"M-more?"
"That you came up to say to me—yes. You know I have just saved you the trouble of saying part of it."
"Oh!" Susan laughed light-heartedly. (This was Keith—her Keith that she knew.) "No that's all I—" She stopped short in dismay! All the color and lightness disappeared from her face, leaving it suddenly white and drawn. "That is," she faltered, "there was somethin' else—I was goin' to say, about—about John McGuire. He—"
"I don't care to hear it." Keith had frozen instantly into frigid aloofness. Stern lines had come to his boyish mouth.
"But—but, Keith, Mrs. McGuire came over to-"
"To read another of those precious letters, of course," cut in Keith angrily, "but I tell you I don't want to hear it. Do you suppose a caged bird likes to hear of the woods and fields and tree-tops while he's tied to a three-inch swing between two gilt bars? Well, hardly! There's lots that I do have to stand, Susan, but I don't have to stand that."
Susan caught her breath with a half sob.
"But, Keith, I wasn't going to tell you of—of woods an' fields an' tree-tops this time. You see—now he's in a cage himself."
"What do you mean?"
"He's coming home. He's—blind."
Keith leaped from his chair.
"BLIND? JOHN McGUIRE?"
"Yes."
"Oh-h-h!" Long years of past suffering and of future woe filled the short little word to bursting, as Keith dropped back into his chair. For a moment he sat silent, his whole self held rigid. Then, unsteadily he asked the question:
"What—happened?"
"They don't know. It was a dispatch that came this mornin'. He was blinded, an' is on his way home. That's all."
"That's—enough."
"Yes, I knew you'd—understand."
"Yes, I do—understand."
Susan hesitated. Keith still sat, with his unseeing gaze straight ahead, his body tense and motionless. On the desk within reach lay the revolver. Cautiously Susan half extended her hand toward it, then drew it back. She glanced again at Keith's absorbed face, then turned and made her way quietly down the stairs.
At the bottom of the attic flight she glanced back. "He won't touch it now, I'm sure," she breathed. "An', anyhow, we only take knives an' pizen away from children—not grown men!"
It was the town talk, of course—the home-coming of John McGuire. Men gathered on street corners and women clustered about back-yard fences and church doorways. Children besieged their parents with breathless questions, and repeated to each other in awe-struck whispers what they had heard. Everywhere was horror, sympathy, and interested speculation as to "how he'd take it."
Where explicit information was so lacking, imagination and surmise eagerly supplied the details; and Mrs. McGuire's news of the blinding of John McGuire was not three days old before a full account of the tragedy from beginning to end was flying from tongue to tongue—an account that would have surprised no one so greatly as it would have surprised John McGuire himself.
To Susan, Dorothy Parkman came one day with this story.
"Well, 't ain't true," disavowed Susan succinctly when the lurid details had been breathlessly repeated to her.
"You mean—he isn't blind?" demanded the young girl.
"Oh, yes, he's blind, all right, poor boy! But it's the rest I mean—about his killin' twenty-eight Germans single-handed, an' bein' all shot to pieces hisself, an' benighted for bravery."
"But what did happen?"
"We don't know. We just know he's blind an' comin' home. Mis' McGuire had two letters yesterday from John, but—"
"From John—himself?"
"Yes; but they was both writ long before the apostrophe, an' 'course they didn't say nothin' about it. He was well an' happy, he said. She had had only one letter before these for a long time. An' now to have—this!"
"Yes, I know. It's terrible. How does—Mr. Keith take it?"
Susan opened wide her eyes.
"Why, you've seen him—you see him yesterday yourself, Miss Dorothy."
"Oh, I saw him—in a way, but not the real him, Susan. He's miles away now, always."
"You mean he ain't civil an' polite?" demanded Susan.
"Oh, he's very civil—too civil, Susan. Every time I go I say I won't go again. Then, when I get to thinking of him sitting there alone all day, and of how he used to like to have me read to him and play with him, I—I just have to go and see if he won't be the same as he used to be. But he never is."
"I know." Susan shook her head mournfully. "An' he ain't the same, Miss Dorothy. He don't ever whistle nor sing now, nor play solitary, nor any of them things he used to do. Oh, when folks comes in he braces back an' talks an' laughs. YOU know that. But in the exclusion of his own home here he jest sits an' thinks an' thinks an' thinks. An', Miss Dorothy, I've found out now what he's thinkin' of."
"Yes?"
"It's John McGuire an' them other soldiers what's comin' back blind from the war. An' he talks an' talks about 'em, an' mourns an' takes on something dreadful. He says HE knows what it means, an' that nobody can know what hain't had it happen to 'em. An' he broods an' broods over it."
"I can—imagine it." The girl said it with a little catch in her voice.
"An'—an' there's somethin' else I want to tell you about. I've got to tell somebody. I want to know if you think I done right. An' you're the only one I can tell. I've thought it all out. Daniel Burton is too near, an' Mis' McGuire an' all them others is too far. You ain't a relation, an' yet you care. You do care, don't you?—about Mr. Keith?"
"Why, of—of course. I care a great deal, Susan." Miss Dorothy spoke very lightly, very impersonally; but there was a sudden flame of color in her face. Susan, however, was not noticing this. Furtively she was glancing one way and another over her shoulder.
"Yes. Well, the other day he—he tried to—that is, well, I—I found him with a pistol in his hand, an'—"
"Susan!" The girl had gone very white.
"Oh, he didn't do it. Well, that ain't a very sensitive statement, is it? For if he had done it, he wouldn't be alive now, would he?" broke off Susan, with a faint smile. "But what I mean is, he didn't do it, an' I don't think he's goin' to do it."
"But, oh, Susan," faltered the girl, "you didn't leave that—that awful thing with him, did you? Didn't you take it—away?"
"No." Susan's mouth set grimly. "An' that's what I wanted to ask you about—if I did right, you know."
"Oh, no, no, Susan! I'm afraid," shuddered the girl. "Can't you—get it away—now?"
"Maybe. I know where 'tis. I was up there yesterday an' see it. 'T was in the desk drawer in the attic, jest where it used to be."
"Then get it, Susan, get it. Oh, please get it," begged the girl. "I'm afraid to have it there—a single minute."
"But, Miss Dorothy, stop; wait jest a minute. Think. How's he goin' to get self-defiance an' make a strong man of hisself if we take things away from him like he was a little baby?"
"I know, Susan; but if he SHOULD be tempted—"
"He won't. He ain't no more. I'm sure of that. I talked with him.Besides, I hain't caught him up there once since that day last week.Oh, I'm free to confess I HAVE watched him," admitted Susandefensively, with a faint smile.
"But what did happen that day you—you found him?"
"Oh, he had it, handlin' it, an' when he heard me, he jumped a little, an' hid it under some papers. My, Miss Dorothy, 'twas awful. I was that scared an' frightened I thought I couldn't move. But I knew I'd got to, an' I knew I'd got to move RIGHT, too, or I'd spoil everything. This wa'n't no ten-cent melodydrama down to the movies, but I had a humane soul there before me, an' I knew maybe it's whole internal salvation might depend on what I said an' did."
"But what DID you say?"
"I don't know. I only know that somehow, when it was over, I had a feelin' that he wouldn't never do that thing again. That somehow the MAN in him was on top, an' would stay on top. An' I'm more sure than ever of it now. He ain't thinkin' of hisself these days. It's John McGuire and them others. An' ain't it better that he let that pistol alone of his own free will an' accordance, an' know he was a man an' no baby, than if I'd taken it away from him?"
"I suppose—it was, Susan; but I don't think I'd have been strong enough—to make him strong."
"Yes, you would, if you'd been there. I reckon we're all goin' to learn to do a lot of things we never did before, now that the war has come."
"Yes, I know." A quivering pain swept across the young girl's face.
"Somehow, the war never seemed real to me before. 'T was jest somethin' 'way off—a lot of Dagoes an' Dutchmen, like the men what dug up the McGuires' frozen water-pipes last spring, fightin'. Not our kind of folks what talked English. Even when I read the papers, an' the awful things they did over there—it didn't seem as if 't was folks on our earth. It was like somethin' you read about in them old histronic days, or somethin' happenin' up on the moon, or on that plantation of Mars. Oh, of course, I knew John McGuire had gone; but somehow I never thought of him as fightin'—not with guns an' bloody gore, in spite of them letters of his. Some way, in my mind's eyes I always see him marchin' with flags flyin' an' folks cheerin'; an' I thought the war'd be over, anyhow, by the time he got there.
"But, now—! Why, now they're all gone—our own Teddy Somers, an' Tom Spencer, an' little Jacky Green that I used to hold on my knee. Some of 'em in France, an' some of 'em in them army canteens down to Ayer an' Texas an' everywhere. An' poor Tom's died already of pneumonia right here in our own land. An' now poor John McGuire! I tell you, Miss Dorothy, it brings it right home now to your own heart, where it hurts."
"It certainly does, Susan."
"An' let me tell you. What do you s'pose, more 'n anything else, made me see how really big it all is?"
"I don't know, Susan,"
"Well, I'll tell you. 'Twas because I couldn't write a poem on it."
"Sure enough, Susan! I don't believe I've heard you make a rhyme to-day," smiled Miss Dorothy.
Susan sighed and shook her head.
"Yes, I know. I don't make 'em much now. Somehow they don't sing all the time in my heart, an' burst out natural-like, as they used to. I think them days when I tried so hard to sell my poems, an' couldn't, kinder took the jest out of poetizin' for me. Somehow, when you find out somethin' is invaluable to other folks, it gets so it's invaluable to you, I s'pose. Still, even now, when I set right down to it, I can 'most always write 'em right off 'most as quick as I used to. But I couldn't on this war. I tried it. But it jest wouldn't do. I begun it:
Oh, woe is me, said the bayonet,Oh, woe is me, said the sword.
Then the whole awful frightfulness of it an' the bigness of it seemed to swallow me up, an' I felt like a little pigment overtopped an' surrounded by great tall mountains of horror that were tumblin' down one after another on my head, an' bury in' me down so far an' deep that I couldn't say anything, only to moan, 'Oh, Lord, how long, oh, Lord, how long?' An' I knew then't was too big for me. I didn't try to write no more."
"I can see how you couldn't," faltered the girl, as she turned away."I'm afraid—we're all going to find it—too big for us."
John McGuire had not been home twenty-four hours before it was known that he "took it powerful hard."
To Keith Susan told what she had learned.
"They say he utterly refuses to see any one outside the family; an' that he'd rather not see even his own folks—that he's always askin' 'em to let him alone."
"Is he ill or wounded otherwise?" asked Keith.
"No, he ain't hurt outwardly or infernally, except his eyes, an' he says that's the worst of it, one woman told me. He's as sound as a nut, an' good for a hundred years yet. If he'd only been smashed up good an' solid, so's he'd have some hope of dyin' pretty quick, he wouldn't mind it, he says. But to live along like this—!—oh, he's in an awful state of mind, everybody says."
"I can—imagine it," sighed Keith. And by the way he turned away Susan knew that he did not care to talk any more.
An hour later Mrs. McGuire hurried into Susan's kitchen. Mrs. McGuire was looking thin and worn these days. From her half-buttoned shoes to her half-combed hair she was showing the results of strain and anxiety. With a long sigh she dropped into one of the kitchen chairs.
"Well, Mis' McGuire, if you ain't the stranger!" Susan greeted her cordially.
"Yes, I know," sighed Mrs. McGuire. "But, you see, I can't leave—him." As she spoke she looked anxiously through the window toward her own door. "Mr. McGuire's with him, now, so I got away."
"But there's Bess an' Harry," began Susan,
"We don't leave him with the children, ever," interposed Mrs. McGuire,with another hurried glance through the window. "We—don't dare to.You see, once we found—we found him with his father's old pistol. Oh,Susan, it—it was awful!"
"Yes, it—must have been." Susan, after one swift glance into her visitor's face, had turned her back suddenly. She was busy now with the dampers of her kitchen stove.
"Of course we took it right away," went on Mrs. McGuire, "an' put it where he'll never get it again. But we're always afraid there'll be somethin' somewhere that he WILL get hold of. You see, he's SO despondent—in such a terrible state!"
"Yes, I know," nodded Susan. Susan had abandoned her dampers, and had turned right about face again. "If only he'd see folks now."
"Yes, an' that's what I came over to talk to you about," cried Mrs. McGuire eagerly. "We haven't been able to get him to see anybody—not anybody. But I've been wonderin' if he wouldn't see Keith, if we could work it right. You see he says he just won't be stared at; an' Keith, poor boy, COULDN'T stare, an' John knows it. Oh, Susan, do you suppose we could manage it?"
"Why, of course. I'll tell him right away, an' he'll go over; I know he'll go!" exclaimed Susan, all interest at once.
"Oh, but that wouldn't do at all!" cried Mrs. McGuire. "Don't you see? John refuses, absolutely refuses, to see any one; an' he wouldn't see Keith, if I should ASK him to. But he's interested in Keith—I KNOW he's that, for once, when I was talkin' to Mr. McGuire about Keith, John broke in an' asked two or three questions, an' he's NEVER done that before, about anybody. An' so I was pretty sure it was because Keith was blind, you know, like himself."
"Yes, I see, I see."
"An' if I can only manage it so they'll meet without John's knowin' they're goin' to, I believe he'll get to talkin' with him before he knows it; an' that it'll do him a world of good. Anyway, somethin's got to be done, Susan—it's GOT to be—to get him out of this awful state he's in."
"Well, we'll do it. I know we can do it some way."
"You think Keith'll do his part?" Mrs. McGuire's eyes were anxious.
"I'm sure he will—when he understands."
"Then listen," proposed Mrs. McGuire eagerly. "I'll get my John out on to the back porch to-morrow mornin'. That's the only place outdoors I CAN get him—he can't be seen from the street there, you know. I'll get him there as near ten o'clock as I can. You be on the watch, an' as soon as I get him all nicely fixed, you get Keith to come out into your yard an' stroll over to the fence an' speak to him, an' then come up on to the porch an' sit down, just naturally. He can do that all right, can't he? It's just wonderful—the way he gets around everywhere, with that little cane of his!"
"Yes, oh, yes."
"Well, I thought he could. An' tell him to keep right on talkin' every minute so my John won't have a chance to get up an' go into the house. Of course, I shall be there myself, at first. We never leave him alone, you know. But as soon as Keith comes, I shall go. They'll get along better by themselves, I'm sure—only, of course, I shall be where I can keep watch out of the window. Now do you understand?"
"Yes, an' we can do it. I know we can do it."
"All right, then. I'm not so sure we can, but we'll try it, anyway," sighed Mrs. McGuire, rising to her feet, the old worry back on her face. "Well, I must be goin'. Mr. McGuire'll have a fit. He's as nervous as a witch when he's left alone with John. There! What did I tell you?" she broke off, with an expressive gesture and glance, as a careworn-looking man appeared in the doorway of the house across the two back yards, and peered anxiously over at the Burtons' kitchen door. "Now, don't forget—ten o'clock to-morrow mornin'."
"I won't forget," promised Susan cheerfully, "Now, do you go home an' set easy, Mis' McGuire, an' don't you fret no more. It's comin' out all right—all right, I tell you," she reiterated, as Mrs. McGuire hurried through the doorway.
But when Mrs. McGuire was gone Susan drew a dubious sigh; and her cheery smile had turned to a questioning frown as she went in search of Keith. Very evidently Susan was far from feeling quite so sure about Keith's cooperation as she would have Mrs. McGuire think.
Keith was in the living-room, his head bowed in his two hands, his elbows on the table before him. At the first sound of Susan's steps he lifted his head with a jerk.
"I was lookin' for you," began Susan the moment she had crossed the threshold. Susan had learned that Keith hated above all things to have to speak first, or to ask, "Who is it?" "Mis' McGuire's jest been here."
"Yes, I heard her voice," returned the boy indifferently.
"She was tellin' about her John."
"How is he getting along?"
"He's in a bad way. Oh, he's real well physicianally, but he's in a bad way in his mind."
"Well, you don't wonder, do you?"
"Oh, no, 'course not. Still, well, for one thing, he don't like to see folks."
"Strange! Now, I'd think he'd just dote on seeing folks, wouldn't you?"
Susan caught the full force of the sarcasm, but superbly she ignored it.
"Well, I don't know—maybe; but, anyhow, he don't, an' Mis' McGuire's that worried she don't know what to do. You see, she found him once with his daddy's pistol"—Susan was talking very fast now—"an' 'course that worked her up somethin' terrible. I'm afraid he hain't got much backbone. They don't dare to leave him alone a minute—not a minute. An' Mis' McGuire, she was wonderin' if—if you couldn't help 'em out some way."
"I?" The short ejaculation was full of amazement.
"Yes. That's what she come over for this mornin'."
"I? They forget." Keith fell back bitterly. "John McGuire might get hold of a dozen revolvers, and I wouldn't know it."
"Oh, 'twa'n't that. They didn't want you to WATCH him. They wanted you to—Well, it's jest this. Mis' McGuire thought as how if she could get her John out on the back porch, an' you happened to be in our back yard, an' should go over an' speak to him, maybe you'd get to talkin' with him, an' go up an' sit down. She thought maybe 'twould get him out of hisself that way. You see, he won't talk to—to most folks. He don't like to be stared at." (Susan threw a furtive glance into Keith's face, then looked quickly away.) "But she thought maybe he WOULD talk to you."
"Yes, I—see." Keith drew in his breath with a little catch.
"An' so she said there wa'n't anybody anywhere that could help so much as you—if you would."
"Why, of course, if I really could HELP—"
Susan did not need to look into Keith's face to catch the longing and heart-hunger and dawning hope in the word left suspended on his lips. She felt her own throat tighten; but in a moment she managed to speak with steady cheerfulness.
"Well, you can. You can help a whole lot. I'm sure you can. An' Mis' McGuire is, too. An' what's more, you're the only one what can help 'em, in this case. So we'll keep watch to-morrow mornin', an' when he comes out on the porch—well, we'll see what we will see." And Susan, just as if her own heart was not singing a triumphant echo of the song she knew was in his, turned away with an elaborate air of indifference.
Yet, when to-morrow came, and when Keith went out into the yard in response to the presence of John McGuire on his back porch, the result was most disappointing—to Susan. To Keith it did not seem to be so much so. But perhaps Keith had not expected quite what Susan had expected. At all events, Keith came back to the house with a glow on his face and a springiness in his step that Susan had not seen there for months. Yet all that had happened was that Keith had called out from the gate a pleasant "Good-morning!" to the blinded soldier, and had followed it with an inconsequential word or two about the weather. John McGuire had answered a crisp, cold something, and had risen at once to go into the house. Keith, at the first sound of his feet on the porch floor, had turned with a cheery "Well, I must be going back to the house." Whereupon John McGuire had sat down again, and Mrs. McGuire, who at Keith's first words, had started to her feet, dropped back into her chair.
Apparently not much accomplished, certainly; yet there was the glow on Keith's face and the springiness in Keith's step; and when he reached the kitchen, he said this to Susan:
"The next time John McGuire is on the back porch, please let me know."
And Susan let him know, both then and at subsequent times.
It was a pretty game and one well worth the watching. Certainly Susan and Mrs. McGuire thought it so. On the one side were persistence and perseverance and infinite tact. On the other were a distrustful antagonism and a palpable longing for an understanding companionship.
At first the intercourse between the two blind youths consisted of a mere word or two tossed by Keith to the other who gave a still shorter word in reply. And even this was not every day, for John McGuire was not out on the porch every day. But as the month passed, he came more and more frequently, and one evening Mrs. McGuire confided to Susan the fact that John seemed actually to fret now if a storm kept him indoors.
"An' he listens for Keith to come along the fence—I know he does," she still further declared. "Oh, I know he doesn't let him say much yet, but he hasn't jumped up to go into the house once since those first two or three times, an' that's somethin'. An' what's more, he let Keith stay a whole minute at the gate talkin' yesterday!" she finished in triumph.
"Yes, an' the best of it is," chimed in Susan, "it's helpin' Keith Burton hisself jest as much as 'tis John McGuire. Why, he ain't the same boy since he's took to tryin' to get your John to talkin'. An' he asks me a dozen times a mornin' if John's out on the porch yet. An' when he IS out there, he don't lose no time in goin' out hisself."
Yet it was the very next morning that Keith, after eagerly asking if John McGuire were on the back porch, did not go out. Instead he settled back in his chair and picked up one of his embossed books.
Susan frowned in amazed wonder, and opened her lips as if to speak. But after a glance at Keith's apparently absorbed face, she turned and went back to her work in the kitchen. Twice during the next ten minutes, however, she invented an excuse to pass again through the living-room, where Keith sat. Yet, though she said a pointed something each time about John McGuire on the back porch, Keith did not respond save with an indifferent word or two. And, greatly to her indignation, he was still sitting in his chair with his book when at noon John McGuire, on the porch across the back yard, rose from his seat and went into the house.
Susan was still more indignant when, the next morning, the same programme was repeated—except for the fact that Susan's reminders of John McGuire's presence on the back porch were even more pointed than they had been on the day before. Again the third morning it was the same. Susan resolved then to speak. She said to herself that "patience had ceased to be virtuous," and she lay awake half that night rehearsing a series of arguments and pleadings which she meant to present the next morning. She was the more incited to this owing to Mrs. McGuire's distracted reproaches the evening before.
"Why, John has asked for him, actually ASKED for him," Mrs. McGuire had wept. "An' it is cruel, the cruelest thing I ever saw, to get that poor boy all worked up to the point of really WANTIN' to talk with him, an' then stay away three whole days like this!"
On the fourth morning, therefore, when John McGuire appeared on the back porch, Susan went into the Burton living-room with the avowed determination of getting Keith out of the house and into the back yard, or of telling him exactly what she thought of him.
She had all of her elaborate scheming for nothing, however, for at her first terse announcement that John McGuire was on the back porch, Keith sprang to his feet with a cheery:
"So? Well, I guess I'll go out myself."
And Susan was left staring at him with open eyes and mouth—yet not too dazed to run to the open window and watch what happened.
And this is what Susan saw—and heard. Keith, with his almost uncannily skillful stick to guide him, sauntered down the path and called a cheery greeting to John McGuire—a John McGuire who, in his eagerness to respond, leaned away forward in his chair with a sudden flame of color in his face.
Keith still sauntered toward the dividing fence, pausing only to feel with his fingers and pick the one belated rose from the bush at the gate. He pushed the gate open then, still talking cheerfully, and the next moment Susan was holding her breath, for Keith had gone straight up the walk and up the steps, and had dropped himself into the vacant chair beside John McGuire—and John McGuire, after a faint start as if to rise, had fallen back in his seat, and had turned his face uncertainly, fearfully, yet with infinite longing, toward the blind youth at his side.
Susan looked then at Mrs. McGuire. Mrs. McGuire, too, was plainly holding her breath suspended. On her face, too, were uncertainty, fearfulness, and infinite longing. For a moment she watched the two boys intently. Then she rose and with cautious steps made her way into the house. After supper that night she came over and told Susan all about it. Her face was beaming.
"Did you see them?" she began breathlessly. "Wasn't it wonderful? A whole half-hour those two blessed boys sat there an' talked; an' John laughed twice, actually laughed."
"Yes, I know," nodded Susan, her own face no less beaming.
"An' to think how just last night I was scoldin' an' blamin' Keith because he didn't come over these last three days. An' I never saw at all what he was up to."
"Up to?" frowned Susan.
"Yes, yes! Don't you see? He did it on purpose—stayed away three whole days, so John would miss him an' WANT him. An' John DID miss him. Why, he listened for him all the time. I could just SEE he was listenin'. An' that's what made me so angry, because Keith didn't come. The idea!—My boy wantin' somebody, an' that somebody not there!
"But I know now. I understand. An' I love him for it. He did it to make him want him. An' it worked. Why, if he'd come before, every day, just as usual, John wouldn't have talked with him. I know he wouldn't. But now—oh, Susan, it was wonderful, wonderful! I watched 'em from the window. I HAD to watch. I was afraid—still. An' of course I heard some things. An', oh, Susan, it was wonderful, the way that boy understood."
"You mean—Keith?"
"Yes. You see, first John began to talk just as he talks to us—ravin' because he's so strong an' well, an' likely to live to be a hundred; an' of how he'll look, one of these days, with his little tin cup held out for pennies an' his sign, 'Please Help the Blind,' an' of what he's got to look forward to all his life. Oh, Susan, it—it's enough to break the heart of a stone, when he talks like that."
Susan drew in her breath.
"Don't you s'pose I know? Well, I guess I do! But what did Keith say to him?"
"Nothin'. An' that was the first wonderful thing. You see, we—we always talk an' try to comfort him when he talks like that. But Keith didn't. He just let him talk, with nothin' but just a sympathetic word now an' then. But it wasn't long before I noticed a wonderful thing was happenin'. Keith was beginnin' to talk—not about that awful tin cup an' the pennies an' the sign, but about other things; first about the rose in his hand. An' pretty quick John was talkin' about it, too. He had the rose an' was smellin' of it. Then Keith had a new knife, an' he passed that over, an' pretty quick I saw that John had that little link puzzle of Keith's, an' was havin' a great time tryin' to straighten it out. That's the first time I heard him laugh.
"I began to realize then what Keith was doin'. He was fillin' John's mind full of somethin' else beside himself, for just a minute, an' was showin' him that there were things he could call by name, like the rose an' the knife an' the puzzle, even if he couldn't SEE 'em. Oh, Keith didn't SAY anything like that to him—trust him for that. But before John knew it, he was DOIN' it—callin' things by name, I mean.
"An' Keith is comin' again to-morrow. John TOLD me so. An' if you could have seen his face when he said it! Oh, Susan, isn't it wonderful?" she finished fervently, as she turned to go.
"It is, indeed—wonderful," murmured Susan. But Susan's eyes were out the window on Keith's face—Keith and his father were coming up the walk talking; and on Keith's face was a light Susan had never seen there before.
It came to be the accepted thing almost at once, then, that Keith Burton and John McGuire should spend their mornings together on the McGuires' back porch. In less than a fortnight young McGuire even crossed the yard arm in arm with Keith to the Burtons' back porch and sat there one morning. After that it was only a question as to which porch it should be. That it would be one of them was a foregone conclusion.
Sometimes the two boys talked together. Sometimes they worked on one of Keith's raised picture puzzles. Sometimes Keith read aloud from one of his books. Whatever they did, their doing it was the source of great interest to the entire neighborhood. Not only did Mrs. McGuire and Susan breathlessly watch from their respective kitchens, but friends and neighbors fabricated excuses to come to the two houses in order to see for themselves; and children gathered along the divisional fence and gazed with round eyes of wonder. But they gazed silently. Everybody gazed silently. Even the children seemed to understand that the one unpardonable sin was to let the blind boys on the porch know that they were the objects of any sort of interest.
One day Mazie Sanborn came. She brought a new book for Mrs. McGuire to read—an attention she certainly had never before bestowed on John McGuire's mother. She talked one half-minute about the book—and five minutes about the beautiful new friendship between the two blind young men. She insisted on going into the kitchen where she could see the two boys on the porch. Then, before Mrs. McGuire could divine her purpose and stop her, she had slipped through the door and out on to the porch itself.
"How do you do, gentlemen," she began blithely. "I just—"
But the terrified Mrs. McGuire had her by the arm and was pulling her back into the kitchen before she could finish her sentence.
On the porch the two boys had leaped to their feet, John McGuire, in particular, looking distressed and angry.
"Who was that? Is anybody—there?" he demanded.
"No, dear, not now." In the doorway Mrs. McGuire was trying to nod assurance to the boys and frown banishment to Mazie Sanborn at one and the same moment.
"But there was—some one," insisted her son sharply.
"Just some one that brought a book to me, dearie, an' she's gone now." Frantically Mrs. McGuire was motioning Mazie to make her assertion the truth.
John McGuire sat down then. So, too, did Keith. But all the rest of the morning John was nervously alert for all sounds. And his ears were frequently turned toward the kitchen door. He began to talk again, too, bitterly, of the little tin cup for the pennies and the sign "Pity the Poor Blind." He lost all interest in Keith's books and puzzles, and when he was not railing at the tragedy of his fate, he was sitting in gloomy silence.
Keith told Susan that afternoon that if Mrs. McGuire did not keep people away from that porch when he was out there with John, he would not answer for the consequences. Susan told Mrs. McGuire, and Mrs. McGuire told Mazie Sanborn, at the same time returning the loaned book—all of which did not tend to smooth Miss Mazie's already ruffled feelings.
To Dorothy Mazie expressed her mind on the matter.
"I don't care! I'll never go there again—never!" she declared angrily; "nor speak to Mrs. McGuire, nor that precious son of hers, nor Keith Burton, either. So there!"
"Oh, Mazie, but poor Keith isn't to blame," remonstrated Dorothy earnestly, the color flaming into her face.
"He is, too. He's just as bad as John McGuire. He jumped up and looked just as cross as John McGuire did when I went out on to that porch. And he doesn't ever really want to see us. You know he doesn't. He just stands us because he thinks he's got to be polite."
"But, Mazie, dear, he's so sensitive, and he feels his affliction keenly, and—"
"Oh, yes, that's right—stand up for him! I knew you would," snapped Mazie crossly. "And everybody knows it, too—running after him the way you do."
"RUNNING AFTER HIM!" Dorothy's face was scarlet now.
"Yes, running after him," reiterated the other incisively; "and you always have—trotting over there all the time with books and puzzles and candy and flowers. And—"
"For shame, Mazie!" interrupted Dorothy, with hot indignation. "As if trying to help that poor blind boy to while away a few hours of his time were RUNNING AFTER HIM."
"But he doesn't WANT you to while away an hour or two of his time. And I should think you'd see he didn't. You could if you weren't so dead in love with him, and—"
"Mazie!" gasped Dorothy, aghast.
"Well, it's so. Anybody can see that—the way you color up every time his name is mentioned, and the way you look at him, with your heart in your eyes, and—"
"Mazie Sanborn!" gasped Dorothy again. Her face was not scarlet now. It had gone dead white. She was on her feet, horrified, dismayed, and very angry.
"Well, I don't care. It's so. Everybody knows it. And when a fellow shows so plainly that he'd rather be let alone, how you can keep thrusting yourself—"
But Dorothy had gone. With a proud lifting of her head, and a sharp "Nonsense, Mazie, you are wild! We'll not discuss it any longer, please," she had turned and left the room.
But she remembered. She must have remembered, for she did not go near the Burton homestead for a week. Neither did the next week nor the next see her there. Furthermore, though the little stand in her room had shown two new picture puzzles and a new game especially designed for the blind, it displayed them no longer after those remarks of Mazie Sanborn's. Not that Keith had them, however. Indeed, no. They were buried deep under a pile of clothing in the farther corner of Dorothy's bottom bureau drawer.
At the Burton homestead Susan wondered a little at her absence. She even said to Keith one day:
"Why, where's Dorothy? We haven't see her for two weeks."
"I don't know, I'm sure."
The way Keith's lips came together over the last word caused Susan to throw a keen glance into his face.
"Now, Keith, I hope you two haven't been quarreling again," she frowned anxiously.
"'Again'! Nonsense, Susan, we never did quarrel. Don't be silly." The youth shifted his position uneasily.
"I'm thinkin' tain't always me that's silly," observed Susan, with another keen glance. "That girl was gettin' so she come over jest natural-like again, every little while, bringin' in one thing or another, if 'twas nothin' more'n a funny story to make us laugh. An' what I want to know is why she stopped right off short like this, for—"
"Nonsense!" tossed Keith again, with a lift of his chin. Then, with an attempt at lightness that was very near a failure, he laughed: "I reckon we don't want her to come if she doesn't want to, do we, Susan?"
"Humph!" was Susan's only comment—outwardly. Inwardly she was vowing to see that young woman and have it out with her, once for all.
But Susan did not see her nor have it out with her; for, as it happened, something occurred that night so all-absorbing and exciting that even the unexplained absence of Dorothy Parkman became as nothing beside it.
With the abrupt suddenness that sometimes makes the long-waited-for event a real shock, came the news of the death of the poor old woman whose frail hand had held the wealth that Susan had coveted for Daniel Burton and his son.
The two men left the next morning on the four-hundred-mile journey that would take them to the town where Nancy Holworthy had lived.
Scarcely had they left the house before Susan began preparations for their home-coming, as befitted their new estate. Her first move was to get out all the best silver and china. She was busy cleaning it when Mrs. McGuire came in at the kitchen door.
"What's the matter?" she began breathlessly.
"Where's Keith? John's been askin' for him all the mornin'. Is Mr. Burton sick? They just telephoned from the store that Mr. Burton had sent word that he wouldn't be down for a few days. He isn't sick, is he?—or Keith? I couldn't make out quite all they said; but there was somethin' about Keith. They ain't either of 'em sick, are they?"
"Oh, no, they're both well—very well, thank you." There was an air, half elation, half superiority, about Susan that was vaguely irritating to Mrs. McGuire.
"Well, you needn't be so secret about it, Susan," she began a little haughtily. But Susan tossed her head with a light laugh.
"Secret! I guess 't won't be no secret long. Mr. Daniel Burton an'Master Keith have gone away, Mis' McGuire."
"Away! You mean—a—a vacation?" frowned Mrs. McGuire doubtfully.
Susan laughed again, still with that irritating air of superiority.
"Well, hardly. This ain't no pleasure exertion, Mis' McGuire. Still, on the other hand, Daniel Burton wouldn't be half humane if he didn't get some pleasure out of it, though he wouldn't so demean himself as to show it, of course. Mis' Nancy Holworthy is dead, Mis' McGuire. We had the signification last night."
"Not—you don't mean THE Nancy Holworthy—the one that's got the money!" The excited interest in Mrs. McGuire's face and voice was as great as even Susan herself could have desired.
Susan obviously swelled with the glory of the occasion, though she still spoke with cold loftiness.
"The one and the same, Mis' McGuire."
"My stars an' stockin's, you don't say! An' they've gone to the funeral?"
"They have."
"An' they'll get the money now, I s'pose."
"They will."
"But are you sure? You know sometimes when folks expect the money they don't get it. It's been willed away to some one else."
"Yes, I know. But't won't be here," spoke Susan with decision. "Mis' Holworthy couldn't if she'd wanted to. It's all foreordained an' fixed beforehand. Daniel Burton was to get jest the annual while she lived, an' then the whole in a plump sum when she died. Well, she's dead, an' now he gets it. An' a right tidy little sum it is, too."
"Was she awful rich, Susan?"
"More'n a hundred thousand. A hundred an' fifty, I've heard say."
"My gracious me! An' to think of Daniel Burton havin' a hundred and fifty thousand dollars! What in the world will he do with it?"
Susan's chin came up superbly.
"Well, I can tell you one thing he'll do, Mis' McGuire. He'll stop peddlin' peas an' beans over that counter down there, an' retire to a life of ease an' laxity with his paint-brushes, as he ought to. An' he'll have somethin' fit to eat an' wear, an' Keith will, too. An' furthermore an' likewise you'll see SOME difference in this place, or my name ain't Susan Betts. Them two men have got an awful lot to live up to, an' I mean they shall understand it right away."
"Which explains this array of china an' silver, I take it," observedMrs. McGuire dryly.
"Eh? What?" frowned Susan doubtfully; then her face cleared. "Yes, that's jest it. They've got to have things now fitted up to their new estation. We shall get more, too. We need some new teaspoons an' forks. An' I want 'em to get some of them bunion spoons."
"BUNION spoons!"
"Yes—when you eat soup out of them two-handled cups, you know. Or maybe you don't know," she corrected herself, at the odd expression that had come to Mrs. McGuire's face. "But I do. Mrs. Professor Hinkley used to have 'em. They're awful pretty an' stylish, too. And we've got to have a lot of other things—new china, an' some cut-glass, an'—"
"Well, it strikes me," interrupted Mrs. McGuire severely, "that DanielBurton had better be puttin' his money into Liberty Bonds an' RedCross work, instead of silver spoons an' cut-glass, in these war-times.An'—"
"My lan', Mis' McGuire!" With the sudden exclamation Susan had dropped the spoon she was polishing. Her eyes, wild and incredulous, were staring straight into the startled eyes of the woman opposite. "Do you know? Since that yeller telegram came last night tellin' us Nancy Holworthy was dead, I hain't even once thought of—the war."
"Well, I guess you would think of it—if you had my John right before you all the time." With a bitter sigh Mrs. McGuire had relaxed in her chair. "You wouldn't need anything else."
"Humph! I don't need anything else with Daniel Burton 'round."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, I mean that that man don't do nothin' but read war an' talk war every minute he's in the house. An' what with them wheatless days an' meatless days, he fairly EATS war. You heard my poem on them meatless, wheatless days, didn't you?"
Mrs. McGuire shook her head listlessly. Her somber eyes were on the lonely figure of her son on the porch across the two back yards.
"You didn't? Well, I'll say it to you, then. 'Tain't much; still, it's kind of good, in a way. I hain't written hardly anything lately; but I did write this:
We've a wheatless day,An' a meatless day,An' a tasteless, wasteless,sweetless day.
But with never a pause,For the good of the cause,We'd even consent to aneatless day.
"An' we would, too, of course.
"An' as far as that's concerned, there's a good many other kinds of 'less days that I'm thinkin' wouldn't hurt none of us. How about a fretless day an' a worryless day? Wouldn't they be great? An' only think what a talkless day'd mean in some households I could mention. Oh, of course, present comp'ny always accentuated," she hastened to add with a sly chuckle, as Mrs. McGuire stirred into sudden resentment.
"Humph!" subsided Mrs. McGuire, still a little resentfully.
"An' I'm free to confess that there's some kinds of 'less days that we've already got plenty of," went on Susan, after a moment's thoughtful pause. "There is folks that take quite enough workless days, an' laughless days, an' pityless days, an' thankless days. My lan', there ain't no end to them kind, as any one can see. An' there was them heatless days last winter—I guess no one was hankerin' for more of THEM. Oh, 'course I understand that that was just preservation of coal, an' that 'twas necessary, an' all that. An' that's another thing, too—this preservation business. I'd like to add a few things to that, an' make 'em preserve in fault-findin', an' crossness, an' backbitin', an' gossip, as well as in coal, an' sugar, an' wheat, an' beef."
Mrs. McGuire gave a short laugh.
"My goodness, Susan Betts, if you ain't the limit, an' no mistake! I s'pose you mean CONservation."
"Heh? What's that? Well, CONservation, then. What's the difference,anyway?" she scoffed a bit testily. Then, abruptly, her face changed."But, there! this ain't settlin' what I'm going to do with DanielBurton," she finished with a profound sigh.
"Do with him?" puzzled Mrs. McGuire.
"Yes." Susan picked up the silver spoon and began indifferently to polish it. "'Tain't no use for me to be doin' all this. Daniel Burton won't know whether he's eatin' with a silver spoon or one made of pewter. No more will he retire to a life of ease an' laxity with his paint-brushes—unless they declarate peace to-morrow mornin'."
"You don't mean—he'll stay in the store?"
Susan made a despairing gesture.
"Goodness only knows what he'll do—I don't. I know what he does now. He's as uneasy as a fish out o' water, an' he roams the house from one end to the other every night, after he reads the paper. He's got one of them war maps on his wall, an' he keeps changin' the pins an' flags, an' I hear him mutterin' under his breath. You see, he has to keep it from Keith all he can, for Keith hisself feels so bad 'cause he can't be up an' doin'; an' if he thought he was keepin' his father back from helpin', I don't know what the poor boy would do. But I think if 'twa'n't for Keith, Daniel Burton would try to enlist an' go over. Oh, of course, he's beyond the malicious age, so far as bein' drafted is concerned, an' you wouldn't naturally think such a mild-tempered-lookin' man would go in much for killin'. But this war's stirred him up somethin' awful."
"Well, who wouldn't it?"
"Oh, I know that; an' I ain't sayin' as how it shouldn't. But that don't make it no easier for Daniel Burton to keep his feelin's hid from his son, particularly when it's that son that's made him have the feelin's, partly. There ain't no doubt but that one of the things that's made Daniel Burton so fidgety an' uneasy, an' ready to jest fling hisself into that ravin' conflict over there is his unhappiness an' disappointment over Keith. He had such big plans for that boy!"
"Yes, I know. We all have big plans for—our boys." Mrs. McGuire choked and turned away.
"An' girls, too, for that matter," hurried on Susan, with a quick glance into the other's face. "An' speakin' of girls, did you see Hattie Turner on the street last night?"
Dumbly Mrs. McGuire answered with a shake of her head. Her eyes had gone back to her son's face across the yard.
"Well, I did. Her Charlie's at Camp Devens, you know. They say he's invited to more places every Sunday than he can possibly accept; an' that he's petted an' praised an' made of everywhere he goes, an' tended right up to so's he won't get lonesome, or attend unquestionable entertainments. Well, that's all right an' good, of course, an' as it should be. But I wish somebody'd take up Charlie Turner's wife an' invite her to Sunday dinners an' take her to ride, an' see that she didn't attend unquestionable entertainments."
"Why, Susan Betts, what an idea!" protested Mrs. McGuire, suddenly sitting erect in her chair. "Hattie Turner isn't fightin' for her country."
"No, but her husband is," retorted Susan crisply. "An' she's fightin' for her honor an' her future peace an' happiness, an' she's doin' it all alone. She's pretty as a picture, an' nothin' but a child when he married her four months ago, an' we've took away her natural pervider an' entertainer, an' left her nothin' but her freedom for a ballast wheel. An' I say I wish some of the patriotic people who are jest showerin' every Charlie Turner with attentions would please sprinkle jest a few on Charlie's wife, to help keep her straight an' sweet an' honest for Charlie when he comes back."
"Hm-m, maybe," murmured Mrs. McGuire, rising wearily to her feet; "but there ain't many that thinks of that."
"There'll be more think of it by an' by—when it's too late," observedSusan succinctly, as she, too, rose from her chair.
In due course Daniel Burton and his son Keith returned from the funeral of their kinswoman, Mrs. Nancy Holworthy.
The town, aware now of the stupendous change that had come to the fortunes of the Burton family, stared, gossiped, shook wise heads of prophecy, then passed on to the next sensation—which happened to be the return of four soldiers from across the seas; three crippled, one blinded.
At the Burton homestead the changes did not seem so stupendous, after all. True, Daniel Burton had abandoned the peddling of peas and beans across the counter, and had, at the earnest solicitation of his son, got out his easel and placed a fresh canvas upon it; but he obviously worked half-heartedly, and he still roamed the house after reading the evening paper, and spent even more time before the great war map on his studio wall.
True, also, disgruntled tradesmen no longer rang peremptory peals on the doorbell, and the postman's load of bills on the first of the month was perceptibly decreased. The dinner-table, too, bore evidence that a scanty purse no longer controlled the larder, but no new china or cut-glass graced the board, and Susan's longed-for bouillon spoons had never materialized. Locks and doors and sagging blinds had received prompt attention, and already the house was being prepared for a new coat of paint; but no startling alterations or improvements were promised by the evidence, and Keith was still to be seen almost daily on the McGuire back porch, as before, or on his own, with John McGuire.
It is no wonder, surely, that very soon the town ceased to stare and gossip, or even to shake wise heads of prophecy.
Nancy Holworthy's death was two months in the past when one day Keith came home from John McGuire's back porch in very evident excitement and agitation.
"Why, Keith, what's the matter? What IS the matter?" demanded Susan concernedly.
"Nothing. That is, I—I did not know I acted as if anything was the matter," stammered the youth.
"Well, you do. Now, tell me, what is it?"
"Nothing, nothing, Susan. Nothing you can help." Keith was pacing back and forth and up and down the living-room, not even using his cane to define the familiar limits of his pathway. Suddenly he turned and stopped short, his whole body quivering with emotion. "Susan, I can't! I can't—stand it," he moaned.
"I know, Keith. But, what is it—now?"
"John McGuire. He's been telling me how it is—over there. Why, Susan, I could see it—SEE it, I tell you, and, oh, I did so want to be there to help. He told me how they held it—the little clump of trees that meant so much to US, and how one by one they fell—those brave fellows with him. I could see it. I could hear it. I could hear the horrid din of the guns and shells, and the crash of falling trees about us; and the shouts and groans of the men at our side. And they needed men—more men—to take the place of those that had fallen. Even one man counted there—counted for, oh, so much!—for at the last there was just one man left——John McGuire. And to hear him tell it—it was wonderful, wonderful!"
"I know, I know," nodded Susan. "It was like his letters—you could SEE things. He MADE you see 'em. An' that's what he always did—made you see things—even when he was a little boy. His mother told me. He wanted to write, you know. He was goin' to be a writer, before—this happened. An' now——" The sentence trailed off into the silence unfinished.
"And to think of all that to-day being wasted on a blind baby tied to a picture puzzle," moaned Keith, resuming his nervous pacing of the room. "If only a man—a real man could have heard him—one that could go and do a man's work—! Why, Susan, that story, as he told it, would make a stone fight. I never heard anything like it. I never supposed there could be anything like that battle. He never talked like this, until to-day. Oh, he's told me a little, from time to time. But to-day, to-day, he just poured out his heart to me—ME!—and there are so many who need just that message to stir them from their smug complacency—men who could fight, and win: men who WOULD fight, and win, if only they could see and hear and know, as I saw and heard and knew this afternoon. And there it was, wasted, WASTED, worse than wasted on—me!"
Chokingly Keith turned away, but with a sudden cry Susan caught his arm.
"No, no, Keith, it wasn't wasted—you mustn't let it be wasted," she panted. "Listen! You want others to hear it—what you heard—don't you?"
"Why, y-yes, Susan; but——"
"Then make 'em hear it," she interrupted. "You can—you can!"
"How?"
"Make him write it down, jest as he talks. He can—he wants to. He's always wanted to. Then publish it in a book, so everybody can see it and hear it, as you did."
"Oh, Susan, if we only could!" A dawning hope had come into Keith Burton's face, but almost at once it faded into gray disappointment. "We couldn't do it, though, Susan. He couldn't do it. You know he can't write at all. He's only begun to practice a little bit. He'd never get it down, with the fire and the vim in it, learning to write as he'd have to. What do you suppose Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech would have been if he'd had to stop to learn how to spell and to write each word before he could put it down?"
"I know, I know," nodded Susan. "It's that way with me in my poetry. I jest HAVE to get right ahead while the fuse burns, an' spell 'em somehow, anyhow, so's to get 'em down while I'm in the fit of it. He couldn't do it. I can see that now. But, Keith, couldn't YOU do it?—take it down, I mean, as he talked, like a stylographer?"
Keith shook his head.
"I wish I could. But I couldn't, I know I couldn't. I couldn't begin to do it fast enough to keep up with him, and 't would spoil it all to have to ask him to slow down. When a man's got a couple of Huns coming straight for him, and he knows he's got to get 'em both at once, you can't very well sing out: 'Here, wait—wait a minute till I get that last sentence down!'"
"I know, I know," nodded Susan again. She paused, drew a long sigh, and turned her eyes out the window. Up the walk was coming Daniel Burton. His step was slow, his head was bowed. He looked like anything but the happy possessor of new wealth. Susan frowned as she watched him.
"I wish your father——" she began. Suddenly she stopped. A new light had leaped to her eyes. "Keith, Keith," she cried eagerly. "I have it! Your father—he could do it—I know he could!"
"Do what?"
"Take down John McGuire's story. Couldn't he do it?"
"Why, y-yes, he could, I think," hesitated Keith doubtfully. "He doesn't know shorthand, but he—he's got eyes" (Keith's voice broke a little) "and he could SEE what he was doing, and he could take down enough of it so he could patch it up afterwards, I'm sure. But Susan, John McGuire wouldn't TELL it to HIM. Don't you see? He won't even see anybody but me, and he didn't talk like this even to me until to-day. How's dad going to hear it to write it down? Tell me that?"
"But he could overhear it, Keith. No, no, don't look like that," she protested hurriedly, as Keith began to frown. "Jest listen a minute. It would be jest as easy. He could be over on the grass right close, where he could hear every word; an' you could get John to talkin', an' as soon as he got really started on a story your father could begin to write, an' John wouldn't know a thing about it; an'—"
"Yes, you're quite right—John wouldn't know a thing about it," broke in Keith, with a passion so sudden and bitter that Susan fell back in dismay.
"Why, Keith!" she exclaimed, her startled eyes on his quivering face.
"I wonder if you think I'd do it!" he demanded. "I wonder if you really think I'd cheat that poor fellow into talking to me just because he hadn't eyes to see that I wasn't the only one in his audience!"
"But, Keith, he wouldn't mind; he wouldn't mind a bit," urged Susan, "if he didn't know an'—"
"Oh, no, he wouldn't mind being cheated and deceived and made a fool of, just because he couldn't see!"
"No, he wouldn't mind," persisted Susan stoutly. "It wouldn't be a mean listenin', nor sneak listenin'. It wouldn't be listenin' to things he didn't want us to hear. He'd be glad, after it was all done, an'—"
"Would he!" choked Keith, still more bitterly. "Maybe you thinkIwas glad after it was all done, and I found I'd been fooled and cheated into thinking the girl that was reading and talking to me and playing games with me was a girl I had never known before—a girl who was what she pretended to be, a new friend doing it all because she wanted to, because she liked to."
"But, Keith, I'm sure that Dorothy liked—"
"There, there, Susan," interposed Keith, with quickly uplifted hand. "We'll not discuss it, please, Yes, I know, I began the subject myself, and it was my fault; but when I heard you say John McGuire would be glad when he found out how we'd lied to his poor blind eyes, I—I just couldn't hold it in. I had to say something. But never mind that now, Susan; only you'll—you'll have to understand I mean what I say. There's no letting dad copy that story on the sly."
"But there's a way, there must be a way," argued Susan feverishly. "Only think what it would mean to that boy if we could get him started to writin' books—what he's wanted to do all his life. Oh, Keith, why, he'd even forget his eyes then."
"It would—help some." Keith drew in his breath and held it a moment suspended. "And he'd even be helping us to win out—over there; for if we could get that story of his on paper as he told it to me, the fellow that reads it wouldn't need any recruiting station to send him over there. If there was only a way that father could—"
"There is, an' we'll find it," interposed Susan eagerly. "I know we will. An' Keith, it's goin' to be 'most as good for him as it is for John McGuire. He's nervous as a witch since he quit his job."
"I know." A swift cloud crossed the boy's face. "But 'twasn't giving up his job that's made him nervous, Susan, as you and I both know very well. However, we'll see. And you may be sure if there is a way I'll find it, Susan," he finished a bit wearily, as he turned to go upstairs.