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Morse's face became positively brutal under recollections. "I've made her mind through him," he terminated. Jinnie had put Bobbie into bed and kissed him, and soon the child was breathing evenly. She knew Jordan Morse would come that night, so she closed the door between the two rooms and walked nervously up and down. Bobbie was always ill for hours after Morse had made his daily calls.
This had been discussed between Lafe and herself many times, and they had rejoiced that in a few months, when Jinnie was eighteen, Mrs. Grandoken's worries would be lessened. She reached the bottom of the hill just as a car dashed around the lower corner, a woman at the wheel. One glance at the occupant, and Jinnie recognized Molly Merriweather.
"I'll go when I see Jinnie," he insisted, sinking deeper into his chair, "I want to tell 'er somethin' about a party." "Ain't no show o' your seein' 'er to-day," replied Lafe. "I bargained with your pa about you lettin' my girl alone, and that's all there is to it." "Pa's cobblin' ain't nothin' to do with me," observed Maudlin darkly. "I'll wait for 'er!"
"Don't go yet." "I don't want to sit down," said Jinnie, very much offended. "I'm going! I'm sorry you think Lafe " Molly rose too. Impetuously she held out her hand. "I really shouldn't have spoken that way, because I don't know a thing about it." Jinnie relented a little, but not enough to sit down. She was too deeply hurt to accept Molly's hospitality further.
"He'll write me one of my own before the year is out," said she. "I'm not so sure!" responded Morse thoughtfully. For a long time after the closing of the door, Jinnie sat huddled in the chair. Nothing else in all the world could have hurt her as she had been hurt that night, and it wasn't until very late that she crept in beside the blind boy, and after four or five hours, dropped asleep.
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."
Perhaps it was the overwhelming stillness of the building, possibly a natural alertness indicative of her fear, that allowed Jinnie to catch the echoes of footsteps at the farther end of the corridor. But before she got to the door, a key grated in the lock, and the man who had brought her there was standing beside her.
"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." With a sigh Jinnie allowed Lafe to buckle the shortwood strap to her shoulder.
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. The days rolled on and on, and the first warm impulses of spring brought Jinnie, pale and thin, back to Lafe's side.
King smiled and glanced at the cobbler, but Lafe's face was so drawn and white that Theodore looked away again. He couldn't make it seem right that he should bring about such sorrow as this, yet the thought of Jinnie and what he wanted her to be proved a greater argument with him than the grief of her family.
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