Mrs. Grandoken shook her head.
“I dunno. It’s a boy. He was with a woman—a bad ’un, I gather. She beat ’im until the little feller ran away to find his own folks, he says—and—Jinnie brought ’im home here. She says she’s goin’ to keep ’im.” 111
The speaker drew her brown skin into a network of wrinkles.
“Where’d she find ’im?” Lafe burst forth, “Of course he can’t stay––”
Mrs. Grandoken checked the cobbler’s words with a rough gesture.
“Hush a minute! She got ’im over near the plank walk on the hill—he was cryin’ for ’is ma.”
Lafe was plainly agitated. He felt a spasmodic clutch at his heart when he imagined the sorrow of a homeless, blind child, but thinking of Peg’s struggle to make a little go a long way, he dashed his sympathy resolutely aside.
“Of course he can’t stay—he can’t!” he murmured. “It ain’t possible for you to keep ’im here.”
In his excitement Lafe bent forward and closed his hands over Peg’s massive shoulder bones. Peggy coughed hoarsely and looked away.
“Who says the kid can’t stay?” she muttered roughly. “Who said he can’t?”