Rose O'Paradise Part 63

Something in her tones made Bobbie writhe. With the acuteness of one with his affliction, his ears had caught the commotion in the shop.

"But he can't walk, Jinnie. Did he walk?" he demanded.

"No."

"How'd he go, in a motor car?"

"No," repeated the girl.

"Some one took him, then?" demanded Bobbie.

"Yes."

"In a wagon?"

By this time she could feel the tip-tap of his anguished heart against hers.

"Yes," she admitted, but that was all. She felt that to tell the truth then would be fatal to the throbbing young life in her arms.

"Bobbie," she whispered, cuddling him. "Lafe's coming home soon. Be a good boy and lie still and rest. Jinnie'll come back in a few minutes."

She crawled off the bed, and went to the shop door. By main force she had to drag her unwilling feet over the threshold. She stood for two tense minutes scanning the room with pathetic keenness. Then she walked forward and stood beside the bench. It seemed to be sentiently alive with the magnetism of the man who had lately occupied it. Jinnie sat on it, a cry bursting from her white lips. She wanted to be with him, but she had promised to take care of Peggy, and she would rather die than betray that trust. Her eyes fell upon two dark spots upon the floor, one near the door and one almost under her feet. She shuddered as she realized it was blood. Then she went to the kitchen for water and washed it away. This done, she gathered up Lafe's tools, reverently kissing each one as she laid it in the box under the bench.

How lonely the shop looked in the gathering gloom! To dissipate the lengthening shadows in the corners, she lighted the lamp. The flickering flame brought back keenly the hours she had spent with Lafe--hours in which she had learned so much. The whole horror that had fallen on the household rushed over her being like a tidal wave over a city. Misery of the most exquisite kind was tearing her heart in pieces, stabbing her throat with long, forklike pains. Tense throat muscles caught and clung together, choking back her breath until she lay down, full length, upon the cobbler's bench.

In poignant grief she thought of the expression of Lafe's face when he had been wheeled from the room. His voice came back through the faint light.

"He has given His angels charge over thee, la.s.sie."

But how could she believe in the angels, with Lafe in prison and Theodore dying? She got up, spent and worn with weeping, and went in to Peggy, sitting for a few minutes beside the agonized woman, but she could not say one word to make that agony less. In losing the two strong friends, she had lost her faith too. Peg's face was turned to the wall, and as she didn't answer when the girl laid her hand on her shoulder, Jinnie tiptoed out. In her own room she lay for seemingly century-long hours with Bobbie pressed tightly to her breast.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

JINNIE EXPLAINS THE DEATH CHAIR TO BOBBIE

Seven days had dragged their seemingly slow length from seconds to minutes, from minutes to hours, from hours to days. In the cobbler's shop Jinnie and Bobbie waited in breathless anxiety for Peg's return.

She had gone to the district attorney for permission to visit her husband in his cell. Nearly three hours had pa.s.sed since her departure, and few other thoughts were in the mind of the girl save the pa.s.sionate wish for news of her two beloved friends. She was standing by the window looking out upon the tracks, and as a heavy train steamed past she counted the cars with melancholy rhythm. There came to her mind the day she had found Bobbie on the hill, and all the sweet moments since when the cobbler had been with them. She choked back a sob that made a little noise in her tightened throat.

Bobbie stumbled his unseeing way to her and shoved a small, cold hand into hers.

"Jinnie's sad," he murmured. "Bobbie's stars're blinkin' out."

Mrs. Grandoken and Jinnie had come to an understanding that Bobbie should not know of the cobbler's trouble, so the strong fingers closed over the little ones, but the girl did not speak. At length she caught a glimpse of Peg, who, with bent head, was stumbling across the tracks. Peggy had failed in her mission! Jinnie knew it because the woman did not look up as she came within sight of the house.

As Mrs. Grandoken entered slowly, Jinnie turned to her.

"You didn't see him?" she said in a tone half exclamation, half question.

"No," responded Peg, wearily, sitting down. "I waited 'most two hours for the lawyer, an' when he come, I begged harder'n anything, but it didn't do no good. He says I can't see my man for a long time. I guess they're tryin' to make him confess he killed Maudlin."

Jinnie's hand clutched frantically at the other's arm. Both women had forgotten the presence of the blind child.

"He wouldn't do that," cried Jinnie, panic-stricken. "A man can't own up to doing a thing he didn't do."

"Course not," whispered Bobbie, in an awed whisper, and the girl sat down, drawing him to her lap. She could no longer guard her tongue nor hide her feelings. She took the afternoon paper from Mrs. Grandoken's hand.

"Read about it aloud," implored the woman.

"It says," began Jinnie, "Mr. King's dying."

The paper fluttered from her hand, and she sat like a small graven image. To see those words so cruelly set in black and white, staring at her with frightful truth, harrowed the very soul of her. A sobbing outburst from Bobbie mingled with the soft chug, chug of the engine outside on the track. Happy Pete, too, felt the tragedy in the air. He wriggled nearer his young mistress and rested his pointed nose on one of her knees, while his twinkling yellow eyes demanded, in their eloquent way, to know the cause of his loved ones' sorrow.

Peggy broke a painful pause.

"Everybody in town says Lafe done it," she groaned, "an'----" she caught her breath. "Oh, G.o.d! it seems I can't stand it much longer!"

Jinnie got up, putting the limp boy in her chair. She was making a masterful effort to be brave, to restrain the rush of emotion demanding utterance. Some beating thing in her side ached as if it were about to burst. But she stood still until Peg spoke again.

"It's all bad business, Jinnie! an' I can't see no help comin' from anywhere."

If Peg's head hadn't fallen suddenly into her hands, perhaps Jinnie wouldn't have collapsed just then. As it was, her knees gave way, and she fell forward beside the cobbler's wife. Bobbie, in his helpless way, knelt too.

Since Lafe's arrest the girl had not prayed, nor could she recall the promises Lafe had taught her were made for the troubled in spirit.

Could she now say anything to make Peg's suffering less, even if she did not believe it all herself?

"Peg," she pleaded, "don't s.h.i.+ver so!... Hold up your head.... I want to tell you something."

Peggy made a negative gesture.

"It ain't to be bore, Jinnie," she moaned hoa.r.s.ely.

"Lafe ain't no chance. They'll put him in the chair."

Such awful words! The import was pressed deeper into two young hearts by Peg's wild weeping.

Jinnie staggered to her feet. Blind Bobbie broke into a prolonged wail.

"Lafe ain't never done nothin' bad in all his life," went on the woman, from the shelter of her hands. "He's the best man in the world.

He's worked an' worked for everybody, an' most times never got no pay.

An' now----"

"Don't say it again, Peggy!" Jinnie's voice rang out. "Don't think such things. They couldn't put Lafe in a wicked death chair--they _couldn't_."

Bobbie's upraised eyes were trying to pierce through their veil of darkness to seek the speaker's meaning.

"What chair, Jinnie?" he quivered. "What kind of a chair're they goin'