Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

were like that. So I always tried to do it that way. And it'swonderful how, when you give it a little thought, you can manage totell them so much that they can turn about and tell somebody else,just as if they really had seen it."

"I know, I know," nodded Susan. "An'—Miss Dorothy"—her voice grewunsteady—"he really IS goin' to see by an' by, ain't he?"

The girl's face clouded.

"They aren't at all sure of that."

"But they can't tell YET?" Susan had grown a little white.

"Oh, no, not sure."

"An' they're goin' to give him all the chances there is?"

"Certainly. I only spoke because I don't want you to be toodisappointed if—if we lose. You must remember that fully half of thecases do lose."

Susan drew a long sigh. Then, determinedly she lifted her chin.

"Well, I like to think we ain't goin' to belong to that half," shesaid.

CHAPTER XVI

THE WORRY OF IT

There was a letter from the doctor when the bandages were removed.Daniel Burton began to read the letter, but his eyes blurred and hishand shook, so that Susan had to take it up where he had dropped it.

Yet the letter was very short.

The operation had been as successful, perhaps, as they could expect,under the circumstances. Keith could discern light now—faintly, to besure, but unmistakably. He was well and happy. Meanwhile he was undertreatment for the second operation to come later. But that could notbe performed for some time yet, so they must not lose their patience.That was all.

"Well, I s'pose we ought to be glad he can see light even a little,"sighed Susan; "but I'm free to confess I was hopin' he could do alittle more than that."

"Yes, so was I," said Daniel Burton. And Susan, looking at his face,turned away without another word. There were times when Susan knewenough not to talk.

Then came the days when there were only Keith's letters and anoccasional short note from the doctor to break the long months ofwaiting.

In the Burton homestead at Hinsdale, living was reduced to thesimplest formula possible. On the whole, there was perhaps a littlemore money. Dunning tradesmen were not so numerous. But all luxuries,and some things that were almost necessities, were rigorously leftout. And the money was saved always—for Keith. A lodger, a young lawstudent, in Keith's old room helped toward defraying the familyexpenses.

Susan had given up trying to sell her "poems." She had becomeconvinced at last that a cruel and unappreciative editorial wall wasforever to bar her from what she still believed was an eagerlyawaiting public. She still occasionally wrote jingles and talked inrhyme; but undeniably she had lost her courage and her enthusiasm. Asshe expressed it to Mrs. McGuire, she did not feel "a mite like agushing siphon inside her now."

As the summer came and passed, Susan and Mrs. McGuire talked over theback-yard fence even more frequently. Perhaps because Susan was lonelywithout Keith. Perhaps because there was so much to talk about.

First there was Keith.

Keith was still under treatment preparatory to the second operation.He had not responded quite as they had hoped, the doctor said, whichmeant that the operation must be postponed for perhaps several monthslonger.

All this Susan talked over with Mrs. McGuire; and there was always,too, the hushed discussion as to what would happen if, after all, itfailed, and Keith came home hopelessly blind.

"But even that ain't the worst thing that could happen," maintainedSusan stoutly. "I can tell you Keith Burton ain't goin' to let alittle thing like that floor him!"

Mrs. McGuire, however, did not echo Susan's optimistic prophecies. ButMrs. McGuire's own sky just now was overcast, which perhaps hadsomething to do with it. Mrs. McGuire had troubles of her own.

It was the summer of 1914, and the never-to-be-forgotten August hadcome and passed, firing the match that was destined to set the wholeworld ablaze. Mrs. McGuire's eldest son John—of whom she boasted inseason and out and whom she loved with an all-absorbing passion—hadcaught the war-fever, gone to Canada, and enlisted. Mrs. McGuireherself was a Canadian by birth, and all her family still lived there.She was boasting now more than ever about John; but, proud as she wasof her soldier boy, his going had plunged her into an abyss of doubtand gloom.

"He'll never come back, he'll never come back," she moaned to Susan.

"I can just feel it in my bones that he won't."

"Shucks, a great, strong, healthy boy like John McGuire! Of course,he'll come back," retorted Susan. "Besides, likely the war'll be allover with 'fore he gets there, anyhow. An' as for feelin' it in yourbones, Mis' McGuire, that's a very facetious doctrine, an' ain't nomore to be depended upon than my flour sieve for an umbrella. They'regay receivers every time—bones are. Why, lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, ifall things happened that my bones told me was goin' to happen, therewouldn't none of us be livin' by now, nor the sun shinin', nor themoon moonin'. I found out, after awhile, how they DIDN'T happen halfthe time, an' I wrote a poem on it, like this:

     Trust 'em not, them fickle bones,

     Always talkin' moans an' groans.

     Jest as if inside of you,

     Lived a thing could tell you true,

     Whether it was goin' to rain,

     Whether you would have a pain,

     Whether him or you would beat,

     Whether you'd have 'nuf to eat!

     Bones was give to hold us straight,

     Not to tell us 'bout our Fate."

"Yes, yes, I s'pose so," sighed Mrs. McGuire. "But when I think of

John, my John, lyin' there so cold an' still—"

"Well, he ain't lyin' there yet," cut in Susan impatiently. "Timeenough to hunt bears when you see their tracks. Mis' McGuire, CAN'Tyou see that worryin' don't do no good? You'll have it ALL fornothin', if he don't get hurt; an' if he does, you'll have all thisextra for nothin', anyway,—that you didn't need till the time came.Ever hear my poem on worryin'?"

Without waiting for a reply—Susan never asked such questions with aview to having them answered—she chanted this:

"Worry never climbed a hill,

 Worry never paid a bill,