Susan said afterward, in speaking of that spring, that "'twas nothin' but jest one serious of letters." And, indeed, life did seem to be mostly made up of letters.
At the sanatorium Keith was waiting for spring and the new doctor; and that the waiting was proving to be a little nerve-racking was proved by the infrequency of his letters home, and the shortness and uncommunicativeness of such as did come.
Letters to him from Hinsdale were longer and were invariably bright and cheery. Yet they did not really tell so much, after all. To be sure, they did contain frequent reference to "your Miss Stewart," and gave carefully casual accounts of what she did and said. In the very first letter Susan had hit upon the idea of always referring to the young lady as "your Miss Stewart."
"Then we won't be tellin' no lies," she had explained to Mr. Burton, '"cause she IS his 'Miss Stewart.' See? She certainly don't belong to no one else under that name—that's sure!"
But however communicative as regards "Miss Stewart" the letters were, they were very far from that as regarded some other matters. For instance: neither in Daniel Burton's letters, nor in Susan's, was there any reference to the new clerk in McGuire's grocery store. So far as anything that Keith knew to the contrary, his father was still painting unsalable pictures in the Burton home-stead studio.
But even these were not all the letters that spring. There were the letters of John McGuire from far-away France—really wonderful letters—letters that brought to the little New England town the very breath of the battle-field itself, the smell of its smoke, the shrieks of its shells. And with Mr. Burton, with Susan, with the whole neighborhood indeed, Mrs. McGuire shared them. They were even printed occasionally in the town's weekly newspaper. And they were talked of everywhere, day in and day out. No wonder, then, that, to Susan, the spring seemed but a "serious of letters."
It was in May that the great Paris doctor was expected; but late in April came a letter from Dr. Stewart saying that, owing to war conditions, the doctor had been delayed. He would not reach this country now until July—which meant two more months of weary waiting for Keith and for Keith's friends at home.
It was just here that Susan's patience snapped.
"When you get yourself screwed up to stand jest so much, an' then they come along with jest a little more, somethin's got to break, I tell you. Well, I've broke."
Whether as a result of the "break" or not, Susan did not say, neither did she mention whether it was to assuage her own grief or to alleviate Keith's; but whatever it was, Susan wrote these verses and sent them to Keith:
When our back is nigh to breakin',An' our strength is nearly gone,An' along there comes the layin'Of another burden on—
If we'll only jest remember,No matter what's to pay,That 'tisn't yet December,An' we're livin' by the day.
'Most any one can stand it—What jest TO-DAY has brought.It's when we try to lump it,An' take it by the lot!
Why, any back would double,An' any legs'll bend,If we pile on all the troubleMeant to last us till the end!
So if we'll jest remember,Half the woe from life we'll robIf we'll only take it "by the day,"An' not live it "by the job."
"Of course that ''tisn't yet December' is poem license, and hain't really got much sense to it," wrote Susan in the letter she sent with the verses. "I put it in mostly to rhyme with 'remember.' (There simply wasn't a thing to rhyme with that word!) But, do you know, after I got it down I saw it really could mean somethin', after all—kind of diabolical-like for the end of life, you know, like December is the end of the year.
"Well, anyhow, they done me lots of good, them verses did, an' I hope they will you."
In June Dorothy Parkman was graduated from the Hinsdale Academy. BothMr. Burton and Susan attended the exercises, though not together. ThenSusan sat down and wrote a glowing account of the affair to Keith,dilating upon the fine showing that "your Miss Stewart" made.
"It can't last forever, of course—this subtractin' Miss Stewart's name for Dorothy Parkman," she said to Mr. Burton, when she handed him the letter to mail. "But I'm jest bound an' determined it shall last till that there Paris doctor gets his hands on him. An' she ain't goin' back now to her father's for quite a spell—Miss Dorothy, I mean," further explained Susan. "I guess she don't want to take no chances herself of his findin' out—jest yet," declared Susan, with a sage wag of her head. "Anyhow, she's had an inspiration to go see a girl down to the beach, an' she's goin'. So we're safe for a while. But, oh, if July'd only hurry up an' come!"
And yet, when July came—
They were so glad, afterward, that Dr. Stewart wrote the letter that in a measure prepared them for the bad news. He wrote the day before the operation. He said that the great oculist was immensely interested in the case and eager to see what he could do—though he could hold out no sort of promise that he would be able to accomplish the desired results. Dr. Stewart warned them, therefore, not to expect anything—though, of course, they might hope. Hard on the heels of the letter came the telegram. The operation had been performed—and had failed, they feared. They could not tell surely, however, until the bandages were removed, which would be early in August. But even if it had failed, there was yet one more chance, the doctor wrote. He would say nothing about that, however, until he was obliged to.
In August he wrote about it. He was obliged to. The operation had been so near a failure that they might as well call it that. The Paris oculist, however, had not given up hope. There was just one man in the world who might accomplish the seemingly impossible and give back sight to Keith's eyes—at least a measure of sight, he said. This man lived in London. He had been singularly successful in several of the few similar cases known to the profession. Therefore, with their kind permission, the great Paris doctor would take Keith back with him to his brother oculist in London. He would like to take ship at once, as soon as arrangements could possibly be made. There would be delay enough, anyway, as it was. So far as any question of pay was concerned, the indebtedness would be on their side entirely if they were privileged to perform the operation, for each new case of this very rare malady added knowledge of untold value to the profession, hence to humanity in general. He begged, therefore, a prompt word of permission from Keith's father.
"Don't you give it, don't you give it!" chattered Susan, with white lips, when the proposition was made clear to her.
"Why, Susan, I thought you'd be willing to try anything, ANYTHING—forKeith's sake."
"An' so I would, sir, anything in season. But not this. Do you think I'd set that blessed boy afloat on top of them submarines an' gas-mines, an' to go to London for them German Zepherin's to rain down bombs an' shrapnel on his head, an' he not bein' able to see a thing to dodge 'em when he sees 'em comin'? Why, Daniel Burton, I'm ashamed of you—to think of it, for a minute!"
"There, there, Susan, that will do. You mean well, I know; but this is a matter that I shall have to settle for myself, for myself," he muttered with stern dignity, rising to his feet. Yet when he left the room a moment later, head and shoulders bowed, he looked so old and worn that Susan, gazing after him, put a spasmodic hand to her throat.
"An' I jest know I'm goin' to lose 'em both now," she choked as she turned away.
Keith went to London. Then came more weeks of weary, anxious waiting. Letters were not so regular now, nor so frequent. Definite news was hard to obtain. Yet in the end it came all too soon—and it was piteously definite.
Keith was coming home. The great London doctor, too, had—failed.
Keith came in April. The day before he was expected, Susan, sweeping off the side porch, was accosted by Mrs. McGuire.
It was the first warm spring-like day, and Mrs. McGuire, bareheaded and coatless, had opened the back-yard gate and was picking her way across the spongy turf.
"My, but isn't this a great day, Susan!" she called, with an ecstatic, indrawn breath. "I only wish it was as nice under foot."
"Hain't you got no rubbers on?" Susan's disapproving eyes sought Mrs.McGuire's feet.
Mrs. McGuire laughed lightly.
"No. That's the one thing I leave off the first possible minute. Some way, I feel as if I was helpin' along the spring."
"Humph! Well, I should help along somethin' 'sides spring, I guess, ifI did it. Besides, it strikes me rubbers ain't the only thing you'releavin' off." Susan's disapproving eyes had swept now to Mrs.McGuire's unprotected head and shoulders.
"Oh, I'm not cold. I love it. As if this glorious spring sunshine could do any one any harm! Susan, it's LIEUTENANT McGuire, now! I came over to tell you. My John's been promoted."
"Sho, you don't say! Ain't that wonderful, now?" Susan's broom stopped in midair.
"Not when you know my John!" The proud mother lifted her head a little. "'For bravery an' valiant service'—Lieutenant McGuire! Oh Susan, Susan, but I'm the proud woman this mornin'!"
"Yes, of course, of course, I ain't wonderin' you be!" Susan drew a long sigh and fell to sweeping again.
Mrs. McGuire, looking into Susan's face, came a step nearer. Her own face sobered.
"An' me braggin' like this, when you folks-! I know—you're thinkin' of that poor blind boy. An' it's just to-morrow that he comes, isn't it?"
Susan nodded dumbly.
"An' it's all ended now an' decided—he can't ever see, I s'pose," went on Mrs. McGuire. "I heard 'em talkin' down to the store last night. It seems terrible."
"Yes, it does." Susan was sweeping vigorously now, over and over again in the same place.
"I wonder how—he'll take it."
Susan stopped sweeping and turned with a jerk.
"Take it? He's got to take it, hain't he?" she demanded fiercely. "He's GOT TO! An' things you've got to do, you do. That's all. You'll see. Keith Burton ain't no quitter. He'll take it with his head up an' his shoulders braced. I know. You'll see. Don't I remember the look on his blessed face that day he went away, an' stood on them steps there, callin' back his cheery good-bye?"
"But, Susan, there was hope then, an' there isn't any now—an' you haven't seen him since. You forget that."
"No, I don't," retorted Susan doggedly. "I ain't forgettin' nothin'.'But you'll see!"
"An' he's older. He realizes more. Why, he must be—How old is he, anyway?"
"He'll be nineteen next June."
"Almost a man. Poor boy, poor boy—an' him with all these years of black darkness ahead of him! I tell you, Susan, I never appreciated my eyes as I have since Keith lost his. Seems as though anybody that's got their eyes hadn't ought to complain of—anything. I was thinkin' this mornin', comin' over, how good it was just to SEE the blue sky an' the sunshine an' the little buds breakin' through their brown jackets. Why, Susan, I never realized how good just seein' was—till I thought of Keith, who can't never see again."
"Yes. Well, I've got to go in now, Mis' McGuire. Good-bye."
Words, manner, and tone of voice were discourtesy itself; but Mrs. McGuire, looking at Susan's quivering face, brimming eyes, and set lips, knew it for what it was and did not mistake it for—discourtesy. But because she knew Susan would prefer it so, she turned away with a light "Yes, so've I. Good-bye!" which gave no sign that she had seen and understood.
Dr. Stewart came himself with Keith to Hinsdale and accompanied him to the house. It had been the doctor's own suggestion that neither the boy's father nor Susan should meet them at the train. Perhaps the doctor feared for that meeting. Naturally it would not be an easy one. Naturally too, he did not want to add one straw to Keith's already grievous burden. So he had written:
I will come to the house. As I am a little uncertain as to the train I can catch from Boston, do not try to meet me at the station.
"Jest as if we couldn't see through that subterranean!" Susan had muttered to herself over the dishes that morning. "I guess he knows what train he's goin' to take all right. He jest didn't want us to meet him an' make a scenic at the depot. I wonder if he thinks I would! Don't he think I knows anything?"
But, after all, it was very simple, very quiet, very ordinary. Dr. Stewart rang the bell and Susan went to the door. And there they stood: Keith, big and strong and handsome (Susan had forgotten that two years could transform a somewhat awkward boy into so fine and stalwart a youth); the doctor, pale, and with an apprehensive uncertainty in his eyes.
"Well, Susan, how are you?" Keith's voice was strong and steady, and the outstretched hand gripped hers with a clasp that hurt.
Then, in some way never quite clear to her, Susan found herself in the big living-room with Keith and the doctor and Daniel Burton, all shaking hands and all talking at once. They sat down then, and their sentences became less broken, less incoherent. But they said only ordinary things about the day, the weather, the journey home, John McGuire, the war, the President's message, the entry of the United States into the conflict. There was nothing whatever said about eyes that could see or eyes that could not see, or operations that failed.
And by and by the doctor got up and said that he must go. To be sure, the good-byes were a little hurriedly spoken, and the voices were at a little higher pitch than was usual; and when the doctor had gone, Keith and his father went at once upstairs to the studio and shut the door.
Susan went out into the kitchen then and took up her neglected work. She made a great clatter of pans and dishes, and she sang lustily at her "mad song," and at several others. But every now and then, between songs and rattles, she would stop and listen intently; and twice she climbed halfway up the back stairs and stood poised, her breath suspended, her anxious eyes on that closed studio door.
Yet supper that night was another very ordinary occurrence, with Keith and his father talking of the war and Susan waiting upon them with a cheerfulness that was almost obtrusive.
In her own room that night, however, Susan addressed an imaginaryKeith, all in the dark.
"You're fine an' splendid, an' I love you for it, Keith, my boy," she choked; "but you don't fool your old Susan. Your chin is up, jest as I said 'twould be, an' you're marchin' straight ahead. But inside, your heart is breakin'. Do you think I don't KNOW? But we ain't goin' to let each other KNOW we know, Keith, my boy. Not much we ain't! An' I guess if you can march straight ahead with your chin up, the rest of us can, all right. We'll see!"
And Susan was singing again the next morning when she did her breakfast dishes.
At ten o'clock Keith came into the kitchen.
"Where's dad, Susan? He isn't in the studio and I've looked in every room in the house and I can't find him anywhere." Keith spoke with the aggrieved air of one who has been deprived of his just rights.
Susan's countenance changed. "Why, Keith, don't you—that is, your father—Didn't he tell you?" stammered Susan.
"Tell me what?"
"Why, that—that he was goin' to be away."
"No, he didn't. What do you mean? Away where? How long?"
"Why, er—working."
"Sketching?—in this storm? Nonsense, Susan! Besides, he'd have taken me. He always took me. Susan, what's the matter? Where IS dad?" A note of uncertainty, almost fear, had crept into the boy's voice. "You're keeping—SOMETHING from me."
Susan caught her breath and threw a swift look into Keith's unseeing eyes. Then she laughed, hysterically, a bit noisily.
"Keepin' somethin' from you? Why, sure we ain't, boy! Didn't I jest tell you? He's workin' down to McGuire's."
"WORKING! Down to MCGUIRE'S!" Keith plainly did not yet understand.
"Sure! An' he's got a real good position, too." Susan spoke jauntily, enthusiastically.
"But the McGuires never buy pictures," frowned Keith, "or want—" He stopped short. Face, voice, and manner underwent a complete change. "Susan, you don't mean that dad is CLERKING down there behind that grocery counter!"
Susan saw and recognized the utter horror and dismay in Keith's lace, and quailed before it. But she managed in some way to keep her voice still triumphant.
"Sure he is! An' he gets real good wages, too, an'—" But Keith with a low cry had gone.
Before the noon dinner, however, he appeared again at the kitchen door. His face was very white now.
"Susan, how long has dad been doing this?"
"Oh, quite a while. Funny, now! Hain't he ever told you?"
"No. But there seem to be quite a number of things that you people haven't told me."
Susan winced, but she still held her ground jauntily.
"Oh, yes, quite a while," she nodded cheerfully. "An' he gets-"
"But doesn't he paint any more—at all?" interrupted the boy sharply.
"Why, no; no, I don't know that he does," tossed Susan airily. "An' of course, if he's found somethin' he likes better—"
"Susan, you don't have to talk like that to me" interposed Keith quietly. "I understand, of course. There are some things that can be seen without—eyes."
"Oh, but honest, Keith, he—" But once again Keith had gone and Susan found herself talking to empty air.
When Susan went into the dining-room that evening to wait at dinner, she went with fear and trepidation, and she looked apprehensively into the faces of the two men sitting opposite each other. But in the kitchen, a few minutes later, she muttered to herself:
"Pooh! I needn't have worried. They've got sense, both of 'em, an' they know that what's got to be has got to be. That's all. An' that it don't do no good to fuss. I needn't have worried."
But Susan did worry. She did not like the look on Keith's face. She did not like the nervous twitching of his hands. She did not like the exaggerated cheerfulness of his manner.
And Keith WAS cheerful. He played solitaire with his marked cards and whistled. He worked at his raised-picture puzzles and sang snatches of merry song. He talked with anybody who came near him—talked very fast and laughed a great deal. But behind the whistling and the singing and the laughter Susan detected a tense strain and nervousness that she did not like. And at times, when she knew Keith thought himself alone, there was an expression on his face that disturbed Susan not a little.
But because, outwardly, it was all "cheerfulness," Susan kept her peace; but she also kept her eyes on Keith.
Keith had not been home a week before it was seen that Hinsdale was inclined to make a lion of the boy.
Women brought him jelly and fruit, and men clapped him on the shoulder and said, "How are you, my boy?" in voices that were not quite steady. Young girls brought him flowers, and asked Susan if they could not read or sing or do SOMETHING to amuse him. Children stood about the gate and stared, talking in awe-struck whispers, happy if they could catch a glimpse of his face at the window.
A part of this Susan succeeded in keeping from Keith—Susan had a well-founded belief that Keith would not care to be a lion. But a great deal of it came to his knowledge, of course, in spite of anything she could do. However, she told herself that she need not have worried, for if Keith had recognized it for what it was, he made no sign; and even Susan herself could find no fault with his behavior. He was cordial, cheery, almost gay, outwardly. But inwardly—
Susan was still keeping her eyes on Keith.
Mrs. McGuire came often to see Keith. She said she knew he would want to hear John's letters. And there were all the old ones, besides the new ones that came from time to time. She brought them all, and read them to him. She talked about the young soldier, too, a great deal, to the blind boy—She explained to Susan that she wanted to do everything she could to get him out of himself and interest him in the world outside; and that she didn't know any better way to do it than to tell him of these brave soldiers who were doing something so really worth while in the world.
"An' he's so interested—the dear boy!" she concluded, with a sigh."An' so brave! I think he's the bravest thing I ever saw, SusanBetts."
"Yes, he is—brave," said Susan, a little shortly—so shortly that Mrs. McGuire opened her eyes a bit, and wondered why Susan's lips had snapped tight shut in that straight, hard line.
"But what ails the woman?" she muttered to herself, vexedly, as she crossed the back yard to her own door. "Wasn't she herself always braggin' about his bein' so brave? Humph! There's no such thing as pleasin' some folks, it seems!" finished Mrs. McGuire as she entered her own door.
But Mrs. McGuire was not the only frequent caller. There was MazieSanborn.
Mazie began by coming every two or three days with flowers and fudge. Then she brought the latest novel one day and suggested that she read it to Keith.
Susan was skeptical of this, even fearful. She had not forgotten Keith's frenzied avoidance of such callers in the old days. But to her surprise now Keith welcomed Mazie joyously—so joyously that Susan began to suspect that behind the joyousness lay an eagerness to welcome anything that would help him to forget himself.
She was the more suspicious of this during the days that followed, as she saw this same nervous eagerness displayed every time any one called at the house. Susan's joy then at Keith's gracious response to visitors' attentions changed to a vague uneasiness. Behind and beyond it all lay an intangible something upon which Susan could not place her finger, but which filled her heart with distrust. And so still she kept her eyes on Keith.
In June Dorothy Parkman came to Hinsdale. She came at once to see Susan. But she would only step inside the hall, and she spoke low and hurriedly, looking fearfully toward the closed doors beyond the stairway.
"I HAD to come—to see how he was," she began, a little breathlessly. "And I wanted to ask you if you thought I could do any good or—or be any help to him, either as Miss Stewart or Dorothy Parkman. Only I—I suppose I would HAVE to be Dorothy Parkman now. I couldn't keep the other up forever, of course. But I don't know how to tell—" She stopped, and looked again fearfully toward the closed doors. "Susan, how—how IS he?" she finished unsteadily.
"He's well—very well."
"He sees people—Mazie says he sees everybody now."
"Yes, oh, yes, he sees people."
"That's why I thought perhaps he wouldn't mind ME now—I mean the real me," faltered the girl wistfully. "Maybe." Susan's sigh and frown expressed doubt.
"But he's real brave," challenged the girl quickly. "Mazie SAID he was."
"I know. Everybody says—he's brave." There was an odd constraint in Susan's voice, but the girl was too intent on her own problem to notice it.
"And that's why I hoped—about me, you know—that he wouldn't mind—now. And, of course, it can't make any difference—about his eyes, for he doesn't need father, or—or any one now." Her voice broke. "Oh, Susan, I want to help, some way, if I can! WOULD he see me, do you think?"
"He ought to. He sees everybody else."
"I know. Mazie says—"
"Does Mazie know about you?" interrupted Susan. "I mean, about your being 'Miss Stewart'?"
"A little, but not much. I told her once that he 'most always called me 'Miss Stewart,' but I never made anything of it, and I never told her how much I saw of him out home. Some way, I—" She stopped short, with a quick indrawing of her breath. In the doorway down the hall stood Keith.
"Susan, I thought I heard—WAS Miss Stewart here?" he demanded excitedly.
With only the briefest of hesitations and a half-despairing, half-relieved look into Susan's startled eyes, the young girl hurried forward.
"Indeed I'm here," she cried gayly, giving a warm clasp to his eagerly outstretched hand "How do you do? Susan was just saying—."
But Susan was gone with upflung hands and a look that said "No, you don't rake me into this thing, young lady!" as plainly as if she had spoken the words themselves.
In the living-room a minute later, Keith began eager questioning.
"When did you come?"
"Yesterday."
"And you came to see me the very next day! Weren't you good? You knew how I wanted to see you."
"Oh, but I didn't," she laughed a little embarrassedly. "You're at home now, and you have all your old friends, and—"
"But they're not you. There's not any one like you," cut in the youth fervently. "And now you're going to stay a long time, aren't you?"
"Y-yes, several weeks, probably."
"Good! And you'll come every day to see me?"
"W-well, as to that-"
"It's too much to ask, of course," broke off Keith contritely. "And, truly, I don't want to impose on you."
"No, no, it isn't that," protested the girl quickly. "It's only—There are so many—"
"But I told you there isn't anybody like you, Miss Stewart. There isn't any one here that UNDERSTANDS—like you. And it was you who first taught me to do—so many things." His voice faltered.
[Illustration: "YOU'VE HELPED MORE—THAN YOU'LL EVER KNOW"]
He paused, wet his lips, then plunged on hurriedly. "Miss Stewart, I don't say this sort of thing very often. I never said it before—to anybody. But I want you to know that I understood and appreciated just what you were doing all those weeks for me out there at the sanatorium. And it was the WAY you did it, with never a word or a hint that I was different. You did things, and you made me do things, without reminding me all the time that I was blind. I shall never forget that first day when you told me dad would want to hear from me; and then, before I could say a word, you put that paper in my hands, and my fingers fell on those lines that I could feel. And how I blessed you for not TELLING me those lines were there! Don't you see? Everybody here, that comes to see me, TELLS me—the lines are there."
"Yes, I—know." The girl's voice was low, a little breathless.
"And that's why I need you so much. If anybody in the whole world can make me forget for a minute, you can. You will come?"
"Why, of course, I'll come, and be glad to. You know I will. And I'm so glad if I've helped—any!"
"You've helped more—than you'll ever know. But, come—look! I've got a dandy new game here." And Keith, very obviously to hide the shake in his voice and the emotion in his face, turned gayly to a little stand near him and picked up a square cardboard box.
Half an hour later, Dorothy Parkman, passing through the hall on her way to the outer door, was waylaid by Susan.
"Sh-h! Don't speak here, but come with me," she whispered, leading the way through the diningroom. In the kitchen she stopped and turned eagerly. "Well, did you tell him?" she demanded.
Miss Dorothy shook her head, mutely, despairingly.
"You mean he don't know yet that you're Dorothy Parkman?"
"I mean just that."
"But, child alive, he'll find out—he can't help finding out—now."
"I know it. But I just couldn't tell him—I COULDN'T, Susan. I tried to do it two or three times. Indeed, I did. But the words just wouldn't come. And now I don't know when I can tell him."
"But he was tickled to death to see you. He showed it, Miss Dorothy."
"I know." A soft pink suffused the young girl's face. "But it was 'Miss Stewart' he was glad to see, not Dorothy Parkman. And, after the things he said—" She stopped and looked back over her shoulder toward the room she had just left.
"But, Miss Dorothy, don't you see? It'll be all right, now. You've SHOWN him that you don't mind being with blind folks a mite. So now he won't care a bit when he knows you are Dorothy Parkman."
But the girl shook her head again.
"Yes, I know. He might not mind that part, PERHAPS; but I know he'd mind the deceit all these long months, and it wouldn't be easy to—to make him understand. He'd never forgive it—I know he wouldn't—to think I'd taken advantage of his not being able to see."
"Nonsense! Of course he would."
"He wouldn't. You don't know. Just to-day he said something about—about some one who had tried to deceive him in a little thing, because he was blind; and I could see how bitter he was."
"But what ARE you goin' to do?"
"I don't know, Susan. It's harder than ever now," almost moaned the girl.
"You're COMIN' AGAIN?"
"Yes, oh, yes. I shall come as long as he'll let me. I know he wants me to. I know I HAVE helped a little. He spoke—beautifully about that to-day. But, whether, after he finds out—" Her voice choked into silence and she turned her head quite away.
"There, there, dear, don't you fret," Susan comforted her. "You jest go home and think no more about it.
When thinkin' won't mend it,Then thinkin' won't end it.
So what's the use? When you get ready, you jest come again; an' you keep a-comin', too. It'll all work out right. You see if it don't."
"Thank you, Susan. Oh, I'll come as long as I can," sighed the girl, turning to go. "But I'm not so sure how it'll turn out," she finished with a wistful smile over her shoulder as she opened the door.
As Miss Dorothy herself had said, it could not, of course, continue. She came once, and once again to see Keith; and in spite of her efforts to make her position clear to him, her secret still remained her own. Then, on the third visit, the dreaded disclosure came, naturally, and in the simplest, most unexpected way; yet in a way that would most certainly have been the last choice of Miss Dorothy herself could she have had aught to say about it.
The two, Keith and Dorothy, had had a wonderful hour over a book thatDorothy had brought to read. They had been sitting on the porch, andDorothy had risen to go when there came a light tread on the frontwalk and Mazie Sanborn tripped up the porch steps.
"Well, Dorothy Parkman, is this where you were?" she cried gayly. "I was hunting all over the house for you half an hour ago."
"DOROTHY PARKMAN!" Keith was on his feet. His face had grown very white.
Dorothy, too, her eyes on Keith's face, had grown very white; yet she managed to give a light laugh, and her voice matched Mazie's own for gayety.
"Were you? Well, I was right here. But I'm going now."
"You! but—Miss Stewart!" Keith's colorless lips spoke the words just above his breath.
"Why, Keith Burton, what's the matter?" laughed Mazie. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost. I mean—oh, forgive that word, Keith," she broke off in light apology. "I'm always forgetting, and talking as if you could really SEE. But you looked so funny, and you brought out that 'Dorothy Parkman' with such a surprised air. Just as if you didn't ever call her that in the old school days, Keith Burton! Oh, Dorothy told me you called her 'Miss Stewart' a lot now; but—"
"Yes, I have called her 'Miss Stewart' quite a lot lately," interposed Keith, in a voice so quietly self-controlled that even Dorothy herself was almost deceived. But not quite. Dorothy saw the clenched muscles and white knuckles of his hands as he gripped the chair-back before him; and she knew too much to expect him to offer his hand in good-bye. So she backed away, and she still spoke lightly, inconsequently, though she knew her voice was shaking, as she made her adieus.
"Well, good-bye, I must be going now, sure. I'll be over to-morrow, though, to finish the book. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Keith.
And Dorothy wondered if Mazie noticed that he quite omitted a polite "Come again," and if Mazie saw that as he said the terse "Good-bye" he put both hands suddenly and resolutely behind his back. Dorothy saw it, and at home, long hours later she was still crying over it.
She went early to the Burtons' the next forenoon.
"I came to finish the book I was reading to Mr. Keith," she told Susan brightly, as her ring was answered. "I thought I'd come early before anybody else got here."
She would have stepped in, but Susan's ample figure still barred the way.
"Well, now, that's too bad!" Susan's voice expressed genuine concern and personal disappointment. "Ain't it a shame? Keith said he wa'n't feelin' nohow well this mornin', an' that he didn't want to see no one. An' under no circumstances not to let no one in to see him. But maybe if I told him't was you—"
"No, no, don't—don't do that!" cried the girl hurriedly. "I—I'll come again some other time."
On the street a minute later she whispered tremulously: "He did it on purpose, of course. He KNEW I would come this morning! But he can't keep it up forever! He'll HAVE to see me some time. And when he does— Oh, if only Mazie Sanborn hadn't blurted it out like that! Why didn't I tell him? Why didn't I tell him? But I will tell him. He can't keep this up forever."
When on a second and a third and a fourth morning, however, Dorothy had found Susan's figure barring the way, and had received the same distressed "He says he won't see no one, Miss Dorothy," from Susan's plainly troubled lips, Dorothy began to think Keith did mean to keep it up forever.
"But what IS it, Susan?" she faltered. "Is he sick, really sick?"
"I don't know, Miss Dorothy," frowned Susan. "But I don't like the looks of it, anyhow. He says he ain't sick—not physicianly sick; but he jest don't want to talk an' see folks. An' he's been like that 'most a week now. An' I'm free to confess I don't like it."
"But what does he do—all day?" asked the girl.
"Nothin', that I can see," sighed Susan profoundly. "Oh, he plays that solitary some, an' putters a little with some of his raised books; but mostly he jest sits still an' thinks. An' I don't like it. If only his father was here. But with him gone peddlin' molasses, an' no one 'lowed into the house, there ain't anything for him to do but to think. An' 'tain't right nor good for him. I've watched him an' I know."
"But he used to see people, Susan."
"I know it. He saw everybody."
"Do you know why he won't—now?" asked the girl a little faintly.
"I hain't the faintest inception of an idea. It came as sudden as that," declared Susan, snapping her finger.
"Then he hasn't said anything special about not wanting to see—me?"
"Why, no. He—Do you mean—HAS he found out?" demanded Susan, interrupting herself excitedly.
"Yes. He found out last Monday afternoon. Mazie ran up on to the porch and called me by name right out. Oh, Susan, it was awful. I shall never forget the look on that boy's face as long as I live."
"Lan' sakes! MONDAY!" breathed Susan. "An' Tuesday he began refusin' to see folks. Then 'course that was it. But why won't he see other folks? They hain't anything to do with you."
"I don't know—unless he didn't want to tell you specially not to let me in, and so he said not to let anybody in."
"Was he awful mad?"
"It wasn't so much anger as it was grief and hurt and—oh, I can't express what it was. But I saw it; and I never shall forget it. You see, to have it blurted out to him like that without any warning—and of course he couldn't understand."
"But didn't you explain things—how 'twas, in the first place?"
She shook her head. "I couldn't—not with Mazie there. I said I'd come the next morning to—to finish the book. I thought he'd understand I was going to explain then. He probably did—and that's why he won't let me in. He doesn't want any explanations," sighed the girl tremulously.
"Well, he ought to want 'em," asserted Susan with vigor. "'Tain't fair nor right nor sensible for him to act like this, makin' a mountain out of an ant-hill. I declare, Miss Dorothy, he ought to be made to see you."
The girl flushed and drew back.
"Most certainly not, Susan! I—I am not in the habit of MAKING people see me, when they don't wish to. Do you suppose I'm going to beg and tease: 'PLEASE won't you let me see you?' Hardly! He need not worry. I shall not come again."
"Oh, Miss Dorothy!" remonstrated Susan.
"Why, of course I won't, Susan!" cried the girl. "Do you suppose I'm going to keep him from seeing other people just because he's afraid he'll have to let me in, too? Nonsense, Susan! Even you must admit I cannot allow that. You may tell Mr. Keith, please, that he may feel no further uneasiness. I shall not trouble him again."
"Oh, Miss Dorothy!" begged Susan agitatedly, once more.
But Miss Dorothy, with all the hurt dignity of her eighteen years, turned haughtily away, leaving Susan impotent and distressed, looking after her.
Two minutes later Susan sought Keith in the living-room. Her whole self spelt irate determination—but Keith could not see that. Keith, listless and idle-handed, sat in his favorite chair by the window.
"Dorothy Parkman jest rang the bell," began Susan, "an'-"
"But I said I'd see no one," interrupted Keith, instantly alert.
"That's what I told her, an' she's gone."
"Oh, all right." Keith relaxed into his old listlessness.
"An' she said to please tell you she'd trouble you no further, so you might let in the others now as soon as you please."
Keith sat erect in his chair with a jerk.
"What did she mean by that?"
"I guess you don't need me to tell you," observed Susan grimly.
With a shrug and an irritable gesture Keith settled back in his chair.
"I don't care to discuss it, Susan. I don't wish to see ANY one. We'll let it go at that, if you please," he said.
"But I don't please!" Susan was in the room now, close to Keith's chair. Her face was quivering with emotion. "Keith, won't you listen to reason? It ain't like you a mite to sit back like this an' refuse to see a nice little body like Dorothy Parkman, what's been so kind—"
"Susan!" Keith was sitting erect again. His face was white, and carried a stern anguish that Susan had never seen before. "I don't care to discuss Miss Parkman with you or with anybody else. Neither do I care to discuss the fact that I thoroughly understand, of course, that you, or she, or anybody else, can fool me into believing anything you please; and I can't—help myself."
"No, no, Keith, don't take it like that—please don't!"
"Is there any other way I CAN take it? Do you think 'Miss Stewart' could have made such a fool of me if I'd had EYES to see Dorothy Parkman?"
"But she was only tryin' to HELP you, an'—"
"I don't want to be 'helped'!" stormed the boy hotly. "Did it ever occur to you, Susan, that I might sometimes like to HELP somebody myself, instead of this everlastingly having somebody help me?"
"But you do help. You help me," asserted Susan feverishly, working her nervous fingers together. "An' you'd help me more if you'd only let folks in to see you, an'—"
"All right, all right," interrupted Keith testily. "Let them in. Let everybody in. I don't care. What's the difference? But, please, PLEASE, Susan, stop talking any more about it all now."
And Susan stopped. There were times when Susan knew enough to stop, and this was one of them.
But she took him at his word, and when Mrs. McGuire came the next day with a letter from her John, Susan ushered her into the living-room where Keith was sitting alone. And Keith welcomed her with at least a good imitation of his old heartiness.
Mrs. McGuire said she had such a funny letter to read to-day. She knew he'd enjoy it, and Susan would, too, particularly the part that John had quoted from something that had been printed by the British soldiers in France and circulated among their comrades in the trenches and hospitals, and everywhere. John had written it off on a separate piece of paper, and this was it:
Don't worry: there's nothing to worry about.
You have two alternatives: either you are mobilized or you are not. If not, you have nothing to worry about.
If you are mobilized, you have two alternatives: you are in camp or at the front. If you are in camp, you have nothing to worry about.
If you are at the front, you have two alternatives: either you are on the fighting line or in reserve. If in reserve, you have nothing to worry about.
If you are on the fighting line, you have two alternatives: either you fight or you don't. If you don't, you have nothing to worry about.
If you do, you have two alternatives: either you get hurt or you don't. If you don't, you have nothing to worry about.
If you are hurt, you have two alternatives: either you are slightly hurt or badly. If slightly, you have nothing to worry about.
If badly, you have two alternatives: either you recover or you don't. If you recover, you have nothing to worry about. If you don't, and have followed my advice clear through, you have done with worry forever.
Mrs. McGuire was in a gale of laughter by the time she had finished reading this; so, too, was Susan. Keith also was laughing, but his laughter did not have the really genuine ring to it—which fact did not escape Susan.
"Well, anyhow, he let Mis' McGuire in—an' that's somethin'," she muttered to herself, as Mrs. McGuire took her departure. "Besides, he talked to her real pleasant—an' that's more."
As the days passed, others came, also, and Keith talked with them. He even allowed Dorothy Parkman to be admitted one day.
[Illustration: HE GAVE HER ALMOST NO CHANCE TO SAY ANYTHING HERSELF]
Dorothy had not come until after long urging on the part of Susan and the assurance that Keith had said he would see her. Even then nothing would have persuaded her, she told Susan, except the great hope that she could say something, in some way, that would set her right in Keith's eyes.
So with fear and trembling and with a painful embarrassment on her face, but with a great hope in her heart, she entered the room and came straight to Keith's side.
For a moment the exultation of a fancied success sent a warm glow all through her, for Keith had greeted her pleasantly and even extended his hand. But almost at once the glow faded and the great hope died in her heart, for she saw that even while she touched his hand, he was yet miles away from her.
He laughed and talked with her—oh, yes; but he laughed too much and talked too much. He gave her almost no chance to say anything herself. And what he said was so inconsequential and so far removed from anything intimately concerning themselves, that the girl found it utterly impossible to make the impassioned explanation which she had been saying over and over again all night to herself, and from which she had hoped so much.
Yet at the last, just before she bade him good-bye, she did manage to say something. But in her disappointment and excitement and embarrassment, her words were blurted out haltingly and ineffectually, and they were not at all the ones she had practiced over and over to herself in the long night watches; nor were they received as she had palpitatingly pictured that they would be, with Keith first stern and hurt, and then just dear and forgiving and UNDERSTANDING.
Keith was neither stern nor hurt. He still laughed pleasantly, and he tossed her whole labored explanation aside with a light: "Certainly—of course—to be sure—not at all! You did quite right, I assure you!" And then he remarked that it was a warm day, wasn't it? And Dorothy found herself hurrying down the Burton front walk with burning cheeks and a chagrined helplessness that left her furious and with an ineffably cheap feeling—yet not able to put her finger on any discourteous flaw in Keith's punctilious politeness.
"I wish I'd never said a word—not a word," she muttered hotly to herself as she hurried down the street. "I wonder if he thinks—I'll ever open my head to him about it again. Well, he needn't—worry! But—oh, Keith, Keith, how could you?" she choked brokenly. Then abruptly she turned down a side street, lest Mazie Sanborn, coming toward her, should see the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks.
JOHN McGUIRE
So imperative was the knock at the kitchen door at six o'clock that July morning that Susan almost fell down the back stairs in her haste to obey the summons.
"Lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, what a start you did give—why, Mis'McGuire, what is it?" she interrupted herself, aghast, as Mrs.McGuire, white-faced and wild-eyed, swept past her and began to paceup and down the kitchen floor, moaning frenziedly:
"It's come—it's come—I knew't would come. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
"What's come?"
"Oh, John, John, my boy, my boy!"
"You don't mean he's—dead?"
"No, no, worse than that, worse than that!" moaned the woman, wringing her hands. "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?"
With a firm grasp Susan caught the twisting fingers and gently but resolutely forced their owner into a chair.
"Do? You'll jest calm yourself right down an' tell me all about it, Mis' McGuire. This rampagin' 'round the kitchen like this don't do no sort of good, an' it's awful on your nerves. An' furthermore an' moreover, no matter what't is that ails your John, it can't be worse'n death; for while there's life there's hope, you know."
"But it is, it is, I tell you," sobbed Mrs. McGuire still swaying her body back and forth. "Susan, my boy is—BLIND." With the utterance of the dread word Mrs. McGuire stiffened suddenly into rigid horror, her eyes staring straight into Susan's.
"MIS' MCGUIRE!" breathed Susan in dismay; then hopefully, "But maybe 'twas a mistake."
The woman shook her head. She went back to her swaying from side to side.
"No, 'twas a dispatch. It came this mornin'. Just now. Mr. McGuire was gone, an' there wasn't anybody there but the children, an' they're asleep. That's why I came over. I HAD to. I had to talk to some one!"
"Of course, you did! An' you shall, you poor lamb. You shall tell me all about it. What was it? What happened?"
"I don't know. I just know he's blind, an' that he's comin' home. He's on his way now. My John—blind! Oh, Susan, what shall I do, what shall I do?"
"Then he probably ain't sick, or hurt anywheres else, if he's on his way home—leastways, he ain't hurt bad. You can be glad for that, Mis' McGuire."
"I don't know, I don't know. Maybe he is. It didn't say. It just said blinded," chattered Mrs. McGuire feverishly. "They get them home just as soon as they can when they're blinded. We were readin' about it only yesterday in the paper—how they did send 'em home right away. Oh, how little I thought that my son John would be one of 'em—my John!"
"But your John ain't the only one, Mis' McGuire. There's other Johns, too. Look at our Keith here."
"I know, I know."
"An' I wonder how he'll take this—about your John?"
"HE'LL know what it means," choked Mrs. McGuire.
"He sure will—an' he'll feel bad. I know that. He ain't hisself, anyway, these days."
"He ain't?" Mrs. McGuire asked the question abstractedly, her mind plainly on her own trouble; but Susan, intent on HER trouble, did not need even the question to spur her tongue.
"No, he ain't. Oh, he's brave an' cheerful. He's awful cheerful, even cheerfuler than he was a month ago. He's too cheerful, Mis' McGuire. There's somethin' back of it I don't like. He—"
But Mrs. McGuire was not listening. Wringing her hands she had sprung to her feet and was pacing the floor again, moaning: "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?" A minute later, only weeping afresh at Susan's every effort to comfort her, she stumbled out of the kitchen and hurried across the yard to her own door.
Watching her from the window, Susan drew a long sigh.
"I wonder how he WILL take—But, lan' sakes, this ain't gettin' my breakfast," she ejaculated with a hurried glance at the clock on the little shelf over the stove.
There was nothing, apparently, to distinguish breakfast that morning from a dozen other breakfasts that had gone before. Keith and his father talked cheerfully of various matters, and Susan waited upon them with her usual briskness. If Susan was more silent than usual, and if her eyes sought Keith's face more frequently than was her habit, no one, apparently, noticed it. Susan did fancy, however, that she saw a new tenseness in Keith's face, a new nervousness in his manner; but that, perhaps, was because she was watching him so closely, and because he was so constantly in her mind, owing to her apprehension as to how he would take the news of John McGuire's blindness.
From the very first Susan had determined not to tell her news until after Mr. Burton had left the house. She could not have explained it even to herself, but she had a feeling that it would be better to tell Keith when he was alone. She planned, also, to tell him casually, as it were, in the midst of other conversation—not as if it were the one thing on her mind. In accordance with this, therefore, she forced herself to finish her dishes and to set her kitchen in order before she sought Keith in the living-room.
But Keith was not in the living-room; neither was he on the porch or anywhere in the yard.
With a troubled frown on her face Susan climbed the stairs to the second floor. Keith's room was silent, and empty, so far as human presence was concerned. So, too, was the studio, and every other room on that floor.
At the front of the attic stairs Susan hesitated. The troubled frown on her face deepened as she glanced up the steep, narrow stairway.
She did not like to have Keith go off by himself to the attic, and already now twice before she had found him up there, poking in the drawers of an old desk that had been his father's. He had shut the drawers quickly and had laughingly turned aside her questions when she had asked him what in the world he was doing up there. And he had got up immediately and had gone downstairs with her. But she had not liked the look on his face. And to-day, as she hesitated at the foot of the stairs, she was remembering that look. But for only a moment. Resolutely then she lifted her chin, ran up the stairs, and opened the attic door.
Over at the desk by the window there was a swift movement—but not so swift that Susan did not see the revolver pushed under some loose papers.
"Is that you, Susan?" asked Keith sharply. "Yes, honey. I jest came up to get somethin'."
Susan's face was white like paper, and her hands were cold and shaking, but her voice, except for a certain breathlessness, was cheerfully steady. With more or less noise and with a running fire of inconsequent comment, she rummaged among the trunks and boxes, gradually working her way to, ward the desk where Keith still sat.
At the desk, with a sudden swift movement, she thrust the papers to one side and dropped her hand on the revolver. At the same moment Keith's arm shot out and his hand fell, covering hers.
She saw his young face flush and harden and his mouth set into stern lines.
"Susan, you'll be good enough, please, to take your hand off that," he said then sharply.
There was a moment's tense silence. Susan's eyes, agonized and pleading, were on his face. But Keith could not see that. He could only hear her words a moment later—light words, with a hidden laugh in them, yet spoken with that same curious breathlessness.
"Faith, honey, an' how can I, with your own hand holdin' mine so tight?"
Keith removed his hand instantly. His set face darkened.
"This is not a joke, Susan, and I shall have to depend on your honor to let that revolver stay where it is. Unfortunately I am unable to SEE whether I am obeyed or not."
It was Susan's turn to flush. She drew back at once, leaving the weapon uncovered on the desk between them.
"I'm not takin' the pistol, Keith." The laugh was all gone from Susan's voice now. So, too, was the breathlessness. The voice was steady, grave, but very gentle. "We take matches an' pizen an' knives away from CHILDREN—not from grown men, Keith. The pistol is right where you can reach it—if you want it."
[Illustration: KEITH'S ARM SHOT OUT AND HIS HAND FELL, COVERING HERS]
She saw the fingers of Keith's hand twitch and tighten. Otherwise there was no answer. After a moment she went on speaking.
"But let me say jest this: 'tain't like you to be a—quitter, Keith." She saw him wince, but she did not wait for him to speak. "An' after you've done this thing, there ain't any one in the world goin' to be so sorry as you'll be. You mark my words."
It was like a sharp knife cutting a taut cord. The tense muscles relaxed and Keith gave a sudden laugh. True, it was a short laugh, and a bitter one; but it was a laugh.
"You forget, Susan. If—if I carried that out I wouldn't be in the world—to care."
"Shucks! You'd be in some world, Keith Burton, an' you know it. An' you'd feel nice lookin' down on the mess you'd made of THIS world, wouldn't you?"
"Well, if I was LOOKING, I'd be SEEING, wouldn't I?" cut in the youth grimly. "Don't forget, Susan, that I'd be SEEING, please."
"Seein' ain't everything, Keith Burton. Jest remember that. There is some things you'd rather be blind than see. An' that's one of 'em. Besides, seein' ain't the only sensible you've got, an' there's such a lot of things you can do, an'—"
"Oh, yes, I know," interrupted Keith fiercely, flinging out both his hands. "I can feel a book, and eat my dinner, and I can hear the shouts of the people cheering the boys that go marching by my door. But I'm tired of it all. I tell you I can't stand it—I CAN'T, Susan. Yes, I know that's a cheap way out of it," he went on, after a choking pause, with a wave of his hand toward the revolver on the desk;" and a cowardly one, too. I know all that. And maybe I wouldn't have—have done it to-day, even if you hadn't come. I found it last week, and it—fascinated me. It seemed such an easy way out of it. Since then I've been up here two or three times just to—to feel of it. Somehow I liked to know it was here, and that, if—if I just couldn't stand things another minute—
"But—I've tried to be decent, honest I have. But I'm tired of being amused and 'tended to like a ten-year-old boy. I don't want flowers and jellies and candies brought in to me. I don't want to read and play solitaire and checkers week in and week out. I want to be over there, doing a man's work. Look at Ted, and Tom, and Jack Green, and John McGuire!"
"John McGuire!" It was a faltering cry from Susan, but Keith did not even hear.
"What are they doing, and what am I doing? Yet you people expect me to sit here contented with a dice-box and a deck of playing-cards, and be GLAD I can do that much. Oh, well, I suppose I ought to be. But when I sit here alone day after day and think and think—"
"But, Keith, we don't want you to do that," interposed Susan feverishly. "Now there's Miss Dorothy—if you'd only let her—"
"But I tell you I don't want to be babied and pitied and 'tended to by young women who are SORRY for me.Iwant to do the helping part of the time. And if I see a girl I—I could care for, I want to be able to ask her like a man to marry me; and then if she says 'yes,' I want to be able to take care of her myself—not have her take care of me and marry me out of pity and feed me fudge and flowers! And there's—dad."
Keith's voice broke and stopped. Susan, watching his impassioned face, wet her lips and swallowed convulsively. Then Keith began again.
"Susan, do you know the one big thing that drives me up here everytime, in spite of myself? It's the thought of—dad. How do you supposeI feel to think of dad peddling peas and beans and potatoes down toMcGuire's grocery store?—dad!"
Susan lifted her head defiantly.
"Well, now look a-here, Keith Burton, let me tell you that peddlin' peas an' beans an' potatoes is jest as honorary as paintin' pictures, an'—"
"I'm not saying it isn't," cut in the boy incisively. "I'm merely saying that, as I happen to know, he prefers to paint pictures—and I prefer to have him. And he'd be doing it this minute—if it wasn't for his having to support me, and you know it, Susan."
"Well, what of it? It don't hurt him any."
"It hurts me, Susan. And when I think of all the things he hoped—of me. I was going to be Jerry and Ned and myself; and I was going to make him so proud, Susan, so proud! I was going to make up to him all that he had lost. All day under the trees up on the hill, I used to lie and dream of what I was going to be some day—the great pictures I was going to paint—for dad. The great fame that was going to come to me—for dad. The money I was going to earn—for dad: I saw dad, old and white-haired, leaning on me. I saw the old house restored—all the locks and keys and sagging blinds, the cracked ceilings and tattered wallpaper—all made fresh and new. And dad so proud and happy in it all—so proud and happy that perhaps he'd think I really had made up for Jerry and Ned, and his own lost hopes.
"And, now, look at me! Useless, worse than useless—all my life a burden to him and to everybody else. Susan, I can't stand it. I CAN'T. That's why I want to end it all. It would be so simple—such an easy way—out."
"Yes, 'twould—for quitters. Quitters always take easy ways out. But you ain't no quitter, Keith Burton. Besides, 't wouldn't end it. You know that. 'Twould jest be shuttin' the door of this room an' openin' the one to the next. You've had a good Christian bringin' up, Keith Burton, an' you know as well as I do that your eternal, immoral soul ain't goin' to be snuffled out of existence by no pistol shot, no matter how many times you pull the jigger."
Keith laughed—and with the laugh his tense muscles relaxed.
"All right, Susan," he shrugged a little grimly. "I'll concede your point. You made it—perhaps better than you know. But—well, it isn't so pleasant always to be the hook, you know," he finished bitterly.
"The—hook?" frowned Susan.
Keith laughed again grimly.
"Perhaps you've forgotten—but I haven't. I heard you talking to Mrs. McGuire one day. You said that everybody was either a hook or an eye, and that more than half the folks were hooks hanging on to somebody else. And that's why some eyes had more than their share of hooks hanging on to them. You see—I remembered. I knew then, when you said it, that I was a hook, and—"
"Keith Burton, I never thought of you when I said that," interruptedSusan agitatedly.
"Perhaps not; butIdid. Why, Susan, of course I'm a hook—an old, bent, rusty hook. But I can hang on—oh, yes, I can hang on—to anybody that will let me! But, Susan, don't you see?—sometimes it seems as if I'd give the whole world if just for once I could feel that I—that some one was hanging on to me! that I was of some use somewhere."
"An' so you're goin' to be, honey. I know you be," urged Susan eagerly. "Just remember all them fellers that wrote books an' give lecturing an'—"
"Oh, yes, I know," interposed Keith, with a faint smile. "You were a good old soul, Susan, to read me all those charming tales, and I understood of course, what you were doing it for. You wanted me to go and do likewise. But I couldn't write a book to save my soul, Susan, and my voice would stick in my throat at the second word of a 'lecturing.'"
"But there'll be somethin', Keith, I know there'll be somethin'. God never locked up the doors of your eyes without givin' you the key to some other door. It's jest that you hain't found it yet."
"Perhaps. I certainly haven't found it—that's sure," retorted the lad bitterly. "And just why He saw fit to send me this blindness—"
"We don't have to know," interposed Susan quickly; "an' questionin' about it don't settle nothin', anyhow. If we've got it, we've got it, an' if it's somethin' we can't possibly help, the only questionin' worth anything then is how are we goin' to stand it. You see, there's more'n one way of standin' things."
"Yes, I know there is." Keith stirred restlessly in his seat.
"An' some ways is better than others."
"There, there, Susan, I know just what you're going to say, and it's all very true, of course," cried Keith, stirring still more restlessly. "But you see T don't happen to feel like hearing it just now. Oh, yes, I know I've got lots to be thankful for. I can hear, and feel, and taste, and walk; and I should be glad for all of them. And I am, of course. I should declare that all's well with the world, and that both sides of the street are sunny, and that there isn't any shadow anywhere. There, you see! I know all that you would say, Susan, and I've said it, so as to save you the trouble."
"Humph!" commented Susan, bridling a little; then suddenly, she gave a sly chuckle. "That's all very well an' good, Master Keith Burton, but there's one more thing I would have said if I was doin' the sayin'!"
"Well?"
"About that both sides of the street bein' sunny—it seems to me that the man what says, yes, he knows one side is shady an' troublous, but that he thinks it'll be healthier an' happier for him an' everybody else 'round him if he walks on the sunny side, an' then WALKS THERE—it seems to me he's got the spots all knocked off that feller what says there AIN'T no shady side!"
Keith gave a low laugh—a laugh more nearly normal than Susan had heard him give for several days.
"All right, Susan, I'll accept your amendment and—we'll let it go that one side is shady, and that I'm supposed to determinedly pick the sunny side. Anything more?"