' I want to be able to take care of her myself not have her take care of me and marry me out of pity and feed me fudge and flowers! And there's dad." Keith's voice broke and stopped. Susan, watch- ing his impassioned face, wet her lips and swal- lowed convulsively. Then Keith began again. "Susan, do you know the one big thing that drives me up here every time, in spite of my sen 7 ? It 's the thought of dad. How do you suppose I feel to think of dad peddling peas and beans and potatoes down to McGuire's grocery store? dad!" Susan lifted her head defiantly. "Well, now look a-here, Keith Burton, let me tell you that peddlin' peas an' beans an' potatoes is jest as honorary as paintin' pictures, an' " "I'm not saying it isn't," cut in the boy in- cisively. "I'm merely saying that, as I happen to know, he prefers to paint pictures and I prefer to have him. And he'd be doing it this minute if it was n't for his having to support me, and you know it, Susan." 224 DAWN " Well, what of it? It don't hurt him any." "It hurts me, Susan. And when I think of all the things he hoped of me. I was going to be Jerry and Ned and myself; and I was going to make him so proud, Susan, so proud ! I was going to make up to him all that he had lost. All day under the trees up on the hill, I used to lie and dream of what I was going to be some day the great pictures I was going to paint for dad. The great fame that was going to come to me for dad. The money I was going to earn for dad. I saw dad, old and white-haired, leaning on me. I saw the old house restored all the locks and keys and sag- ging blinds, the cracked ceilings and tattered wall- paper all made fresh and new. And dad so proud and happy in it all so proud and happy that perhaps he'd think I really had made up for Jerry and Ned, and his own lost hopes. "And, now, look at me! Useless, worse than useless all my life a burden to him and to every- body else. Susan, I can't stand it. I can't. That 's why I want to end it all. It would be so simple such an easy way out." 'Yes, 'twould for quitters. Quitters always take easy ways out. But you ain't no quitter, Keith Burton. Besides, 't would n't end it. You know that. 'T would jest be shuttin' the door of this room an' openin' the one to the next. You Ve had a good Christian bringin' up, Keith Burton, an* you know as well as I do that your eternal, im- moral soul ain't goin' to be snuffled out of existence JOHN McGUIRE 225 by no pistol shot, no matter how many tunes you pull the jigger." Keith laughed and with the laugh his tense muscles relaxed. "All right, Susan," he shrugged a little grimly. "I'll concede your point. You made it perhaps better than you know. But well, it is n't so pleasant always to be the hook, you know," he finished bitterly. "The hook?" frowned Susan. Keith laughed again grimly. "Perhaps you've forgotten but I have n't. I heard you talking to Mrs. McGuire one day. You said that everybody was either a hook or an eye, and that more than half the folks were hooks hanging on to somebody else. And that's why some eyes had more than their share of hooks hang- ing on to them. You see I remembered. I knew then, when you said it, that I was a hook, and " "Keith Burton, I never thought of you when I said that," interrupted Susan agitatedly. "Perhaps not; but / did. Why, Susan, of course I 'm a hook an old, bent, rusty hook. But I can hang on oh, yes, I can hang on to anybody that 1 will let me! But, Susan, don't you see? sometimes it seems as if I'd give the whole world if just for once I could feel that I that some one was hanging on to me! that I was of some use somewhere." "An' so you're goin' to be, honey. I know you be," urged Susan eagerly. "Just remember all 226 DAWN them fellers that wrote books an' give lecturin's, an'" "Oh, yes, I know," interposed Keith, with a faint smile. "You were a good old soul, Susan, to read me all those charming tales, and I understood, of course, what you were doing it for. You wanted me to go and do likewise. But I could n't write a book to save my soul, Susan, and my voice would stick in my throat at the second word of a 'lec- turing.' " "But there'll be somethin', Keith, I know there'll be somethin'. God never locked up the doors of your eyes without givin' you the key to some other door. It's jest that you hain't found it yet." " Perhaps. I certainly have n't found it that 's sure," retorted the lad bitterly. "And just why He saw fit to send me this blindness " "We don't have to know," interposed Susan quickly; "an' questionin' about it don't settle nothin', anyhow. If we've got it, we've got it, an' if it's somethin' we can't possibly help, the only questionin' worth anything then is how are we goin' to stand it. You see, there's more'n one way of standin' things." ''Yes, I know there is." Keith stirred restlessly in his seat. "An' some ways is better than others." "There, there, Susan, I know just what you're going to say, and it's all very true, of course," cried Keith, stirring still more restlessly. "But you see JOHN McGUIRE 227 I don't happen to feel like hearing it just now. Oh, yes, I know I've got lots to be thankful for. I can hear, and feel, and taste, and walk; and I should be glad for all of them. And I am, of course. I should declare that all 's well with the world, and that both sides of the street are sunny, and that there is n't any shadow anywhere. There, you see ! I know all that you would say, Susan, and I 've said it, so as to save you the trouble." "Humph!" commented Susan, bridling a little; then suddenly, she gave a sly chuckle. "That's all very well an' good, Master Keith Burton, but there 's one more thing I would have said if I was doin' the sayin'!" "Well?" "About that both sides of the street bein* sunny it seems to me that the man what says, yes, he knows one side is shady an' troubleous, but that he thinks it '11 be healthier an' happier for him an' everybody else 'round him if he walks on the sunny side, an' then walks there it seems to me he 's got the spots all knocked off that feller what says there ain't no shady side ! " Keith gave a low laugh a laugh more nearly normal than Susan had heard him give for several days. "All right, Susan, I'll accept your amendment, and we '11 let it go that one side is shady, and that I 'm supposed to determinedly pick the sunny side. Anything more?" "M-more?" 228 DAWN "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 was n'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?' 9 JOHN McGUIKE 229 "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 mo- ment 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 'sail." "That's enough." " Yes, I knew you'd understand." " Yes, I do understand." Susan hesitated. Keith still sat, with his unsee- ing gaze straight ahead, his body tense and motion- less. 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 i^ now, I 'm sure," she breathed. "An', anyhow, we only take knives an' pizen away from children not grown men ! " CHAPTER XXIV AS SUSAN SAW IT 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 be- sieged their parents with breathless questions, and repeated to each other in awe-struck whispers what they had heard. Everywhere was horror, sym- pathy, and interested speculation as to "how he'd take it." Where explicit information was so lacking, im- agination and surmise eagerly supplied the de- tails; 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 re- peated 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- AS SUSAN SAW IT 231 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 yes- terday from John, but " "From John himself?" 'Yes; but they was both writ long before the apostrophe, an' 'course they did n'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 yester- day yourself, Miss Dorothy." "Oh, I saw him hi 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 232 DAWN 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 think- in' 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, Su- san. ' ' Miss Dorothy spoke very lightly, very imper- sonally; 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 AS SUSAN SAW IT 233 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 would n't be alive now, would he?" broke off Susan, with a faint smile. "But what I mean is, he did n't do it, an' I don't think he 's goin* to do it." "But, oh, Susan," faltered the girl, "you did n't leave that that awful thing with him, did you? Did n'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 234 DAWN to confess I have watched him," admitted Susan defensively, 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, 't was awful. I was that scared an' frightened I thought I could n'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 would n'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 his- self 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. AS SUSAN SAW IT 235 "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 Eng- lish. Even when I read the papers, an' the awful things they did over there it did n't seem as if 't was folks on our earth. It was like somethin' you read about in them old histronic days, or some- thin' happenin' up on the moon, or on that planta- tion 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 can- teens 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." 236 DAWN "Well, I'll tell you. 'T was because I could n'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' could n'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 could n't on this war. I tried it. But it jest would n'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' buryin' me down so far an' deep that I could n't say any- thing, only to moan, 'Oh, Lord, how long, oh, Lord, how long?' An' I knew then 't was too big for me. I did n't try to write no more." "I can see how you could n't," faltered the girl, as she turned away. "I'm afraid we're all going to find it too big for us." CHAPTER XXV KEITH TO THE RESCUE 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 out- side 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, ex- cept 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 would n'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. 238 DAWN "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. "W T e 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 damp- ers 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 some- thin' somewhere that he will get hold of. You see, he's 50 despondent in such a terrible state!" ''Yes, I know," nodded Susan. Susan had aban- doned 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 have n't been able to get him to see anybody not any- body. But I 've been wonderin' if he would n't see Keith, if we could work it right. You see he says he just won't be stared at; an' Keith, poor boy, KEITH TO THE RESCUE 239 could n'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 would n'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 '11 do his part?" Mrs. Mc- Guire'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 240 DAWN 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 '11 try it, anyway," sighed Mrs. McGuire, rising to her feet, the old worry back on her face. "Well, I must be goin'. Mr. McGuire '11 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 care- worn-looking man appeared in the doorway of the house across the two back yards, and peered anx- iously over at the Burtons' kitchen door. "Now, don't forget ten o'clock to-morrow mornin'." KEITH TO THE RESCUE 241 "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 mo- ment 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 in- differently. "She was tellin' about her John." "How is he getting along?" " He 's in a bad way. Oh, he 's real well physician- ally, 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, would n't you? " 242 DAWN 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 some- thin' terrible. I 'm afraid he hain't got much back- bone. They don't dare to leave him alone a min- ute not a minute. An' Mis' McGuire, she was wonderin' if if you could n't help 'em out some way." "If" The short ejaculation was full of amaze- ment. "Yes. That's what she come over for this morninV "I? They forget." Keith fell back bitterly. "John McGuire might get hold of a dozen revol- vers, and I would n't know it." "Oh, 't wa'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 hap- pened 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 't would 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." KEITH TO THE RESCUE 243 "Yes, I see." Keith drew in his breath with a little catch. "An' so she said there wa'n't anybody any- where 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 244 DAWN 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 sub- sequent 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 fre- quently, and one evening Mrs. McGuire confided KEITH TO THE RESCUE 245 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 does n't let him say much yet, but he has n'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 min- ute 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 't is 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 em- bossed 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 dur- ing 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 246 DAWN indifferent word or two. And, greatly to her indig- nation, 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 argu- ments 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 crudest 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 deter- mination 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, KEITH TO THE RESCUE 247 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 uncer- tainly, 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 sus- pended. On her face, too, were uncertainty, fear- fulness, 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. 248 DAWN After supper that night she came over and told Susan all about it. Her face was beaming. "Did you see them?" she began breathlessly. "Was n'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 did n'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 would n't have talked with him. I know he would n't. But now oh, Susan, it was wonderful, wonderful ! I watched 'em from the win- dow. 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?" KEITH TO THE RESCUE 249 "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 '11 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?" "No thin'. 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 did n't. He just let him talk, with nothin' but just a sympa- thetic word now an' then. But it was n'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 250 DAWN could n't see 'em. Oh, Keith did n't say anything like that to him trust him for that. But before John knew it, he was doiri* 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. CHAPTER XXVI MAZIE AGAIN IT came to be the accepted thing almost at once, then, that Keith Burton and John McGuire should spend their mornings together on the Mc- Guires' 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. Some- times 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 neigh- borhood. 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 them- selves; 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 252 DAWN new book for Mrs. McGuire to read an atten- tion 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 pur- pose 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 de- manded. "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. Mc- Guire was motioning Mazie to make her asser- tion the truth. John McGuire sat down then. So, too, did Keith. MAZIE AGAIN 253 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 pen- nies 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 al- ready 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 is n't to blame," re- monstrated 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 does n't ever really want to see us. You know he does n't. He just stands us because he thinks he's got to be polite." 254 DAWN "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 does n't want you to while away an hour or two of his time. And I should think you'd see he did n't. You could if you were n'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 MAZIE AGAIN 255 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 remem- bered, for she did not go near the Burton home- stead 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 re- marks 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 have n'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 have n't been quarreling again," she frowned anxiously. "Again'! Nonsense, Susan, we never did quar- rel. Don't be silly." The youth shifted his position uneasily. "I'm thinkin' 't ain't always me that's silly," 256 DAWN 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 't was 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 does n't want to, do we, Susan?" "Humph!" was Susan's only comment out- wardly. 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 be- fitted their new estate. Her first move was to get out all the best silver and china. She was busy MAZIE AGAIN 257 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 tele- phoned from the store that Mr. Burton had sent word that he would n't be down for a few days. He is n't sick, is he? or Keith? I could n'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 superi- ority, about Susan that was vaguely irritating to Mrs. McGuire. "Well, you need n'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 would n't be half humane if he did n't get some pleasure out of it, though he would n't so demean himself as to show it, of course. Mis' Nancy Holworthy is dead, Mis' McGuire. We had the signification last night." 258 DAWN "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 could n'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 Bur- ton 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' MAZIE AGAIN 259 McGuire. He '11 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 '11 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," observed Mrs. 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 tea- spoons 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 Daniel Burton had better be put- tin' his money into Liberty Bonds an' Red Cross work, instead of silver spoons an' cut-glass, in these war-times. An' " 260 DAWN "My Ian', Mis' McGuire!" With the sudden ex- clamation 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 tele- gram 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 would n't need anything else." "Humph! I don't need anything else with Dan- iel 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, did n'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. 'T ain'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. MAZIE AGAIN 261 But with never a pause, For the good of the cause, We'd even consent to an eatless 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' would n't hurt none of us. How about a fretless day an' a worryless day? Would n'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 Ian', 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 under- stand that that was just preservation of coal, an' that 't was 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' back- bitin', an' gossip, as well as in coal, an' sugar, an' wheat, an' beef." 262 DAWN Mrs. McGuire gave a short laugh. "My goodness, Susan Belts, if you ain't the limit, an' no mistake ! I s'pose you mean conserva- tion." "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 Daniel Burton," 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. "T ain'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 '11 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 't wa'n't for Keith, Daniel Burton would MAZIE AGAIN 263 try to enlist an' go over. Oh, of course, he's be- yond the malicious age, so far as bein' drafted is concerned, an' you would n'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 would n't it?" "Oh, I know that; an' I ain't sayin' as how it should n'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 unhappi- ness 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 every- where he goes, an' tended right up to so 's he won't 264 DAWN get lonesome, or attend unquestionable entertain- ments. 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 did n't attend unquestionable entertainments." "Why, Susan Betts, what an idea!" protested Mrs. McGuire, suddenly sitting erect in her chair. "Hattie Turner is n'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 atten- tions 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," observed Susan succinctly, as she, too, rose from her chair. CHAPTER XXVII FOR THE SAKE OF JOHN IN due course Daniel Burton and his son Keith returned from the funeral of their kinswoman, Mrs. Nancy Hoi worthy. 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 hap- pened 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 solicita- tion 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 read- ing 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 post- man'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 sag- 266 DAWN ging blinds had received prompt attention, and already the house was being prepared for a new coat of paint; but no startling alterations or improve- ments 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. Sud- denly 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. FOR THE SAKE OF JOHN 267 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 hap- pened. 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 ! 268 DAWN - and there are so many who need just that mes- sage 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 was n't wasted you must n'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 could n't do it, though, Susan. He could n'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?" FOR THE SAKE OF JOHN 269 "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 could n't do it. I can see that now. But, Keith, could n'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 could n't. I could n'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 does n't know shorthand, but he 270 DAWN 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 would n't tell it to him. Don't you see? He won't even see anybody but me, and he did n'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 would n't know a thing about it; an' " : * Yes, you're quite right John would n'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 had n't eyes to see that I was n't the only one in his au- dience!" "But, Keith, he wouldn't mind; he wouldn't mind a bit," urged Susan, " if he did n't know an' " "Oh, no, he wouldn't mind being cheated and deceived and made a fool of, just because he couldn't see!" FOR THE SAKE OF JOHN 271 "No, he would n't mind," persisted Susan stoutly. "It wouldn't be a mean listenin', nor sneak listenin'. It would n't be listenin' to things he did n't want us to hear. He 'd be glad, after it was all done, an' " "Would he!" choked Keith, still more bitterly. "Maybe you think I was glad after it was all done, and I found I 'd been fooled and cheated into think- ing 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 '11 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 could n'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," ar- gued 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 272 DAWN 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 would n'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 't was n'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 wea- rily, as he turned to go upstairs. CHAPTER XXVIII THE WAY T7 r EITH was still looking for "the way," when JV. 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 274 DAWN 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 chal- lenge 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 unhesi- tatingly for granted that they were to go indoors when it was cold that John McGuire found it dif- ficult 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 real- ized it. It is doubtful, also, if he realized how con- stantly 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. THE WAY 275 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 '11 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 w r as 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 276 DAWN repeating those stories." And he would not talk at all at first. Daniel Burton talked, however. He talked of wars in general and of the Civil War in particular; and he told the stories of Antietam and Gettysburg as they had been told to him by his father. Then from Gettysburg he jumped to Flanders, and talked of aeroplanes, and gas-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 was n'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 com- ment, a chance word neither Keith nor his father could have told afterward what started it. THE WAY 277 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 rue- fully 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 tune 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 278 DAWN 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 Bur- ton and his pencil ever in pursuit, and with now and then a casual comment or a tactful ques- tion 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 manu- script to Keith. At its conclusion Keith drew a long, tremulous breath. "Dad, it's wonderful!" he exclaimed. "How did you do it?" THE WAY 279 "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 would n't publish it without his know- ing?" " 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 sup- pose I 'd run the risk of its being turned down, and then have to tell that boy that he could n't have the book, after all?" "No, no, I suppose not. But it is n'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 is n'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 remark- ably 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 280 DAWN the stairs two steps at a time like a boy, in his eager- ness 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 did n't know we were taking notes of his stories. He could n'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." THE WAY 281 "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." Daniel Burton's own voice was shaking. He had turned his eyes away from John McGuire'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 fal- tered. "Nonsense! Simplest thing in the world," in- sisted Daniel Burton brusquely. "They saw the stories, liked them, and are going to publish them. That's all." "All! Attl" 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 could n'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!" CHAPTER XXIX DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 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 did n't know you'd got back." "I have n'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 did n'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 did n't. But you didn't need me, anyway. I've heard all about it the splen- did work Mr. Burton and his son have done for John McGuire. And I'm so glad." "Oh, yes, that's all right." Susan spoke with- out enthusiasm. "And the book is going to be published?" ''Yes, oh, yes." Susan still spoke with a preoc- cupied frown. "Why, Susan, what's the matter? I thought you'd be glad." Susan drew a long sigh. DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 283 "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 for- gotten 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 shel- tered 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 should n't the best I ever done; all about how fame an' beauty an' pleasure did n't count no thin' 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 morninV "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* 284 DAWN 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 did n'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 did n't know then that 't was the poem he 'd been cryin' over. I did n'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 would n't understand it, unless you see the poem. An' I can show it to you, 'cause I've got it right here. I 'nf 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 DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 285 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: CONTENTMENT Wealth I asked for the earth but when in my hands It shriveled and crumbled away; And the green of its trees and the blue of its skies Changed to a somber gray. Beauty I asked for the moon but the shimmering thing Was only reflected gold, And vanished away at my glance and touch, And was then but a tale that is told. Pleasure I 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. Fame I 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. Labor I 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. 286 DAWN "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 his- self , 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 al- ways 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 no thin' 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 would n'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 DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 287 winter doin' it; an' his father, too. So I tried to remind him that he'd been doin' his work. ''But it did n'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 did n't need 'em any more, an* there was n'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 would n't ask for wealth or beauty or fame, or any- thing, an' that there did n'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, did n'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' " 288 DAWN "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," insisted Dorothy. 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 '11 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 inter- est 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 did n't want things bought of DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 289 them out of pity. You see, they were big, well, strong, young fellows, like John McGuirehere; 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 did n'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 Ian', 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 insu- late 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 sol- diers 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! WTiy, they got really skillful in no time, and they learned to do it swiftly, too." 290 DAWN "My Ian'!" 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 did n'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 intro- duced one or two of them to me. One man in par- ticular 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 did n'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 could n'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 DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 291 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 '11 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 tune 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 '11 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 '11 call his father down. 'T won't take but jest a minute." Susan was plainly chafing at the de- taining hand. "No, no, Susan!" Miss Dorothy, too, had sprung to her feet. "If if Mr. Keith is here I'll wait. 292 DAWN 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 disappoint- ment. "But I don't see why," argued Susan, her dis- approving 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 '11 come to-morrow in the morning at ten. Mr. Keith is with Mr. John McGuire, then, is n'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, Miss Dorothy cut in sharply. "If you don't promise to speak only to Mr. Dan- iel Burton about this matter I shall not come at all." DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND 293 "Oh, Ian' 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. CHAPTER XXX DANIEL BURTON'S "JOB" DOROTHY came at ten, or, to be strictly accu- rate, 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 con- fident 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 frigidity Miss Dorothy's stammer- ing tongue came to a painful pause. "Humph!" vouchsafed Susan. "Well, come in, an' I'll tell Mr. Daniel Burton you're here." That the emphasis on "Daniel" was not lost DANIEL BURTON'S JOB 295 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 did n'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. Bur- ton, 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 is n'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 296 DAWN 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 shin- ing, and her voice quivering with eagerness, she told the story as she had told it to Susan the after- noon 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 ven- ture to wager that I would n'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 DANIEL BURTON'S JOB 297 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 enthusi- asm 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 were n'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 is n'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 298 DAWN 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 precipi- tately 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.) "What- ever 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 sup- pose you could have caught those wonderful stories of his with your pencil, if you had n't been able to help him visualize them for himself you and Keith together with your wonderful enthusiasm and interest? "I know you could n'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 DANIEL BURTON'S JOB 299 soul of the thing. These men, lots of them, are but little more than boys big, strong, strapping fel- lows with the whole of We 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 '11 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 '11 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 did n'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, 300 DAWN and all that; and there is n't a thing he can do jet." "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 did n'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 '11 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 wist- ful, brimming with unshed tears. Over by the win- dow was Keith's chair, before it the table, with a DANIEL BURTON'S JOB 301 half -completed picture puzzle spread upon it. Near the table was a set of shelves containing other pic- ture 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 pres- ence 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 ques- tioned. "It did no good to keep quiet. You must n't forget that I have ears if I have n't eyes." "Nonsense, Keith!" She laughed again con- fusedly, 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!" 302 DAWN "But I did n't know you were here," stam- mered the young fellow uncertainly. "Nobody called me. I beg your pardon if " He came to a helpless pause. "Not a bit of it! You need n't. It was n't neces- sary at all." The girl tossed off the words with a lightness so forced that it was almost flippancy. "You see, I did n'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 sin- cerity. "Know? Indeed he does. We've just been hav- ing a lovely talk. He's gone upstairs for some let- ters. 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 fur- ther 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 Doro- thy Parkman on the matter of establishing a work- room 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 en- thusiastic, 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 '11 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 '11 back up. You'll find him thoroughly capable and trustworthy. And now good luck to you," he fin- ished, 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 304 DAWN Patch. And David Patch did, indeed, appear to be very capable. He evidently understood his busi- ness, and he gave interested attention to Miss Dor- othy'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 depart- ment 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 pur- pose. At the end of a long hour of talking and plan- ning, 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 Doro- thy's way home, he begged her to come in for a moment. "I had another letter to-day about a blind sol- dier 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. WHAT SUSAN DID NOT SEE 305 "Miss Parkman?" Once again, for a moment, Keith's face lighted as with a 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 of March." "No, she can't go and sun herself with you," in- terposed 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," reit- erated 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, look- ing 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 could n't help about that part; and 't would only fret him and make him un- happy." "My idea exactly," nodded the man. "When we get the room, and the goods there, we '11 want to tell him then." "Of course, you'll tell him then," cried the girl. "Yes, indeed, of course we will!" exclaimed the 306 DAWN man, very evidently not noticing the change in the pronoun. " Now, if you '11 wait a minute I '11 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 suit- able 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 Dorotlrp Parkman, and the two spent hours to- gether, thrashing out the different problems one by one as they arose, sometimes at her home, more frequently at his; for "home" to Dorothy in Hins- dale 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. WHAT SUSAN DID NOT SEE 307 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 circum- stances. 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 quiet- ness. And there were so many of them those con- sultations ! 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 prop- erly 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 Dor- othy. "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." 308 DAWN "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 ap- peared at the winding-room with Keith. But Dor- othy 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, fum- ing 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 en- couragement or a touch of aiding fingers. When night came, however, and she found an opportu- nity 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 mar- velous 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 WHAT SUSAN DID NOT SEE 309 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 ob- servers 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, hand- ing 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 dif- ferent 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 does n't mind seein* anybody now. An' it's all owin' to your wonder- ful Keith an' his father. I would n't ever have be- lieved it of them." Susan's chin came up a bit. 310 DAWN "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 would n't be- lieve 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. Are n'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 cloud- ing 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 help- in' 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." WHAT SUSAN DID NOT SEE 311 "After! What do you mean?" "Susan Betts!" With a jerk Mrs. McGuire faced about. "It ain't possible, with eyes hi your head, that you hain't seen!" "Seen what?" "Well, my Ian'! 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 amaze- ment. "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 was n't so old, after all. Besides, Keith, with his handicap you could n't blame the girl, after all, I s'pose." "Daniel Burton an' Dorothy Parkman!" re- peated Susan, this time with the faintness of stupe- faction. " WTiy, Susan, you must 've seen it her run- nin' 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," murmured Susan. "Work! Well, I guess it no need to 've taken quite so many consultations for just the work. Be- sides, 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 312 DAWN 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 slam Than a nice little peaceful woolly lamb, But we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home." CHAPTER XXXII THE KEY THERE was no work at the winding-room Sat- urday 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 en- tered 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 could n'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 314 DAWN 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, neither. I think maybe havin' so many of 'em dis- inclined by them editors has made me kinder fear- some." " 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 did n't even try. I knew I could n't do it. An', say, Keith, it was you I was thinkin' about." "Heavens, Susan! A poem out of me? No won- der your muse balked! I'm afraid you'd find even er perspiration would n't make a poem out of me." "Keith, do you remember?" Susan was still earnest and preoccupied. "I told you once that it did n'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 could n't 'a' done it if the door of your eyes had n't been shut first. That was what give you the key to this big, THE KEY 315 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. "And I'm glad you showed it to me. It's going to help me a whole lot if if I '11 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 tunes 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: THE WAY OF THE WORLD A beggar girl on the curbstone sat, All ragged an' hungry-eyed. Across the street came Peggy McGee; The beggar girl saw an' sighed. 316 DAWN "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 high. From there she gazed through curtainless panes At hangin's of lace near by. "Ah, me!" sighed Peggy. "If I had those, An' rugs like hers on the floor, It seems to me that I'd never ask For 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 '11 see or know? I really think that I ought to be A-livin' hi 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 't is n'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. THE KEY 317 This tryin' to live when one is so poor Is 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 de- manded, as she finished the last verse. Keith laughed. "I suspect it is, Susan. And and, by the way, I should n't wonder if this were quite the right time to show that I 'm no different from other f oiks. 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 think- ing 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 Ian', I don't know," frowned Susan irritably. "I did n't s'pose " She did not finish her sentence, and after a mo- ment's silence Keith began again to speak. 318 DAWN "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 could n't be living here, you know." "I should like to know why not." "Because I could n'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 re- membered 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 constrain- edly. He gave an embarrassed laugh. A painful red had suffused his face. "I'm afraid I got to talking and forgetting that I was n'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 THE KEY 319 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 im- perious 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 could n'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." "Needing him!" 320 DAWN "Yes. Keith Burton, look at your father now. Look at the splendid work he's doin'. You know as well as I do that he used to be a thoroughly in- sufficient, uncapacious man (though I would n't let anybody else say it!), putterin' over a mess of pictures that would n't sell for a nickel. An* that he used to run from anything an' everything that was unpropitious an* disagreeable, like he was bein' chased. Well, then you was took blind. An' what happened? "You know what happened. He came right up an* toed the mark like a man an' a gentleman. An* he's toed it ever since. An' I can tell you that the pictures he's paintin' now with his tongue for them poor blind boys to see is bigger an' better than any pictures he could have painted with with his pigmy paints if he worked on 'em for a thousand years. An' it's you that's done it for him, jest by needin' him. So there ! " And before Keith could so much as open his lips, Susan was gone, slamming the door behind her. CHAPTER XXXIII AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN NOT one wink did Susan Belts sleep that night. To Susan her world was tumbling about her ears in one dizzy whirl of destruction. Daniel Burton and Dorothy Parkman married and living there, and her beloved blind boy ban- ished to a home with one David Patch? Unthink- able ! And yet Well, if it had got to be, it had got to be, she supposed the marriage. But they might at least be decent about it. As for keeping that poor blind boy harrowed up all the time and prolong- ing the agony well, at least she could do some- thing about that, thank goodness ! And she would, too. When there was anything that Susan could do particularly in the line of righting a wrong she lost no time in doing it. Within two days, therefore, she made her opportunity, and grasped it. A little peremptorily she informed Miss Doro- thy Parkman that she would like to speak to her, please, in the kitchen. Then, tall, and cold, and very stern, she faced her. "Of course, I understand, Miss Dorothy, I'm bustlin' in where I hain't no business to. An' I hain't no excuse to offer except my boy, Keith. It's for him I'm askin' you to do it." 322 DAWN "To do what, Susan?" She had changed color slightly, as she asked the question. "Not let it be seen so plain the love-makin'." "Seen! Love-making!'* gasped the girl. "Well, the talkin' to him, then, an* whisperin', an' consultin's, an* runnin' here every day, an' " "I beg your pardon, Susan," interrupted the girl incisively. She had grown very white. "I am tempted to make no sort of reply to such an absurd accusation; but I'm going to say, however, that you must be laboring under some mistake. I do not come here to see Mr. Keith Burton, and I've scarcely exchanged a dozen words with him for months." "I'm talkin' about Mr. Daniel, not Keith, an' " "Mr. Daniel Burton!" "Of course! Who else?" Susan was nettled now, and showed it. "I don't s'pose you'll deny runnin' here to see him, an' talkin' to him, an' " "No, no, wait! wait! Don't say any more, please!" The girl was half laughing, half crying, and her face was going from white to red and back to white again. "Am I to understand that I am actually being accused of of running after Mr. Daniel Burton? of of love-making toward him?' 9 she choked incoherently. "Why, y-yes; that is er " "Oh, this is too much, too much! First Keith, and now " She broke off hysterically. "To think that Oh, Susan, how could you, how could AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 323 you!*' And this time she dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. But she was laughing. Very plainly she was laughing. Susan frowned, stared, and frowned again. "Then you ain't in love with " Suddenly her face cleared, and broke into a broad smile. "Well, my Ian', if that ain't the best joke ever! Of course, you ain't in love with him ! I don't believe I ever more 'n half believed it, anyway. Now it '11 be dead easy, an' all right, too." "But but what does it all mean?" stam- mered the girl. "Why, it's jest that that everybody thought you was after him, an' 't would be a match you bein' together so much. But even then I would n't have said a thing if it had n't been for Keith." "Keith!" "Yes poor boy, he an' it was hard for him, seein' you two together like this, an' thinkin' you cared for each other. An' he 'd got his plans all made how when you was married he'd go an' live with David Patch." "David Patch! But why?" "Why, don't you see? 'T would n't be very easy to see you married to another man, would it? an' lovin' you all the time hisself, an' " "Loving me!" "That's what I said." Susan's lips came sharply together and her keen eyes swept the girl's face. "But, I I think you must be mistaken again," faltered the girl, growing rosy. 324 DAWN "I ain't. I've always suspicioned it, an' now I know it." "But, he he's acted as if he didn't care for me at all as if he hated me." "That's because he cared so much." "Nonsense, Susan!" " 'T ain't nonsense. It 's sense. As I told you, I 've always suspicioned it, an' last Saturday, when I heard him talk, I knew. He as good as owned it up, anyhow." "But why did n't he he tell me?" stammered the girl, growing still more rosy. "Because he was blind." "As if I'd minded " She stopped abruptly and turned away her face. Susan drew a resolute breath and squared her shoulders. "Then why don't you do somethin'?" she de- manded. "Do something?" "Yes, to to show him that you don't mind." "Oh, Susan, I I could n't do that." "All right. Settle back, then, an' do nothin'; an' he'll settle back an' do nothin', an' there'll be a pretty pair of you, eatin' your hearts out with love for each other, an' passin' each other by with con- verted faces an' highbrow chins; an' all because you're afraid of offendin' Mis' Grundy, who don't care no more about you than two sticks. But I s'pose you'd both rather be miserable than brace AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 325 up an' defy the properties an* live long an' be happy ever after." "But if I could be sure he cared," spoke the girl, in a faint little voice. "You would have been, if you'd seen him Satur- day, as I did." "And if" "If if if!" interrupted Susan impatiently. "An' there that poor blind boy sets an' thinks an' thinks an' thinks, an' longs for some one that loves him to smooth his pillow an' rumple his hair, an' " "Susan, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it!" vowed the girl, springing to her feet, her eyes like stars, her cheeks like twin roses. "Do what?" demanded Susan. "I don't know. But, I'm going to do something. Anyhow, whatever I do I know I 'm going to to defy the 'properties,'" she babbled deliriously, as she hurried from the room, looking very much as if she were trying to hide from herself. Four days later, Keith, in his favorite chair, sat on the south piazza. It was an April day, but it was like June, and the window behind him was wide open into the living-room. He did not hear Dorothy Parkman's light step up the walk. He did not know that she had paused at sight of him sit- ting there, and had put her hand to her throat, and then that she had almost run, light-footed, into the house, again very much as if she were trying to run away from herself. But he did hear her voice two minutes later, speaking just inside the window. 326 DAWN At the first sentence he tried to rise, then with a despairing gesture as if realizing that flight would be worse than to remain where he was, he sat back in his chair. And this is what he heard Dorothy Parkman say: "No, no, Mr. Burton, please I I can't marry you. You'll have to understand. No don't speak, don't say anything, please. There's nothing you could say that that would make a bit of difference. It 's just that I I don't love you and I do love somebody else Keith, your son yes, you have guessed it. Oh, yes, I know we don't seem to be much to each other, now. But but whether we ever are, or not, there can't ever be any one else. And I think he cares. It 's just that that his pride won't let him speak. As if his dear eyes did n't make me love him "But I must n't say all this to you. It's just that that I wanted you to surely under- stand. And and I must go, now. I must go!" And she went. She went hurriedly, a little nois- ily. She shut one door, and another; then, out on the piazza she came face to face with Keith Burton. "Dorothy, oh, Dorothy I heard!" And then it was well, indeed, that the Japanese screen on the front piazza, was down, for Keith stood with his arms outstretched, and Dorothy, with an ineffably contented little indrawn breath, walked straight into them. And with that light on his face, she would have walked into them had IT WAS WELL THAT THE JAPANESE SCREEN ON THE FRONT PIAZZA WAS DOWN AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 327 he been standing in the middle of the sidewalk out- side. To Dorothy at that moment nobody in all the world counted for a feather's weight except the man who was holding her close, with his lips to hers. Later, a little later, when they sat side by side on the piazza settee, and when coherence and logic had become attributes to their conversation, Keith sighed, with a little catch in his voice : "The only thing I regret about this all this the only thing that makes me feel cheap and mean, is that I 've won where dad lost out. Poor old dad ! " There was the briefest of pauses, then a small, subdued voice said: "I I suspect, Keith, confession is good for the soul." "Well?" he demanded in evident mystification. "Anyhow, I I'll have to do it. Your father was n't there at all." "But I heard you speaking to him, my dear." She shook her head, and stole a look into his face, then caught her breath with a little choking sob of heartache because he could not see the love she knew was in her eyes. But the heartache only nerved her to say the words that almost refused to come. "He he wasn't there," she repeated, fencing for time. "But who was there? I heard you call him by name, 'Mr. Burton,' clearly, distinctly. I know I did." 328 DAWN "But but he was n't there. Nobody was there. I I was just talking to myself." "You mean practicing what you were going to say?" questioned Keith doubtfully. "And that that he does n't know yet that you are going to refuse him?" "N-no er well, yes. That is, I mean, it's true. He he does n't know I am going to refuse him." There was a hint of smothered laughter in the girl's voice. "Dorothy!" The arm about her waist percepti- bly loosened and almost fell away. "Why, I don't feel now that that you half belong to me, yet. And and think of poor dad!" The girl caught her breath and stole another look into his face. "But, Keith, you you don't understand. He he has n't proposed to me yet. That is, I mean," she amended hastily, "he he is n't going to pro- pose to me ever." "But he was. He cares. And now he'll have to know about us." "But he was n't he does n't. You don't un- derstand, Keith. He he never thought of of proposing to me. I know he did n't." "Then why what Dorothy, what do you mean by all this?" "Why, it's just that that is I oh, Keith, Keith, why will you make me tell you?" she cried between hysterical little laughs and sobs. "And yet I 'd have to tell you, of course. I I knew AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 329 you were there on the porch, and and I knew you 'd hear what I said. And so, to make you understand oh, Keith, it was awful, but I I pretended that " "You darling ! " breathed an impassioned voice in her ear. "Oh, how I love you, love you for that!" "Oh, but, Keith, it really was awful of me," she cried, blushing and laughing, as she emerged from his embrace. "Susan told me to defy the 'proper- ties ' and and I did it." "Susan!" She nodded. "That's how I knew for sure that you cared." "And so I owe it all even my er pro- posal of marriage, to Susan," he bantered mis- chievously. "Keith, I did not er it was not a proposal of marriage." "No? But you're going to marry me, aren't you?" Her chin came up. "I I shall wait till I'm asked," she retorted with dignity. "Hm-m; well, I reckon it's safe to say you'll be asked. And so I owe it all to Susan. Well, it is n't the first good thing I 've owed to her bless her heart! And she's equal to 'most anything. But I '11 wager, in this case, that even Susan had some stunt to perform. How did she do it? " 330 DAWN "She told me that you you thought your fa- ther and I cared for each other, and that that you cared for me; but that you were very brave and were going to go away, and leave us to our hap- piness. Then, when she found there was nothing to the other part of it, and that I I cared for you, she well, I don't know how she did it, but she said well, I did it. That's all." Keith chuckled. "Exactly! You could n't have described it bet- ter. We ' ve always done what Susan wanted us to, and we never could tell why. We we just did it. That's all. And, oh, I'm so glad you did this, little girl, so glad!" " Yes, but " She drew away from him a little, and her voice became severely accusing. "Keith Burton, you you should have done it yourself, and you know it." He shook his head. "I couldn't." A swift shadow fell like a cloud over his countenance. "Darling, even now Dor- othy, do you fully realize what you are doing? All your life to be tied " "Hush!" Her finger was on his lips only to be kissed till she took it away. "I won't let you talk like that a minute not a single minute ! But, Keith, there is something I want you to say." Her voice was half pleading, half whimsical. Her eyes, through her tears, were studying his face, turned partly away from her. " Confession is good for the soul." AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 331 "Well? Anything more?" He smiled faintly. " Yes ; only this time it 's you. You 've got to do it." "I?" "Yes." Her voice rang with firm decision. "Keith, I want to know why why all this time you ' ve acted so so that I had to find out through Susan that you cared. And I want to know when you stopped hating me. And " "Dorothy I never, never hated you!" cut in the man passionately. "But you acted as if you did. Why, you you would n't let me come near you, and you were so angry with me." "Yes, I know." The man fell back in his chair and was silent. There was a long minute of waiting. "Keith." "Yes, dear." "I confessed mine, and yours can't be any harder than mine was." Still he hesitated; then, with a long breath he be- gan to speak. "Dorothy, it it's just that I've had so much to fight. And it has n't been easy. But, listen, dear. I think I've loved you from away back in the days when you wore your hair in two thick pig- tails down your back. You know I was only four- teen when when the shadows began to come. One day, away back then, I saw you shudder once at blindness. We were talking about old Joe Harrington. And I never forgot it." 332 DAWN "But it was only because I pitied him." "Yes; but I thought then that it was more aver- sion. You said you could n't bear to look at them. And you see I feared, even then, that I was going to be like old Joe some tune." "Oh, Keith!" "Well, it came. I was like old Joe blind. And I knew that I was the object of curiosity and pity, and, I believed, aversion, wherever I went. And, oh, I so hated it! I did n't want to be stared at, and pointed out, and pitied. I did n't want to be different. And above all I did n't want to know that you were turning away from me in aversion and disgust." "Oh, Keith, Keith, as if I ever could!" faltered the girl. "I thought you could and would. I used to picture you all in the dark, as I used to see you with your bright eyes and pretty hair, and I could see the look on your face as you turned away shudder- ing. That's when I determined at all costs to keep out of your sight until I should be well again. I was going to be well, of course, then, you know. Well, in time I went West, and on the way I met Miss Stewart." "Yes." Dorothy's voice was not quite steady. "I liked Miss Stewart. She was wonderfully good to me. At first at the very first she gave me quite a start. Her voice sounded so much like Dorothy Parkman's. But very soon I forgot that, and just gave myself up to the enjoyment of AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 333 her companionship. I wasn't afraid with her that her eyes were turned away in aversion and dis- gust. Some way, I just knew that she was n't like Dorothy Parkman. You see, I had n't forgotten Dorothy. Some day I was going back to her seeing. "Well, you know what happened the opera- tions, the specialists, the years of waiting, the trip to London, then home, hopelessly blind. It was not easy then, Dorothy, but I tried to be a man. Most of all I felt for dad. He 'd had so many hopes But, never mind; and, anyhow, what Susan said the other day helped But this has nothing to do with you, dear. To go on: I gave you up then definitely. I know that all the while I'd been having you back in my mind, young as I was that some day I was going to be big and strong and rich and have my eyes; and that then I was going to ask you to marry me. But when I got home, hopelessly blind, that ended it. I did n't believe you would have me, anyway; but even if you would, I was n't going to give you the chance of always having to turn away in aversion and disgust from the sight of your husband." "Oh, Keith, how could you!" "I could n't. But you see how I felt. Then, one day I heard Miss Stewart's voice in the hall, and, oh, how good it sounded to me! I think I must have caught her hand very much as the drowning man grasps at the straw. She would never turn away from me ! With her I felt safe, happy, and at 334 DAWN peace. I don't think I exactly understood my state of mind myself. I did n't think I was in love with her, yet with her I was happy, and I was never afraid. "But I did n't have a chance long to question. Almost at once came the day when Mazie Sanborn ran up the steps and spoke to you. And I knew. My whole world seemed tumbling to destruction in one blinding crash. You can never know, dear, how utterly dismayed and angry and helpless I felt. All that I knew was that for months and months I had let Dorothy Parkman read to me, play with me, and talk to me that I had been eager to take all the time she would give me; when all the while she had been doing it out of pity, of course, and I could see just how she must have been shuddering and turning away her eyes all the long, long weeks she had been with me, at different times. But even more than that, if possible, was the cha- grin and dismay with which I realized that all the while I had been cheated and deceived and made a fool of, because I was blind, and could not see. I had been tricked into putting myself in such a posi- tion." "No, no! You did n't understand," protested the girl. "Of course, I did n't understand, dear. Nobody who is blinded with rage and hurt pride can under- stand anything, rightly." "But you would n't let me explain afterwards." "No, I did n't want you to explain. I was too AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 335 sore, too deeply hurt, too well, I could n't. That's all. Besides, I did n't want you to know how much I was caring about it all. So, a little later, when I did see you, I tried to toss it all off lightly, as of no consequence whatever." "Well, you succeeded," commented Dorothy dryly. "I had to, you see. I had found out then how much I really did care. I knew then that somehow you and Miss Stewart were hopelessly mixed up in my heart, and that I loved you, and that the world without you was going to be one big desert of lone- liness and longing. You see, it had not been so hard to give you up in imagination; but when it came to the real thing " "But, Keith, why why did you insist that you must?" "Do you think I'd ask you or anybody to tie yourself to a helpless creature who would probably finally end up on a street corner with a tin cup for pennies? Besides, in your case, I had not forgotten the shudders and the averted eyes. I still was so sure "Then John McGuire came home blind; and af- ter a while I found I could help him. And, Doro- thy, then is when I learned that that perhaps you were as happy in doing things for me as I had been in doing them for John McGuire. I sort of forgot the shudders and the averted eyes then. Besides, along about that time we had got back to almost our old friendliness the friendliness and com- 336 DAWN panionship of Miss Stewart and me. Then the money came and I knew that at least I never should have to ask you to subsist on what the tin cup of pennies could bring! And I had almost be- gun to to actually plan, when all of a sudden you stopped coming, right off short." "But I I went away," defended the girl, a little faintly. "Not at once. You were here in town a long time after that. I knew because I used to hear about you. I was sure then that that you had seen I was caring for you, and so you stayed away. Besides, it came back to me again my old fear of your pity and aversion, of your eyes turned away. You see, always, dear, that 's been a sort of obsession with me, I guess. I hate to feel that any one is looking at me watching me. To me it seems like spying on me because I I can't look back. Yes, I know it 's all very foolish and very silly ; but we are all foolish and silly over something. It 's because of that feeling that I I so hate to enter a room and know that some one is there who won't speak who tries to cheat me into thinking I am alone. I I can't bear it, Dorothy. Just because I can't see them " "I know, I know," nodded the girl. "Well, in December you went away. Oh, I knew when you went. I knew a lot of things that you did n't know I knew. But I was trying all those days to put you quite out of my mind, and I busied myself with John McGuire and told myself that I AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 337 was satisfied with my work; that I had put you entirely out of my life. "Then you came back in February, and I knew I had n't. I knew I loved you more than ever. Just at first, the very first, I thought you had come back to me. Then I saw that it was dad. After that I tried oh, you don't know how hard I tried to kill that wicked love in my heart. Why, darling, nothing would have hired me to let you see it then. Let dad know that his loving you hurt me? Fail dad there, as I had failed him everywhere else? I guess not! This was something I could do. I could let him have you, and never, never let him know. So I buried myself in work and tried to forget. "Then to-day you came. At the first sound of your voice in there, when I realized what you were saying (to dad, I supposed), I started up and would have gone. Then I was afraid you would see me pass the window, and that it would be worse if I went than if I stayed. Besides, right away I heard words that made me so weak with joy and amaze- ment that my knees bent under me and I had to sit down. And then but you know the rest, dear." "Yes, I know the rest; and I'll tell you, some time, why I I stopped coming last fall." "All right; but even that does n't matter to me now; for now, in spite of my blind eyes, the way looks all rosy ahead. Why, dear, it's like the dawn the dawn of a new day. And I used to so love the dawn! You don't know, but years ago, with 338 DAWN dad, I'd go camping in the woods, and sometimes we'd stay all night on the mountain. I loved that, for in the morning we'd watch the sun come up and flood the world with light. And it seemed so wonderful, after the dark! And it's like that with me to-day, dear. It 's my dawn the dawn of a new day. And it 's so wonderful after the dark ! " " Oh, Keith, I 'm so glad ! And, listen, dear. It 's not only dawn for you, but for all those blind boys down there that you are helping. You have opened their eyes to the dawn of their new day. Don't you see? " Keith drew in his breath with a little catch. "Have I? Do you think I have? Oh, I should like to think that. I don't know, of course, about them. But I do know about myself. And I know it's the most wonderful dawn ever was for me. And I know that with your little hand in mine I '11 walk fearlessly straight on, with my chin up. And now that I know dad doer n't care, and that he is n't going to be unhappy about my lov- ing you and your loving me, I have n't even that to fear." "And, oh, Keith, think, think what it would have been if if I had n't defied the 'properties,' ' she faltered mistily. "Dear old Susan bless her heart! And that is n't all I owe her. Something she said the other day made me hope that maybe I had n't even quite failed dad. And I so wanted to make good for dad!" AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN 339 "And you've done it, Keith." "But maybe he he does n't think so." "But he does. He told me." "HefoWyou!" "Yes last night. He said that once he had great plans for you, great ambitions, but that he never dreamed he could be as proud of you as he is right now what you had done for yourself, and what you were doing for those boys down there." "Did dad say that?" "Yes." "And to think of my having that, and you, too!" breathed the man, his arm tightening about her. THE END CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A A 000 11 1 561 7