BOBBIE'S STARS RENEW THEIR SHINING
Jinnie stood rooted to the spot, the burden on her back bearing
heavily upon her. She scarcely dared breathe, but kept her startled
eyes upon the advancing man. Her uncle was walking with his head down.
As he approached the building, a terrible shiver passed over the blind
boy.
"The black man's comin'!" he shuddered. "I hear----"
"Hush!" whispered Jinnie, and Bobbie dropped his head and remained
quiet.
The girl's heart was thumping almost as fast as his.
In the oppressive silence she heard Bobbie's faint whisper: "Our--our
Father who art in Heaven," and her own lips murmured: "He has given
his angels charge over thee."
Without raising his eyes, Jordan Morse sprang to the steps and entered
the door.
Jinnie turned her head and almost mechanically watched him disappear.
Then she took one long, sobbing breath.
"Bobbie, Bobbie," she panted, "get down quick!"
The boy slid to the plank, dropping Happy Pete.
Jinnie grasped the child's cold hand in hers, and they ran rapidly to
a thick clump of trees. Once out of sight of the building, she picked
up the little dog and sank down, clutching Bobbie close to her
heart.
The beginning of the second day of Lafe's trial brought a large crowd
to the courthouse. All the evidence thus far given had been against
him, but he sat in his wheelchair, looking quietly from under his
shaggy brows, and never once, with all that was said against him, did
the sweet, benevolent expression change to anger. The cobbler had put
his life into higher hands than those in the courtroom, and he feared
not.
After the morning session, Jordan Morse left the room with a satisfied
smile. He walked rapidly to the streetcar and took a seat, with a
thoughtful expression on his countenance. Lafe would be convicted, and
he would get rid of the girl now shut away from the world in the gorge
building. Then, with the money that would be his, he'd find his
child,--the little boy who was his own and for whom he so longed. He
often looked at Molly and wondered how she could smile so radiantly
when she knew she had lost her child,--her own flesh and blood,--her
own little son.
Even after he left the car and was approaching the gorge, he worried
about the two in the house. It was because his mind was bent on
important plans that he did not see Jinnie swinging in the sunshine
between heaven and earth. He climbed the stairs, framing a sentence
for the girl's benefit. As he unlocked the door, the silence of the
room bore down upon him like an evil thing. He went hurriedly into the
second room, only to find it also empty. For the moment he did not
notice the shattered glass on the floor, and his heart sank within
him, but the breeze that drifted to his face brought his eyes to the
broken window. With an oath, he jumped to it and looked out. Far
below, the water tumbled as of yore over the rocks. He strained
horrified eyes for a glimpse of a human body. The girl and boy must
have dropped together into the deep abyss, preferring death to
uncertainty. They were gone--gone over the ragged rocks, where their
bodies would be lost in some of the fathomless juts a mile beyond. He
would never be bothered with Jinnie again. Then he turned from the
window. His most terrifying obstacle was out of his way. The blind
child did not concern him. He was but a feather in the wind,--the
little fellow who always shrank from him.
As if leaving a tomb, he went softly from the room and turned the key
in the lock with a sigh. Jinnie had relieved him of an awful
responsibility. At least fate had taken from his hands a detestable
task, at which he had many a time recoiled. So far all of his enemies,
with the exception of Theodore King, had one by one been taken away,
and he swung himself out of the building with a great burden lifted
from his shoulders.
As he passed, Jinnie was still drawing long breaths under the thick
bushes, Bobbie's face against her breast, and it was not until she was
sure Morse had gone that she ventured to speak.
"We're going to Lafe and Peg, Bobbie," she said. "Can you walk a long
way?"
"Yes," gurgled Bobbie, color flaming his face. "My legs'll go faster'n
anything."
And "faster'n anything" those thin little legs did go. The boy trotted
along beside his friend, down the hill to the flats. Jinnie chose a
back street leading to the lower end of the town.
"I'd better carry you a while, dearie," she offered presently, noting
with what difficulty he breathed. "You take the fiddle!" And without
remonstrance from the boy she lifted him in her arms.
From the tracks Lafe's small house had the appearance of being
unoccupied. Jinnie went in, walking from the shop to the kitchen,
where she called "Peggy!" two or three times. Then the thought of the
cobbler's trial rushed over her. Peggy and the baby were at court with
Lafe, of course.
Knowing she must face her uncle in the courtroom, she went to Lafe's
black box and drew forth the sealed letter her father had sent to
Grandoken. This she hid in her dress, and taking Bobbie and the
fiddle, she went out and closed the door.
Another long walk brought them to the courthouse, which stood in
solemn stone silence, with one side to the dark, iron-barred jail.
Jinnie shivered when she thought of the weary months Lafe had sat
within his gloomy cell.
She entered the building, holding Bobbie's hand. Every seat in the
room was filled, and a man was making a speech, using the names of
Maudlin Bates and Lafe Grandoken.
Then she looked about once more, craning her neck to catch sight of
those ahead. Her eyes fell first upon Lafe, God bless him! There he
sat, her cobbler, in the same old wheelchair, wearing that look of
benign patience so familiar to her. Only a little distance from him
sat Peggy, the baby sleeping on her knees. Molly the Merry was seated
next to Jordan Morse, whose large white hand nervously clutched the
back of the woman's chair.
Several stern-looking men at a table had numerous papers over which
they were bending. Then Jinnie's gaze found Jasper Bates. She could
see, by the look upon his face, that he was suffering. She felt sorry,
sorry for any one who was in trouble, who had lost a son in such a
manner as Jasper had. Then she awoke to the import of the lawyer's
words.
"Before you, Gentlemen of the Jury," he was saying, "is a murderer, a
Jew, Lafe Grandoken. You know very well the reputation of the people
on Paradise Road. The good book says 'a life for a life.' This Jew
shot and killed his neighbor----"
Jinnie lost his next words. She was looking at Lafe, and saw his dear
face grow white with stabbing anguish. The girl's throat filled with
sobs, and she suddenly remembered something Theodore had once said to
her.
"If you want anything, child, just play for it."
And she wanted the life of her cobbler, the man who had taken her,
with such generosity, into his heart and meagre home. She slipped the
fiddle from the case and stooped and whispered in Bobbie's ear:
"Grab the back of my dress, dearie, and don't let go!"
She moved into the aisle, making ready to start on her life mission.
She lifted the bow, and with a long sweep, drew an intense minor note
from the strings. A sea of faces swung in her direction. Jinnie forgot
every one but the cobbler--she was playing for his life--improvising
on the fiddle strings a wild, pleading, imploring melody. On and on
she went, with Blind Bobbie, in trembling confusion, clinging to her
skirts, and Happy Pete with sagging head at their heels. At the first
sound of the fiddle Lafe tried to rise, and did rise. He stood for a
moment on his shaking legs, and there, to the amazement of the gaping
crowd of his townsfolk, he swayed to and fro, watching and listening
as the wonderful music filled and thrilled through the room.
A heavenly light shone on the wrinkled face.
Jordan Morse got to his feet, chalk white. Molly the Merry was looking
at Jinnie as if she saw a ghost.
The onlookers saw Lafe's unsteady steps as he tottered toward the
lovely girl and blind child. When he was within touching distance, she
put the instrument and bow under one arm and took Lafe's hand in hers.
Her voice rang out like the tone of a bell.
"I've come for you, Lafe. I've come to take you back."
Then Molly's eyes dropped from Jinnie to the boy, and a cry broke from
her. Before her was the child for whom, in spite of the evidence of
her smiling lips, she had truly mourned. The wan, blind face was
turned upward, the golden hair lying in damp curls on the lovely head.
Spontaneously the woman reached forward and took the little hand in
hers. All the mother within her leaped up, like a brilliant flash of
lightning.
"My baby!" was all she said; and Bobbie, white, trembling and
palpitating, cried in a weird, high voice:
"I've found my mother!"
Then Jordan Morse understood. The hot blood was tearing to his ear
drums. The blind boy he had persecuted and tortured, the boy he had
made suffer, was his own son. That wonderful quality in the man, the
fatherhood within him, rose in surging insistence. Instant remorse
attacked him, as an oak is attacked by fierce winter storms. He saw
the boy's angelic face grow the color of death; saw Molly the Merry
gather him up. Then a stab of jealousy cut his heart like a knife. He
bent over with set jaws.
"Give him to me," he cried. "He's mine!"
Molly surrendered the child with reluctance, but terror and fright
were depicted upon Bobbie's face.
"Jinnie! Lafe! Peggy!" he screamed. "He'll hurt me! The black man's
goin' to kill me! Jinnie, pretty Jinnie----"
The passionate voice grew faint and ceased. Then the loving little
heart burst in the boyish bosom, and Bobbie's angels bore away his
young soul to another world where blindness is not,--where his
uplifted being would understand that the stars he'd loved,--the stars
he'd gathered in his small, unseeing head,--were but a reflection of
those in God's firmament. With one final quiver he straightened out in
his father's arms and was silent. All his loves and sorrows were in
the eternal yesterdays, and to-day had delivered him into the charge
of Lafe's angels.
Jinnie was crying hysterically, and her father's dying curse upon her
uncle leapt into her mind. She was clinging to the cobbler, and both
had moved to Peg, where the woman sat as if turned to stone.
Not a person in the courtroom stirred. In consternation the jury sat
in their chairs like graven images, taking in the freshly wrought
tragedy with tense expressions. The judge, too, leaned forward in his
chair, watching.
Jordan Morse faced the room, with its silent, observant crowd,
pressing to his breast the dead body of his child. Then he turned to
Lafe, white, twitching, and suffering.
"I shot Maudlin Bates," he said, haltingly; then turning to the jury
he continued: "The cobbler's an innocent man----"
A menacing groan fell from a hundred lips at his words.
He deliberately took from his hip pocket a revolver, lifted the weapon
and finished:
"I'm--I'm sorry, Jinnie, I'm----"
Then came the sharp, short bark of the gun, and the bullet found a
path to his brain. He staggered, frantically clutching the slender
body of Bobbie closer--and toppled over.