Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

helpin' KeithBurton hisself jest as much as 'tis John McGuire. Why, he ain't thesame boy since he's took to tryin' to get your John to talkin'. An' heasks me a dozen times a mornin' if John's out on the porch yet. An'when he IS out there, he don't lose no time in goin' out hisself."

Yet it was the very next morning that Keith, after eagerly asking ifJohn McGuire were on the back porch, did not go out. Instead hesettled back in his chair and picked up one of his embossed books.

Susan frowned in amazed wonder, and opened her lips as if to speak.But after a glance at Keith's apparently absorbed face, she turned andwent back to her work in the kitchen. Twice during the next tenminutes, however, she invented an excuse to pass again through theliving-room, where Keith sat. Yet, though she said a pointed somethingeach time about John McGuire on the back porch, Keith did not respondsave with an indifferent word or two. And, greatly to her indignation,he was still sitting in his chair with his book when at noon JohnMcGuire, on the porch across the back yard, rose from his seat andwent into the house.

Susan was still more indignant when, the next morning, the sameprogramme was repeated—except for the fact that Susan's reminders ofJohn McGuire's presence on the back porch were even more pointed thanthey had been on the day before. Again the third morning it was thesame. Susan resolved then to speak. She said to herself that "patiencehad ceased to be virtuous," and she lay awake half that nightrehearsing a series of arguments and pleadings which she meant topresent the next morning. She was the more incited to this owing toMrs. McGuire's distracted reproaches the evening before.

"Why, John has asked for him, actually ASKED for him," Mrs. McGuirehad wept. "An' it is cruel, the cruelest thing I ever saw, to get thatpoor boy all worked up to the point of really WANTIN' to talk withhim, an' then stay away three whole days like this!"

On the fourth morning, therefore, when John McGuire appeared on theback porch, Susan went into the Burton living-room with the avoweddetermination of getting Keith out of the house and into the backyard, or of telling him exactly what she thought of him.

She had all of her elaborate scheming for nothing, however, for at herfirst terse announcement that John McGuire was on the back porch,Keith sprang to his feet with a cheery:

"So? Well, I guess I'll go out myself."

And Susan was left staring at him with open eyes and mouth—yet nottoo dazed to run to the open window and watch what happened.

And this is what Susan saw—and heard. Keith, with his almostuncannily skillful stick to guide him, sauntered down the path andcalled a cheery greeting to John McGuire—a John McGuire who, in hiseagerness to respond, leaned away forward in his chair with a suddenflame of color in his face.

Keith still sauntered toward the dividing fence, pausing only to feelwith his fingers and pick the one belated rose from the bush at thegate. He pushed the gate open then, still talking cheerfully, and thenext moment Susan was holding her breath, for Keith had gone straightup the walk and up the steps, and had dropped himself into the vacantchair beside John McGuire—and John McGuire, after a faint start as ifto rise, had fallen back in his seat, and had turned his faceuncertainly, fearfully, yet with infinite longing, toward the blindyouth at his side.

Susan looked then at Mrs. McGuire. Mrs. McGuire, too, was plainlyholding her breath suspended. On her face, too, were uncertainty,fearfulness, and infinite longing. For a moment she watched the twoboys intently. Then she rose and with cautious steps made her way intothe house. After supper that night she came over and told Susan allabout it. Her face was beaming.

"Did you see them?" she began breathlessly. "Wasn't it wonderful? Awhole half-hour those two blessed boys sat there an' talked; an' Johnlaughed twice, actually laughed."

"Yes, I know," nodded Susan, her own face no less beaming.

"An' to think how just last night I was scoldin' an' blamin' Keithbecause he didn't come over these last three days. An' I never saw atall what he was up to."

"Up to?" frowned Susan.

"Yes, yes! Don't you see? He did it on purpose—stayed away threewhole days, so John would miss him an' WANT him. An' John DID misshim. Why, he listened for him all the time. I could just SEE he waslistenin'. An' that's what made me so angry, because Keith didn'tcome. The idea!—My boy wantin' somebody, an' that somebody not there!

"But I know now. I understand. An' I love him for it. He did it tomake him want him. An' it worked. Why, if he'd come before, every day,just as usual, John wouldn't have talked with him. I know he wouldn't.But now—oh, Susan, it was wonderful, wonderful! I watched 'em fromthe window. I HAD to watch. I was afraid—still. An' of course I heardsome things. An', oh, Susan, it was wonderful, the way that boyunderstood."

"You mean—Keith?"

"Yes. You see, first John began to talk just as he talks to us—ravin'because he's so strong an' well, an' likely to live to be a hundred;an' of how he'll look, one of these days, with his little tin cup heldout for pennies an' his sign, 'Please Help the Blind,' an' of whathe's got to look forward to all his life. Oh, Susan, it—it's enoughto break the heart of a stone, when he talks like that."

Susan drew in her breath.

"Don't you s'pose I know? Well, I guess I do! But what did Keith sayto him?"

"Nothin'. An' that was the first wonderful thing. You see, we—wealways talk an' try to comfort him when he talks like that. But Keithdidn't. He just let him talk, with nothin' but just a sympathetic wordnow an' then. But it wasn't long before I noticed a wonderful thingwas happenin'. Keith was beginnin' to talk—not about that awful tincup an' the pennies an' the sign, but about other things; first aboutthe rose in his