Lafe’s homecoming was one of solemn rejoicing. The only shadow hanging over the happy family was the absence of Blind Bobbie, who now lay by the side of his dead father.
After the first greetings, Lafe took his boy baby and pressed him gratefully to his heart.
“He’s beautiful, Peggy dear, ain’t he?” he implored, drinking in with affectionate, fatherly eyes the rosy little face. “Wife darlin’, make a long story short an’ tell me he’s beautiful.”
Mrs. Grandoken eyed her husband sternly.
“Lafe,” she admonished, “you’re as full of brag as a egg is of meat, and salt won’t save you. All your life you’ve boasted till I thought the world’d come to an end, an’ I ain’t never said a word against it. Now you can’t teach me none of your bad habits, because I won’t learn ’em, so don’t try.” She paused, her lips lifting a little at the corners, and went on: “But I’m tellin’ you with my own lips there ain’t a beautifuller baby in this county’n this little feller, nor one half so beautiful! So there’s my mind, sir.”
“’Tis so, dear,” murmured the cobbler, rejoicing.
About five o’clock in the afternoon, while Peggy was uptown replenishing the slender larder and Lafe and Jinnie were alone with the baby, there came a timid knock. 335
Jinnie went to the door and there stood Molly Merriweather. The woman’s face was white and drawn, her eyes darkly circled underneath.
One glance at her and Jinnie lost her own color.
“I want to speak with you just a moment,” the woman said beseechingly. “May I come in?”