Dawn Eleanor Porter (free novels to read txt) 📖

sayanother word about your bein' a disappointment. Jerry an' Ned, indeed!I wonder if you think a dozen Jerrys an' Neds could do what you'vedone! An' no matter what they done, they couldn't have done a bigger,splendider thing than you've done in triumphating over your blindnessthe way you've done, nor one that would make your father prouder ofyou! An' let me tell you another thing, Keith Burton. No matter whatyou done—no matter how many big pictures you painted, or big booksyou wrote, or how much money you made for your dad; there ain'tanything you could've done that would do him so much solid good aswhat you have done."

"Why, Susan, are you wild? I haven't done a thing, not a thing fordad."

"Yes, you have. You've done the biggest thing of all by NEEDIN' him."

"Needing him!"

"Yes. Keith Burton, look at your father now. Look at the splendid workhe's doin'. You know as well as I do that he used to be a thoroughlyinsufficient, uncapacious man (though I wouldn't let anybody else sayit!), putterin' over a mess of pictures that wouldn't sell for anickel. An' that he used to run from anything an' everything that wasunpropitious an' disagreeable, like he was bein' chased. Well, thenyou was took blind. An' what happened?

"You know what happened. He came right up an' toed the mark like a manan' a gentleman. An' he's toed it ever since. An' I can tell you thatthe pictures he's paintin' now with his tongue for them poor blindboys to see is bigger an' better than any pictures he could havepainted with—with his pigmy paints if he worked on 'em for a thousandyears. An' it's YOU that's done it for him, jest by needin' him. Sothere!"

And before Keith could so much as open his lips, Susan was gone,slamming the door behind her.

CHAPTER XXXIII

AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN

Not one wink did Susan Betts sleep that night. To Susan her world wastumbling about her ears in one dizzy whirl of destruction.

Daniel Burton and Dorothy Parkman married and living there, and herbeloved blind boy banished to a home with one David Patch?Unthinkable! And yet—-

Well, if it had got to be, it had got to be, she supposed—themarriage. But they might at least be decent about it. As for keepingthat poor blind boy harrowed up all the time and prolonging the agony—well, at least she could do something about THAT, thank goodness! Andshe would, too.

When there was anything that Susan could do—particularly in the lineof righting a wrong—she lost no time in doing it. Within two days,therefore, she made her opportunity, and grasped it. A littleperemptorily she informed Miss Dorothy Parkman that she would like tospeak to her, please, in the kitchen. Then, tall, and cold, and verystern, she faced her.

"Of course, I understand, Miss Dorothy, I'm bustlin' in where I hain'tno business to. An' I hain't no excuse to offer except my boy, Keith.It's for him I'm askin' you to do it."

"To do—what, Susan?" She had changed color slightly, as she asked thequestion.

"Not let it be seen so plain—the love-makin'."

"Seen! Love-making!" gasped the girl.

"Well, the talkin' to him, then, an' whisperin', an' consultin's, an'runnin' here every day, an'—-"

"I beg your pardon, Susan," interrupted the girl incisively. She hadgrown very white. "I am tempted to make no sort of reply to such anabsurd accusation; but I'm going to say, however, that you must belaboring under some mistake. I do not come here to see Mr. KeithBurton, and I've scarcely exchanged a dozen words with him formonths."

"I'm talkin' about Mr. Daniel, not Keith, an'—-"

"Mr. DANIEL Burton!"

"Of course! Who else?" Susan was nettled now, and showed it. "I don'ts'pose you'll deny runnin' here to see him, an' talkin' to him, an'—-"

"No, no, wait!—wait! Don't say any more, PLEASE!" The girl was halflaughing, half crying, and her face was going from white to red andback to white again. "Am I to understand that I am actually beingaccused of—of running after Mr. Daniel Burton?—of—of love-makingtoward HIM?" she choked incoherently.

"Why, y-yes; that is—er—-"

"Oh, this is too much, too much! First Keith, and now—" She broke offhysterically. "To think that—Oh, Susan, how could you, how couldyou!" And this time she dropped into a chair and covered her face withher hands. But she was laughing. Very plainly she was laughing.

Susan frowned, stared, and frowned again.

"Then you ain't in love with—" Suddenly her face cleared, and brokeinto a broad smile. "Well, my lan', if that ain't the best joke ever!Of course, you ain't in love with him! I don't believe I ever more 'nhalf believed it, anyway. Now it'll be dead easy, an' all right, too."

"But—but what does it all mean?" stammered the girl.

"Why, it's jest that—that everybody thought you was after him, an'twould be a match—you bein' together so much. But even then I wouldn'thave said a thing if it hadn't been for Keith."

"Keith!"

"Yes—poor boy, he—an' it WAS hard for him, seein' you two togetherlike this, an' thinkin' you cared for each other. An' he'd got hisplans all made how when you was married he'd go an' live with DavidPatch."

"David Patch! But—why?"

"Why, don't you see? 'T wouldn't be very easy to see you married toanother man, would it?—an' lovin' you all the time hisself, an'—"

"LOVING ME!"

"That's what I said." Susan's lips came sharply together and her keeneyes swept the girl's face.

"But, I—I think you must be mistaken—again," faltered the girl,growing rosy.

"I ain't. I've always suspicioned it, an' now I know it."

"But, he—he's acted as if he didn't care for me at all—as if hehated me."

"That's because he cared so much."

"Nonsense, Susan!"

"'T ain't nonsense. It's sense. As I told you, I've always suspicionedit, an' last Saturday, when I heard him talk, I knew. He as good asowned it up, anyhow."

"But why didn't he—he tell me?" stammered the girl, growing stillmore rosy.

"Because he was blind."

"As if I'd minded—-" She stopped abruptly and turned away her face.

Susan drew a resolute breath and squared her shoulders.

"Then why don't you do somethin'?" she demanded.

"Do something?"

"Yes, to—to show him that you don't mind."

"Oh,