Rose O'Paradise

  CHAPTER VIII

  "EVERY HAND SHALL DO ITS SHARE," QUOTH PEG.

  The fifth day of Jinnie's stay in the cobbler's home crept out of thecold night accompanied by the worst blizzard ever known along thelake. Many times, if it had not been for the protecting overhanginghills, the wood gatherers' huts would have been swept quite away. Asit was, Jinnie felt the shack tremble and sway, and doubted itsability to withstand the onslaught.

  After breakfast found Lafe and Jinnie conversing interestedly in theshop. The cobbler allowed several bright nails to fall into his palmbefore he answered the question which was worrying the girl.

  "There ain't no use troublin' about it, child," commented he. "Wecan't starve."

  "If I could only work," said Jinnie gloomily, "I bet Peg'd soon likeme, because she wouldn't have to go out in the cold at all. But youthink it'd be bad for me, eh, Lafe?"

  "Well, you couldn't go around to the factories or stores very well,"replied Lafe. "You see your uncle's tryin' to trace you. I showed youthat this mornin' in the paper, didn't I, where he mourned over you aslost after findin' your father dead?"

  Jinnie nodded.

  "Yes, I read it," she said.

  "An' he can't get your money for seven years. That makes him madder'na hatter, of course."

  "If he'd let me alone, I'd just as soon give him the money," Jinniesaid mournfully.

  Lafe shook his head.

  "The law wouldn't let you, till you was of age. No, sir, you'd eitherhave to die a natural death or--another kind, an' you're a prettyhusky young kid to die natural."

  "I don't want to die at all," shivered Jinnie.

  Lafe encouraged her with a smile.

  "If he finds you," pursued Lafe, "I'd have to give you up. I couldn'tdo anything else. We might pray 'bout it."

  A wistful expression came over Jinnie's face.

  "Is praying anything like wishing, cobbler?"

  "Somethin' the same," replied Mr. Grandoken, "with thisdifference--wishin' is askin' somethin' out of somewhere of some oneyou don't know; prayin' is just talkin' to some one you're acquaintedwith! See?"

  "Yes, I think I do," responded the girl. "Your way is mostly praying,isn't it, Lafe?"

  "Prayin's more powerful than wishin', lass," said Lafe. "When I wasfirst paralyzed, I done a lot of wishin'. I hadn't any acquaintancewith anybody but Peggy. After that I took up with God, an' He's beenawful good to me."

  "He's been good to me, too, Lafe, bringing me here."

  This seemed to be a discovery to Virginia, and for a few minutes herbrain was alive with new hopes. Suddenly she drew her chair in frontof Grandoken.

  "Will to-morrow ever be to-day, cobbler?"

  Lafe looked at the solemn-faced girl with smiling, kindly eyes.

  "Sure, kid, sure," he asserted. "When you get done wishin' an' thereain't nothin' left in the world to want, then to-morrow's to-day."

  Jinnie smiled dismally. "There'd never be a day, cobbler, that Icouldn't think of something I'd like for you--and Peg."

  Lafe meditated an instant before replying. Then:

  "I've found out that we're always happier, kid, when we've got ato-morrow to look to," said he, "'cause when you're just satisfied,somethin's very apt to go smash. I was that way once."

  He paused for some seconds.

  "Jinnie," he murmured, "I haven't told you how I lost the use of mylegs, have I?"

  "No, Lafe."

  "Well, as I was sayin', there didn't used to be any to-morrow for me.I always lived just for that one day. I had Peg an' the boy. I couldwork for 'm, an' that was enough. It's more'n lots of men get in thisworld."

  His voice trailed into a whisper and ceased. He was living for themoment in the glory of his past usefulness. The rapt, wrinkled faceshone as if it had been touched by angel fingers. Virginia watched himreverently.

  "It's more'n two years ago, now," proceeded the cobbler presently,"an' I was workin' on one of them tall uptown buildin's. JimmyMalligan worked right alongside of me. We was great chums, Jimmy an'me. One day the ropes broke on one of the scaffoldin's--at least,that's what folks said. When we was picked up, my legs wasn't worththe powder to blow 'em up--an' Jimmy was dead. ... But Peg says I'mjust as good as ever."

  Here Mr. Grandoken took out his pipe and struck a match. "But I ain't.'Cause them times Peg didn't have to work. We always had fires enough,an' didn't live like this. But, as I was sayin', me an' Peg justkinder lived in to-day. Now, when I hope that mebbe I'll walk again,I'm always measurin' up to-morrow----Peg's the best woman in theworld."

  Jinnie shivered as a gust of wind rattled the window pane.

  "She makes awful good hot mush," she commented.

  "Anyhow," went on Lafe, "I was better off'n Jimmy, because he wasstone dead. There wasn't any to-day or to-morrow for him, an' I'vestill got Peggy."

  "And this shop," supplemented the girl, glancing around admiringly.

  "Sure, this shop," assented Lafe. "I had clean plumb forgot thisshop--I mean, for the minute--but I wouldn't a forgot it long."

  He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and set to work.

  Neither girl nor man spoke for a while, and it wasn't until Lafe heardPeg's voice growling at one of Milly's kittens that he ceased histick-tack.

  "You wouldn't like to join my club, lass, would you?" he ventured.

  Jinnie looked up quickly.

  "Of course I would," she said eagerly. "What kind of a club is it?"

  The girl's faith in the cobbler was so great that if Lafe hadcommanded her to go into danger, she wouldn't have hesitated.

  "Tell me what the club is, Lafe," she repeated.

  "Sure," responded Lafe. "Come here an' shake hands! All you have to doto be a member of my club is to be 'Happy in Spite' an' believeeverythin' happenin' is for the best."

  A mystified expression filled the girl's earnest blue eyes.

  "I'm awful happy," she sighed, "and I'm awful glad to come in yourclub, but I just don't understand what it means."

  The cobbler paid no attention for some moments. He was looking out ofthe window, in a far-away mood, dreaming of an active past, whenJinnie accidentally knocked a hammer from the bench. Lafe Grandokenglanced in the girl's direction.

  "I'm happy in spite--" he murmured. Then he stopped abruptly, and hishesitation made the girl repeat:

  "Happy in spite?" with a rising inflection. "What does that mean,Lafe?"

  Lafe began to work desperately.

  "It means just this, kid. I've got a little club all my own, an' I'venamed it 'Happy in Spite.'" His eyes gathered a mist as he whispered,"Happy in spite of everything that ain't just what I want it to be.Happy in spite of not walkin'--happy in spite of Peg's workin'."

  Virginia raised unsmiling, serious eyes to the speaker.

  "I want to come in your club, too, Lafe," she said slowly. "I need tobe happy in spite of lots of things, just like you, cobbler."

  A long train steamed by. Jinnie went to the window, and looked outupon it. When the noise of the engine and the roar of the cars hadceased, she whirled around.

  "Cobbler," she said in a low voice, "I've been thinking a lot sinceyesterday."

  "Come on an' tell me about it, lassie," said Lafe.

  She sat down, hitching her chair a bit nearer him, leaned her elbow onher knee, and buried a dimpled chin in the palm of her hand.

  "Do you suppose, Lafe, if a girl believed in the angels, anybody couldhurt her?"

  "I know they couldn't, kid, an' it's as true's Heaven."

  "Well, then, why can't I go out and work?"

  Lafe paused and looked over his spectacles.

  "Peggy says, 'Every hand should do its share'," he quoted.

  Jinnie winced miserably. She picked up several nails from the floor.It was a pretext for an activity to cover her embarrassment.

  The cobbler allowed her to busy herself a while in this way. Then hesaid:

  "Sit in the chair an' wrap up in the blankets, Jinnie. I want to talkwith you."

  She
did as she was bidden, sitting quietly until the man chose tospeak.

  "I guess you're beginnin' to believe," said he, at length, "an' if youdo, a world full of uncles couldn't hurt you. Peg says as how you gotto work if you stay, an' if you have the faith----"

  Jinnie rose tremblingly.

  "I know I'll be all right," she cried. "I just know you and mebelieving would keep me safe."

  Her eagerness caused Lafe to draw the girl to him.

  "Can you holler good an' loud?" he asked.

  The girl shot him a curious glance.

  "Sure I can."

  "Can you walk on icy walks----"

  "Oh, I'm as strong as anything," Jinnie cut in, glancing downward atherself.

  "I know a lot of kids who earn money," said Lafe meditatively.

  "What do they do?"

  "Get wood out of the marsh behind the huts there. Some of 'em keepsfamilies on it."

  "Sell wood! And there's lots of it, Lafe?"

  "Lots," replied Lafe.

  Sell wood! The very words, new, wonderful, and full of action, rangthrough Jinnie's soul like sweet sounding bells. Waves of unknownsensations beat delightfully upon her girlish heart. If she brought ina little money every day, Peggy would be kinder. She could; she wassure she could. She was drawn from her whirling thoughts by thecobbler's voice.

  "Could you do it, kid? People could think your name was JinnieGrandoken."

  Jinnie choked out a reply.

  "And mebbe I could make ten cents a day."

  "I think you could, Jinnie, an' here's Lafe right ready to help you."

  Virginia Singleton felt quite faint. She sat down, her heart beatingunder her knit jacket twice as fast as a girl's heart ought to beat.Lafe had suddenly opened up a path to usefulness and glory which evenin her youthful dreams had never appeared to her.

  "Call Peggy," said Lafe.

  Soon Peg stood before them, with a questioning face.

  "The kid's goin' to work," announced Lafe, "We've got a way of keepin'her uncle off'n her trail."

  Mrs. Grandoken looked from her husband to Virginia.

  "I want to work like other folks," the girl burst forth, lookingpleadingly at the shoemaker's wife.

  Peggy wiped her arms violently upon her apron, and there flashedacross her face an inscrutable expression that Lafe had learned toread, but which frightened the newcomer.

  Oh, how Jinnie wanted to do something to help them both! Now, at thismoment, when there seemed a likelihood of being industriously useful,Jinnie loved them the more. She was going to work, and into her activelittle brain came the sound of pennies, and the glint of silver.

  "I want to work, Peggy," she beseeched, "and I'll make a lot of moneyfor you."

  "Every hand ought to do its share," observed Peg, stolidly, glancingat the girl's slender fingers. They looked so small, so unused to hardwork, that she turned away. An annoying, gripping sensation attackedher suddenly, but in another minute she faced the girl again.

  "If you do it, miss, don't flounce round's if you owned the hull ofParadise Road, 'cause it'll be nothin' to your credit, whatever youdo. You didn't make yourself."

  At the door she turned and remarked, "You've got t'have a shoulderstrap to hold the wood, an' you musn't carry too much to onct. Itmight hurt your back."

  "I'll be careful," gulped Jinnie, "and mebbe I could help make thestrap, eh, Lafe?"

  An hour later Jinnie was running a long needle through a tough pieceof leather. She was making the strap to peddle shortwood, and ahappier girl never breathed.

  Peg watched her without comment as Lafe fitted the strap about hershoulders. In fact, there was nothing for the woman to say, when theviolet eyes were fixed questioningly upon her. Peggy thought of thehunger which would be bound to come if any hands were idle, so shemuttered in excuse, "There's nothin' like gettin' used to a thing."

  "It's a fine strap, isn't it, Lafe?" asked the girl, "It's almost asgood as a cart."

  "You can't use a cart in the underbrush," explained Lafe. "That's whythe twig gatherers use straps."

  "I see," murmured Jinnie.

  When the cobbler and girl were once more alone together, they had aserious confab. They decided that every penny Jinnie brought in shouldgo to enriching the house, and the girl's eyes glistened as she heardthe shoemaker list over the things that would make them comfortable.

  Most delightful thoughts came to endow the girl's mental world, whichnow reached from the cobbler's shop to the marsh, over a portion ofthe city, and back again. It was rosy-hued, bright, sparkling withthe pennies and nickels she intended to earn. All her glory would comewith the aid of that twig gatherer's leather strap. She looked downupon it with a proud toss of her head. Jinnie was recovering theindependent spirit which had dominated her when she had wandered aloneon the hills away to the north.

  "I wouldn't wonder if I'd make fifteen cents some days," she remarkedlater at the supper table.

  "If you make ten, you'll be doin' well, an' you and Lafe'll probablybust open with joy if you do," snapped Peg. "Oh, Lord, I'm gettin'sick to my stomick hearin' you folks brag. Go to bed now, kid, ifyou're to work to-morrow."

  Jinnie fell asleep to dream that her hand was full of pennies, and herpockets running over with nickels. She was just stooping to pick upsome money from the sidewalk when Peg's voice pierced her ear,

  "Kid," said she, "it's mornin', an' your first workin' day. Now hurryyour lazy bones an' get dressed."