"You're going to teach me all about it, ain't you, Lafe?" she entreated presently.
"Sure! Sure! You see, it's this way: Common, everyday folks--them with narrer minds--ain't much use for my kind of Jews. I'm livin' here in a mess of 'em. Most of 'em's shortwood gatherers. When I found out about the man on the cross, I told it right out loud to 'em all. ... You're one of 'em. You're a Gentile, Jinnie."
"I'm sorry," said the girl sadly.
"Oh, you needn't be. Peg's one, too, but she's got God's mark on her soul as big as any of them women belongin' to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob----I ain't sure but it's a mite bigger."
The speaker worked a while, bringing the nails from his lips in rapid, even succession. Peg was the one bright spot that shone out of his wonderful yesterdays. She was the one link that fastened him securely to a useful to-morrow.
Virginia counted the nails mechanically as they were driven into the leather, and as the last one disappeared, she said: "Are you always happy, Lafe, when you're smiling? Why, you smile--when--even when--" she stammered, caught her breath, and finished, "even when Mrs. Peggy barks."
An amused laugh came from the cobbler's lips.
"That's 'cause I know her, lass," said he. "Why, when I first found out about the good God takin' charge of Jews an' Gentiles alike, I told it to Peg, an', my, how she did hop up an' down, right in the middle of the floor. She said I was meddlin' into things that had took men of brains a million years to fix up.
"But I knew it as well as anything," he continued. "God's love is right in your heart, right there----" He bent over and gently touched the girl.
She looked up surprised.
"I heard He was setting on a great high throne up in Heaven," she whispered, glancing up, "and he scowled dead mad when folks were wicked."
Lafe smiled, shook his head, and picked up his hammer.
"No," said he. "No, no! He's right around me, an' He's right around you, an' everything a feller does or has comes from Him."
Virginia's thoughts went back to an episode of the country.
"Does He help a kid knock hell out of another kid when that kid is beating a littler kid?"
Her eyes were so earnest, so deep in question, that the cobbler lowered his head. Not for the world would he have smiled at Virginia's original question. He scarcely knew how to answer, but presently said: "Well, I guess it's all right to help them who ain't as big as yourself, but it ain't the best thing in the world to gad any one."