Keith was still looking for "the way," when October came, bringing crisp days and chilly winds. When not too cold, the boys still sat out of doors. When it was too cold, John McGuire did not appear at all on his back porch, and Keith did not have the courage to make a bold advance to the McGuire door and ask admittance. There came a day, however, when a cold east wind came up after they were well established in their porch chairs for the morning. They were on the Burton porch this time, and Keith suddenly determined to take the bull by the horns.
"Brrr! but it's cold this morning," he shivered blithely. "What say you? Let's go in. Come on." And without waiting for acquiescence, he caught John McGuire's arm in his own and half pulled him to his feet. Before John McGuire knew then quite what was happening, he found himself in the house.
"No, no!—that is, I—I think I'd better be going home," he stammered.
But Keith Burton did not seem even to hear.
"Say, just try your hand at this puzzle," he was saying gayly. "I gave it up, and I'll bet you'll have to," he finished, thrusting a pasteboard box into his visitor's hands and nicely adjudging the distance a small table must be pushed in order to bring it conveniently in front of John McGuire's chair.
The quick tightening of John McGuire's lips and the proud lifting of his chin told that Keith's challenge had been accepted even before the laconic answer came.
"Oh, you do, do you? Well, we'll see whether I'll have to give it up or not."
John McGuire loved picture puzzles, as Keith Burton well knew.
It was easy after that. Keith took it so unhesitatingly for granted that they were to go indoors when it was cold that John McGuire found it difficult to object; and it was not long before the two boys were going back and forth between the two houses with almost as much ease as if their feet had been guided by the eye instead of by the tap of a slender stick.
John McGuire was learning a great deal from Keith these days, though it is doubtful if he realized it. It is doubtful, also, if he realized how constantly he was being made to talk of the war and of his experience in it. But Keith realized it. Keith was not looking for "the way" now. He believed he had found it; and there came a day when he deemed the time had come to try to carry it out.
They were in his own home living-room. It had been a wonderful story that John McGuire had told that day of a daring excursion into No Man's Land, and what came of it. Upstairs in the studio Daniel Burton was sitting alone, as Keith knew. Keith drew a long breath and made the plunge. Springing to his feet he turned toward the door that led into the hall.
"McGuire, that was a bully story—a corking good story. I want dad to hear it. Wait, I'll get him." And he was out of the room with the door fast closed behind him before John McGuire could so much as draw a breath.
Upstairs, Daniel Burton, already in the secret, heard Keith's eager summons and came at once. For some days he had been expecting just such an urgent call from Keith's lips. He knew too much to delay. He was down the stairs and at Keith's side in an incredibly short time. Then together they pushed open the door and entered the living-room.
John McGuire was on his feet. Very plainly he was intending to go home, and at once. But Daniel Burton paid no attention to that. He came straight toward him and took his hand.
"I call this mighty good of you, McGuire," he said. "My boy here has been raving about your stories of the war until I'm fairly green with envy. Now I'm to hear a bit of them myself, he says. I wish you would tell me some of your experiences, my lad. You know a chance like this is a real god-send to us poor stay-at-homes. Now fire away! I'm ready."
But John McGuire was not ready. True, he sat down—but not until after a confused "No, no, I must go home—that is, really, they're not worth repeating—those stories." And he would not talk at all—at first.
Daniel Burton talked, however. He talked of wars in general and of theCivil War in particular; and he told the stories of Antietam andGettysburg as they had been told to him by his father. Then fromGettysburg he jumped to Flanders, and talked of aeroplanes, andgas-masks, and tanks, and trenches, and dugouts.
Little by little then John McGuire began to talk—sometimes a whole sentence, sometimes only a word or two. But there was no fire, no enthusiasm, no impetuous rush of words that brought the very din of battle to their ears. And not once did Daniel Burton thrust his fingers into his pocket for his pencil and notebook. Yet, when it was all over, and John McGuire had gone home, Keith dropped into his chair with a happy sigh.
"It wasn't much, dad, I know," he admitted, "but it was something. It was a beginning, and a beginning is something—with John McGuire."
And it was something; for the next time Daniel Burton entered the room, John McGuire did not even start from his chair. He gave a faint smile of welcome, too, and he talked sooner, and talked more—though there was little of war talk; and for the second time Daniel Burton did not reach for his pencil.
But the third time he did. A question, a comment, a chance word—neither Keith nor his father could have told afterward what started it. They knew only that a sudden light as of a flame leaped into John McGuire's face—and he was back in the trenches of France and carrying them with him.
At the second sentence Daniel Burton's fingers were in his pocket, and at the third his pencil was racing over the paper at breakneck speed. There was no pause then, no time for thought, no time for careful forming of words and letters. There was only the breakneck race between a bit of lead and an impassioned tongue; and when it was all over, there were only a well-nigh hopeless-looking mass of hieroglyphics in Daniel Burton's notebook—and the sweat of spent excitement on the brows of two youths and a man.
"Gee! we got it that time!" breathed Keith, after John McGuire had gone home.
"Yes; only I was wondering if I had really—got it," murmured Daniel Burton, eyeing a bit ruefully the confused mass of words and letters in his notebook. "Still, I reckon I can dig it out all right—if I do it right away," he finished confidently. And he did dig it out before he slept that night.
If Daniel Burton and his son Keith thought the thing was done, and it was going to be easy sailing thereafter, they found themselves greatly mistaken. John McGuire scarcely said five sentences about the war the next time they were together, though Daniel Burton had his pencil poised expectantly from the start. He said only a little more the next time, and the next; and Daniel Burton pocketed his pencil in despair. Then came a day when a chance word about a new air raid reported in the morning paper acted like a match to gunpowder, and sent John McGuire off into a rapid-fire story that whipped Daniel Burton's pencil from his pocket and set it to racing again at breakneck speed to keep up with him.
It was easier after that. Still, every day it was like a game of hide-and-seek, with Daniel Burton and his pencil ever in pursuit, and with now and then a casual comment or a tactful question to lure the hiding story out into the open. Little by little, as the frank comradeship of Daniel Burton won its way, John McGuire was led to talk more and more freely; and by Christmas the eager scribe was in possession of a very complete record of John McGuire's war experiences, dating even from the early days of his enlistment.
Day by day, as he had taken down the rough notes, Daniel Burton had followed it up with a careful untangling and copying before he had had a chance to forget, or to lose the wonderful glow born of the impassioned telling. Then, from time to time he had sorted the notes and arranged them in proper sequence, until now he had a complete story, logical and well-rounded.
It was on Christmas Day that he read the manuscript to Keith. At its conclusion Keith drew a long, tremulous breath.
"Dad, it's wonderful!" he exclaimed. "How did you do it?"
"You know. You heard yourself."
"Yes; but to copy it like that—! Why, I could hear him tell it as you read it, dad. I could HEAR him."
"Could you, really? I'm glad. That makes me know I've succeeded. Now for a publisher!"
"You wouldn't publish it without his—knowing?"
"Certainly not. But I'm going to let a publisher see it, before he knows."
"Y-yes, perhaps."
"Why, Keith, I'd have to do that. Do you suppose I'd run the risk of its being turned down, and then have to tell that boy that he couldn't have the book, after all?"
"No, no, I suppose not. But—it isn't going to be turned down, dad.Such a wonderful thing can't be turned down."
"Hm-m; perhaps not." Daniel Burton's lips came together a bit grimly. "But—there ARE wonderful things that won't sell, you know. However," he finished with brisk cheerfulness, "this isn't one of my pictures, nor a bit of Susan's free verse; so there's some hope, I guess. Anyhow, we'll see—but we won't tell John until we do see."
"All right. I suppose that would be best," sighed Keith, still a little doubtfully.
They had not long to wait, after all. In a remarkably short time came back word from the publishers. Most emphatically they wanted the book, and they wanted it right away. Moreover, the royalty they offered was so good that it sent Daniel Burton down the stairs two steps at a time like a boy, in his eagerness to reach Keith with the good news.
"And now for John!" he cried excitedly, as soon as Keith's joyous exclamations over the news were uttered. "Come, let's go across now."
"But, dad, how—how are you going to tell him?" Keith was holding back a little.
"Tell him! I'm just going to tell him," laughed the man. "That's easy."
"I know; but—but——" Keith wet his lips and started again. "You see, dad, he didn't know we were taking notes of his stories. He couldn't see us. We—we took advantage of——"
But Daniel Burton would not even listen.
"Shucks and nonsense, Keith!" he cried. Then a little grimly he added: "I only wish somebody'd take advantage like that of me, and sell a picture or two when I'm not looking. Come, we're keeping John waiting." And he took firm hold of his son's arm.
Yet in the McGuire living-room, in the presence of John McGuire himself, he talked fully five minutes of nothing in particular, before he said:
"Well, John, I've got some good news for you."
"GOOD news?"
"That's what I'd call it. I—er—hear you're going to have a book out in the spring."
"I'm going to—WHAT?"
"Have a book out—war stories. They were too good to keep to ourselves, John, so I jotted them down as you told them, and last week I sent them off to a publisher."
"A—a real publisher?" The boy's voice shook. Every trace of color had drained from his face.
"You bet your life—and one of the biggest in the country." DanielBurton's own voice was shaking. He had turned his eyes away from JohnMcGuire's face.
"And they'll—print it?"
"Just as soon as ever you'll sign the contract. And, by the way, that contract happens to be a mighty good one, for a first book, my boy."
John McGuire drew a long breath. The color was slowly coming back to his face.
"But I can't seem to quite—believe it," he faltered.
"Nonsense! Simplest thing in the world," insisted Daniel Burton brusquely. "They saw the stories, liked them, and are going to publish them. That's all."
"All! ALL!" The blind boy was on his feet, his face working with emotion. "When all my life I've dreamed and dreamed and longed for——" He stopped short and sat down. He had the embarrassed air the habitually reserved person usually displays when caught red-handed making a "scene." He gave a confused laugh. "I was only thinking—what a way. You see—I'd always wanted to be a writer, but I'd given it up long ago. I had my living to earn, and I knew I couldn't earn it—that way—not at first. I used to say I'd give anything if I could write a book; and I was just wondering if—if I'd been willing then to have given—my eyes!"
It was on a mild day early in February that Susan met Dorothy Parkman on the street. She stopped her at once.
"Well, if I ain't glad to see you!" she cried. "I didn't know you'd got back."
"I haven't been back long, Susan."
"You hain't been over to see us once, Miss Dorothy," Susan reproached her.
"I—I have been very busy." Miss Dorothy seemed ill at ease, and anxious to get away.
"An' you didn't come for a long, long time when you was here last fall." Susan had laid a detaining hand on the girl's arm now.
"Didn't I?" Miss Dorothy smiled brightly. "Well, perhaps I didn't. But you didn't need me, anyway. I've heard all about it—the splendid work Mr. Burton and his son have done for John McGuire. And I'm so glad."
"Oh, yes, that's all right." Susan spoke without enthusiasm.
"And the book is going to be published?"
"Yes, oh, yes." Susan still spoke with a preoccupied frown.
"Why, Susan, what's the matter? I thought you'd be glad."
Susan drew a long sigh.
"I am glad, Miss Dorothy. I'm awful glad—for John McGuire. They say it's wonderful, the change in him already. He's so proud an' happy to think he's done it—not sinfully proud, you understand, but just humbly proud an' glad. An' his ma says he's writin' other things now—poems an' stories, an' he's as happy as a lark all day. An' I'm awful glad. But it's Keith hisself that I'm thinkin' of. You see, only yesterday I found him—cryin'."
"Crying!" Miss Dorothy seemed to have forgotten all about her haste to get away. She had Susan's arm in HER grasp now. She had pulled her to one side, too, where they could have a little sheltered place to talk, in the angle of two store windows.
"Yes, cryin'. You see, 't was like this," hurried on Susan. "Mis' McGuire was over, an' I'd been readin' a new poem to her an' him. 'T was a real pretty one, too, if I do say it as shouldn't—the best I ever done; all about how fame an' beauty an' pleasure didn't count nothin' beside workin'. I got the idea out of something I found in a magazine. 'T was jest grand; an' it give me the perspiration right away to turn it into a poem. An' I did. An' 't was that I was readin'. I'd jest got it done that mornin'."
"Yes, yes," nodded Miss Dorothy. "I see."
"Well, I never thought of its meanin' anything to Keith, or of his takin' it nohow wrong; but after Mis' McGuire had gone home (she came out an' set with me a spell first in the kitchen) I heard a queer little noise in the settin'-room, an' I went an' looked in. Keith was at the table, his arms flung straight out in front of him, an' his head bowed down. An', Miss Dorothy, he was cryin' like a baby."
"Oh, Susan, what did you do? What did you say?"
"Say? Nothin'!" Susan's eyes flashed her scorn. "Do you s'pose I'd let that poor lamb know I see him cryin'? Well, I guess not! I backed out as soft as a feather bed, an' I didn't go near that settin'-room for an hour, nor let any one else. I was a regular dragon-fly guardin' it. Well, by an' by Keith comes out. His face was white an' strained-lookin'. But he was smiling, an' he handed out my poem—I'd left it on the table when I come out with Mis' McGuire. 'I found this paper on the table, Susan. It's your poem, isn't it?' he says real cheerful-like. Then he turns kind of quick an' leaves the room without another word.
"Well, I didn't know then that't was the poem he'd been cryin' over. I didn't know—till this mornin'. Then somethin' he said made me see right off."
"Why, Susan, what was it?"
"It was somethin' about—work. But first you wouldn't understand it, unless you see the poem. An' I can show it to you, 'cause I've got it right here. I'm tryin' to memorialize it, so I keep it with me all the time, an' repeat one line over an' over till I get it. It's right here in my bag. You'll find it's the best I've wrote, Miss Dorothy; I'm sure you will," she went on a bit wistfully. "You see I used a lot of the words that was in the magazine—not that I pleasurized it any, of course. Mine's different, 'cause mine is poetry an' theirs is prosy. There! I guess maybe you can read it, even if't is my writin'," she finished, taking a sheet of note-paper from her bag and carefully spreading it out for Miss Dorothy to read.
And this is what Dorothy read:
WealthI asked for the earth—but when in my handsIt shriveled and crumbled away;And the green of its trees and the blue of its skiesChanged to a somber gray.
BeautyI asked for the moon—but the shimmering thingWas only reflected gold,And vanished away at my glance and touch,And was then but a tale that is told.
PleasureI asked for the stars—and lots of them came,And twinkled and danced for me;But the whirling lights soon wearied my gaze—I squenched their flame in the sea.
FameI asked for the sun!—but the fiery ball,Brought down from its home on high,Scorched and blistered my finger tips,As I swirled it back to the sky.
LaborI asked for a hoe, and I set me to work,And my red blood danced as I went:At night I rested, and looking back,I counted my day well spent.
"But, Susan, I don't see," began Miss Dorothy, lifting puzzled eyes from the last line of the poem, "I don't see what there is about that to make Mr. Keith—cry."
"No, I didn't, till this mornin'; an' then—Well, Keith came out into the kitchen an' begun one of them tramps of his up an' down the room. It always drives me nearly crazy when he does that, but I can't say anything, of course. I did begin this mornin' to talk about John McGuire an' how fine it was he'd got somethin' he could do. I thought't would take the poor boy's mind off hisself, if I could get him talkin' about John McGuire—he's been SO interested in John all winter! An' so glad he could help him. You know he's always so wanted to HELP somebody hisself instead of always havin' somebody helpin' him. But, dear me, instead of its bein' a quieter now for him, it was a regular stirrup.
"'That's just it, that's just it, Susan,' he moans. 'You've got to have work or you die. There's nothin' in the whole world like work—YOUR WORK! John McGuire's got his work, an' I'm glad of it. But where's mine? Where's mine, I tell you?'
"An' I told him he'd jest been havin' his work, helpin' John McGuire. You know it was wonderful, perfectly wonderful, Miss Dorothy, the way them two men got hold of John McGuire. You know John wouldn't speak to anybody, not anybody, till Keith an' his father found some way to get on the inside of his shell. An' Keith's been so happy all winter doin' it; an' his father, too. So I tried to remind him that he'd been doin' his work.
"But it didn't do no good. Keith said that was all very well, an' he was glad, of course; but that was only a little bit of a thing, an' 't was all past an' gone, an' John didn't need 'em any more, an' there wasn't anything left for him now at all. Oh, Miss Dorothy, he talked awfully. I never heard him run on so. An' I knew, from a lot of it that he said, that he was thinkin' of that poem—he wouldn't ask for wealth or beauty or fame, or anything, an' that there didn't anything count but labor. You see?"
"Yes, I—see." Miss Dorothy's voice was very low. Her face was turned quite away, yet Susan was very sure that there were tears in her eyes.
"An' his father!—he's 'most as bad as Keith," sighed Susan. "They're both as nervous as witches, what with the war an' all, an' they not bein' able to do anything. Oh, they do give money—lots of it—Liberty Bonds an' Red Cross, an' drives, of course. You knew they'd got it now—their money, didn't you, Miss Dorothy?"
"Yes, I had heard so."
"Not that it seems to do 'em any particular good," complained Susan wistfully. "Oh, of course things ain't so—so ambiguous as they was, an' we have more to eat an' wear, an' don't have to worry about bills. But they ain't any happier, as I can see. If only Keith could find somethin'—"
"Yes, I know," sighed Miss Dorothy again, as she turned slowly away."I wish he—could."
"Well, come to see us, won't you?" urged Susan anxiously. "That'll help some—it'll help a lot."
But Miss Dorothy did not seem to have heard. At least she did not answer. Yet not twenty-four hours later she was ringing the Burtons' doorbell.
"No, no—not there! I want to see YOU," she panted a little breathlessly, when Susan would have led the way to the living-room.
"But Keith would be so glad—" begged Susan.
"No, no! I particularly don't want him to know I am here," insistedDorothy.
And without further ado, but with rebellious lips and eyes, Susan led the way to the kitchen.
"Susan, I have a scheme, I think, that may help out Mr. Keith," began the young girl abruptly. "I'll have to begin by telling you something of what I've seen during these last two or three months, while I've been away. A Mr. Wilson, an old college friend of my father's, has been taking a lot of interest in the blind—especially since the war. He got to thinking of the blinded soldiers and wishing he could help them. He had seen some of them in Canada, and talked with them. What he thought of first for them was brooms, and basket-weaving and chair-caning, same as everybody does. But he found they had a perfect horror of those things. They said nobody bought such things except out of pity—they'd rather have the machine-made kind. And these men didn't want things bought of them out of pity. You see, they were big, well, strong, young fellows, like John McGuire here; and they were groping around, trying to find a way to live all those long years of darkness that they knew were ahead of them. They didn't have any especial talent. But they wanted to work,—do something that was necessary—not be charity folks, as they called it."
"I know," responded Susan sympathetically.
"Well, this Mr. Wilson is at the head of a big electrical machinery manufacturing company near Chicago, like Mr. Sanborn's here, you know. And suddenly one day it came to him that he had the very thing right in his own shop—a necessary kind of work that the blind could be taught to do."
"My lan', what was it? Think of blind folks goin' to work in a big shop like Tom Sanborn's!"
"I know it. But there was something. It was wrapping the coils of wire with tape. Mr. Wilson said they used hundreds of thousands of these coils all the time, and they had to be wrapped to insulate them. It was this work that he believed the blind could learn to do. Anyhow, he determined to try it. And try it he did. He sent for those soldiers he had talked with in Canada, and he took two or three of father's patients, and opened a little winding-room with a good electrical engineer in charge. And, do you know? it was wonderful, the way those poor fellows took hold of that work! Why, they got really skillful in no time, and they learned to do it swiftly, too."
"My lan'!" breathed Susan again.
"They did. He took me in to see them one day. It was just a big room on the ground floor of an office building. He didn't put them in his shop. He said he wanted to keep them separate, for the present, anyway. It had two or three long tables, and the superintendent moved up and down the room overseeing their work, and helping where it was necessary. There was a new man that morning, and it was perfectly wonderful how he took hold of it. And they were all so happy, laughing and talking, and having the best time ever; but they sobered up real earnest when Mr. Wilson introduced one or two of them to me. One man in particular—he was one of the soldiers, a splendid, great, blond fellow six feet tall, and only twenty-one—told me what this work meant to them; how glad they were to feel of real use in the world. Then his face flushed, and his shoulders straightened a bit. 'And we're even helping a little to win the war,' he said, 'for these coils we are winding now are for some armatures to go in some big motors that are going to be used in making munitions. So you see, we are helping—a little.' Bless his heart! He didn't know how much he was helping every one, just by his big, brave courage.
"Well, Susan, all this gave me an idea, after what you said yesterday about Mr. Keith. And I wondered—why couldn't he wind coils, too? And maybe he'd get others to do it also. So I went to Mr. Sanborn, and he's perfectly willing to let us give it a trial. He's pleased and interested, and says he will furnish everything for the experiment, including a first-class engineer to superintend; only he can't spend any time over it himself, and we'll have to get somebody else to take charge and make arrangements, about the place, and the starting of it, and all that. And, Susan, now comes my second idea. Could we—do you suppose we could get Mr. Daniel Burton to take charge of it?"
"Oh, Miss Dorothy, if we only could!"
"It would be so fine for Mr. Keith, and for all the others. I've been hearing everywhere how wonderfully he got hold of John McGuire."
"He did, he did," cried Susan, "an' he was like a different man all the time he was doin' it. He hain't had no use for his paintin' lately, an' he's been so uneasy. I'm sure he'll do it, if you ask him."
"Good! Then I will. Is—is he at home to-day?"
"Yes, he's upstairs. I'll call him." Susan sprang to her feet with alacrity.
"But, Susan, just a minute!" Miss Dorothy had put out a detaining hand. "Is—is Mr. Keith here, too?"
"Yes, both of 'em. Keith is in the settin'-room an' I'll call his father down. 'T won't take but jest a minute." Susan was plainly chafing at the detaining hand.
"No, no, Susan!" Miss Dorothy, too, had sprung to her feet. "If—if Mr. Keith is here I'll wait. I want to see Mr. Daniel Burton first—er—alone: to—to tell him about it, you know," she added hastily, as Susan began to frown her disappointment.
"But I don't see why," argued Susan, her disapproving eyes on the girl's flushed cheeks. "I should think you'd want to talk it up with both of 'em."
"Yes, yes, of course; but not—not at first," stammered Miss Dorothy, plainly growing more and more embarrassed as she tried to appear less so. "I would rather—er—that is, I think it would be better to ask Mr. Daniel Burton first, and then after we get it well started let him tell his son. So I'll come to-morrow in the morning—at ten. Mr. Keith is with Mr. John McGuire, then, isn't he? And over at his house? I heard he was."
"Yes, he is, most generally."
"Then I'll come then. If—if you'll tell Mr. Daniel Burton, please," hurried on Miss Dorothy, "and ask him to see me. And please, PLEASE keep it from Mr. Keith, Susan. Truly, I don't want him to know a thing about it till his father and I have—have got it all fixed up," she finished.
"But, Miss Dorothy, I know that Keith would want——"
"Susan!" With an imperiousness quite foreign to her usual manner, MissDorothy cut in sharply. "If you don't promise to speak only to Mr.Daniel Burton about this matter I shall not come at all."
"Oh, lan' sakes! Well, well, have it your own way," snapped Susan.
"You promise?"
"Yes, I promise." Susan's lips obeyed, but her eyes were still mutinous.
"Good! Thank you, Susan. Then I'll come to-morrow at ten," nodded Miss Dorothy, once again her smiling, gracious self, as she turned to leave the room.
Dorothy came at ten, or, to be strictly accurate, at five minutes past ten. The additional five minutes had been consumed by her going out of her way around the block so that she might see if Keith were visible in one of the McGuires' windows. He was visible—and when she went up the Burton walk at five minutes past ten, her step was confident and her face eager; and there was about her manner none of the furtive, nervous questioning that had marked her coming the day before.
"Good-morning, Susan," she began cheerily, as Susan answered her ring."Did Mr. Burton say he would see me?"
"He did. And Mr. Keith is over to the McGuires' all safe, so you don't have to worry about him." Susan's eyes were still mutinous, her voice still coldly disapproving.
"Yes, I know he is," nodded Miss Dorothy with a bright smile.
"Oh, you do!"
"Yes. Well, that is—er—I—" Under Susan's uncompromising frigidityMiss Dorothy's stammering tongue came to a painful pause.
"Humph!" vouchsafed Susan. "Well, come in, an' I'll tell Mr. DANIELBurton you're here."
That the emphasis on "Daniel" was not lost was shown by the sudden broad smile that chased away the confusion on Miss Dorothy's face, as Susan led the way to the living-room. Two minutes later Daniel Burton, thinner, paler, and more worn-looking than Dorothy had ever seen him before, entered the room and held out a cordial hand.
"Good-morning, Miss Dorothy. I'm glad to see you," he said. "What is it,—Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., Smileage Books?" The whimsical smile on his lips only served to emphasize the somber pain in his eyes.
"Not any of them. Then Susan didn't tell you?"
"Not a word. Sit down, please."
"Thank you. Then I shall have to begin at the beginning," sighed the girl a little constrainedly as she took the chair he offered her. "I—I have a certain project that I want to carry out, Mr. Burton, and I—I want your help."
"Why, of course—certainly. I shall be glad to, I know." Daniel Burton's hand had already reached for his check-book. "Any project of yours, Miss Dorothy—! How much do you want?"
But Miss Dorothy lifted her hand, palm outward.
"Thank you, Mr. Burton; but not any—in money, just yet. Oh, it'll take money, probably, to get it started, before it's on a self-supporting basis, I suppose. But it isn't money I want to-day, Mr. Burton. It—it's yourself."
The man gave a short, dry laugh, not untinged with bitterness.
"I'm afraid I can't endorse either your taste or your judgment there, Miss Dorothy. You've come for a poor stick. I can't imagine myself as being much benefit to any sort of project. However, I shall be glad to hear about it, of course. What is it?"
And Miss Dorothy told him. With her eyes shining, and her voice quivering with eagerness, she told the story as she had told it to Susan the afternoon before, but with even greater elaboration of detail.
"And so now, Mr. Burton, you—you will help, won't you?" she begged, in closing.
"Help! But my dear girl, how?"
"Take charge. Be the head and shoulders, the backbone of the whole thing. Oh, yes, I know it's a whole lot to ask," she hurried on, as she saw the dawning dismay and refusal in his face. "But I thought, for the sake of the cause—"
"The cause!" The man's voice was bitter as he interrupted her. "I'd crawl to France on my hands and knees if that would do any good! But, my dear young lady, I'm an ignoramus, and worse than an ignoramus, when it comes to machinery. I'll venture to wager that I wouldn't know the tape from the coils—or whatever they are."
"Oh, we'd have an engineer for that part, of course," interposed the girl eagerly. "And we want your son, too."
"You want Keith! Pray, do you expect him to teach how to wind coils?"
"No—no—not exactly;—though I think he will be teaching before he realizes it. I want him to learn to wind them himself, and thus get others to learn. You don't understand, Mr. Burton. I want you and Mr. Keith to—to do just what you did for John McGuire—arouse interest and enthusiasm and get them to do it. Don't you see?"
"But that was Keith, not I, in the case of John McGuire."
"It was you at the last," corrected the girl gently. "Mr. Burton, John McGuire wouldn't have any book out this spring if it weren't for you and—your eyes."
"Hm-m, perhaps not. Still there'd have been a way, probably. But even if I grant that—all you say in the case of John McGuire—that isn't winding armatures, or whatever they are."
"Mr. Burton, you aren't going to refuse," pleaded the girl.
"What else can I do? Miss Dorothy, you don't want to stamp this project of yours a FAILURE from the start, do you?" Words, voice, manner, and gesture were unmistakable. All the longing and heartache and bitterness of years of fruitless effort and final disappointment pulsated through that one word FAILURE.
For a moment nobody spoke. Daniel Burton had got to his feet and crossed the room to the window. The girl, watching him with compassionate eyes as he stood looking out, had caught her breath with a little choking sigh. Suddenly she lifted her head resolutely.
"Mr. Burton, you've got one gift that—that I don't believe you realize at all that you possess. Like John McGuire you can make folks SEE what you are talking about. Perhaps it's because you can paint pictures with a brush. Or—or perhaps it's because you've got such a wonderful command of words." (Miss Dorothy stumbled a little precipitately into this sentence—she had not failed to see the disdainful movement of the man's head and shoulders at the mention of his pictures.) "Whatever it is," she hurried on, "you've got it. I saw it first years ago, with—with your son, when I used to see him at father's. He would sit and talk to me by the hour about the woods and fields and mountains, the sunsets and the flowers back home; and little by little I found out that they were the pictures you drew for him—on the canvas of his soul. You've done it again now for John McGuire. Do you suppose you could have caught those wonderful stories of his with your pencil, if you hadn't been able to help him visualize them for himself—you and Keith together with your wonderful enthusiasm and interest?
"I know you couldn't. And that's what I want you now for—you and your son. Because he is blind, and knows, and understands, as no seeing person can know and understand, they will trust him; they will follow where he leads. But behind him has got to be YOU. You've got to be the eyes for—for them all; not to teach the work—we'll have others for that. Any good mechanic will do for that part. But it's the other part of it—the soul of the thing. These men, lots of them, are but little more than boys—big, strong, strapping fellows with the whole of life before them. And they are—blind. Whichever way they turn a big black curtain shuts them in. And it's those four black curtains that I want you to paint. I want you to give them something to look at, something to think of, something to live for. And you can do it. And when you have done it, you'll find they're the best and—and the biggest pictures you ever painted." Her voice broke with the last word and choked into silence.
Over at the window the man stood motionless. One minute, two minutes passed. Then a bit abruptly he turned, crossed the room to the girl's side, and held out his hand.
"Miss Dorothy, I—I'll take the job," he said.
He spoke lightly, and he smiled as he said the words; but neither the smile nor the lightness of his manner quite hid the shake in his voice nor the moisture in his eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Burton. I was sure you would," cried the girl.
"And now for Keith! He's over to the McGuires'. I'll get him!" exclaimed the man boyishly.
But Miss Dorothy was instantly on her feet.
"No, no, please," she begged a little breathlessly. "I'd rather you didn't—now. I—I think we'd better get it a little farther along before we tell him. There's a whole lot to do, you know—getting the room and the materials and the superintendent, and all that; and there isn't a thing he can do—yet."
"All right. Very good. Perhaps that would be better," nodded the man."But, let me tell you, I already have some workers for your project."
"You mean Jack Green, here in town?"
"No. Oh, we'd want him, of course; but it's some others—a couple of boys from Hillsboro. I had a letter yesterday from the father of one of the boys, asking what to do with his son. He thought because of—of Keith, that I could help him. It was a pitiful letter. The man was heart-broken and utterly at sea. His boy—only nineteen—had come home blind, and well-nigh crazed with the tragedy of it. And the father didn't know which way to turn. That's why he had appealed to me. You see, on account of Keith—"
"Yes, I understand," said the girl gently, as the man left his sentence unfinished.
"I've had others, too—several of them—in the last few weeks. If you'll wait I'll get the letters." He was already halfway to the door. "It may take a minute or two to look them up; but—they'll be worth it, I think."
"Of course they will," she cried eagerly. "They'll be just exactly what we want, and I'm not in a bit of a hurry," she finished, dropping back in her chair as the door closed behind him.
Alone, she looked about the room, her eyes wistful, brimming with unshed tears. Over by the window was Keith's chair, before it the table, with a half-completed picture puzzle spread upon it. Near the table was a set of shelves containing other picture puzzles, games, and books—all, as the girl well knew, especially designed and constructed for eyes that could not see.
She had risen to her feet and half started to cross the room toward the table when the door to the side hall opened and Keith Burton entered the room.
With a half-stifled gasp the girl stepped back to her chair. The blind boy stopped instantly, his face turned toward her.
"Is that—you, Susan?"
The girl wet her lips, but no words came.
"Who's there, please?" He spoke sharply this time. As everybody knew—who knew Keith—the one thing that angered him more than anything else was the attempted deception as to one's presence in the room.
Miss Dorothy gave a confused little laugh, and put her hand to her throat.
"Why, Keith, it's only I! Don't look so—"
"You?" For one brief moment his face lighted up as with a hidden flame; then instantly it changed. It became like the gray of ashes after the flame is spent. "Why didn't you speak, then?" he questioned. "It did no good to keep quiet. You mustn't forget that I have ears—if I haven't eyes."
"Nonsense, Keith!" She laughed again confusedly, though her own face had paled a little. "I did speak as soon as I caught my breath;—popping in on a body like that!"
"But I didn't know—you were here," stammered the young fellow uncertainly. "Nobody called me. I beg your pardon if—" He came to a helpless pause.
"Not a bit of it! You needn't. It wasn't necessary at all." The girl tossed off the words with a lightness so forced that it was almost flippancy. "You see, I didn't come to see you at all. It was your father."
"My father!"
"Certainly."
"But—but does he know?"
The girl laughed merrily—too merrily for sincerity.
"Know? Indeed he does. We've just been having a lovely talk. He's gone upstairs for some letters. He's coming right back—right back."
"Oh-h!" Was it an indefinable something in her voice, or was it the repetition of the last two words? Whatever it was that caused it, Keith turned away with a jerk, walked with the swift sureness of long familiarity straight to the set of shelves and took down a book. "Then I'll not disturb you any further—as long as you're not needing me," he said tersely. "I only came for this." And with barely a touch of his cane to the floor and door-casing, he strode from the room.
The pity of it—that he could not have seen Dorothy Parkman's eyes looking after him!
There was apparently no limit to Daniel Burton's enthusiastic cooperation with Dorothy Parkman on the matter of establishing a workroom for the blind. He set to work with her at once. The very next morning after her initial visit, he went with her to Mazie Sanborn's father, and together they formulated the first necessary plans.
Thomas Sanborn was generous, and cordially enthusiastic, though his words and manner carried the crisp terseness of the busy man whose time is money. At the end of five minutes he summoned one David Patch to the office, and introduced him to Miss Dorothy and Daniel Burton as one of his most expert engineers.
"And now I'll turn the whole thing over to you," he declared briskly, with his finger already on the button that would summon his stenographer for dictation. "Just step into that room there and stay as long as you like. Whatever Patch says I'll back up. You'll find him thoroughly capable and trustworthy. And now good luck to you," he finished, throwing wide the door of the adjoining room.
The next moment Miss Dorothy and Daniel Burton found themselves alone with the keen-eyed, alert little man who had been introduced as David Patch. And David Patch did, indeed, appear to be very capable. He evidently understood his business, and he gave interested attention to Miss Dorothy's story of what she had seen, and of what she wished now to try to do. He took them then for a tour of the great shop, especially to the department where the busy fingers were winding with tape the thousands of wire coils.
Miss Dorothy's eyes sparkled with excitement, and she fairly clapped her hands in her delight, while Daniel Burton said that even he could see the possibilities of that kind of work for their purpose.
At the end of a long hour of talking and planning, Miss Dorothy and Daniel Burton started for home. But even then Daniel Burton had yet more to say, for at his gate, which was on Miss Dorothy's way home, he begged her to come in for a moment.
"I had another letter to-day about a blind soldier—this time from Baltimore. I want to show it to you. You see, so many write to me, on account of my own boy. You will come in, just a minute?"
"Why, yes, of course I—will." The pause, and the half-stifled word that finished the sentence came as the tall figure of Keith Burton turned the corner of the piazza and walked toward the steps.
"Hullo! Dad?" Keith's voice was questioning.
"Yes; and—"
"And Dorothy Parkman," broke in the girl with a haste so precipitate as to make her almost choke.
"Miss Parkman?" Once again, for a moment, Keith's face lighted as witha flame. "Come up. Come around on the south side," he cried eagerly."I've been sunning myself there. You'd think it was May instead ofMarch."
"No, she can't go and sun herself with you," interposed Daniel Burton with mock severity. "She's coming with me into the house. I want to show her something."
"Well, I—I like that," retorted the youth. He spoke jauntily, and gave a short little laugh. But the light had died from his face and a slow red had crept to his forehead.
"Well, she can't. She's coming with me," reiterated the man. "Now run back to your sun bath. If you're good maybe we'll be out pretty soon," he laughed back at his son, as he opened the house door for his guest. "That's right—you didn't want him to know, yet, did you?" he added, looking a bit anxiously into the girl's somewhat flushed face as he closed the hall door.
"Quite right. No, I don't want him to know yet. There's so much to be done to get started, and he'd want to help. And he couldn't help about that part; and't would only fret him and make him unhappy."
"My idea exactly," nodded the man. "When we get the room, and the goods there, we'll want to tell him then."
"Of course, you'll tell him then," cried the girl.
"Yes, indeed, of course we will!" exclaimed the man, very evidently not noticing the change in the pronoun. "Now, if you'll wait a minute I'll get that letter, then we'll go out to Keith on the piazza."
It was a short letter, and one quickly read; and very soon they were out on the piazza again. But Miss Dorothy said "No, no!" very hastily when he urged her to go around on the other side; and she added, "I really must go home now," as she hurried down the steps. Daniel Burton went then around the corner of the piazza to explain her absence to his son Keith. But he need not have hurried. His son Keith was not there.
For all the good progress that was made on that first day, things seemed to move a bit slowly after that. To begin with, the matter of selecting a suitable room gave no little difficulty. The right room in the right location seemed not to be had; and Daniel Burton even suggested that they use some room in his own house. But after a little thought he gave up this idea as being neither practical nor desirable.
Meanwhile he was in daily communication with Dorothy Parkman, and the two spent hours together, thrashing out the different problems one by one as they arose, sometimes at her home, more frequently at his; for "home" to Dorothy in Hinsdale meant the Sanborn house, where Mazie was always in evidence—and Daniel Burton did not care for Mazie. Especially he did not care for her advice and assistance on the problems that were puzzling him now.
To be sure, at his own home there was Keith; but he contrived to avoid Keith on most occasions. Besides, Keith himself seemed quite inclined to keep out of the way (particularly if he heard the voice of Dorothy Parkman), which did not disturb Daniel Burton in the least, under the circumstances. Until they got ready to tell Keith, he was rather glad that he did keep so conveniently out of the way. And as Dorothy seemed always glad to avoid seeing Keith or talking to him, there was really very little trouble on that score; and they could have their consultations in peace and quietness.
And there were so many of them—those consultations! When at last the room was found, there were the furnishings to select, and the final plans to be made for the real work to be done. David Patch proved himself to be invaluable then. As if by magic a long table appeared, and the coils and the tape, and all the various paraphernalia of a properly equipped winding-room marched smoothly into place. Meanwhile three soldiers and one civilian stood ready and eager to be taught, needing only the word of command to begin.
"And now we'll tell Keith," said Daniel Burton.
"Yes; now you must tell Keith," said Miss Dorothy.
"To-morrow at nine."
"To-morrow at nine," bowed Miss Dorothy.
"I'll bring him down and we'll show him."
"And I do so hope he'll like it."
"Of course, he'll like it!" cried Daniel Burton. "You wait and see."
But she did not see. She was not there to see.
Promptly at nine o'clock Daniel Burton appeared at the winding-room with Keith. But Dorothy Parkman was nowhere in sight. He waited ten, fifteen minutes; then he told Keith the story of the room, and of what they hoped to do there, fuming meanwhile within himself because he had to tell it alone.
But it was not lack of interest that kept Miss Dorothy away. It could not have been; for that very afternoon she sought Daniel Burton out and asked eagerly what his son had said, and how he had taken it. And her eyes shone and her breath quickened at the story Daniel Burton told; and so eager was she to know every little word that had fallen from Keith's lips that she kept Daniel Burton repeating over and over each minute detail.
Yet the next day when Keith and four other blind youths began work in earnest, she never once went near Keith's chair, though she went often to the others, dropping here and there a word of encouragement or a touch of aiding fingers. When night came, however, and she found an opportunity for a few words alone with Daniel Burton, she told him that, in her opinion, Keith had done the best work of the five, and that it was perfectly marvelous the way he was taking hold. And again her eyes sparkled and her breath quickened; and she spent the entire ten minutes talking about Keith to his father. Yet the next day, when the work began again, she still went to the back of every chair but Keith's.
Things happened very rapidly after that. It was not a week before the first long table in the big room was filled with eager workers, and the second one had to be added to take care of the newcomers.
The project was already the talk of the town, and not the least excited and interested of the observers was John McGuire's mother. When the news came of the second table's being added to the equipment of the place, she hurried over to Susan's kitchen without delay—though with the latest poem of her son's as the ostensible excuse.
"It's 'The Stumbling-Block,'" she announced. "He just got it done yesterday, an' I copied it for you. I think it's the best yet," she beamed, handing over a folded paper. "It's kind of long, so don't stop to read it now. Say, is it true? Have they had to put in another table at that blind windin'-room?"
"They have."
"Well, if that ain't the greatest! I think it's just grand. They took my John down there to see the place yesterday. Do you know? That boy is a different bein' since his book an' his writin'. An' he's learnin' to do such a lot of things for himself, an' he's so happy in it! An' he doesn't mind seein' anybody now. An' it's all owin' to your wonderful Keith an' his father. I wouldn't ever have believed it of them."
Susan's chin came up a bit.
"I would. I KNEW. An' I always told you that Daniel Burton was a superlative man in every way, an' his son's jest like him. Only you wouldn't believe me."
"Nobody'd believe you," maintained Mrs. McGuire spiritedly. "Nobody'd believe such a thing could be as my John bein' changed like that—an' all those others down to the windin'-room, too. They say it's perfectly marvelous what Keith an' his father are doin' with those men an' boys. Aren't they awful happy over it—Keith an' his father, I mean?"
"Daniel Burton is. Why, he's like a different man, Mis' McGuire. You'd know that, jest to see him walk, an' hear him speak. An' I don't hear nothin' more about his longin' to get over there. I guess he thinks he's got work enough to do right here. An' he hardly ever touches his war maps these days."
"But ain't Keith happy, too?"
"Y-yes, an' no," hesitated Susan, her face clouding a little. "Oh, he's gone into it heart an' soul; an' while he's workin' on somethin' he's all right. But when it's all quiet, an' he's settin' alone, I don't like the look on his face. But I know he's glad to be helpin' down there; an' I know it's helpin' him, too."
"It's helpin' everybody—not forgettin' Miss Dorothy Parkman," added Mrs. McGuire, with a smile and a shrug, as she rose to go. "But, then, of course, we all know what she's after."
"After! What do you mean?"
"Susan Betts!" With a jerk Mrs. McGuire faced about. "It ain't possible, with eyes in your head, that you hain't seen!"
"Seen what?"
"Well, my lan'! With that girl throwin' herself at Daniel Burton's head for the last six weeks, an' you calmly set there an' ask 'seen what?'!"
"Daniel Burton—Dorothy Parkman!" There was no mistaking Susan's dumfounded amazement.
"Yes, Daniel Burton an' Dorothy Parkman. Oh, I used to think it was Keith; but when the money came to old Daniel I guess she thought he wasn't so old, after all. Besides, Keith, with his handicap—you couldn't blame the girl, after all, I s'pose."
"Daniel Burton an' Dorothy Parkman!" repeated Susan, this time with the faintness of stupefaction.
"Why, Susan, you must've seen it—her runnin' in here every day, walkin' home with him, an' talk, talk, talkin' to him every chance she gets!"
"But, they—they've been makin' plans for—for the work," murmuredSusan.
"Work! Well, I guess it no need to've taken quite so many consultations for just the work. Besides, she never thought of such a scheme as this before the money came, did she? Not much she did! Oh, come, Susan, wake up! She'll be walkin' off with him right under your nose if you don't look out," finished Mrs. McGuire with a sly laugh, as she took her departure.
Left alone, Susan sat for some time absorbed in thought, a deep frown on her face; then with a sigh and a shrug, as if throwing off an incomprehensible burden, she opened the paper Mrs. McGuire had left with her.
Once, twice, three times she read the verses; then with a low chuckle she folded up the paper, tucked it into her apron pocket, and rose to her feet. A minute later she had attacked the pile of dishes in the sink, and was singing lustily:
"I've taken my worries, an' taken my woes,I have, I have,An' shut 'em up where nobody knows,I have, I have.I chucked 'em down, that's what I did,An' now I'm sittin' upon the lid,An' we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home.I'm sittin' upon the lid, I am,Hurrah! Hurrah!I'm tryin' to be a little lamb,Hurrah! Hurrah!But I'm feelin' more like a great big slamThan a nice little peaceful woolly lamb,But we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home."
There was no work at the winding-room Saturday afternoons, and it was on Saturday afternoon that Susan found Keith sitting idle-handed in his chair by the window in the living-room.
As was her custom she spoke the moment she entered the room—but not before she had noted the listless attitude and wistful face of the youth over by the window.
"Keith, I've been thinkin'."
"Bad practice, Susan—sometimes," he laughed whimsically.
"Not this time."
"Poetry?"
She shook her head.
"No. I ain't poetizin' so much these days, though I did write one yesterday—about the ways of the world. I'm goin' to read it to you, too, by an' by. But that's jest a common poem about common, every-day folks. An' this thing I was thinkin' about was—was diff'rent."
"And so you couldn't put this into a poem—eh?"
Susan shook her head again and sighed.
"No. An' it's been that way lots o' times lately, 'specially since I seen John McGuire's poems—so fine an' bumtious! Oh, I have the perspiration to write, lots o' times, an' I yield up to it an' write. But somehow, when it's done, I hain't said a mite what I want to, an' I hain't said it the way I want to, either. I think maybe havin' so many of 'em disinclined by them editors has made me kinder fearsome."
"I'm afraid it has, Susan," he smiled.
"Now, this afternoon, what I was thinkin' about—once I'd've made a poem of that easy; but to-day I didn't even try. I KNEW I couldn't do it. An', say, Keith, it was you I was thinkin' about."
"Heavens, Susan! A poem out of me? No wonder your muse balked! I'm afraid you'd find even—er—perspiration wouldn't make a poem out of me."
"Keith, do you remember?" Susan was still earnest and preoccupied. "I told you once that it didn't make no diff'rence if God had closed the door of your eyes. He'd open up another room to you sometime, an' give you the key to unlock the door. An' he has. An' now you've got it—that key."
"I've got it—the key!"
"Yes. It's that work down there—helpin' them blind men an' boys to get hold of their souls again. Oh, Keith, don't you see? An' it's such a big, wide room that God has given you, an' it's all yours. There ain't no one that can help them poor blind soldiers like you can. An' you couldn't 'a' done it if the door of your eyes hadn't been shut first. That was what give you the key to this big, beautiful room of helpin' our boys what's come back to us, blinded, an' half-crazed with despair an' discouragement. Oh, if I only could make you see it the way I do! But I can't say it—the right way. There's such a big, beautiful idea there, if only I could make you see it. That's why I wanted to write the poem."
"I can see it, Susan—without the poem." Keith was not smiling now.His face was turned away and his voice had grown a bit unsteady. "AndI'm glad you showed it to me. It's going to help me a whole lot if—ifI'll just keep remembering that key, I think."
Susan threw a quick look into Keith's averted face, then promptly she reached for the folded paper in her apron pocket.
There were times when Susan was wise beyond her station as to when the subject should be changed.
"An' now I'm goin' to read you the poem I did write," she announced briskly—"about every-day folks—diff'rent kinds of folks. Six of 'em. It shows that there ain't any one anywhere that's really satisfied with their lot, when you come right down to it, whether they've got eyes or not."
And she began to read:
A beggar girl on the curbstone sat,All ragged an' hungry-eyed.Across the street came Peggy McGee;The beggar girl saw an' sighed.
"I wish'd I was rich—as rich as she,For she has got things to eat;An' clo's an' shoes, an' a place to live,An' she don't beg in the street."
When Peggy McGee the corner turned,SHE climbed to her garret highFrom there she gazed through curtainless panesAt hangin's of lace near by.
"Ah, me!" sighed Peggy. "If I had thoseAn' rugs like hers on the floor,It seems to me that I'd never askFor nothin' at all no more."
. . . . .
From out those curtains that selfsame day,Looked a face all sour an' thin."I hate to live on this horrid street,In the children's yellin' din!
"An' where's the good of my nice new things,When nobody'll see or know?I really think that I ought to beA-livin' in Rich Man's Row."
A carriage came from "Rich Man's Row,"An' rumbled by to the park.A lady sat on the carriage seat;"Oh, dear," said she, "what an ark!
"If only this coach could show some style,My clothes, so shabby, would pass.Now there's an auto quite my kind—But 'tisn't my own—alas!"
The "auto" carried a millionaire,Whose brow was knotted an' stern."A million is nowhere, now," thought he,"That's somethin' we all must learn.
"It's millions MANY one has to have,To be in the swim at all.This tryin' to live when one is so poorIs really all folderol!"
. . . . .
A man of millions was just behind;The beggar was passin' by.Business at beggin' was good that day,An' the girl was eatin' pie.
The rich man looked, an' he groaned aloud,An' swore with his gouty pain."I'd give my millions, an' more beside,Could I eat like that again!"
"Now, ain't that jest like folks?" Susan demanded, as she finished the last verse.
Keith laughed.
"I suspect it is, Susan. And—and, by the way, I shouldn't wonder if this were quite the right time to show that I'm no different from other folks. You see, I, too,—er—am going to make a change—in living."
"A change in living! What do you mean?"
"Oh, not now—not quite yet. But you see I'VE been doing some thinking, too. I've been thinking that if father—that is, WHEN father and Miss Parkman are married—that—"
But Susan interrupted with a groan.
"My sakes, Keith, have you seen it, too?"
Keith laughed embarrassedly.
"To be sure I have! You don't have to have eyes to see that, do you,Susan?"
"Oh, good lan', I don't know," frowned Susan irritably. "I didn't s'pose——"
She did not finish her sentence, and after a moment's silence Keith began again to speak.
"I've been talking a little to David Patch—the superintendent, you know. We're going to take the whole house where we are, for our work, pretty quick, and when we do, Patch and his wife will come there to live upstairs; and they'll take me to board. I asked them. Then I'll be right there handy all the time, you see, which will be a fine arrangement all around."
"A fine arrangement, indeed—with you 'way off down there, an' livin' with David Patch!"
"But, Susan," argued Keith, a bit wearily, "I couldn't be living here, you know."
"I should like to know why not."
"Because I—couldn't." He had grown very white now. "Besides, I—I think they would be happier without me here; and I know—I should be." His voice was low and almost indistinct, but Susan heard—and understood. "The very fact that once I—I thought—that I was foolish enough to think—But, of course, as soon as I remembered my blindness—And to tie a beautiful young girl down to—" He stopped short and pulled himself up. "Susan, are you still there?"
"I'm right here, Keith." Susan spoke constrainedly.
He gave an embarrassed laugh. A painful red had suffused his face.
"I'm afraid I got to talking—and forgetting that I wasn't—alone," he stumbled on hurriedly. "I—I meant to go on to say that I hoped they'd be very happy. Dad deserves it; and—and if they'd only hurry up and get it over with, it—it would be easier—for me. Not that it matters, of course. Dad has had an awful lot to put up with me already, as it is, you know—the trouble, the care, and the disappointment. You see, I—I was going to make up to him for all he had lost. I was going to be Jerry and Ned and myself, all in a bunch. And now to turn out to be nothing—and worse than nothing——"
"Keith Burton, you stop!" It was the old imperious Susan back again. "You stop right where you be. An' don't you never let me hear you say another word about your bein' a disappointment. Jerry an' Ned, indeed! I wonder if you think a dozen Jerrys an' Neds could do what you've done! An' no matter what they done, they couldn't have done a bigger, splendider thing than you've done in triumphating over your blindness the way you've done, nor one that would make your father prouder of you! An' let me tell you another thing, Keith Burton. No matter what you done—no matter how many big pictures you painted, or big books you wrote, or how much money you made for your dad; there ain't anything you could've done that would do him so much solid good as what you have done."
"Why, Susan, are you wild? I haven't done a thing, not a thing for dad."
"Yes, you have. You've done the biggest thing of all by NEEDIN' him."