sell it in the afternoon.
Peg always gave her a biscuit to eat during her forenoon’s work, and Jinnie, going from house to house later, was often presented with a “hunk of pie,” as she afterwards told Lafe. If a housewife gave her an apple, she would take it home to the cobbler and his wife.
Late one afternoon, at the close of a bitter day, Jinnie had finished her work and was resting on the door sill of an empty house on an uptown corner.
She drew forth her money in girlish pride. Twenty-seven cents was what she’d earned,—two cents more than any day since she began working. This money meant much to Jinnie. She hadn’t yet received a kiss from Mrs. Grandoken, but was expecting it daily. Perhaps when two cents more were dropped into her hand, Peggy might, just for the moment, forget herself and unwittingly express some little affection for her.
With this joyous anticipation the girl recounted her money, retained sufficient change for the dinner meat, and slipped the rest into her jacket pocket. She rose and had started in the direction of the market when a clamor near the bridge made her pause. A crowd of men and boys were running directly toward her. Above their wild shouts could be heard the orders of a policeman, and now and then the frightened cry of a small child.84
At first Jinnie noticed only the people. Then her eyes lowered and she saw, racing toward her, a small, black, woolly dog. The animal, making a wild dash for his life, had in his anguish lost his mental balance, for he took no heed as to where he ran nor what he struck. A louder cry of derision rose up from many throats as the small beast scuttled between the legs of a farmer’s horse, which gave him a moment’s respite from his tormentors.
An instant later they were clamoring again for his unhappy little life. Suddenly he ran headlong into a tree, striking his shaggy head with terrific force. Then he curled up in a limp little heap, just as Jinnie reached him.
Before Maudlin Bates, the leader of the crowd, arrived, the girl had picked up the insensible dog and thrust him under her jacket.
“He’s dead, I guess,” she said, looking up into the boy’s face, “I’ll take him to the cobbler’s shop and bury him.... He isn’t any good when he’s dead.”
Maudlin Bates grinned from ear to ear, put his hands behind his back, and allowed his eyes to rove over the girl’s straight young figure.
“Billy Maybee was tryin’ to tie a tin can to his tail,” he explained, stuttering, “and the cur snapped at him. We was goin’ to hit his head against the wall.”
“He’s dead now,” assured Jinnie once more. “It isn’t any use to smash dead dogs.”
This reasoning being unanswerable, Maudlin turned grumblingly away.
Jinnie’s heart beat loudly with living hope. Perhaps the little dog wasn’t dead. Oh, how she hoped he’d live! She stopped half way home, and pushed aside her jacket and peeped down at him. He was still quite limp, and the girl hurried on. She did not even wait to buy the meat nor the bread Peg had asked her to bring in.85
As she hurried across the tracks, she saw Grandoken sitting in the window.
He saluted her with one hand, but as she was using both of hers to hold the dog, she only smiled in return, with a bright nod of her head.
Once in the shop, she looked about cautiously.
“I’ve got something, Lafe,” she whispered, “something you’ll like.”
When she displayed the hurt dog, Lafe put out his hand.
“Is the little critter dead?” he asked solemnly.
“Oh, I hope not!” replied Jinnie, and excitedly explained the episode.
“Lafe took the foundling in his hands, turning the limp body over and over.
“Jinnie, go ask Peg to bring some hot water in a pan,” he said. “We’ll give the little feller a chanct to live.”
Peg came in with a basin of water, stared at the wide-eyed girl and her smiling husband, then down upon the dog.
“Well, for Lord’s sake, where’d you get that little beast?” she demanded. “’Tain’t livin’, is it? Might as well throw it in the garbage pail.”
Nevertheless, she put down the basin as she spoke, and took the puppy from her husband. At variance with her statement that the dog might as well be thrown out, she laid him in the hot water, rubbing the bruised body from the top of its head to the small stubby tail. During this process Lafe had unfastened Jinnie’s shortwood strap, and the girl, free, dropped upon the floor beside Peg.
Suddenly the submerged body of the pup began to move.
“He’s alive, Peg!” cried Jinnie. “Look at his legs a kicking!... Oh, Lafe, he’s trying to get out of the water!”86
Peg turned sharply.
“If he ain’t dead already,” she grunted, “you’ll kill him hollerin’ like that. Anyway, ’tain’t no credit to hisself if he lives. He didn’t have nothin’ to do with his bein’ born, an’ he won’t have nothin’ to do with his goin’ on livin’. Shut up, now!... There, massy me, he’s coming to.”
Jinnie squatted upon her feet, while Lafe wheeled his chair a bit nearer. For some moments the trio watched the small dog, struggling to regain consciousness. Then Peggy took him from the water and wrapped him carefully in her apron.
“Lordy, he’s openin’ his eyes,” she grinned, “an’ you, girl, you go in there by the fire an’ just hold him in your arms. Mebbe he’ll come round all right. You can’t put him out in the street till he’s better.”
For the larger part of an hour, Jinnie held the newcomer close to her thumping heart, and when a spasm of pain attacked the shaggy head resting on her arm, she wept in sympathetic agony. Could Peg be persuaded to allow the dog to stay? She would promise to earn an extra penny to buy food for this new friend. At this opportune moment Mrs. Grandoken arrived from the market.
“How’s he comin’ on?” she asked, standing over them.
“Fine!” replied Jinnie. “And, Peg, he wants to stay.”
“Did he tell y’ that?” demanded Peg, grimly.
“Well, he didn’t say just those words,” said the girl, “but, Peggy, if he could talk, he’d tell you how much he loved you––”
“Look a here, kid,” broke in Mrs. Grandoken, “that dog ain’t goin’ to stay around this house, an’ you might as well understand it from the beginnin’. I’ve enough to do with you an’ Lafe an’ those cats, without fillin’ my house with sick pups. So get that notion right out of your noddle!... See?”87
Jinnie bowed her head over the sick dog and made a respectful reply.
“I’ll try to get the notion out,” said she, “but, Peggy, oh, Peggy dear, I love the poor little thing soawfulmuch that it’ll be hard for me to throw him away. Will you send him off when he’s better, and not ask me to do it?”
Jinnie cocked her pretty head inquiringly on one side, closed one eye, and looked at Peg from the other.
Peggy sniffed a ruse. She came forward, spread her feet a bit, rolling her hands nervously in her apron. She hated an everlasting show of feelings, but sometimes it was difficult for her to crush the emotions which had so often stirred in her breast since the girl came to live with them.
“I might as well tell you one thing right now, Jinnie Grandoken,” she said. “You brought that pup into this house an’ you’ll take him out, or he won’t get took; see?”
There was a certain tone in Peg’s voice the girl had heard before.
“Then he won’t get kicked out ’t all, Peg,” she said, with a petulant, youthful smile. “I just won’t do it! Lafe can’t, and if you don’t––”
Mrs. Grandoken made a deep noise in her throat.
“You’re a sassy brat,” said she, “that’s what you are! An’ if Lafe don’t just about beat the life out of you when I tell him about this, I will, with my own hand, right before his eyes. That’s what––”
Jinnie interrupted her eagerly. “Lafe won’t beat me,” she answered, “but I’ll let you make me black and blue, Peg, if I can keep the puppy. Matty used to beat me fine, and she was a good bit stronger’n you.”
Peggy’s eyes drew down at the corners, and her lip quivered.
“Keep him if you want to, imp of Satan, but some day––here, see if the beast’ll eat this bit of meat.”88
Jinnie placed the shivering dog on the floor, and Peg put a piece of meat under his nose. In her excitement, Jinnie rushed away to Lafe. Peg’s mumble followed her even through the closed door.
“Cobbler, oh, dear good Lafe,” cried the girl, “the dog’s living! Peg says I can keep ’im, and I’m goin’ to fiddle for him to-night. Do you think he’ll forget all about his hurt if I do that, Lafe?”
At that moment, shamed that she had given in to the importunate Jinnie, Mrs. Grandoken opened the shop door, shoving the half wet dog inside.
“Here’s your pup, kid,” she growled, “an’ y’d best keep him from under my feet if you don’t want him stepped on.”
The cobbler smiled his slow, sweet smile.
“Peg’s heart’s bigger’n this house,” he murmured. “Bring him here, lassie.”
The girl, dog in arms, stood at the cobbler’s side.
“What’re you goin’ to name him?” asked Lafe, tenderly.
“I dunno, but he’s awful happy, now he’s going to stay with us.”
“Call ’im ‘Happy Pete’,” said the cobbler, smiling, “an’ we’ll take ’im into our club; shall we, kid?”
So Happy Pete was gathered that day into the bosom of the “Happy in Spite.”
89CHAPTER XIWHAT HAPPENED TO JINNIE
With a sigh Jinnie allowed Lafe to buckle the shortwood strap to her shoulder. Oh, how many days she had gone through a similar operation with a similar little sigh!
It was a trying ordeal, that of collecting and selling kindling wood, for the men of Paradise Road took the best of the shortwood to be found in the nearer swamp and marsh lands, and oftentimes it was nearly noon before the girl would begin her sale.
But the one real happiness of her days lay in dropping the pennies she earned into Peg’s hand.
Now Peggy didn’t believe in spoiling men or children, but one morning, as she tied a scarf about Jinnie’s neck, she arranged the black curls with more than usual tenderness.
Pausing at the door and looking back at the woman, Jinnie suddenly threw up her head in determination.
“I love you, Peggy,” she said, drawing in a long breath. “Give me a little kiss, will you?”
There! The cat was out of the bag. In another instant Jinnie would know her fate. How she dared to ask such a thing the girl could never afterwards tell.
If Peg kissed her, work would be easy. If she denied her––Peggy glanced at her, then away again, her eyes shifting uneasily.
But after once taking a stand, Jinnie held her ground.90Her mouth was pursed up as if she was going to whistle. Would Peg refuse such a little request? Evidently Peggy would, for she scoffingly ordered.
“Go along with you, kid—go long, you flip little brat!”
“I’d like a kiss awful much,” repeated Jinnie, still standing. Her voice was low-toned and pleading, her blue eyes questioningly on Peg’s face.
Peg shook her head.
“I won’t kiss you ’cause I hate you,” she sniffed. “I’ve always hated you.”
Jinnie’s eyes filled with tears.
“I know it,” she replied sadly, “I know it, but I’d like a kiss just the same because—because Idoloveyou, Peg.”
A bit of the same sentiment that had worried her for over a year now attacked Mrs. Grandoken. Her common sense told her to dash away to the kitchen, but a tugging in her breast kept her anchored to the spot. Suddenly, without a word, she snatched the girl close to her broad breast and pressed her lips on Jinnie’s with resounding smacks.
“There! There! Andthere!” she cried, between the kisses. “An’ if y’ ever tell a soul I done it, I’ll scrape every inch of skin off’n your flesh, an’ mebbe I’ll do something worse, I hate y’ that bad.”
In less seconds than it takes to tell it, Peg let Jinnie go, and the girl went out of the door with a smiling sigh.
“Kisses ’re sweeter’n roses,” she murmured, walking to the track. “I wish I’d get more of ’em.”
She turned back as she heard Peg’s voice calling her.
“You might toddle in an’ bring home a bit of sausage,” said the woman, indifferently, “an’ five cents’ worth of chopped steak.”
Mrs. Grandoken watched Jinnie until she turned the corner. She felt a strangling sensation in her throat.91
A little later she flung the kitchen utensils from place to place, and otherwise acted so ugly and out of temper that, had Lafe known the whole incident, he would have smiled knowingly at the far-off hill and held his peace.
Late in the afternoon Jinnie counted seventeen pennies, one dime and a nickel. It was a fortune for any girl to make, and what was better yet, buckled to her young shoulders in the shortwood strap was almost her next day’s supply. As she replaced the money in her pocket and walked toward the market, she murmured gravely,
“Mebbe Peg’s kisses helped me to get it, but—but I musn’t forget Lafe’s prayers.”
Her smile was radiant and self-possessed. She was one of the world’s workers and loved Lafe and Peg and the world with her whole honest young heart.
“Thirty-two cents,” she whispered. “That’s a pile of money. I wish I could buy Lafe a posy. He does love ’em so, and he can’t get out like Peg and me to see beautiful things.”
She stopped before a window where brilliant blossoms were exhibited. Ever since she began to work, one of the desires of Jinnie’s soul had been to purchase a flower. As she scrutinized the scarlet and white carnations, the deep red roses, and the twining green vines, she murmured.
“Peg loves Lafe even if she does bark at him. She won’t mind if I buy him one. I’ll make more money to-morrow.”
She opened the door of the shop and drew her unwieldy burden carefully inside. A girl stood back of the counter.
“How much’re your roses?” asked Jinnie, nodding toward the window and jingling the pennies in her pocket.
“The white ones’re five cents a piece,” said the clerk, “and the red ones’re ten.... Do y’ want one?”
“I’ll take a white one,” replied the purchaser.92
“Shall I wrap it in paper?” asked the other.
“No, I’ll carry it this way. I’d like to look at it going home.”
The girl passed the rose to Jinnie.
“It smells nice, too,” she commented.
“Yes,” assented Jinnie, delightedly, taking a whiff.
Then she went on to the meat market to buy the small amount of meat required for the three of them.
One of the men grinned at her from the back of the store, calling, “Hello, kid!” and Maudlin Bates, swinging idly on a stool, shouted, “What’s wanted now, Jinnie?” and still another man came forward with the question, “Where’d you get the flower, lass?”
“Bought it,” replied Jinnie, leaning against the counter. “I got it next door for the cobbler. He’s lame and can’t get out.”
The market man turned to wait upon her.
“Five cents’ worth of chopped meat,” ordered Jinnie, “and four sausages.”
“Ain’t you afraid you’ll overload your stomachs over there at the cobbler’s shop?” laughed one of the men. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Jinnie ... Do you see that ring of sausage hangin’ on that hook?”
The girl nodded wonderingly, looking sidewise at Maudlin.
“Well, if you’ll give us a dance, a good one, mind you, still keepin’ the wood on your back, I’ll buy you the hull string. It’ll last a week the way you folks eat meat.”
Jinnie’s face reddened painfully, but the words appealed to her money-earning spirit, and with a curious sensation she glanced around. Could she dance, with the wondering, laughing, admiring gaze of the men upon her? And Maudlin, too! How she detested his lustful, doltish eyes!
She straightened her shoulders, considering. The wood93was heavy, and the strap, bound tightly about her chest and arms, made her terribly tired. But a whole string of sausage was a temptation she could not withstand. In her fertile imagination she could see Lafe nod his approbation, and Peggy joyously frying her earnings in the pan. She might even get three more kisses when no one was looking.
“I don’t know what to dance,” she said presently, studying the rose in her confusion.
“Oh, just anything,” encouraged the man on the stool. “I’ll whistle a tune.”
“Hand her the sausage, butcher;” sniggered Maudlin, “then she’ll be sure of it. The feel of it’ll make her dance better.”
The speaker grinned as the butcher took the string from the hook. Jinnie slipped the stem of the cobbler’s rose between her white teeth, grasped the sausage in one hand and gripped the shortwood strap with the other. Then the man started a rollicking whistle, and Jinnie took a step or two.
Every one in the place drew nearer. Here was a sight they never had seen—a lovely, shy-eyed, rosy, embarrassed girl, with a load of kindling wood on the strong young shoulders, turning and turning in the center of the market. In one hand she held a ring of sausage, and between her lips a white rose.
“If you’ll give us a grand fine dance, lass,” encouraged the butcher, “you c’n have the chopped meat, too.”
The man’s offer sifted through Jinnie’s tired brain and stimulated her to quicker action. She turned again, shifting the weight more squarely on her shoulders, her feet keeping perfect time with the shrill, whistling tune.
“Faster! Faster!” taunted Maudlin. “Earn your meat, girl! Don’t be a piker!”94
Faster and faster whirled Jinnie, the heft of the shortwood carrying her about in great circles. Her cap had fallen from her head, loosing the glorious curls, and her breath whistled past the stem of Lafe’s white flower like night wind past a taut wire.
Jinnie forgot everything but the delight of earning something for her loved ones—something that would bring a caress from Lafe. She was sure of Lafe, very sure!
As voices called “Faster!” and still “Faster!” Jinnie let go the shortwood strap to fling aside her curls. Just at that moment she whirled nearer Maudlin Bates, who thrust forth his great foot and tripped her. As she staggered, not one of those watching had sense enough to catch her as she fell. At that moment the door swung open and Peg Grandoken’s face appeared. She looked questioningly at the market man.
“I thought I saw Jinnie come in,” she hesitated––
Then realizing something was wrong, her eyes fell upon the stricken girl.
“She was just earnin’ a little sausage by dancin’,” the butcher excused.
Peggy stared and stared, stunned for the moment. The hangdog expression on Maudlin’s face expressed his crime better than words would have done. Jinnie’s little form was huddled against the counter, the shortwood scattered around her, and from her forehead blood was oozing. On the slender arm was the ring of sausage and between her set teeth was Lafe’s pale rose. With her outraged soul shining in her eyes, Peggy gathered the unconscious girl in her two strong arms.
“I betyoudone it, you damn Maudlin!” she gritted, and without another word, left the market.
Within a few minutes she had laid Jinnie on her bed, and was telling Lafe the pathetic story.
95CHAPTER XIIWATCHING
There was absolute quiet in the home of the cobbler for over a week. The house hung heavy with gloom. Jinnie Grandoken was fighting a ghastlier monster than even old Matty had created for her amusement.
Of course Jinnie didn’t realize this, but two patient watchers knew, and so did a little black dog. To say that Lafe suffered, as Peggy repeated over and over to him the story of Jinnie’s loving act, would be words of small import, and through the night hours, when the cobbler relieved his wife at the sick girl’s bed, shapes black and forbidding rose before him, menacing the child he’d vowed to protect.
Could it be that Maudlin Bates had anything to do with Jinnie’s fall? Even so, he was powerless to shield her from the young wood gatherer. A more perplexing problem had never faced his paternal soul. After his little son had gone away, there had been no child to love until—and now as he looked at Jinnie, agony surged through him with the memory of that other agony—for she might go to little Lafe.
There came again the stabbing pain born with Peg’s tale of the dance. The white rose lay withered in the cobbler’s bosom where it had been since his girl had been carried to what the doctor said would in all probability be her deathbed. It was on nights like this that dead memories, with96solemn mien, raced from their graves, haunting the lame man. Even Lafe’s wonderful portion of faith had diminished during the past few days. He found himself praying mighty prayers that Jinnie would be spared, yet in mental bitterness visualizing her death. Oh, to keep yet a while within the confines of his life the child he loved!
“Let ’er stay, Lord dear, let my Rose o’ Paradise stay,” Lafe cried out into the shadowy night, time and time again.
Peggy came, as she often did, to wheel him away and order him to bed, but this evening Lafe told Peg he’d rather stay with Jinnie.
“She looks like death,” he whispered unnerved.
“She is almost dead,” replied the woman grimly.
The doctor entered with silent tread. Stealing to the bed, he put his hand on the girl’s brow.
“She’s better,” he whispered, smilingly. “Look! Damp! Nothing could be a surer sign!”
“May the good God be praised!” moaned Lafe.
Jinnie stirred, lifted her heavy lids, and surveyed the room vacantly. Her glance passed over the medical man as if he were not within the range of her vision. She gazed at Lafe only, with but a faint glimmer of recognition, then on to Peg wavered the sunken blue eyes.
“Drink of water, Peggy dear,” she whispered.
Mrs. Grandoken dropped the fluid into the open, parched mouth from a spoon; then she bent low to catch the stammering words:
“Did Lafe like the rose, Peggy, and did you get the ring of sausage?”
Peg glanced at the doctor, a question struggling to her lips, but she could not frame the words.
“Tell her ‘yes’,” said the man under his breath.
“Lafe just doted on the flower, honey,” acknowledged Peggy, bending over the bed, “and I cooked all the sausage,97an’ we two et ’em. They was finer’n silk.... Now go to sleep; will you?”
“Sure,” trembled Jinnie. “Put Happy Pete in my arms, dear.”
Mrs. Grandoken looked once more at the doctor. He nodded his head slightly.
So with the dog clasped in her arms, Jinnie straightway fell asleep.
Then Peggy wheeled Lafe away to bed, and as she helped him from the chair, she said:
“I lied to her just now with my own mouth, Lafe. I told her we et them sausages. We couldn’t eat ’em ’cause they was all mashed up an’ covered with blood.”
The cobbler’s eyes searched the mottled face of the speaker.
“That kind of lies ’re blessed by God in his Heaven, Peg,” he breathed tenderly. “A lie lendin’ a helpin’ hand to a sick lass is better’n most truths.”
Before going to bed Peg peeped in at Jinnie. The girl still lay with her arm over the sleeping Pete, her eyes roving round the room. She caught sight of the silent woman, and a troubled line formed between her brows.
“How’re you going to get money to live, Peggy?” she wailed. “I’m just beginning to remember about the dance and getting hurt.”
Peggy stood a moment at the foot of the bed.
“Lafe’s got a whole pocket full o’ money,” she returned glibly.
“That’s nice,” sighed the girl in relief.
“Shut up now an’ go to sleep! Lafe’s got enough cash to last a month.”
And as the white lids drooped over the violet eyes, Peg Grandoken’s guardian angel registered another lie to her credit in the life-book of her Heavenly Father.
98CHAPTER XIIIWHAT JINNIE FOUND ON THE HILL
The days rolled on and on, and the first warm impulses of spring brought Jinnie, pale and thin, back to Lafe’s side.
She was growing so strong that days when the weather permitted, Peg put a wrap on her, telling her to breathe some color into her cheeks.
For a long time Jinnie was willing to remain quietly on the hut steps where she could see the cobbler whacking away on the torn footwear. She knew that if she looked long enough, he would glance up and smile the smile which always warmed the cockles of her loving heart.
As she grew better, and therefore restless, she walked with Happy Pete along the cinder path beside the tracks. Each day she went a little further than the day before, the spirit of adventure beginning to live again within her. The confines of her narrow world were no longer kept taut by the necessity of selling wood, and to-day it seemed to broaden to the far-away hill from whence the numberless fingers of shadow and sunshine beckoned to the sentimental girl.
She wandered through Paradise Road with the little dog as a companion, and finding her way to the board walk, strolled slowly along.
Wandering up above the city, she discovered a lonely spot snuggled in the hills, and gathering Happy Pete99into her arms, she lay down. Over her head countless birds sang in the sunshine, and just below, in the hollow, were squirrels, chattering out their happy existence. Dreamily, through the leaves of the trees, Jinnie watched the white clouds float across the sky like flocks of sheep, and soon the peace of the surrounding world lulled her to rest.
When Happy Pete touched her with his slender tongue, Jinnie sat up, staring sleepily around. At a sound, she turned her head and caught sight of a little boy, whose tangled hair lay in yellow curls on his head.
The sight of tears and boyish distress made Jinnie start quickly toward him, but he seemed so timid and afraid she did not speak.
Suddenly, two slight, twig-scratched arms fluttered toward her, and still without a word Jinnie took the trembling hands into hers. Happy Pete crawled cautiously to the girl’s side; then, realizing something unusual, he threw up his black-tipped nose and whined. At the faint howl, the boy’s hands quivered violently in Jinnie’s. He caught his breath painfully.
“Oh, who’re you? Are you a boy or a girl?”
His eyes were touched with an indefinable expression. Jinnie flushed as she scanned for a moment her calico skirt and overhanging blouse. Then with a tragic expression she released her hands, and ran her fingers through her hair. With such long curls did she look like a boy?
“I’m a girl,” she said. “Can’t you see I’m a girl?”
“I’m blind,” said the boy, “so—so I had to ask you.”
Jinnie leaned forward and scrutinized him intently.
“You mean,” she demanded brokenly, “that you can’t see me, nor Happy Pete, nor the trees, nor the birds, nor the squirrels, skipping around?”
The boy bowed his head in assent, but brightened almost instantly.100
“No, I can’t see those things, but I’ve got lots of stars inside my head. They’re as bright as anything, only sometimes my tears put ’em out.”
Then, as if he feared he would lose his new friend, he felt for her hand once more.
Jinnie returned the clinging pressure. For the second time in her life her heart beat with that strange emotion—the protective instinct she had felt for her father. She knew at that moment she loved this little lad, with his wide-staring, unseeing eyes.
“I’m lost,” said the boy, sighing deeply, “and I cried ever so long, but nobody would come, and my stars all went out.”
“Tell me about your stars,” she said eagerly. “Are they sky stars?”
“I dunno what sky stars are. My stars shine in my head lovely and I get warm. I’m cold all over and my heart hurts when they go out.”
“Oh!” murmured Jinnie. “I wish they’d always shine.”
“So do I.” Then lifting an eager, sparkling face, he continued, “They’re shinin’ now, ’cause I found you.”
“Where’re your folks?” asked Jinnie, swallowing hard.
“I dunno. I lost ’em a long time ago, and went to live with Mag. She licked me every day, so—I just runned away—I’ve been here a awful long time.”
Jinnie considered a moment before explaining an idea that had slipped into her mind as if it belonged there. She would take him home with her.
“You’re going to Lafe’s house,” she announced presently. “Happy Pete and me and Peg live at Lafe Grandoken’s home. Peggy makes bully soup.”
“And I’m so hungry,” sighed the boy. “Where’s the dog I heard barking?”
He withdrew his hands, moving them outward, searching101for something. The girl tried to push Pete forward, but the dog only snuggled closer to her.
“Petey, dear, I’m ashamed of you!” she chided lovingly. “Can’t you see the little fellow’s trying to feel you?”
Then Happy Pete, as if he also were ashamed, came within reach of the wavering hands, and crouched low, to be looked over with ten slender finger tips.
“He’s awful beautiful!” exclaimed the boy. “His hair’s softer’n silk, and his body’s as warm as warm can be.”
Jinnie contemplated Happy Pete’s points of beauty. Never before had she thought him anything more than a homely, lovable dog, with squat little legs, and a pointed nose. In lightninglike comparison she brought to her mind the things she always considered beautiful—the spring violets, the summer roses, that belt of wonderful color skirting the afternoon horizon, and all the wonders of nature of which her romantic world consisted. The contrast between these and the shaking black dog, with his smudge of tangled hair hanging over his eyes, shocked Jinnie’s artistic sense.
“If––if you say he’s beautiful, then he is,” she stammered almost inaudibly.
“Of course he is! What’s your name?”
“Jinnie. Jinnie Grandoken... What’s yours?”
“Blind Bobbie, or sometimes just Bobbie.”
“Well, I’ll call you Bobbie, if you want me to.... I like you awful well. I feel it right in here.”
She pressed the boy’s fingers to her side.
“Oh, that’s your heart!” he exclaimed. “I got one too! Feel it jump!”
Jinnie’s fingers pressed the spot indicated by the little boy.
“My goodness,” she exclaimed, “it’ll jump out of your mouth, won’t it?”102
“Nope! It always beats like that!”
“Where’s your mother?” asked Jinnie after a space.
“I suppose she’s dead, or Mag wouldn’t a had me. I don’t know very much, but I ’member how my mother’s hands feel. They were soft and warm. She used to come to see me at the woman’s house who died—the one who give me to Mag.”
“She must have been a lovely mother,” commented Jinnie.
“She were! Mag tried to find her ’cause she said she was rich, and when she couldn’t, she beat me. I thought mebbe I’d find mother out in the street. That’s why I run away.”
Jinnie thought of her own dead father, and the child’s halting tale brought back that one night of agony when Thomas Singleton died, alone and unloved, save for herself. She wanted to cry, but instead she murmured, “Happy in Spite,” as Lafe had bidden her, and the melting mood vanished. The cobbler and his club were always wonderfully helpful to Jinnie.
“My mother told me onct,” Bobbie went on, “she didn’t have nothin’ to live for. I was blind, you see, and wasn’t any good—was I?”
The question, pathetically put, prompted Virginia to fling back a ready answer.
“You’re good ’nough for me and Happy Pete,” she asserted, “and Lafe’ll let you be his little boy too.”
The blind child gasped, and the girl continued assuringly, “Peg’ll love you, too. She couldn’t help it.”
“Peg?” queried Bobbie.
“Oh, she’s Lafe’s wife. Happy Pete and me stay in her house.”
The blind eyes flashed with sudden hope.
“Mebbe she’ll love me a little! Will she?”103
“I hope so. Anyway, Lafe will. He loves everybody, even dogs. He’ll love you;surehe will!”
The boy shook his head doubtfully.
“Nobody but mothers are nice to blind kids. Well—well—’cept you. I’d like to go to Lafe’s house, though, but mebbe the woman wouldn’t want me.”
Jinnie had her own ideas about this, but because the child’s tears fell hot upon her hands, the mother within her grew to greater proportions. Three times she repeated softly, “Happy in Spite.”
“Happy in Spite,” she whispered again. Then she sat up with a brilliant smile.
“Of course I’m going to take you to Lafe’s. Here at Lafe’s my heart’s awful busy loving everybody. Now I’ve got you I’m going to take care of you, ’cause I love you just like the rest. Stand up and let me wipe your nose.”
“Let me see how you look, first,” faltered the boy. “Where’s your face?... I want to touch it!”
His little hands reached and found Jinnie’s shoulders. Then slowly the fingers moved upwards, pressing here and there upon the girl’s skin, as they traveled in rhythmic motion over her cheeks.
“Your hair’s awful curly and long,” said he. “What color is it?”
“Color? Well, it’s black with purple running through it, I guess. People say so anyway!”
“Oh, yes, I know what black is. And your eyes’re blue, ain’t they?”
“Yes, blue,” assented Jinnie. “I see ’em when I slick my hair in the kitchen glass ... I don’t think they’re much like yours.”
Bobbie paid no heed to the allusion to himself.
“Your forehead’s smooth, too,” he mused. “Your eyes are big, and the lashes round ’em ’re long. You’re much104prettier’n your dog, but then girls ’re always pretty.”
A flush of pleased vanity reddened Jinnie’s skin to the tips of her ears, and she scrambled to her feet. Then she paused, a solemn expression shadowing her eyes.
“Bobbie,” she spoke soberly, “now I found you, you belong to me, don’t you?”
Bobbie thrust forth his hands.
“Yes, yes,” he breathed.
“Then from now on, from this minute, I’m going to work for you.”
Jinnie’s thoughts were on the shortwood strap, but she didn’t mention it. Oh, how she would work for money to give Peg with which to buy food! How happy she would be in the absolute ownership of the boy she had discovered in the hills! Tenderly she drew him to her. He seemed so pitifully helpless.
“How old ’re you?” she demanded.
“Nine years old.”
“You don’t look over five,” said Jinnie, surprised.
“That’s because I’m always sick,” explained the boy.
Jinnie threw up her head.
“Well, a girl sixteen ought to be able to help an awful little boy, oughtn’t she?... Here, I’ll put my arm round you, right like this.”
But the boy made a backward step, so that Jinnie, thinking he was about to fall, caught him sharply by the arm.
“I’ll walk if you’llleadme,” Bobbie explained proudly.
Thus rebuffed, Jinnie turned the blind face toward the east, and together they made their way slowly to the plank walk.
105CHAPTER XIV“HE’S COME TO LIVE WITH US, PEGGY”
They trailed along in silence, the girl watching the birds as flock after flock disappeared in the north woods. Now and then, when Jinnie looked at the boy, she felt the pride which comes only with possession. She was going to work for him, to intercede with Peg, to allow the foundling to join that precious home circle where the cobbler and his wife reigned supreme.
As they reached the plank walk, the boy lagged back.
“I’m tired, girl,” he panted. “I’ve walked till I’m just near dead.”
He cried quietly as Jinnie led him into the shadow of a tree.
“Sit here with me,” she invited. “Lay your head on my arm.”
And this time he snuggled to her till the blind eyes and the pursed delicate mouth were hidden against her arm.
“I told you, Bobbie,” Jinnie resumed presently, “I’d let you be Lafe’s little boy, didn’t I?”
“Yes, girl,” replied the boy, sleepily.
“Now wasn’t that awful good of me?”
“Awful good,” was the dreamy answer. “My stars’re glory bright now.”
“And most likely Lafe’ll help you see with your eyes, just like Happy Pete and me!” Jinnie went on eagerly. “All the trees and hundreds of birds, some of ’em yellow106and some of ’em red, an’ some of ’em so little and cunning they could jump through the knothole in Peg’s kitchen.... Don’t you wish to see all that?”
The small face brightened and the unseeing eyes flashed upward.
“I’d find my mother, then,” breathed Bobbie.
“And you’d see a big high tree, with a robin making his nest in it!... Have y’ ever seen that?”
Jinnie was becoming almost aggressive, for, womanlike, with a point to make, each argument was driven home with more power.
“No,” Bobbie admitted, and his voice held a certain tragic little note.
“And you’ve never seen the red running along the edge of the sky, just when the sun’s going down?”
Again his answer was a simple negative.
“And hasn’t anybody tried to show you a cow and her calf in the country, nipping the grass all day, in the yellow sunshine?”
Jinnie was waxing eloquent, and her words held high-sounding hope. The interest in the child’s face invited her to go on.
“Now I’ve said I’d let my folks be yours, and didn’t I find you, and have you got any one else? If you don’t let me help you to Lafe’s, how you going to see any of ’em?” She paused before delivering her best point, which was addressed quite indifferently to the sky. “And just think of that hot soup!”
This was enough. Bobbie struggled up, flushed and agitated.
“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.107
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 passed on to the kitchen, for she wanted the disagreeable part over first. She fumbled in hesitation with the knob 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 assurance 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!”108
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.”109
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’llneverbring 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.