Love stories; Poor -- Fiction; Violinists -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
One Sunday morning, Jinnie sat with Lafe in the shop. In hours like
these they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The quietude of these
precious Sabbath moments made the week, with its arduous tasks,
bearable to the sensitive girl.
For several days past Jinnie had noticed Lafe had something on his
mind, but she always allowed him to tell her everything in his own
good time. Now she felt the time had come. His gray face, worn with
suffering, was shining with a heavenly light as he read aloud from a
little Bible in his hand. To-day he had chosen the story of Abraham
and Sarah. When he came to the part where Abraham said:
"Lord, if now I have found favor in Thy sight, pass not away, I pray
Thee, from Thy servant," he pronounced the last word with sobbing
breath. One quick glance was enough for Jinnie's comprehension.
She leaned forward breathlessly.
"What is it, Lafe?... Something great?"
"Yes, something great, lassie, and in God's name most wonderful."
Before Jinnie's world of imagery passed all the good she had desired
for Lafe. His softly spoken, "In God's name most wonderful," thrilled
her from head to foot.
"And you've been keeping it from me, Lafe," she chided gently.
"Please, please, tell me."
Lafe sat back in the wheel chair and closed his eyes. "Wait, child,"
he breathed hesitatingly. "Wait a minute!"
As Jinnie watched him, she tried to stifle the emotion tugging at her
heart--to keep back the tears that welled into her eyes. Perhaps what
he had to tell her _would_ make her cry. Jinnie hoped not, for she
disliked to do that. It was so childlike, so like Blind Bobbie, who
always had either a beatific smile on his pale lips, or a mist shining
in his rock-gray eyes.
At length Lafe sighed a long, deep-drawn sigh, and smiled.
"Jinnie," he began----
"Yes, Lafe."
"I've been wonderin' if you remember the story of the little feller
God sent to Peg an' me--the one I told you would a been six years
old."
"Yes, I remember, Lafe."
"An' how good Peggy was----"
"Oh, how good Peggy always is!" interjected Jinnie.
"Yes," breathed Lafe, dreamily. "May God bless my woman in all her
trials!"
Jinnie hitched her chair nearer his and slipped her arm about his neck
soothingly.
"She doesn't have trials you don't share, Lafe," she declared.
Lafe straightened up.
"Yes, Peg has many, lassie, I can't help 'er with, an' she'll have a
many more. To get to tell you something, Jinnie, I asked Peg to take
Bobbie out with 'er. We can't turn the little feller from the club
room when he ain't out with Peg; can we, Jinnie?"
"Of course not," agreed Jinnie, nodding.
"So when Peg said she was goin' out," proceeded Lafe, gravely, "I
says, thinkin' of the things I wanted to say to you, I said to Peggy,
'Take the little blind chap along with you, Peggy dear,' an' without a
word she put the youngster into his clothes an' away they went."
Jinnie's curiosity was growing by the minute.
"And you're going to tell me now, Lafe?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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