Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

pleasantly and even extendedhis hand. But almost at once the glow faded and the great hope died inher heart, for she saw that even while she touched his hand, he wasyet miles away from her.

He laughed and talked with her—oh, yes; but he laughed too much andtalked too much. He gave her almost no chance to say anything herself.And what he said was so inconsequential and so far removed fromanything intimately concerning themselves, that the girl found itutterly impossible to make the impassioned explanation which she hadbeen saying over and over again all night to herself, and from whichshe had hoped so much.

Yet at the last, just before she bade him good-bye, she did manage tosay something. But in her disappointment and excitement andembarrassment, her words were blurted out haltingly and ineffectually,and they were not at all the ones she had practiced over and over toherself in the long night watches; nor were they received as she hadpalpitatingly pictured that they would be, with Keith first stern andhurt, and then just dear and forgiving and UNDERSTANDING.

Keith was neither stern nor hurt. He still laughed pleasantly, and hetossed her whole labored explanation aside with a light: "Certainly—of course—to be sure—not at all! You did quite right, I assure you!"And then he remarked that it was a warm day, wasn't it? And Dorothyfound herself hurrying down the Burton front walk with burning cheeksand a chagrined helplessness that left her furious and with anineffably cheap feeling—yet not able to put her finger on anydiscourteous flaw in Keith's punctilious politeness.

"I wish I'd never said a word—not a word," she muttered hotly toherself as she hurried down the street. "I wonder if he thinks—I'llever open my head to him about it again. Well, he needn't—worry! But—oh, Keith, Keith, how could you?" she choked brokenly. Then abruptlyshe turned down a side street, lest Mazie Sanborn, coming toward her,should see the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks.

CHAPTER XXIII

JOHN McGUIRE

So imperative was the knock at the kitchen door at six o'clock thatJuly morning that Susan almost fell down the back stairs in her hasteto obey the summons.

"Lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, what a start you did give—why, Mis'

McGuire, what is it?" she interrupted herself, aghast, as Mrs.

McGuire, white-faced and wild-eyed, swept past her and began to pace

up and down the kitchen floor, moaning frenziedly:

"It's come—it's come—I knew't would come. Oh, what shall I do? Whatshall I do?"

"What's come?"

"Oh, John, John, my boy, my boy!"

"You don't mean he's—dead?"

"No, no, worse than that, worse than that!" moaned the woman, wringingher hands. "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?"

With a firm grasp Susan caught the twisting fingers and gently butresolutely forced their owner into a chair.

"Do? You'll jest calm yourself right down an' tell me all about it,Mis' McGuire. This rampagin' 'round the kitchen like this don't do nosort of good, an' it's awful on your nerves. An' furthermore an'moreover, no matter what't is that ails your John, it can't be worse'ndeath; for while there's life there's hope, you know."

"But it is, it is, I tell you," sobbed Mrs. McGuire still swaying herbody back and forth. "Susan, my boy is—BLIND." With the utterance ofthe dread word Mrs. McGuire stiffened suddenly into rigid horror, hereyes staring straight into Susan's.

"MIS' MCGUIRE!" breathed Susan in dismay; then hopefully, "But maybe'twas a mistake."

The woman shook her head. She went back to her swaying from side toside.

"No, 'twas a dispatch. It came this mornin'. Just now. Mr. McGuire wasgone, an' there wasn't anybody there but the children, an' they'reasleep. That's why I came over. I HAD to. I had to talk to some one!"

"Of course, you did! An' you shall, you poor lamb. You shall tell meall about it. What was it? What happened?"

"I don't know. I just know he's blind, an' that he's comin' home. He'son his way now. My John—blind! Oh, Susan, what shall I do, what shallI do?"

"Then he probably ain't sick, or hurt anywheres else, if he's on hisway home—leastways, he ain't hurt bad. You can be glad for that, Mis'McGuire."

"I don't know, I don't know. Maybe he is. It didn't say. It just saidblinded," chattered Mrs. McGuire feverishly. "They get them home justas soon as they can when they're blinded. We were readin' about itonly yesterday in the paper—how they did send 'em home right away.Oh, how little I thought that my son John would be one of 'em—myJohn!"

"But your John ain't the only one, Mis' McGuire. There's other Johns,too. Look at our Keith here."

"I know, I know."

"An' I wonder how he'll take this—about your John?"

"HE'LL know what it means," choked Mrs. McGuire.

"He sure will—an' he'll feel bad. I know that. He ain't hisself,anyway, these days."

"He ain't?" Mrs. McGuire asked the question abstractedly, her mindplainly on her own trouble; but Susan, intent on HER trouble, did notneed even the question to spur her tongue.

"No, he ain't. Oh, he's brave an' cheerful. He's awful cheerful, evencheerfuler than he was a month ago. He's too cheerful, Mis' McGuire.There's somethin' back of it I don't like. He—"

But Mrs. McGuire was not listening. Wringing her hands she had sprungto her feet and was pacing the floor again, moaning: "Oh, what shall Ido, what shall I do?" A minute later, only weeping afresh at Susan'severy effort to comfort her, she stumbled out of the kitchen andhurried across the yard to her own door.

Watching her from the window, Susan drew a long sigh.

"I wonder how he WILL take—But, lan' sakes, this ain't gettin' mybreakfast," she ejaculated with a hurried glance at the clock on thelittle shelf over the stove.

There was nothing, apparently, to distinguish breakfast that morningfrom a dozen other breakfasts that had gone before. Keith and hisfather talked cheerfully of various matters, and Susan waited uponthem with her usual briskness. If Susan was more silent than usual,and if her eyes sought Keith's face more frequently than was herhabit, no one, apparently, noticed it. Susan did fancy, however, thatshe saw a new tenseness in Keith's face,