Peggy replied by sticking her fork into a biscuit and pushing it off on Virginia's plate with her finger.
Virginia acknowledged it with a shy upward glance. Peg's stolid face and quick, insistent movements filled her with vague discomfort. If the woman had tempered her harsh, "Take it, kid," with a smile, the little girl's heart might have ached less.
Lafe nodded to her when his wife left the room for a moment.
"That biscuit's Peg's bite," said he, "so she'll bark a lot the rest of the day, but don't you mind."
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.
"What's that?" asked the girl, immediately interested.
The cobbler looked over his spectacles and smiled.
"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."
"All that God said would be," explained Lafe, reverently.
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."
"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.