JUST A JEW
When the cobbler was at work again, Virginia, after picking up a few
nails and tacks scattered on the floor, sat down.
"Would you like to hear something about me and Peggy, lassie?" he
inquired, "an' will you take my word for things?"
Jinnie nodded trustfully. She had already grown to love the cobbler,
and her affection grew stronger as she stated:
"There isn't anything you'd tell me, cobbler, I wouldn't believe!"
With slow importance Lafe put down his hammer.
"I'm a Israelite," he announced.
"What's that?" asked the girl, immediately interested.
The cobbler looked over his spectacles and smiled.
"A Jew, just a plain Jew."
"I don't know what a Jew is either," confessed Jinnie.
Lafe groped for words to explain his meaning.
"A Jew," he ventured presently, "is one of God's----chosen----folks. I
mean one of them chose by Him to believe."
"Believe what?"
"All that God said would be," explained Lafe, reverently.
"And you believe it, cobbler?"
"Sure, kid; sure."
The shoemaker saw a question mirrored in the depths of the violet
eyes.
"And thinking that way makes you happy, eh, Mr. Lafe? Does it make you
smile the way you do at girls without homes?"
As she put this question sincerely to him, Jinnie reminded the cobbler
of a beautiful flower lifting its proud head to the sun. In his
experience with young people, he had never seen a girl like this one.
"It makes me happier'n anything!" he replied, cheerfully. "The
wonderful part is I wouldn't know about it if I hadn't lost my legs.
I'll tell you about it, lass."
Jinnie settled back contentedly.
"A long time ago," began Mr. Grandoken, "God led a bunch of Jews out
of a town where a king was torturin' 'em----"
The listener's eyes darkened in sympathy.
"They was made to do a lot of things that hurt 'em; their babies and
women, too."
Jinnie leaned forward and covered the horny hand with her slender
fingers.
"Have you ever had any babies, Lafe?" she ventured.
A perceptible shadow crossed the man's face.
"Yes," said he hesitatingly. "Me and Peggy had a boy--a little fellow
with curly hair--a Jew baby. Peggy always let me call him a Jew baby,
though he was part Irish."
"Oh!" gasped Jinnie, radiantly.
"I was a big fellow then, kid, with fine, strong legs, an' nights,
when I'd come home, I'd carry the little chap about."
The cobbler's eyes glistened with the memory, but shadowed almost
instantly.
"But one day----" he hesitated.
The pause brought an exclamation from the girl.
"And one day--what?" she demanded.
"He died; that's all," and Lafe gazed unseeingly at the snow-covered
tracks.
"And you buried him?" asked Virginia, softly.
"Yes, an' the fault was mostly mine, Jinnie. I ain't had no way to
make it up to Peggy, but there's lots of to-morrows."
"You'll make her happy then?" ejaculated the girl.
"Yes," said Lafe, "an' I might a done it then, but I wouldn't listen
to the voices."
A look of bewildered surprise crossed the girl's face. Were they
spirit voices, the voices in the pines, of which Lafe was speaking?
She'd ask him.
"God's voices out of Heaven," said he, in answer to her query. "They
come every night, but I wouldn't listen, till one day my boy was took.
Then I heard another voice, demandin' me to tell folks what was what
about God. But I was afraid an' a--coward."
The cobbler lapsed into serious thought, while Virginia moved a small
nail back and forth on the floor with the toe of her shoe. She
wouldn't cry again, but something in the low, sad voice made her
throat ache. After the man had been quiet for a long time, she pressed
him with:
"After that, Lafe, what then?"
"After that," repeated the cobbler, straightening his shoulders,
"after that my legs went bad an' then--an' then----"
Virginia, very pale, went to the cobbler, and laid her head against
his shoulder.
"An' then, child," he breathed huskily, "I believed, an' I know, as
well as I'm livin', God sent his Christ for everybody; that in the
lovin' father"--Lafe raised his eyes--"there's no line drawed 'tween
Jews an' Gentiles. They're all alike to Him. Only some're goin' one
road an' some another to get to Him, that's all."
These were quite new ideas to Virginia. In all her young life no one
had ever conversed with her of such things. True, from her hill home
on clear Sunday mornings she could hear the church bells ding-dong
their hoarse welcome to the farmers, but she had never been inside the
church doors. Now she regretted the lost opportunity. She wished to
grasp the cobbler's meaning. Noting her tense expression, Grandoken
continued:
"It was only a misunderstandin' 'tween a few Jews when they nailed the
Christ to the cross. Why, a lot of Israelites back there believed in
'im. I'm one of them believin' Jews, Jinnie."
"I wish I was a Jew, cobbler," sighed Jinnie. "I'd think the same as
you then, wouldn't I?"
"Oh, you don't have to be a Jew to believe," returned Lafe. "It's as
easy to do as 'tis to roll off'n a log."
This lame man filled her young heart with a deep longing to help him
and to have him help her.
"You're going to teach me all about it, ain't you, Lafe?" she
entreated presently.
"Sure! Sure! You see, it's this way: Common, everyday folks--them with
narrer minds--ain't much use for my kind of Jews. I'm livin' here in a
mess of 'em. Most of 'em's shortwood gatherers. When I found out about
the man on the cross, I told it right out loud to 'em all. ... You're
one of 'em. You're a Gentile, Jinnie."
"I'm sorry," said the girl sadly.
"Oh, you needn't be. Peg's one, too, but she's got God's mark on her
soul as big as any of them women belongin' to Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob----I ain't sure but it's a mite bigger."
The speaker worked a while, bringing the nails from his lips in rapid,
even succession. Peg was the one bright spot that shone out of his
wonderful yesterdays. She was the one link that fastened him securely
to a useful to-morrow.
Virginia counted the nails mechanically as they were driven into the
leather, and as the last one disappeared, she said:
"Are you always happy, Lafe, when you're smiling? Why, you
smile--when--even when--" she stammered, caught her breath, and
finished, "even when Mrs. Peggy barks."
An amused laugh came from the cobbler's lips.
"That's 'cause I know her, lass," said he. "Why, when I first found
out about the good God takin' charge of Jews an' Gentiles alike, I
told it to Peg, an', my, how she did hop up an' down, right in the
middle of the floor. She said I was meddlin' into things that had took
men of brains a million years to fix up.
"But I knew it as well as anything," he continued. "God's love is
right in your heart, right there----" He bent over and gently touched
the girl.
She looked up surprised.
"I heard He was setting on a great high throne up in Heaven," she
whispered, glancing up, "and he scowled dead mad when folks were
wicked."
Lafe smiled, shook his head, and picked up his hammer.
"No," said he. "No, no! He's right around me, an' He's right around
you, an' everything a feller does or has comes from Him."
Virginia's thoughts went back to an episode of the country.
"Does He help a kid knock hell out of another kid when that kid is
beating a littler kid?"
Her eyes were so earnest, so deep in question, that the cobbler
lowered his head. Not for the world would he have smiled at Virginia's
original question. He scarcely knew how to answer, but presently
said:
"Well, I guess it's all right to help them who ain't as big as
yourself, but it ain't the best thing in the world to gad any one."
"Oh, I never licked any of 'em," Jinnie assured him. "I just wanted to
find out, that's all."
"What'd you do when other kids beat the littler ones?" demanded the
cobbler.
"Just shoved 'em down on the ground and set on 'em, damn 'em!"
answered Jinnie.
Lafe raised his eyes slowly.
"I was wonderin' if I dared give you a lesson, lass," he began in a
low voice.
"I wish you would," replied Virginia, eagerly. "I'd love anything
you'd tell me."
"Well, I was wonderin' if you knew it was wicked to swear?"
Like a shot came a pang through her breast. She had offended her
friend.
"Wicked? Wicked?" she gasped. "You say it's wicked to swear,
cobbler?"
Lafe nodded. "Sure, awful wicked," he affirmed.
Virginia took a long breath.
"I didn't know it," she murmured. "Father said it wasn't polite, but
that's nothing. How is it wicked, cobbler?"
Lafe put two nails into position in the leather sole and drove them
deep; then he laid down the hammer again.
"You remember my tellin' you this morning of the man with angels,
white angels, hoverin' about the earth helpin' folks?"
"Yes," answered Virginia.
"Well, He said it was wicked."
An awe-stricken glance fell upon the speaker.
"Did He tell you so, Lafe?"
"Yes," said Lafe. "It ain't a question of politeness at all, but just
bein' downright wicked. See, kid?"
"Yes, cobbler, I do now," Jinnie answered, hanging her head. "Nobody
but Matty ever told me nothing before. I guess she didn't know much
about angels, though."
"Well," continued Lafe, going back to his story, "God give his little
boy Jesus to a mighty good man an' a fine woman--as fine as Peg--to
bring up. An' Joseph trundled the little feller about just as I did my
little Lafe, an' bye-an'-bye when the boy grew, He worked as his
Father in Heaven wanted him to. The good God helped Joseph an' Mary to
bring the Christ down face to face with us--Jews an' Gentiles alike."
"With you and me?" breathed Virginia, solemnly.
"With you an' me, child," repeated the cobbler in subdued tones.
Virginia walked to the window and drummed on the pane. Through mere
force of habit the cobbler bent his head and caught the tacks between
his teeth. He did it mechanically; he was thinking of the future. In
the plan of events which Lafe had worked out for himself and Peg,
there was but one helper, and each day some new demonstration came to
make his faith the brighter. In the midst of his meditation, Jinnie
returned to her seat.
"Cobbler, will you do something I ask you?"
"Sure," assented Lafe.
"Get busy trusting Peg'll get the two dollars to-night."
"I have long ago, child, an' she's goin' to get it, too. That's one
blessin' about believin'. No one nor nobody can keep you from gettin'
what's your own."
"Mrs. Peggy doesn't think that way," remarked Virginia, with keen
memories of Mrs. Grandoken's snapping teeth.
"No, not yet, but I'm trustin' she will. You see how 'tis in this
shop. Folks is poor around here. I trust 'em all, Jews and Gentiles
alike, but Peg thinks I ought to have the money the minute the work's
done. But I know no man can keep my money from me, so I soothe her
down till she don't whine any more. That's how I know her bark's
worser'n her bite. Didn't I tell you about the biscuit?"
"Yes," replied Virginia, "and I hope it'll only be bark about the
money; what if she didn't get it?"
"She'll get it," assured Lafe, positively.
Just before bed time Lafe whispered in Jinnie's ear, "Peggy got the
two! I told you she would. God's good, child, and we've all got Him in
us alike."
And that night, as the air waxed colder and colder, Virginia
Singleton, daughter of the rich, slept her tired sleep amid the
fighters of the world.