WHAT THE FIDDLE TOLD THEODORE
Jinnie looked very sweet when she bade farewell to Peg and Lafe the
next morning. Mr. King's car was at the door, and the cobbler watched
him as he stepped from it with a monosyllabic greeting to the girl and
helped her to the seat next to his. Peggy, too, was craning her neck
for a better view.
"They're thick as thieves," she said, with a dubious shake of her
head.
"I guess he likes 'er," chuckled Lafe. "To make a long story short,
wife, a sight like that does my eyes good!"
Mrs. Grandoken shrugged her shoulders, growled deep in her throat, and
opined they were all fools.
"An' quit doin' yourself proud, Lafe!" she grumbled. "You're grinnin'
like a Cheshire cat. 'Tain't nothin' to your credit she's goin' to
have the time of her life."
"No, 'tain't to my credit, Peggy," retorted the cobbler, "but 'tis to
yours, wife."
By the time Lafe finished this statement, Mr. King and Jinnie
Grandoken were bowling along a white road toward a hill bounding the
west side of the lake.
"See that basket down here?" said the man after a long silence.
"Yes."
"That's our picnic dinner! I brought everything I thought a little
girl with a sweet tooth might like."
Jinnie had forgotten about food. Her mind had dwelt only upon the fact
she was going to be with him all day, one of those long, beautiful
days taken from Heaven's cycle for dear friends. The country, too,
stretched in majestic splendor miles ahead of them, trees rimming the
road on each side and making a thick woodland as far as one could
see.
"I'm glad I brought my fiddle," Jinnie remarked presently.
"I am, too," said Theodore.
The place he chose for their outing was far back from the highway, and
leaving the car at one side of the road, they threaded their way
together to it. The sky above was very blue, the lake quietly
reflecting its sapphire shades. Off in the distance the high hills
gazed down upon the smaller ones, guarding them in quietude.
Theodore spread one of the auto robes on the ground, and shyly Jinnie
accepted his invitation to be seated.
"Oh, it's lovely," she said in soft monotone, glancing at the lake.
"Yes," replied Theodore dreamily.
His eyes were upon the placid water, his thoughts upon the girl at his
side. Jinnie was thinking of him, too, and there they both sat, with
passionate longing in their young hearts, watching nature's great life
go silently by.
"Play for me," Theodore said at length, without taking his eyes from
the water. "Stand by that big tree so I can look at you."
Flushed, palpitating, and beautiful, Jinnie took the position he
directed. She had come to play for him, to mimic the natural world for
his pleasure.
"Shall I play about the fairies?" she asked bashfully.
"Yes," assented King.
As on that night in his home when first she came into his life in
full sway, the man now imagined he saw creeping from under the flower
petals and from behind the tall trees, the tiny inhabitants of
Jinnie's fairyland. Then he turned his eyes toward her, and as he
watched the lithe young figure, the pensive face lost and rapt in the
lullaby, Theodore came to the greatest decision of his life. He
couldn't live without Jinnie Grandoken! No matter if she was the niece
of a cobbler, no matter who her antecedents were--she was born into
the world for him, and all that was delicate and womanly in her called
out to the manhood in him; and all that was strong, masterful, and
aggressive in him clamored to protect and shield her, and in that
fleeting moment the brilliant young bachelor suddenly lost his hold on
bachelordom, as a boy loses his hold on a kite. There are times in
every human life when such a decision as Theodore then made seemed the
beginning of everything. It was as if the past had wrapped him around
like the grey shell of a cocoon.
A loose lock of hair fell coquettishly from the girl's dark head low
upon the fiddle, and Theodore loved and wanted to kiss it, and when
the instrument dropped from under the dimpled chin, he held out his
hand.
"Come here, Jinnie," he said softly. "Come sit beside me."
She came directly, as she always did when he asked anything of her. He
drew her down close to his side, and for a long time they remained
quiet. Jinnie was facing the acme of joy. The day had only begun, and
she was with the object of her dreams. Just as when she had lived in
the hills the fiddle had held the center of her soul, so now Theodore
King occupied that sacred place. The morning light rose in her eyes,
the blue fire transforming her face.
[Illustration: "PLAY FOR ME," THEODORE SAID. "STAND BY THAT BIG TREE SO I
CAN LOOK AT YOU."]
Theodore turned, saw, and realized at that moment. He discovered in
her what he had long desired. She loved him! All the old longing, all
the strength and passion within him broke loose at the nearness of
her. Suddenly he stretched out his arms and drew her still nearer.
Jinnie felt every muscle of his strongly fibered body grow tense at
her touch. She tried to draw away from his encircling arms, but the
rise and fall of her bosom, girlishly curved--the small-girl shyness
that caused her to endeavor to unloose his strong hands, only goaded
him to press her closer.
"Don't leave me, my dearest, my sweet," he breathed, kissing her lids
and hair. "I love you! I love you!"
She gasped once, twice, and her head fell upon his breast, and for a
moment she lay wrapped in her youthful modesty as in a mantle.
"Kiss me, Jinnie," Theodore murmured entreatingly.
She buried her head closer against him.
"Kiss me," he insisted, drawing her face upward. His lips fell upon
hers, and Jinnie's eyes closed under the magic of her first kiss.
The master-passion of the man brought to sudden life corresponding
emotions in the girl--emotions that hurt and frightened her. She put
her hand to his face, and touched it. He drew back, looking into her
eyes.
"Don't," she breathed. "Don't kiss me any more like--like that."
"But you love me, my girlie, sweet?" he murmured, his lips roving over
her face in dear freedom. "You do!... You do!"
Jinnie's arms went about him, but her tongue refused to speak.
"Kiss me again!" Theodore insisted.
Oh, how she wanted to kiss him once more! How she gloried in the
strong arms, and the handsome face strung tense with his love for her!
Then their lips met in the wonders of a second kiss. Jinnie had
thought the first one could never be equaled, but as she lay limply in
his arms, his lips upon hers, she lost count of everything.
It might have been the weird effect of the shadows, or the deep,
sudden silence about them that drew the girl slowly from his arms.
"I want my fiddle," she whispered. "Let me go!"
Faint were the inflections of the words; insistent the drawing back of
the dear warm body.
Theodore permitted her to get up, and with staggering step she took
her position at the tree trunk.
Then he sank down, hot blood coursing through his veins. Long ago he
had realized in Jinnie and the fiddle essentials--essentials to his
future and his happiness, and to-day her kisses and divine, womanly
yielding had only strengthened that realization. Nothing now was of
any importance to him save this vibrant, temperamental girl. There was
something so delightfully young--so pricelessly dear in the way she
had surrendered herself to him. The outside world faded from his
memory as Jinnie closed her eyes, and with a very white face began to
play. For that day she had finished with the song of the fairies, the
babbling of the brook, and the nodding rhythm of the flowers in the
summer's breeze. All that she considered now was Theodore and his
kisses. The bow came down over a string with one long, vibrating,
passionate call. It expressed the awakening of the girl's
soul--awakened by the touch of a man's turbulent lips--Jinnie's
God-given man. Her fiddle knew it--felt it--expressed it!
With that first seductive kiss the soul-stirring melody was full born
within her, as a world is called into the firmament by one spoken word
of God. And as she played, Theodore moved silently toward her, for the
fiddle was flashing out the fervor of the kisses she had given him.
He was close at her feet before he spoke, and simultaneously the white
lids opened in one blue, blue glance.
"Jinnie!" breathed Theodore, getting up and holding out his arms.
"Come to me! Come to me, my love! I can't live another moment without
you."
The bow and fiddle remained unnoticed for the next half hour, while
the two, the new woman and the new man, were but conscious of one
another, nothing else.
At length Theodore spoke.
"Jinnie, look up and say, 'Theodore, I love you'."
It was hard at first, because her mind had never reached the point of
speaking aloud her passionate love for him, but Theodore heard the
halting words, and droned them over to himself, as a music lover
delights in his favorite strains.
"And you love me well enough to marry me some day?" he murmured.
Marry him! This, too, was a new thought. Jinnie's heart fluttered like
a bird in her breast. To be with him always? To have him for her own?
Of course, he was hers, and she was his! Then into her mind came the
thought of Lafe, Peggy, and Bobbie, and the arms around him relaxed.
"I love you better'n anybody in the world," she told him,
pathetically, "but I can't ever leave the cobbler.... They need me
there."
"They can't keep you," he cried passionately. "I want you myself."
His vehemence subdued her utterly. She glanced into his face. In his
flashing eyes, Jinnie read a power inimitable and unsurpassed.
"I couldn't ever leave 'em," she repeated, quivering, "but couldn't
they live----"
"We'd take the little blind boy," promised Theodore.
Jinnie remained pensive. To bring the shine in her eyes once more, he
said:
"Wouldn't you like Bobbie to live with us?"
"Yes, of course; but I couldn't leave Lafe and Peg in Paradise Road."
Theodore surrounded the entreating, uplifted face with two strong
hands.
"I know that. We'll take care of them all----"
Still Jinnie held back her full surrender.
"Can I take Happy Pete, too? And the cats? There's an awful lot of
'em.... Milly Ann does have so many kitties," she ended naïvely.
Theodore laughed delightedly.
"Dearest little heart! Of course we'll take them all, every one you
love!"
"Will you tell Lafe about--about us?" Jinnie asked shyly, "I--I----"
but she had no more time to finish.
"I'll tell him to-morrow, Jinnie!" exclaimed Theodore. "Are you happy,
dearest?"
"So happy," she sighed, with loving assurance.
The rest of the day they were like two frolicking children, eating
their luncheon under the tall trees. When the shadows fell, they left
their trysting place, and with their arms about each other, went
slowly back to the automobile.