“We can’t get the Kings ’cause I read in the paper last night they’re gone away West, to be gone for a year or more.... It’s a good idea, though. Some one’ll turn up, sure.”
“When they do, my man,” Peg said quickly, “don’t be takin’ any credit to yourself, ’cause you hadn’t ought to take credit for the plannin’ your sharp brains do.”
As he shook his head, smiling, she left him quickly and shut the door.
CHAPTER X
ON THE BROAD BOSOM OF THE “HAPPY IN SPITE”
Thus for one year Jinnie went forth in the morning to gather her shortwood, and to sell it in the afternoon.
Peg always gave her a biscuit to eat during her forenoon’s work, and Jinnie, going from house to house later, was often presented with a “hunk of pie,” as she afterwards told Lafe. If a housewife gave her an apple, she would take it home to the cobbler and his wife.
Late one afternoon, at the close of a bitter day, Jinnie had finished her work and was resting on the door sill of an empty house on an uptown corner.