"And if I tell you, kiddie, you'll not cry any more or worry Peggy?"
"I'll be awful good, and not cry once," promised the boy, settling himself expectantly.
"Now, then, listen hard!"
Accordingly, after a dramatic pause, to give stress to her next statement, she continued: "There isn't a death chair in the whole world can kill a cobbler."
Bobbie braced himself against her and sat up. His blind eyes were roving over her with an expression of disbelief. Jinnie knew he was doubting her veracity, so she hurried on.
"Of course they got an electric chair that'll kill other kinds of men," she explained volubly, "but if you'll believe me, Bobbie, no cobbler could ever sit in it."
Bobbie dropped back again. There was a ring of truth in Jinnie's words, and he began to believe her.
"And another thing, Bobbie, there's something in the Bible better'n what I've told you. You believe the Bible, don't you?"
"Lafe's Bible?" asked Bobbie, scarcely audible.
"Sure! There isn't but one."
"Yes, Jinnie, I believe that," said the boy.
"Well," and Jinnie glanced up at the ceiling, "there's just about a hundred pages in that book tells how once some men tried to put a cobbler in one of those chairs, and the lightning jumped out and set 'em all on fire----"
Bobbie straightened up so quickly that Happy Pete fell to the floor.
"Yes, yes, Jinnie dear," he breathed. "Go on!"
Jinnie hesitated. She didn't want to fabricate further.
"It's just so awful I hate to tell you," she objected.
"I'd be happier if you would," whispered Bobbie.
"Then I will! The fire, jumping out, didn't hurt the cobbler one wee bit, but it burned the wicked men----" Jinnie paused, gathered a deep breath, and brought to mind Lafe's droning voice when he had used the same words, "Burned 'em root and branch," declared she.
Bobbie's face shone with happiness.
"Is that all?" he begged.
"Isn't it enough?" asked Jinnie, with tender chiding.
"Aren't there nothin' in it about Lafe?"
"Oh, sure!" Again she was at loss for ideas, but somehow words of their own volition seemed to spring from her lips. "Sure there is! There's another hundred pages in that blessed book that says good men like Lafe won't ever go into one of those chairs, never, never.... The Lord God Almighty ordered all those death chairs to be chopped up for kindling wood," she ended triumphantly.
"Shortwood?" broke out Bobbie.
Unheeding the interruption, Jinnie pursued: "They just left a chair for wicked men, that's all."
Bobbie slipped to the floor and raised his hands.
"Jinnie, pretty Jinnie. I'm goin' to believe every word you've said, every word, and my stars're all shinin' so bright they're just like them in the sky."