Rose O'Paradise

Neither girl nor man spoke for a while, and it wasn't until Lafe heard Peg's voice growling at one of Milly's kittens that he ceased his tick-tack.

"You wouldn't like to join my club, lass, would you?" he ventured.

Jinnie looked up quickly.

"Of course I would," she said eagerly. "What kind of a club is it?"

The girl's faith in the cobbler was so great that if Lafe had commanded her to go into danger, she wouldn't have hesitated.

"Tell me what the club is, Lafe," she repeated.

"Sure," responded Lafe. "Come here an' shake hands! All you have to do to be a member of my club is to be 'Happy in Spite' an' believe everythin' happenin' is for the best."

A mystified expression filled the girl's earnest blue eyes.

"I'm awful happy," she sighed, "and I'm awful glad to come in your club, but I just don't understand what it means."

The cobbler paid no attention for some moments. He was looking out of the window, in a far-away mood, dreaming of an active past, when Jinnie accidentally knocked a hammer from the bench. Lafe Grandoken glanced in the girl's direction.

"I'm happy in spite--" he murmured. Then he stopped abruptly, and his hesitation made the girl repeat: "Happy in spite?" with a rising inflection. "What does that mean, Lafe?"

Lafe began to work desperately.

"It means just this, kid. I've got a little club all my own, an' I've named it 'Happy in Spite.'" His eyes gathered a mist as he whispered, "Happy in spite of everything that ain't just what I want it to be. Happy in spite of not walkin'--happy in spite of Peg's workin'."

Virginia raised unsmiling, serious eyes to the speaker.

"I want to come in your club, too, Lafe," she said slowly. "I need to be happy in spite of lots of things, just like you, cobbler."

A long train steamed by. Jinnie went to the window, and looked out upon it. When the noise of the engine and the roar of the cars had ceased, she whirled around.

"Cobbler," she said in a low voice, "I've been thinking a lot since yesterday."

"Come on an' tell me about it, lassie," said Lafe.

She sat down, hitching her chair a bit nearer him, leaned her elbow on her knee, and buried a dimpled chin in the palm of her hand.

"Do you suppose, Lafe, if a girl believed in the angels, anybody could hurt her?"

"I know they couldn't, kid, an' it's as true's Heaven."

"Well, then, why can't I go out and work?"

Lafe paused and looked over his spectacles.