“Peggy ’lowed you’d be hungry, kid,” said the cobbler, pushing a bowl in front of her.

Mrs. Grandoken interrupted her husband with a growl.

“If I’ve any mem’ry, you ’lowed it yourself, Lafe Grandoken,” she muttered.

A smile deepened on the cobbler’s face and a slight flush rose to his forehead.

“I ’lowed it, too, Peggy dear,” he said.

“Eat your mush,” snapped the woman, “an’, Lafe, don’t ‘Peggy dear’ me. I hate it; see?”

Virginia refused to believe the startling words. She 59 would have adored being called “dear.” In Lafe’s voice, great love rang out; in the woman’s, she scarcely knew what. She glanced from one to the other as the cobbler lifted his head. He was always thanking some one in some unknown place for the priceless gift of his woman.

59

“I’ll ‘Peggy dear’ you whenever I feel like it, wife,” he said gravely, “for God knows you’re awful dear to me, Peg.”

Mrs. Grandoken ignored his speech, but when she returned from the stove, her voice was a little more gentle.

“You can both stuff your innards with hot mush. You can’t starve on that.... Here, kid, sit a little nearer!”

So Virginia Singleton, the lame cobbler, and Peggy began their first meal, facing a new day, which to Lafe was yesterday’s to-morrow.

A little later Virginia followed the wheel chair into the cobbler’s shop. Peggy grumblingly left them to return to her duties in the kitchen.

“Terrible cold day this,” Lafe observed, picking up a shoe. “The wind’s blowin’ forty miles the hour.”

Virginia’s next remark was quite irrelevant to the wind.

“I’m hoping Mrs. Peggy’ll get the money she was talking about.”

“Did she tell you she needed some?”

Virginia nodded, and when she spoke again, her tongue was parched and dry.

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