Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

Mr. Burton has me take up ter him every week.An' he owned up, when I took him ter task for it, that he couldn'tread 'em. They was gettin' all blurred."

"Blurred?" It was a startled little cry from the boy down by the beet-bed; but neither Susan nor Mrs. McGuire heard—perhaps because atalmost the same moment Mrs. McGuire had excitedly asked the samequestion.

"Blurred?" she cried.

"Yes; all run tergether like—the printin', ye know——so he couldn'ttell one letter from t'other. 'T wa'n't only a little at first. Why,he thought 't was jest somethin' the matter with the printin' itself;an'—"

"And WASN'T it the printing at ALL?"

The boy was on his feet now. His face was a little white and strained-looking, as he asked the question.

"Why, no, dearie. Didn't you hear Susan tell Mis' McGuire jest now? 'Twas his EYES, an' he didn't know it. He was gettin' blind, an' thatwas jest the beginnin'."

Susan's capable hands picked up another wet towel and snapped it openby way of emphasis.

"The b-beginning?" stammered the boy. "But—but ALL beginnings don't—don't end like that, do they?"

Susan Betts laughed indulgently and jammed the clothespin a littledeeper on to the towel.

"Bless the child! Won't ye hear that, now?" she laughed with a shrug."An' how should I know? I guess if Susan Betts could tell the end ofall the beginnin's as soon as they're begun, she wouldn't be hangin'out your daddy's washin', my boy. She'd be sittin' on a red velvetsofa with a gold cupola over her head a-chargin' five dollars apiecefor tellin' yer fortune. Yes, sir, she would!"

"But—but about Uncle Joe," persisted the boy. "Can't he really see—at all, Susan?"

"There, there, child, don't think anything more about it. Indeed,forsooth, I'm tellin' the truth, but I s'pose I hadn't oughter told itbefore you. Still, you'd 'a' found it out quick enough—an' you withyour tops an' balls always runnin' up there. An' that's what the poorsoul seemed to feel the worst about," she went on, addressing Mrs.McGuire, who was still leaning on the division fence.

"'If only I could see enough ter help the boys!' he moaned over an'over again. It made me feel awful bad. I was that upset I jestcouldn't sleep that night, an' I had ter get up an' write. But it madea real pretty poem. My fuse always works better in the night, anyhow.'The wail of the toys'—that's what I called it—had the toys tell thestory, ye know, all the kites an' jack-knives an' balls an' bats thathe's fixed for the boys all these years, an' how bad they felt becausehe couldn't do it any more. Like this, ye know:

     'Oh, woe is me, said the baseball bat,

      Oh, woe is me, said the kite.'

'T was real pretty, if I do say it, an' touchy, too."

"For mercy's sake, Susan Betts, if you ain't the greatest!" ejaculatedMrs. McGuire, with disapproving admiration. "If you was dyin' Ibelieve you'd stop to write a poem for yer gravestone!"

Susan Betts chuckled wickedly, but her voice was gravity itself.

"Oh, I wouldn't have ter do that, Mis' McGuire. I've got that donealready."

"Susan Betts, you haven't!" gasped the scandalized woman on the otherside of the fence.

"Haven't I? Listen," challenged Susan Betts, striking an attitude. Herface was abnormally grave, though her eyes were merry.

     "Here lieth a woman whose name was Betts,

      An' I s'pose she'll deserve whatever she gets;

      But if she hadn't been Betts she might 'a' been Better,

      She might even been Best if her name would 'a' let her."

"Susan!" gasped Mrs. McGuire once more; but Susan only chuckled againwickedly, and fell to work on her basket of clothes in good earnest.

A moment later she was holding up with stern disapproval two sockswith gaping heels.

"Keith Burton, here's them scandalous socks again! Now, do you go tellyour father that I won't touch 'em. I won't mend 'em another once. Hemust get you a new pair—two new pairs, right away. Do you hear?"

But Keith did not hear. Keith was not there to hear. Still with thatstrained, white look on his face he had hurried out of the yard andthrough the gate.

Mrs. McGuire, however, did hear.

"My stars, Susan Betts, it's lucky your bark is worse than your bite!"she exclaimed. "Mend 'em, indeed! They won't be dry before you've gotyour darnin' egg in 'em."

Susan laughed ruefully. Then she sighed:—at arms' length she washolding up another pair of yawning socks.

"I know it. And look at them, too," she snapped, in growing wrath."But what's a body goin' to do? The boy'd go half-naked before hisfather would sense it, with his nose in that paint-box. Much as everas he's got sense enough ter put on his own clothes—and he WOULDN'Tknow WHEN ter put on CLEAN ones, if I didn't spread 'em out for him!"

"I know it. Too bad, too bad," murmured Mrs. McGuire, with a virtuousshake of her head. "An' he with his fine bringin'-up, an' now to be soshiftless an' good-for-nothin', an'—"

But Susan Betts was interrupting, her eyes flashing.

"If you please, I'll thank you to say no more like that about mymaster," she said with dignity. "He's neither shiftless, nor good-for-nothin'. His character is unbleachable! He's an artist an' a scholaran' a gentleman, an' a very superlative man. It's because he knows somuch that—that he jest hain't got room for common things like clothesan' holes in socks."

"Stuff an' nonsense!" retorted Mrs. McGuire nettled in her turn. "Iguess I've known Dan'l Burton as long as you have; an' as for hisbein' your master—he can't call his soul his own when you're around,an' you know it."

But Susan, with a disdainful sniff, picked up her now empty clothes-basket and marched into the house.

Down the road Keith had reached the turn and was climbing the hillthat led to old Mr. Harrington's shabby cottage.

The boy's eyes were fixed straight ahead. A squirrel whisked his tailalluringly from the bushes at the left, and a robin twittered from atree branch on the right. But the boy neither saw nor heard—and whenbefore had Keith Burton failed to respond to a furred or featheredchallenge like that?

To-day there was an air of dogged