Rose O'Paradise
Page 38
CHAPTER XXXVI
JINNIE EXPLAINS THE DEATH CHAIR TO BOBBIE
Seven days had dragged their seemingly slow length from seconds tominutes, from minutes to hours, from hours to days. In the cobbler'sshop Jinnie and Bobbie waited in breathless anxiety for Peg's return.She had gone to the district attorney for permission to visit herhusband in his cell. Nearly three hours had passed since herdeparture, and few other thoughts were in the mind of the girl savethe passionate wish for news of her two beloved friends. She wasstanding by the window looking out upon the tracks, and as a heavytrain steamed past she counted the cars with melancholy rhythm. Therecame to her mind the day she had found Bobbie on the hill, and all thesweet moments since when the cobbler had been with them. She chokedback a sob that made a little noise in her tightened throat.
Bobbie stumbled his unseeing way to her and shoved a small, cold handinto hers.
"Jinnie's sad," he murmured. "Bobbie's stars're blinkin' out."
Mrs. Grandoken and Jinnie had come to an understanding that Bobbieshould not know of the cobbler's trouble, so the strong fingers closedover the little ones, but the girl did not speak. At length she caughta glimpse of Peg, who, with bent head, was stumbling across thetracks. Peggy had failed in her mission! Jinnie knew it because thewoman did not look up as she came within sight of the house.
As Mrs. Grandoken entered slowly, Jinnie turned to her.
"You didn't see him?" she said in a tone half exclamation, halfquestion.
"No," responded Peg, wearily, sitting down. "I waited 'most two hoursfor the lawyer, an' when he come, I begged harder'n anything, but itdidn't do no good. He says I can't see my man for a long time. I guessthey're tryin' to make him confess he killed Maudlin."
Jinnie's hand clutched frantically at the other's arm. Both women hadforgotten the presence of the blind child.
"He wouldn't do that," cried Jinnie, panic-stricken. "A man can't ownup to doing a thing he didn't do."
"Course not," whispered Bobbie, in an awed whisper, and the girl satdown, drawing him to her lap. She could no longer guard her tongue norhide her feelings. She took the afternoon paper from Mrs. Grandoken'shand.
"Read about it aloud," implored the woman.
"It says," began Jinnie, "Mr. King's dying."
The paper fluttered from her hand, and she sat like a small gravenimage. To see those words so cruelly set in black and white, staringat her with frightful truth, harrowed the very soul of her. A sobbingoutburst from Bobbie mingled with the soft chug, chug of the engineoutside on the track. Happy Pete, too, felt the tragedy in the air. Hewriggled nearer his young mistress and rested his pointed nose on oneof her knees, while his twinkling yellow eyes demanded, in theireloquent way, to know the cause of his loved ones' sorrow.
Peggy broke a painful pause.
"Everybody in town says Lafe done it," she groaned, "an'----" shecaught her breath. "Oh, God! it seems I can't stand it much longer!"
Jinnie got up, putting the limp boy in her chair. She was making amasterful effort to be brave, to restrain the rush of emotiondemanding utterance. Some beating thing in her side ached as if itwere about to burst. But she stood still until Peg spoke again.
"It's all bad business, Jinnie! an' I can't see no help comin' fromanywhere."
If Peg's head hadn't fallen suddenly into her hands, perhaps Jinniewouldn't have collapsed just then. As it was, her knees gave way, andshe fell forward beside the cobbler's wife. Bobbie, in his helplessway, knelt too.
Since Lafe's arrest the girl had not prayed, nor could she recall thepromises Lafe had taught her were made for the troubled in spirit.Could she now say anything to make Peg's suffering less, even if shedid not believe it all herself?
"Peg," she pleaded, "don't shiver so!... Hold up your head.... I wantto tell you something."
Peggy made a negative gesture.
"It ain't to be bore, Jinnie," she moaned hoarsely.
"Lafe ain't no chance. They'll put him in the chair."
Such awful words! The import was pressed deeper into two young heartsby Peg's wild weeping.
Jinnie staggered to her feet. Blind Bobbie broke into a prolongedwail.
"Lafe ain't never done nothin' bad in all his life," went on thewoman, from the shelter of her hands. "He's the best man in the world.He's worked an' worked for everybody, an' most times never got no pay.An' now----"
"Don't say it again, Peggy!" Jinnie's voice rang out. "Don't thinksuch things. They couldn't put Lafe in a wicked death chair--they_couldn't_."
Bobbie's upraised eyes were trying to pierce through their veil ofdarkness to seek the speaker's meaning.
"What chair, Jinnie?" he quivered. "What kind of a chair're they goin'to put my beautiful Lafe in?"
Jinnie's mind went back to the teachings of the cobbler, and the slow,sweet, painful smile intermingled with her agony. Again and again thememory of the words, "He hath given his angels charge over thee,"swelled her heart to the breaking point. She wanted to believe, tofeel again that ecstatic faith which had suffused her as Maudlin Batespulled her curls in the marsh, when she had called unto the Infiniteand Theodore had answered.
Peg needed Lafe's angels at that moment. They all needed the comfortof the cobbler's faith.
"Peg," she began, "your man'd tell you something sweet if he could seeyou now."
Peg ceased writhing, but didn't lift her face. Jinnie knew she waslistening, and continued:
"Haven't you heard him many a time, when there wasn't any wood in thehouse or any bread to eat, tell you about--about----"
Down dropped the woman's hands, and she lifted a woebegone face to heryoung questioner.
"Yes, I've heard him, Jinnie," she quavered, "but I ain't neverbelieved it!"
"But you can, Peggy! You can, sure! Lots of times Lafe'd say, 'Now,Jinnie, watch God and me!' And I watched, and sure right on the minutecame the money." She paused a moment, ruminating. "That money we gotthe day he went away came because he prayed for it."
The girl was reverently earnest.
"Lafe's got a chance, all right," she pursued, keeping Peg's eye."More'n a chance, if--if--if----Oh, Peggy, we've got to pray!"
"I don't know how," said Peg, in stifled tones.
Jinnie's face lighted with a mental argument Lafe had thrown at herin her moments of distrust. She was deep in despondency, but somethinghad to be done.
"Peg, you don't need to know anything about it. I didn't when I camehere. Lafe says----"
"What'd Lafe say?" cut in Peggy.
"That you must just tell God about it----" Jinnie lifted a white,lovely face. "He's everywhere--not away off," she proceeded. "Talk toHim just like you would to Lafe or me."
Mrs. Grandoken sunk lower in her chair.
"I wisht I'd learnt when Lafe was here. Now I dunno how."
"But will you try?" Jinnie pleaded after a little.
"You know 'em better'n I do, Jinnie," Peg muttered, dejectedly. "Youask if it'll do any good."
Jinnie cleared her throat, coughed, and murmured:
"Close your eyes, Bobbie."
Bobbie shut his lids with a gulping sob, and so did Peg.
Then Jinnie began in a low, constrained voice:
"God and your angels hovering about Lafe, please send him back to theshop. Get him out of jail, and don't let anybody hurt him. Amen."
"Don't let any chair hurt my beautiful cobbler," wailed Bobbie, in anew paroxysm of grief. "Gimme Lafe an' my stars."
In another instant Peggy staggered out of the room, leaving the blindboy and Jinnie alone.
As the door closed, Bobbie's voice rose in louder appeal. Happy Petetouched him tenderly with a cold, wet nose, crawling into his armswith a little whine.
Jinnie looked at her two charges hopelessly. She knew not how tocomfort them, nor could she frame words that would still the agony ofthe child. Yet she lifted Bobbie and Happy Pete and sat down with themon her lap.
"Don't cry, honey," she stammered. "There! There! Jinnie'll rockyou."
"I'm going to ask you to be awful good, Bobbie," she pleadedpresently. "Lafe's being arrested is hard on Peg--and she's sick."
Bobbie burst in on her words.
"But they'll sit my cobbler in a wicked chair, and kill him, Jinnie.Peggy said they would."
"You remember, Bobbie," soothed the girl, "what Lafe said about God'sangels, don't you?"
The yellow head bent forward in assent.
"And how they're stronger'n a whole bunch of men?"
"Yes," breathed Bobbie; "but the chair--the men've got that, an' mebbethe angels'll be busy when they're puttin' the cobbler in it."
This idea made him shriek out louder than before: "They'll kill Lafe!Oh, Jinnie, they will!"
"They can't!" denied Jinnie, rigidly. "They can't! Listen, Bobbie."
The wan, unsmiling blind face brought the girl's lips hard upon it.
"I want to know all about the death chair," he whimpered stubbornly.
"Bobbie," she breathed, "will you believe me if I tell you about it?"
"Yes," promised Bobbie, snuggling nearer.
"Hang on to Pete, and I will tell you," said Jinnie.
"I'm hangin' to 'im," sighed Bobbie, touching Pete's shaggy forelock."Tell me about the chair."
Jinnie was searching her brain for an argument to satisfy him. Shewouldn't have lied for her own welfare--but for Bobbie--she couldfeel the weak, small heart palpitating against her arm.
"Well, in the first place," she began deliberately, "Peg doesn't knoweverything about murders. Why, Bobbie, they don't do anything at allto men like Lafe. Why, a cobbler, dear, a cobbler could kill everybodyin the whole world if he liked."
Bobbie's breath was sent out in one long exclamation of wonder.
"A cobbler," went on Jinnie impressively, "could steal loaves of breadright under a great judge's nose and he couldn't do anything to him."
Jinnie had made a daring speech, such a splendid one; she wanted tobelieve it herself.
"Tell me more," chirped Bobbie. "What about the death chair, Jinnie?"
She had nursed the hope that the boy would be satisfied with what shehad already told him, but she proceeded in triumphant tones:
"Oh, you mean the chair Peg was speaking about, huh? Sure I know allabout that.... There isn't anything I don't know about it.... I knowmore'n all the judges and preachers put together."
A small, trustful smile appeared at the corners of Bobbie's mouth.
"I know you do, Jinnie," he agreed. "Tell it to me."
Jinnie pressed her lips on his hair.
"And if I tell you, kiddie, you'll not cry any more or worry Peggy?"
"I'll be awful good, and not cry once," promised the boy, settlinghimself expectantly.
"Now, then, listen hard!"
Accordingly, after a dramatic pause, to give stress to her nextstatement, she continued:
"There isn't a death chair in the whole world can kill a cobbler."
Bobbie braced himself against her and sat up. His blind eyes wereroving over her with an expression of disbelief. Jinnie knew he wasdoubting her veracity, so she hurried on.
"Of course they got an electric chair that'll kill other kinds ofmen," she explained volubly, "but if you'll believe me, Bobbie, nocobbler could ever sit in it."
Bobbie dropped back again. There was a ring of truth in Jinnie'swords, and he began to believe her.
"And another thing, Bobbie, there's something in the Bible better'nwhat I've told you. You believe the Bible, don't you?"
"Lafe's Bible?" asked Bobbie, scarcely audible.
"Sure! There isn't but one."
"Yes, Jinnie, I believe that," said the boy.
"Well," and Jinnie glanced up at the ceiling, "there's just about ahundred pages in that book tells how once some men tried to put acobbler in one of those chairs, and the lightning jumped out and set'em all on fire----"
Bobbie straightened up so quickly that Happy Pete fell to the floor.
"Yes, yes, Jinnie dear," he breathed. "Go on!"
Jinnie hesitated. She didn't want to fabricate further.
"It's just so awful I hate to tell you," she objected.
"I'd be happier if you would," whispered Bobbie.
"Then I will! The fire, jumping out, didn't hurt the cobbler one weebit, but it burned the wicked men----" Jinnie paused, gathered a deepbreath, and brought to mind Lafe's droning voice when he had used thesame words, "Burned 'em root and branch," declared she.
Bobbie's face shone with happiness.
"Is that all?" he begged.
"Isn't it enough?" asked Jinnie, with tender chiding.
"Aren't there nothin' in it about Lafe?"
"Oh, sure!" Again she was at loss for ideas, but somehow words oftheir own volition seemed to spring from her lips. "Sure there is!There's another hundred pages in that blessed book that says good menlike Lafe won't ever go into one of those chairs, never, never.... TheLord God Almighty ordered all those death chairs to be chopped up forkindling wood," she ended triumphantly.
"Shortwood?" broke out Bobbie.
Unheeding the interruption, Jinnie pursued: "They just left a chairfor wicked men, that's all."
Bobbie slipped to the floor and raised his hands.
"Jinnie, pretty Jinnie. I'm goin' to believe every word you've said,every word, and my stars're all shinin' so bright they're just likethem in the sky."
Jinnie kissed the eager little face and left the child sitting on thefloor, crooning contentedly to Happy Pete.
"Lafe told me once," Jinnie whispered to herself on the way to thekitchen, "when a lie does a lot of good, it's better than the truth iftelling facts hurts some one."
She joined Peggy, sighing, "I'm an awful liar, all right, but Bobbie'shappy."