Rose O'Paradise Part 15

"Yes, I think I do," responded the girl. "Your way is mostly praying, isn't it, Lafe?"

"Prayin's more powerful than wis.h.i.+n', la.s.s," said Lafe. "When I was first paralyzed, I done a lot of wis.h.i.+n'. I hadn't any acquaintance with anybody but Peggy. After that I took up with G.o.d, an' He's been awful good to me."

"He's been good to me, too, Lafe, bringing me here."

This seemed to be a discovery to Virginia, and for a few minutes her brain was alive with new hopes. Suddenly she drew her chair in front of Grandoken.

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

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

"Sure, kid, sure," he a.s.serted. "When you get done wis.h.i.+n' 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 s.h.i.+vered 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," a.s.sented 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.

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, la.s.s, 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, la.s.sie," 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.

"Peggy says, 'Every hand should do its share'," he quoted.