Jinnie held her ground bravely.
“Oh, I’ll start right out and sell wood all day long, if you’ll let him stay, Peg.”
A tousled lock of yellow hair hung over Bobbie’s eyes.
“Oh, Peggy, dear, Mrs. Good Peggy, let me stay!” he moaned, swaying. “I’m so tired, s’awful tired. I can’t find my mother, nor no place, and my stars’re all out!”
Sobbing plaintively, he sank to the floor, and there the childish heart laid bare its misery. Then Jinnie, too, became quite limp, and forgetting all about “Happy in Spite,” she knelt alongside of her newly acquired friend, and the two despairing young voices rose to the woman standing over them. Jinnie thrust her arms around the little boy.
“Don’t cry, my Bobbie,” she sobbed. “I’ll go back to the hills with you, because you need me. We’ll live with the birds and squirrels, and I’ll sell wood so we c’n eat.”
When she raised her reproachful eyes to Peg, and finished with a swipe at her offending nose with her sleeve, she had never looked more beautiful, and Peggy glanced away, fearing she might weaken.
“Tell Lafe I love him, and I love you, too, Peggy. I’ll come every day and see you both, and bring you some money.”
If she had been ten years older or had spent months framing a speech to fit the need of this occasion, Jinnie could not have been more effective, for Peg’s rage entirely ebbed at these words.
“Get up, you brats,” she ordered grimly. “An’ you listen to me, Jinnie Grandoken. Your Bobbie c’n stay, but if you ever, so long as you live, bring another maimed, lame or blind creature to this house, I’ll kick it out in the street. Now both of you climb up to that table an’ eat some hot soup.” 109