d, tugging at her
sleeve.

[Illustration: "YOU NEEDN'T FEEL SO GLAD NOR LOOK AS IF YOU WAS GOIN' TO
TUMBLE OVER. IT AIN'T NO CREDIT TO ANYONE THEM CURTAINS
WAS ON THE SHELF WAITIN' TO BE CUT UP IN A DRESS FOR YOU
TO FIDDLE IN."]

"Sure," agreed Jinnie. "Feel right here! Well, that's a beautiful red
rose and here's a yellow one." She took his small finger and traced it
over a yard of lace. "Feel that?"

"Yes," murmured Bobbie.

"Well, that's a green vine running up and down, and all around among
the roses."

"Oh, my!" gasped Bobbie. "Red and yellow. That's how the sun looks
when it's goin' down, ain't it? And green's like the grass, eh?"

"Just the same," replied Jinnie, laughing.

"It's a beauty," supplemented Lafe, glowing with tenderness. "There
won't be a dress at that party that'll beat it."

Mrs. Grandoken shook out the voluminous folds of lace.

"Anybody'd think to hear you folks talk that you'd made these rag tags
with your toe nails," she observed dryly. "The smacking of some folks'
lips over sugar they don't earn makes me tired! Laws me!... Now I'll
try it on you, Jinnie," she ended.

Jinnie turned around and around with slow precision as Mrs. Grandoken
ascertained the correct hanging of the skirt. When the last stitches
had been put in, and the dress lay in all its gorgeous splendor across
the chair, Peg coughed awkwardly and spoke of shoes.

"You can't wear them cowhides with lace," said she.

"I might make a pair if I had a day and the stuff," suggested Lafe,
looking around helplessly.

"Ain't time," replied Peg. And of course it was she who gave Jinnie
some money taken from a small bag around her neck and ordered her to
the shop for shoes.

"She ought to have a fiddle box," Lafe suggested.

"There ain't 'nough money in the house for that," replied Peg--"but
I'll give her a piece of the curtains to wrap it up in."

"That'll look better'n a box," smiled Lafe. "I'm a happy cobbler, I
am."

When Jinnie returned with a pair of low black slippers, no one noticed
that they weren't quite what should have been worn with a lace frock.
Contentment reigned supreme in the Grandoken home that day.

* * * * *

Sunday evening at seven Jinnie displayed herself to Lafe. The cobbler
gave a contented nod.

"You and the dress're beautiful," he ruminated. "Wonderful!... Kiss
me, Jinnie!"

She not only kissed Lafe, but Bobbie, Happy Pete, and Milly Ann, too,