Peg ceased writhing, but didn't lift her face. Jinnie knew she was listening, and continued: "Haven't you heard him many a time, when there wasn't any wood in the house or any bread to eat, tell you about--about----"
Down dropped the woman's hands, and she lifted a woebegone face to her young questioner.
"Yes, I've heard him, Jinnie," she quavered, "but I ain't never believed it!"
"But you can, Peggy! You can, sure! Lots of times Lafe'd say, 'Now, Jinnie, watch God and me!' And I watched, and sure right on the minute came the money." She paused a moment, ruminating. "That money we got the day he went away came because he prayed for it."
The girl was reverently earnest.
"Lafe's got a chance, all right," she pursued, keeping Peg's eye. "More'n a chance, if--if--if----Oh, Peggy, we've got to pray!"
"I don't know how," said Peg, in stifled tones.
Jinnie's face lighted with a mental argument Lafe had thrown at her in her moments of distrust. She was deep in despondency, but something had to be done.
"Peg, you don't need to know anything about it. I didn't when I came here. Lafe says----"
"What'd Lafe say?" cut in Peggy.
"That you must just tell God about it----" Jinnie lifted a white, lovely face. "He's everywhere--not away off," she proceeded. "Talk to Him just like you would to Lafe or me."
Mrs. Grandoken sunk lower in her chair.
"I wisht I'd learnt when Lafe was here. Now I dunno how."
"But will you try?" Jinnie pleaded after a little.
"You know 'em better'n I do, Jinnie," Peg muttered, dejectedly. "You ask if it'll do any good."
Jinnie cleared her throat, coughed, and murmured: "Close your eyes, Bobbie."
Bobbie shut his lids with a gulping sob, and so did Peg.
Then Jinnie began in a low, constrained voice: "God and your angels hovering about Lafe, please send him back to the shop. Get him out of jail, and don't let anybody hurt him. Amen."
"Don't let any chair hurt my beautiful cobbler," wailed Bobbie, in a new paroxysm of grief. "Gimme Lafe an' my stars."
In another instant Peggy staggered out of the room, leaving the blind boy and Jinnie alone.
As the door closed, Bobbie's voice rose in louder appeal. Happy Pete touched him tenderly with a cold, wet nose, crawling into his arms with a little whine.
Jinnie looked at her two charges hopelessly. She knew not how to comfort them, nor could she frame words that would still the agony of the child. Yet she lifted Bobbie and Happy Pete and sat down with them on her lap.