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."

Jinnie kissed the eager little face and left the child sitting on the
floor, crooning contentedly to Happy Pete.

"Lafe told me once," Jinnie whispered to herself on the way to the
kitchen, "when a lie does a lot of good, it's better than the truth if
telling facts hurts some one."

She joined Peggy, sighing, "I'm an awful liar, all right, but Bobbie's
happy."

CHAPTER XXXVII

WHAT THE THUNDER STORM BROUGHT

In the past few weeks Jinnie Grandoken had been driven blindly into
unknown places, forced to face conditions which but a short time
before would have seemed unbearable. However, there was much with
which Jinnie could occupy her time. Blind Bobbie was not well. He was
mourning for the cobbler with all his boyish young soul, and every day
Peggy grew more taciturn and ill. The funds left by Theodore were
nearly gone, and Jinnie had given up her lessons. She was using the
remaining money for their meagre necessities.

So slowly did the days drag by that the girl had grown to believe that
the authorities would never bring Lafe to trial, exonerate him, and
send him home. Then, too, Theodore was still in the hospital, and she
thought of him ever with a sense of terrific loss. But the daily
papers brought her news of him, and now printed that his splendid
constitution might pull him through. It never occurred to her that her
loved one would belie