PEG'S BARK
Virginia and Lafe Grandoken sat for some time with nothing but the
tick-tack of the hammer to break the silence.
"It bein' the first time you've visited us, kid," broke in the man,
pausing, "you can't be knowin' just what's made us live this way."
Virginia made a negative gesture and smiled, settling herself
hopefully for a story, but Lafe brought a frightened expression
quickly to her face by his low, even voice, and the ominous meaning of
his words.
"Me an' Peg's awful poor," said he.
"Then mebbe I'd better not stay, Mr. Lafe," faltered Jinnie.
The cobbler threaded his fingers through his hair.
"The shanty's awful small," he interjected, thoughtfully.
"I think it's awful nice, though," offered the girl. Some thought
closed her blue eyes, but they flashed open instantly.
"Cobbler," she faltered, "is Mrs. Peggy mad when she grits her teeth
and wags her head?"
As if by its own volition the cobbler's hammer stayed itself in the
air.
"No," he smiled, "just when she acts the worst is when she's likely to
do her best ... I've knowed Peggy this many a year."
"She was a wee little bit cross to me," commented the girl.
"Was she? I didn't hear anything she said."
"I'll tell you, then, Mr. Lafe," said Virginia. "When I was standing
by the fire warming my hands, she come bustling out and looked awful
mad. She said something about folks keeping their girls to home."
"Well, what after that?" asked the cobbler, as Jinnie hesitated.
"She said she could see me eating my head off, and as long as I had to
hide from my uncle, I wouldn't be able to earn my salt."
"Well, that's right," affirmed the cobbler, wagging his head. "You got
to keep low for a while. Your Uncle Morse knows a lot of folks in this
town."
"But they don't know me," said Virginia.
"That's good," remarked Lafe.
As he said this, Peg opened the door roughly and ordered them in to
breakfast.
Virginia sat beside the cobbler at the meager meal. On the table were
three bowls of hot mush. As the fragrant odor rose to her nostrils,
waves of joy crept slowly through the young body.
"Peggy 'lowed you'd be hungry, kid," said the cobbler, pushing a bowl
in front of her.
Mrs. Grandoken interrupted her husband with a growl.
"If I've any mem'ry, you 'lowed it yourself, Lafe Grandoken," she
muttered.
A smile deepened on the cobbler's face and a slight flush rose to his
forehead.
"I 'lowed it, too, Peggy dear," he said.
"Eat your mush," snapped the woman, "an', Lafe, don't 'Peggy dear' me.
I hate it; see?"
Virginia refused to believe the startling words. She would have
adored being called "dear." In Lafe's voice, great love rang out; in
the woman's, she scarcely knew what. She glanced from one to the other
as the cobbler lifted his head. He was always thanking some one in
some unknown place for the priceless gift of his woman.
"I'll 'Peggy dear' you whenever I feel like it, wife," he said
gravely, "for God knows you're awful dear to me, Peg."
Mrs. Grandoken ignored his speech, but when she returned from the
stove, her voice was a little more gentle.
"You can both stuff your innards with hot mush. You can't starve on
that.... Here, kid, sit a little nearer!"
So Virginia Singleton, the lame cobbler, and Peggy began their first
meal, facing a new day, which to Lafe was yesterday's to-morrow.
A little later Virginia followed the wheel chair into the cobbler's
shop. Peggy grumblingly left them to return to her duties in the
kitchen.
"Terrible cold day this," Lafe observed, picking up a shoe. "The
wind's blowin' forty miles the hour."
Virginia's next remark was quite irrelevant to the wind.
"I'm hoping Mrs. Peggy'll get the money she was talking about."
"Did she tell you she needed some?"
Virginia nodded, and when she spoke again, her tongue was parched and
dry.
"She said she had to have money to-night. I hope she gets it; if she
doesn't I can't stay and live with you."
"I hope she gets it, too," sighed the cobbler.
Of a sudden a thought seemed to strike him. The girl noticed it and
looked a question.
"Peggy's bark's worser'n her bite," Lafe explained in answer. "She's
like a lot of them little pups that do a lot of barkin' but wouldn't
set their teeth in a biscuit."
"Does that mean," Jinnie asked eagerly, "if she don't get the two
dollars to-night, Mrs. Peggy might let me stay?"
"That's just what it means," replied Lafe, making loud whacks on the
sole of a shoe. "You'll stay, all right."
The depth of Virginia's gratitude just then could only be estimated by
one who had passed through the same fires of deep uncertainty, and in
the ardor of it she flung her arms around the cobbler's neck and
kissed him.
* * * * *
When Lafe, with useless legs, had been brought home to his wife, she
had stoically taken up the burden that had been his. At her husband's
suggestion that he should cobble, Mrs. Grandoken had fitted up the
little shop, telling him grimly that every hand in the world should do
its share. And that was how Lafe Grandoken, laborer and optimist,
began his life's great work--of cobbling a ray of comfort to every
soul entering the shack. Sometimes he would insist that the sun shone
brighter than the day before; then again that the clouds had a cooling
effect. But if in the world outside Lafe found no comfort, he always
spoke of to-morrow with a ring of hope in his voice.
Hope for another day was all Lafe had save Peggy, and to him these
two--hope and the woman--were Heaven's choicest gifts. Now Peggy
didn't realize all these things, because the world, with its trials
and vicissitudes, gave her a different aspect of life, and she was not
in even her ordinary good humor this day as she prepared the midday
meal. Her mind was busy with thoughts of the new burden which the
morning had brought.
Generally Lafe consulted her about any problem that presented itself
before him, but, that day, he had taken a young stranger into their
home, and Mrs. Grandoken had used all kinds of arguments to persuade
him to send the girl away. Peggy didn't want another mouth to feed.
She didn't care for any one in the world but Lafe anyway.
When the dinner was on the table, she grimly brought her husband's
wheel chair to the kitchen. Virginia, by the cobbler's invitation,
followed.
"Any money paid in to-day?" asked Peggy gruffly, drawing the cobbler
to his place at the table.
"No," he said, smiling up at her, "but there'll be a lot to-morrow....
Is there some bread for----for Jinnie, too?"
Peggy replied by sticking her fork into a biscuit and pushing it off
on Virginia's plate with her finger.
Virginia acknowledged it with a shy upward glance. Peg's stolid face
and quick, insistent movements filled her with vague discomfort. If
the woman had tempered her harsh, "Take it, kid," with a smile, the
little girl's heart might have ached less.
Lafe nodded to her when his wife left the room for a moment.
"That biscuit's Peg's bite," said he, "so she'll bark a lot the rest
of the day, but don't you mind."