The Cobbler's Secret

At length Lafe sighed a long, deep-drawn sigh, and smiled.

"Jinnie," he began---"Yes, Lafe."

"I've been wonderin' if you remember the story of the little feller God sent to Peg an' me--the one I told you would a been six years old."

"Yes, I remember, Lafe."

"An' how good Peggy was----"

"Oh, how good Peggy always is!" interjected Jinnie.

"Yes," breathed Lafe, dreamily. "May God bless my woman in all her trials!"

Jinnie hitched her chair nearer his and slipped her arm about his neck soothingly.

"She doesn't have trials you don't share, Lafe," she declared.

Lafe straightened up.

"Yes, Peg has many, lassie, I can't help 'er with, an' she'll have a many more. To get to tell you something, Jinnie, I asked Peg to take Bobbie out with 'er. We can't turn the little feller from the club room when he ain't out with Peg; can we, Jinnie?"

"Of course not," agreed Jinnie, nodding.

"So when Peg said she was goin' out," proceeded Lafe, gravely, "I says, thinkin' of the things I wanted to say to you, I said to Peggy, 'Take the little blind chap along with you, Peggy dear,' an' without a word she put the youngster into his clothes an' away they went."

Jinnie's curiosity was growing by the minute.

"And you're going to tell me now, Lafe?"

"An' now I'm goin' to tell you, Jinnie."

But he didn't tell her just then. Instead he sat looking at her with luminous eyes, and the expression in them--that heavenly expression--compelled Jinnie to kneel beside him, and for a little while they sat in silence.