r one worser off'n you are? Don't believe
it! He can't stay here!"

Jinnie held her ground bravely.

"Oh, I'll start right out and sell wood all day long, if you'll let
him stay, Peg."

A tousled lock of yellow hair hung over Bobbie's eyes.

"Oh, Peggy, dear, Mrs. Good Peggy, let me stay!" he moaned, swaying.
"I'm so tired, s'awful tired. I can't find my mother, nor no place,
and my stars're all out!"

Sobbing plaintively, he sank to the floor, and there the childish
heart laid bare its misery. Then Jinnie, too, became quite limp, and
forgetting all about "Happy in Spite," she knelt alongside of her
newly acquired friend, and the two despairing young voices rose to the
woman standing over them. Jinnie thrust her arms around the little
boy.

"Don't cry, my Bobbie," she sobbed. "I'll go back to the hills with
you, because you need me. We'll live with the birds and squirrels, and
I'll sell wood so we c'n eat."

When she raised her reproachful eyes to Peg, and finished with a swipe
at her offending nose with her sleeve, she had never looked more
beautiful, and Peggy glanced away, fearing she might weaken.

"Tell Lafe I love him, and I love you, too, Peggy. I'll come every day
and see you both, and bring you some money."

If she had been ten years older or had spent months framing a speech
to fit the need of this occasion, Jinnie could not have been more
effective, for Peg's rage entirely ebbed at these words.

"Get up, you brats," she ordered grimly. "An' you listen to me, Jinnie
Grandoken. Your Bobbie c'n stay, but if you ever, so long as you live,
bring another maimed, lame or blind creature to this house, I'll kick
it out in the street. Now both of you climb up to that table an' eat
some hot soup."

Jinnie drew a long breath of happiness. She had cried a little, she
was sorry for that. She had broken her resolve always to smile--to be
"Happy in Spite."

"I'll _never_ bring any one else in, Peg," she averred gratefully.

Then she remembered how sweeping was her promise and changed it a
trifle.

"Of course if a kid was awful sick in the street and didn't have a
home, I'd have to fetch it in, wouldn't I?"

Peggy flounced over to the table, speechless, followed by the two
children.

CHAPTER XV

"WHO SAYS THE KID CAN'T STAY?"

Twenty minutes later Mrs. Grandoken entered the shop and sat down
opposite her husband.

"Lafe," she began, clearing her throat.

The cobbler questioned her with a g