Sell wood! The very words, new, wonderful, and full of action, rang
through Jinnie's soul like sweet sounding bells. Waves of unknown
sensations beat delightfully upon her girlish heart. If she brought in
a little money every day, Peggy would be kinder. She could; she was
sure she could. She was drawn from her whirling thoughts by the
cobbler's voice.

"Could you do it, kid? People could think your name was Jinnie
Grandoken."

Jinnie choked out a reply.

"And mebbe I could make ten cents a day."

"I think you could, Jinnie, an' here's Lafe right ready to help you."

Virginia Singleton felt quite faint. She sat down, her heart beating
under her knit jacket twice as fast as a girl's heart ought to beat.
Lafe had suddenly opened up a path to usefulness and glory which even
in her youthful dreams had never appeared to her.

"Call Peggy," said Lafe.

Soon Peg stood before them, with a questioning face.

"The kid's goin' to work," announced Lafe, "We've got a way of keepin'
her uncle off'n her trail."

Mrs. Grandoken looked from her husband to Virginia.

"I want to work like other folks," the girl burst forth, looking
pleadingly at the shoemaker's wife.

Peggy wiped her arms violently upon her apron, and there flashed
across her face an inscrutable expression that Lafe had learned to
read, but which frightened the newcomer.

Oh, how Jinnie wanted to do something to help them both! Now, at this
moment, when there seemed a likelihood of being industriously useful,
Jinnie loved them the more. She was going to work, and into her active
little brain came the sound of pennies, and the glint of silver.

"I want to work, Peggy," she beseeched, "and I'll make a lot of money
for you."

"Every hand ought to do its share," observed Peg, stolidly, glancing
at the girl's slender fingers. They looked so small, so unused to hard
work, that she turned away. An annoying, gripping sensation attacked
her suddenly, but in another minute she faced the girl again.

"If you do it, miss, don't flounce round's if you owned the hull of
Paradise Road, 'cause it'll be nothin' to your credit, whatever you
do. You didn't make yourself."

At the door she turned and remarked, "You've got t'have a shoulder
strap to hold the wood, an' you musn't carry too much to onct. It
might hurt your back."

"I'll be careful," gulped Jinnie, "and mebbe I could help make the
strap, eh, Lafe?"

An hour later Jinnie was running a long needle through