"Don't cry, honey," she stammered. "There! There! Jinnie'll rock you."
Her face was ashen with anxiety, and perspiration stood in large drops upon her brow. Mechanically she drew her sleeve across her face.
"I'm going to ask you to be awful good, Bobbie," she pleaded presently. "Lafe's being arrested is hard on Peg--and she's sick."
Bobbie burst in on her words.
"But they'll sit my cobbler in a wicked chair, and kill him, Jinnie. Peggy said they would."
"You remember, Bobbie," soothed the girl, "what Lafe said about God's angels, don't you?"
The yellow head bent forward in assent.
"And how they're stronger'n a whole bunch of men?"
"Yes," breathed Bobbie; "but the chair--the men've got that, an' mebbe the angels'll be busy when they're puttin' the cobbler in it."
This idea made him shriek out louder than before: "They'll kill Lafe! Oh, Jinnie, they will!"
"They can't!" denied Jinnie, rigidly. "They can't! Listen, Bobbie."
The wan, unsmiling blind face brought the girl's lips hard upon it.
"I want to know all about the death chair," he whimpered stubbornly.
"Bobbie," she breathed, "will you believe me if I tell you about it?"
"Yes," promised Bobbie, snuggling nearer.
"Hang on to Pete, and I will tell you," said Jinnie.
"I'm hangin' to 'im," sighed Bobbie, touching Pete's shaggy forelock. "Tell me about the chair."
Jinnie was searching her brain for an argument to satisfy him. She wouldn't have lied for her own welfare--but for Bobbie--she could feel the weak, small heart palpitating against her arm.
"Well, in the first place," she began deliberately, "Peg doesn't know everything about murders. Why, Bobbie, they don't do anything at all to men like Lafe. Why, a cobbler, dear, a cobbler could kill everybody in the whole world if he liked."
Bobbie's breath was sent out in one long exclamation of wonder.
"A cobbler," went on Jinnie impressively, "could steal loaves of bread right under a great judge's nose and he couldn't do anything to him."
Jinnie had made a daring speech, such a splendid one; she wanted to believe it herself.
"Tell me more," chirped Bobbie. "What about the death chair, Jinnie?"
She had nursed the hope that the boy would be satisfied with what she had already told him, but she proceeded in triumphant tones: "Oh, you mean the chair Peg was speaking about, huh? Sure I know all about that.... There isn't anything I don't know about it.... I know more'n all the judges and preachers put together."
A small, trustful smile appeared at the corners of Bobbie's mouth.
"I know you do, Jinnie," he agreed. "Tell it to me."
Jinnie pressed her lips on his hair.