Rose O'Paradise Part 16

Jinnie winced miserably. She picked up several nails from the floor.

It was a pretext for an activity to cover her embarra.s.sment.

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

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

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

"I guess you're beginnin' to believe," said he, at length, "an' if you do, a world full of uncles couldn't hurt you. Peg says as how you got to 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 me believing 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 at herself.

"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 keeps families 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, rang through Jinnie's soul like sweet sounding bells. Waves of unknown sensations beat delightfully upon her girlish heart. If she brought in a little money every day, Peggy would be kinder. She could; she was sure she could. She was drawn from her whirling thoughts by the cobbler's voice.

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

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 beating under 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 even in 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, looking pleadingly at the shoemaker's wife.

Peggy wiped her arms violently upon her ap.r.o.n, and there flashed across her face an inscrutable expression that Lafe had learned to read, but which frightened the newcomer.

Oh, how Jinnie wanted to do something to help them both! Now, at this moment, when there seemed a likelihood of being industriously useful, Jinnie loved them the more. She was going to work, and into her active little 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 money for you."

"Every hand ought to do its share," observed Peg, stolidly, glancing at the girl's slender fingers. They looked so small, so unused to hard work, that she turned away. An annoying, gripping sensation attacked her 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 of Paradise Road, 'cause it'll be nothin' to your credit, whatever you do. You didn't make yourself."

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

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

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

Peg watched her without comment as Lafe fitted the strap about her shoulders. In fact, there was nothing for the woman to say, when the violet eyes were fixed questioningly upon her. Peggy thought of the hunger which would be bound to come if any hands were idle, so she muttered 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 as good as a cart."

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

"I see," murmured Jinnie.

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

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

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

"If you make ten, you'll be doin' well, an' you and Lafe'll probably bust 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, if you're to work to-morrow."

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

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