Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

an' them other soldiers what's comin' back blindfrom the war. An' he talks an' talks about 'em, an' mourns an' takeson something dreadful. He says HE knows what it means, an' that nobodycan know what hain't had it happen to 'em. An' he broods an' broodsover it."

"I can—imagine it." The girl said it with a little catch in hervoice.

"An'—an' there's somethin' else I want to tell you about. I've got totell somebody. I want to know if you think I done right. An' you'rethe only one I can tell. I've thought it all out. Daniel Burton is toonear, an' Mis' McGuire an' all them others is too far. You ain't arelation, an' yet you care. You do care, don't you?—about Mr. Keith?"

"Why, of—of course. I care a great deal, Susan." Miss Dorothy spokevery lightly, very impersonally; but there was a sudden flame of colorin her face. Susan, however, was not noticing this. Furtively she wasglancing one way and another over her shoulder.

"Yes. Well, the other day he—he tried to—that is, well, I—I foundhim 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, isit? For if he had done it, he wouldn't be alive now, would he?" brokeoff Susan, with a faint smile. "But what I mean is, he didn't do it,an' I don't think he's goin' to do it."

"But, oh, Susan," faltered the girl, "you didn't leave that—thatawful thing with him, did you? Didn't you take it—away?"

"No." Susan's mouth set grimly. "An' that's what I wanted to ask youabout—if I did right, you know."

"Oh, no, no, Susan! I'm afraid," shuddered the girl. "Can't you—getit away—now?"

"Maybe. I know where 'tis. I was up there yesterday an' see it. 'T wasin 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'mafraid to have it there—a single minute."

"But, Miss Dorothy, stop; wait jest a minute. Think. How's he goin' toget self-defiance an' make a strong man of hisself if we take thingsaway 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 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, 'twas awful. I wasthat scared an' frightened I thought I couldn't move. But I knew I'dgot to, an' I knew I'd got to move RIGHT, too, or I'd spoileverything. 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 wholeinternal 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 afeelin' that he wouldn't never do that thing again. That somehow theMAN in him was on top, an' would stay on top. An' I'm more sure thanever of it now. He ain't thinkin' of hisself these days. It's JohnMcGuire and them others. An' ain't it better that he let that pistolalone 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 strongenough—to make him strong."

"Yes, you would, if you'd been there. I reckon we're all goin' tolearn to do a lot of things we never did before, now that the war hascome."

"Yes, I know." A quivering pain swept across the young girl's face.

"Somehow, the war never seemed real to me before. 'T was jestsomethin' 'way off—a lot of Dagoes an' Dutchmen, like the men whatdug up the McGuires' frozen water-pipes last spring, fightin'. Not ourkind of folks what talked English. Even when I read the papers, an'the awful things they did over there—it didn't seem as if 't wasfolks on our earth. It was like somethin' you read about in them oldhistronic days, or somethin' happenin' up on the moon, or on thatplantation of Mars. Oh, of course, I knew John McGuire had gone; butsomehow I never thought of him as fightin'—not with guns an' bloodygore, in spite of them letters of his. Some way, in my mind's eyes Ialways see him marchin' with flags flyin' an' folks cheerin'; an' Ithought 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' TomSpencer, an' little Jacky Green that I used to hold on my knee. Someof 'em in France, an' some of 'em in them army canteens down to Ayeran' Texas an' everywhere. An' poor Tom's died already of pneumoniaright 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 ithurts."

"It certainly does, Susan."

"An' let me tell you. What do you s'pose, more 'n anything else, mademe see how really big it all is?"

"I don't know, Susan,"

"Well, I'll tell you. 'Twas because I couldn'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 allthe time in my heart, an' burst out natural-like, as they used to. Ithink them days when I tried so hard to sell my poems, an' couldn't,kinder took the jest out of poetizin' for me. Somehow, when you findout somethin' is invaluable to other folks, it gets so it's invaluableto 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