“Now, Bobbie, look at me.”
Bobbie turned up a wry, tearful face.
“I’ve got my eyes on you, sir,” he wriggled.
“That’s right! Don’t you want your Jinnie to learn a lot of things and be a fine young lady?”
“She is a fine young lady now,” mumbled Bobbie stubbornly, “and she’s awful pretty.”
“True,” acquiesced Theodore, much amused, “but she must study a lot more.”
“Lafe could learn her things,” argued Bobbie, sitting up very straight. “Lafe knows everything.”
Mr. King smiled and glanced at the cobbler, but Lafe’s face was so drawn and white that Theodore looked away again. He couldn’t make it seem right that he should bring about such sorrow as this, yet the thought of Jinnie and what he wanted her to be proved a greater argument with him than the grief of her family.
“I’ve told you, sir,” Lafe repeated, “and I say again, my wife and me don’t want to stand in our girl’s light. She’ll decide when she comes home.”
Theodore got up, placing Bobbie on his feet beside him.