Rose O'Paradise

"Will to-morrow ever be to-day, cobbler?"

Lafe looked at the solemn-faced girl with smiling, kindly eyes.

"Sure, kid, sure," he asserted. "When you get done wishin' an' there ain't nothin' left in the world to want, then to-morrow's to-day."

Jinnie smiled dismally. "There'd never be a day, cobbler, that I couldn't think of something I'd like for you--and Peg."

Lafe meditated an instant before replying. Then: "I've found out that we're always happier, kid, when we've got a to-morrow to look to," said he, "'cause when you're just satisfied, somethin's very apt to go smash. I was that way once."

He paused for some seconds.

"Jinnie," he murmured, "I haven't told you how I lost the use of my legs, have I?"

"No, Lafe."

"Well, as I was sayin', there didn't used to be any to-morrow for me. I always lived just for that one day. I had Peg an' the boy. I could work for 'm, an' that was enough. It's more'n lots of men get in this world."

His voice trailed into a whisper and ceased. He was living for the moment in the glory of his past usefulness. The rapt, wrinkled face shone as if it had been touched by angel fingers. Virginia watched him reverently.

"It's more'n two years ago, now," proceeded the cobbler presently, "an' I was workin' on one of them tall uptown buildin's. Jimmy Malligan worked right alongside of me. We was great chums, Jimmy an' me. One day the ropes broke on one of the scaffoldin's--at least, that's what folks said. When we was picked up, my legs wasn't worth the powder to blow 'em up--an' Jimmy was dead. ... But Peg says I'm just as good as ever."

Here Mr. Grandoken took out his pipe and struck a match. "But I ain't. 'Cause them times Peg didn't have to work. We always had fires enough, an' didn't live like this. But, as I was sayin', me an' Peg just kinder lived in to-day. Now, when I hope that mebbe I'll walk again, I'm always measurin' up to-morrow----Peg's the best woman in the world."

Jinnie shivered as a gust of wind rattled the window pane.

"She makes awful good hot mush," she commented.

"Anyhow," went on Lafe, "I was better off'n Jimmy, because he was stone dead. There wasn't any to-day or to-morrow for him, an' I've still got Peggy."

"And this shop," supplemented the girl, glancing around admiringly.

"Sure, this shop," assented Lafe. "I had clean plumb forgot this shop--I mean, for the minute--but I wouldn't a forgot it long."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and set to work.