Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

in to me. I don't want to read andplay solitaire and checkers week in and week out. I want to be overthere, doing a man's work. Look at Ted, and Tom, and Jack Green, andJohn McGuire!"

"John McGuire!" It was a faltering cry from Susan, but Keith did noteven hear.

"What are they doing, and what am I doing? Yet you people expect me tosit here contented with a dice-box and a deck of playing-cards, and beGLAD I can do that much. Oh, well, I suppose I ought to be. But when Isit here alone day after day and think and think—"

"But, Keith, we don't want you to do that," interposed Susanfeverishly. "Now there's Miss Dorothy—if you'd only let her—"

"But I tell you I don't want to be babied and pitied and 'tended to byyoung women who are SORRY for me. I want to do the helping part ofthe time. And if I see a girl I—I could care for, I want to be ableto ask her like a man to marry me; and then if she says 'yes,' I wantto be able to take care of her myself—not have her take care of meand marry me out of pity and feed me fudge and flowers! And there's—dad."

Keith's voice broke and stopped. Susan, watching his impassioned face,wet her lips and swallowed convulsively. Then Keith began again.

"Susan, do you know the one big thing that drives me up here every

time, in spite of myself? 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 incisively. "I'm merelysaying that, as I happen to know, he prefers to paint pictures—and Iprefer to have him. And he'd be doing it this minute—if it wasn't forhis having to support me, and you know it, Susan."

"Well, what of it? It don't hurt him any."

"It hurts me, Susan. And when I think of all the things he hoped—ofme. I was going to be Jerry and Ned and myself; and I was going tomake him so proud, Susan, so proud! I was going to make up to him allthat he had lost. All day under the trees up on the hill, I used tolie and dream of what I was going to be some day—the great pictures Iwas going to paint—for dad. The great fame that was going to come tome—for dad. The money I was going to earn—for dad: I saw dad, oldand white-haired, leaning on me. I saw the old house restored—all thelocks and keys and sagging blinds, the cracked ceilings and tatteredwallpaper—all made fresh and new. And dad so proud and happy in itall—so proud and happy that perhaps he'd think I really had made upfor Jerry and Ned, and his own lost hopes.

"And, now, look at me! Useless, worse than useless—all my life aburden to him and to everybody 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 easyway—out."

"Yes, 'twould—for quitters. Quitters always take easy ways out. Butyou ain't no quitter, Keith Burton. Besides, 't wouldn't end it. Youknow that. 'Twould jest be shuttin' the door of this room an' openin'the one to the next. You've had a good Christian bringin' up, KeithBurton, an' you know as well as I do that your eternal, immoral soulain't goin' to be snuffled out of existence by no pistol shot, nomatter how many times 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 yourpoint. You made it—perhaps better than you know. But—well, it isn'tso 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 haven'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 somebodyelse. And that's why some eyes had more than their share of hookshanging on to them. You see—I remembered. I knew then, when you saidit, that I was a hook, and—"

"Keith Burton, I never thought of you when I said that," interrupted

Susan agitatedly.

"Perhaps not; but I 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—toanybody that will let me! But, Susan, don't you see?—sometimes itseems as if I'd give the whole world if just for once I could feelthat I—that some one was hanging on to me! that I was of some usesomewhere."

"An' so you're goin' to be, honey. I know you be," urged Susaneagerly. "Just remember all them fellers that wrote books an' givelecturing an'—"

"Oh, yes, I know," interposed Keith, with a faint smile. "You were agood old soul, Susan, to read me all those charming tales, and Iunderstood of course, what you were doing it for. You wanted me to goand do likewise. But I couldn't write a book to save my soul, Susan,and my voice would stick in my throat at the second word of a'lecturing.'"

"But there'll be somethin', Keith, I know there'll be somethin'. Godnever locked up the doors of your eyes without givin' you the key tosome other door. It's jest that you hain't found it yet."

"Perhaps. I certainly haven't found it—that's sure," retorted the ladbitterly. "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'smore'n one way of standin' things."

"Yes, I know there is." Keith stirred restlessly in his seat.

"An' some ways is better than