Rose O'Paradise

by Grace Miller White

  CHAPTER XLVII

  BOBBIE'S STARS RENEW THEIR SHINING

  Jinnie stood rooted to the spot, the burden on her back bearingheavily upon her. She scarcely dared breathe, but kept her startledeyes upon the advancing man. Her uncle was walking with his head down.As he approached the building, a terrible shiver passed over the blindboy.

  "The black man's comin'!" he shuddered. "I hear----"

  "Hush!" whispered Jinnie, and Bobbie dropped his head and remainedquiet.

  The girl's heart was thumping almost as fast as his.

  In the oppressive silence she heard Bobbie's faint whisper: "Our--ourFather who art in Heaven," and her own lips murmured: "He has givenhis angels charge over thee."

  Without raising his eyes, Jordan Morse sprang to the steps and enteredthe door.

  Jinnie turned her head and almost mechanically watched him disappear.Then she took one long, sobbing breath.

  "Bobbie, Bobbie," she panted, "get down quick!"

  The boy slid to the plank, dropping Happy Pete.

  Jinnie grasped the child's cold hand in hers, and they ran rapidly toa thick clump of trees. Once out of sight of the building, she pickedup the little dog and sank down, clutching Bobbie close to herheart.

  The beginning of the second day of Lafe's trial brought a large crowdto the courthouse. All the evidence thus far given had been againsthim, but he sat in his wheelchair, looking quietly from under hisshaggy brows, and never once, with all that was said against him, didthe sweet, benevolent expression change to anger. The cobbler had puthis life into higher hands than those in the courtroom, and he fearednot.

  After the morning session, Jordan Morse left the room with a satisfiedsmile. He walked rapidly to the streetcar and took a seat, with athoughtful expression on his countenance. Lafe would be convicted, andhe would get rid of the girl now shut away from the world in the gorgebuilding. Then, with the money that would be his, he'd find hischild,--the little boy who was his own and for whom he so longed. Heoften looked at Molly and wondered how she could smile so radiantlywhen she knew she had lost her child,--her own flesh and blood,--herown little son.

  Even after he left the car and was approaching the gorge, he worriedabout the two in the house. It was because his mind was bent onimportant plans that he did not see Jinnie swinging in the sunshinebetween heaven and earth. He climbed the stairs, framing a sentencefor the girl's benefit. As he unlocked the door, the silence of theroom bore down upon him like an evil thing. He went hurriedly into thesecond room, only to find it also empty. For the moment he did notnotice the shattered glass on the floor, and his heart sank withinhim, but the breeze that drifted to his face brought his eyes to thebroken window. With an oath, he jumped to it and looked out. Farbelow, the water tumbled as of yore over the rocks. He strainedhorrified eyes for a glimpse of a human body. The girl and boy musthave dropped together into the deep abyss, preferring death touncertainty. They were gone--gone over the ragged rocks, where theirbodies would be lost in some of the fathomless juts a mile beyond. Hewould never be bothered with Jinnie again. Then he turned from thewindow. His most terrifying obstacle was out of his way. The blindchild did not concern him. He was but a feather in the wind,--thelittle fellow who always shrank from him.

  As if leaving a tomb, he went softly from the room and turned the keyin the lock with a sigh. Jinnie had relieved him of an awfulresponsibility. At least fate had taken from his hands a detestabletask, at which he had many a time recoiled. So far all of his enemies,with the exception of Theodore King, had one by one been taken away,and he swung himself out of the building with a great burden liftedfrom his shoulders.

  As he passed, Jinnie was still drawing long breaths under the thickbushes, Bobbie's face against her breast, and it was not until she wassure Morse had gone that she ventured to speak.

  "We're going to Lafe and Peg, Bobbie," she said. "Can you walk a longway?"

  "Yes," gurgled Bobbie, color flaming his face. "My legs'll go faster'nanything."

  And "faster'n anything" those thin little legs did go. The boy trottedalong beside his friend, down the hill to the flats. Jinnie chose aback street leading to the lower end of the town.

  "I'd better carry you a while, dearie," she offered presently, notingwith what difficulty he breathed. "You take the fiddle!" And withoutremonstrance from the boy she lifted him in her arms.

  From the tracks Lafe's small house had the appearance of beingunoccupied. Jinnie went in, walking from the shop to the kitchen,where she called "Peggy!" two or three times. Then the thought of thecobbler's trial rushed over her. Peggy and the baby were at court withLafe, of course.

  Knowing she must face her uncle in the courtroom, she went to Lafe'sblack box and drew forth the sealed letter her father had sent toGrandoken. This she hid in her dress, and taking Bobbie and thefiddle, she went out and closed the door.

  Another long walk brought them to the courthouse, which stood insolemn stone silence, with one side to the dark, iron-barred jail.Jinnie shivered when she thought of the weary months Lafe had satwithin his gloomy cell.

  She entered the building, holding Bobbie's hand. Every seat in theroom was filled, and a man was making a speech, using the names ofMaudlin Bates and Lafe Grandoken.

  Then she looked about once more, craning her neck to catch sight ofthose ahead. Her eyes fell first upon Lafe, God bless him! There hesat, her cobbler, in the same old wheelchair, wearing that look ofbenign patience so familiar to her. Only a little distance from himsat Peggy, the baby sleeping on her knees. Molly the Merry was seatednext to Jordan Morse, whose large white hand nervously clutched theback of the woman's chair.

  Several stern-looking men at a table had numerous papers over whichthey were bending. Then Jinnie's gaze found Jasper Bates. She couldsee, by the look upon his face, that he was suffering. She felt sorry,sorry for any one who was in trouble, who had lost a son in such amanner as Jasper had. Then she awoke to the import of the lawyer'swords.

  "Before you, Gentlemen of the Jury," he was saying, "is a murderer, aJew, Lafe Grandoken. You know very well the reputation of the peopleon Paradise Road. The good book says 'a life for a life.' This Jewshot and killed his neighbor----"

  Jinnie lost his next words. She was looking at Lafe, and saw his dearface grow white with stabbing anguish. The girl's throat filled withsobs, and she suddenly remembered something Theodore had once said toher.

  "If you want anything, child, just play for it."

  And she wanted the life of her cobbler, the man who had taken her,with such generosity, into his heart and meagre home. She slipped thefiddle from the case and stooped and whispered in Bobbie's ear:

  "Grab the back of my dress, dearie, and don't let go!"

  She moved into the aisle, making ready to start on her life mission.She lifted the bow, and with a long sweep, drew an intense minor notefrom the strings. A sea of faces swung in her direction. Jinnie forgotevery one but the cobbler--she was playing for his life--improvisingon the fiddle strings a wild, pleading, imploring melody. On and onshe went, with Blind Bobbie, in trembling confusion, clinging to herskirts, and Happy Pete with sagging head at their heels. At the firstsound of the fiddle Lafe tried to rise, and did rise. He stood for amoment on his shaking legs, and there, to the amazement of the gapingcrowd of his townsfolk, he swayed to and fro, watching and listeningas the wonderful music filled and thrilled through the room.

  A heavenly light shone on the wrinkled face.

  Jordan Morse got to his feet, chalk white. Molly the Merry was lookingat Jinnie as if she saw a ghost.

  The onlookers saw Lafe's unsteady steps as he tottered toward thelovely girl and blind child. When he was within touching distance, sheput the instrument and bow under one arm and took Lafe's hand in hers.Her voice rang out like the tone of a bell.

  "I've come for you, Lafe. I've come to take you back."

  Then Molly's eyes dropped from Jinnie to the boy, and a cry broke fromher. Before her was the child for whom, in spite of the evidence ofher smil
ing lips, she had truly mourned. The wan, blind face wasturned upward, the golden hair lying in damp curls on the lovely head.Spontaneously the woman reached forward and took the little hand inhers. All the mother within her leaped up, like a brilliant flash oflightning.

  "My baby!" was all she said; and Bobbie, white, trembling andpalpitating, cried in a weird, high voice:

  "I've found my mother!"

  Then Jordan Morse understood. The hot blood was tearing to his eardrums. The blind boy he had persecuted and tortured, the boy he hadmade suffer, was his own son. That wonderful quality in the man, thefatherhood within him, rose in surging insistence. Instant remorseattacked him, as an oak is attacked by fierce winter storms. He sawthe boy's angelic face grow the color of death; saw Molly the Merrygather him up. Then a stab of jealousy cut his heart like a knife. Hebent over with set jaws.

  "Give him to me," he cried. "He's mine!"

  Molly surrendered the child with reluctance, but terror and frightwere depicted upon Bobbie's face.

  "Jinnie! Lafe! Peggy!" he screamed. "He'll hurt me! The black man'sgoin' to kill me! Jinnie, pretty Jinnie----"

  The passionate voice grew faint and ceased. Then the loving littleheart burst in the boyish bosom, and Bobbie's angels bore away hisyoung soul to another world where blindness is not,--where hisuplifted being would understand that the stars he'd loved,--the starshe'd gathered in his small, unseeing head,--were but a reflection ofthose in God's firmament. With one final quiver he straightened out inhis father's arms and was silent. All his loves and sorrows were inthe eternal yesterdays, and to-day had delivered him into the chargeof Lafe's angels.

  Jinnie was crying hysterically, and her father's dying curse upon heruncle leapt into her mind. She was clinging to the cobbler, and bothhad moved to Peg, where the woman sat as if turned to stone.

  Not a person in the courtroom stirred. In consternation the jury satin their chairs like graven images, taking in the freshly wroughttragedy with tense expressions. The judge, too, leaned forward in hischair, watching.

  Jordan Morse faced the room, with its silent, observant crowd,pressing to his breast the dead body of his child. Then he turned toLafe, white, twitching, and suffering.

  "I shot Maudlin Bates," he said, haltingly; then turning to the juryhe continued: "The cobbler's an innocent man----"

  A menacing groan fell from a hundred lips at his words.

  He deliberately took from his hip pocket a revolver, lifted the weaponand finished:

  "I'm--I'm sorry, Jinnie, I'm----"

  Then came the sharp, short bark of the gun, and the bullet found apath to his brain. He staggered, frantically clutching the slenderbody of Bobbie closer--and toppled over.