Rose O'Paradise. Grace Miller White
had been too personal.
“You like to read, I gather,” stated Mr. King.
“Yes, but I like to fiddle better,” said Jinnie.
“Oh, you play, do you?”
Jinnie’s eyes fell upon the instrument standing in the corner of the opposite seat, wrapped in an old jacket. She nodded.
“I play some. I love my fiddle almost as much as I do Milly Ann and her kitties.”
“Won’t you play for me?” asked Mr. King, gravely putting forth his hand.
Jinnie paused a moment. Then without further hesitancy she took up the violin and unfastened it. 47
“I’ll be glad to fiddle for a king,” she said naïvely.
She did not speak as she turned and twisted the small white keys.
Outside the storm was still roaring over the hills, sweeping the lake into monstrous waves. The shriek of the wind mingled with the snap of the taut strings under the agile fingers of the hill girl. Then Jinnie began to play. Never in all his life had Theodore King seen a picture such as the girl before him made. The wondrous beauty of her, the marvelous fingers traveling over the strings, together with the moaning of the night wind, made an impression upon him he would never forget. Sometimes as her fingers sped on, her eyes were penetrating; sometimes they darkened almost to melancholy. When the last wailing note had finally died away, Jinnie dropped the instrument to her side.
“It’s lonely on nights like this when the ghosts howl about,” she observed. “They love the fiddle, ghosts do.”
Theodore King came back to himself at the girl’s words. He drew a long breath.
“Child,” he ejaculated, “whoever taught you to play like that?”
“Why, I taught myself,” answered Jinnie.
“Please play again,” entreated Mr. King, and once more he sat enthralled with the wonder of the girl’s melodies. The last few soulful notes Mr. King likened to a sudden prayer, sent out with a sobbing breath.
“It’s wonderful,” he murmured slowly. “What is the piece you’ve just played?”
“It hasn’t any name yet,” replied the girl. “You see I only know pieces that’re in my head.”
Then all the misery of the past few hours swept over her, and Jinnie began to cry. A burden of doubt had clouded the usually clear young mind. What if the man 48 to whom she was going would not let her and the cats live with him? He might turn them away.
Mr. King spoke softly to her.
“Don’t cry,” said he. “You won’t be lonely when you get to your uncle’s.”
But she met his smiling glance with a feeling of constraint. He did not know the cause of her tears; she could not tell him. If she only knew—if she only had one little inkling of the reception she would receive at the painter’s home. However, she did cheer up a little when Mr. King, in evident desire to be of some service, began to tell her of the city to which she was going.
In a short time he saw the dark head nodding, and he drew Jinnie down against his arm, whispering:
“Sleep a while, child; I’ll wake you up at Bellaire.”
49
CHAPTER V
LIKE UNTO LIKE ATTRACTED
Jinnie Singleton watched Theodore King leave the train at the little private station situated on his own estate. As she drew nearer the city depot, her heart beat with uncertainty, for that day would decide her fate, her future; she would know by night whether or not she possessed a friend in the world.
For some hours she sat in the station on one of the hard benches, waiting for daylight, at which time she and Milly Ann would steal forth into the city to find Lafe Grandoken, her mother’s friend.
A reluctant, stormy dawn was pushing its way from the horizon as she picked up the pail and fiddle and stepped out into the falling snow.
Stopping a moment, she asked the station master about the Grandokens, but as he had only that week arrived in Bellaire, he politely, with admiration in his eyes, told her he could not give her any information. But on the railroad tracks Virginia saw a man standing with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
“What’d you want of Lafe Grandoken?” asked the fellow in reply to her question.
“I’ve come to see him,” answered Jinnie evasively.
“He’s a cobbler and lives down with the shortwood gatherers there on Paradise Road. Littlest shack of the bunch! He ain’t far from my folks. My name’s Maudlin Bates.” 50
He went very near her.
“Now I’ve told you, you c’n gimme a kiss,” said he.
“I’ll give you a bat,” flung back Jinnie, walking away.
Some distance off she stood looking down the tracks, her blue eyes noting the row of huts strung along the road and extending toward the hills. At the back of them was a marshland, dense with trees and underbrush.
“My father told me Mr. Grandoken was a painter of houses!” Jinnie ruminated: “But that damn duffer back there says he’s changed his work to cobbling. I’ll go and see! I hope it won’t be long before I’m as warm as can be. Wonder if he’ll be glad to see me!”
“It’s the smallest house among ’em,” she cogitated further, walking very fast. “Well! There ain’t any of ’em very big.”
She traveled on through heavy snow, glancing at every hut until, coming to a standstill, she read aloud:
“Lafe Grandoken, Cobbler of Folks’ and Children’s Shoes and Boots.”
Jinnie turned and, going down a short flight of steps, hesitated a moment before she knocked timidly on the front door. During the moment of waiting she glanced over what she hoped was to be her future home. It was so small in comparison with the huge, lonely farmhouse she had left the night before that her heart grew warm in anticipation. Then in answer to a man’s voice, calling “Come in!” she lifted the latch and opened the door.
The room was small and cheerless, although a fire was struggling for life in a miniature stove. In one corner was a table strewn with papers. Back from the window which faced the tracks was a man, a kit of cobbler’s tools, in the disarray of daily use, on the bench beside him. He halted, with his hammer in the air, at the sight of the newcomer. 51
“Come in and shut the door,” said he, and the girl did as she was bidden. “Cold, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” replied Jinnie, placing the pail and fiddle on the floor.
The girl looked the man over with her steady blue eyes. Then her heart gave one great bound. The grey face had lighted with a sweet, sad smile; the faded eyes, under the bushy brows, twinkled welcome. A sense of wonderful security and friendship rushed over her.
“Well, what’s your business? Got some shoes to mend?” asked the man. “Better sit down.”
Jinnie took a chair in silence, a passionate wish suffusing her being that this small home might be hers. She was so lonely, so homesick. The little room seemed radiant with the smile of the cobbler. She only felt the wonderful content that flowed from the man on the bench to herself; she wanted to stay with him; never before had