FOR JERRY AND NED
It was Susan Betts who discovered that Keith was not reading so much
that summer.
"An' him with his nose always in a book before," as she said one day
to Mrs. McGuire. "An' he don't act natural, somehow, neither, ter my
way of thinkin'. Have YOU noticed anything?"
"Why, no, I don't know as I have," answered Mrs. McGuire from the
other side of the fence, "except that he's always traipsin' off to the
woods with his father. But then, he's always done that, more or less."
"Indeed he has! But always before he's lugged along a book, sometimes
two; an' now--why he hain't even read the book his father give him on
his birthday. I know, 'cause I asked him one day what 't was about,
an' he said he didn't know; he hadn't read it."
"Deary me, Susan! Well, what if he hadn't? I shouldn't fret about
that. My gracious, Susan, if you had four children same as I have,
instead of one, I guess you wouldn't do no worryin' jest because a boy
didn't read a book. Though, as for my John, he----"
Susan lifted her chin.
"I wasn't talkin' about your children, Mis' McGuire," she interrupted.
"An' I reckon nobody'd do no worryin' if they didn't read. But Master
Keith is a different supposition entirely. He's very intelligible,
Master Keith is, and so is his father before him. Books is food to
them--real food. Hain't you ever heard of folks devourin' books? Well,
they do it. Of course I don't mean literaryly, but metaphysically."
"Oh, land o' love, Susan Betts!" cried Mrs. McGuire, throwing up both
hands and turning away scornfully. "Of course, when you get to talkin'
like that, NOBODY can say anything to you! However in the world that
poor Mr. Burton puts up with you, I don't see. _I_ wouldn't--not a
day--not a single day!" And by way of emphasis she entered her house
and shut the door with a slam.
Susan Betts, left alone, shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
"Well, 'nobody asked you, sir, she said,'" she quoted, under her
breath, and slammed her door, also, by way of emphasis.
Yet both Susan and Mrs. McGuire knew very well that the next day would
find them again in the usual friendly intercourse over the back-yard
fence.
Susan Betts was a neighbor's daughter. She had lived all her life in
the town, and she knew everybody. Just because she happened to work in
Daniel Burton's kitchen was no reason, to her mind, why she should not
be allowed to express her opinion freely on all occasions, and on all
subjects, and to all persons. Such being her conviction she conducted
herself accordingly. And Susan always lived up to her convictions.
In the kitchen to-day she found Keith.
"Oh, I say, Susan, I was looking for you. Dad wants you."
"What for?"
"I don't know; but I GUESS it's because he wants to have something
besides beans and codfish and fish-hash to eat. Anyhow, he SAID he was
going to speak to you about it."
Susan stiffened into inexorable sternness.
"So he's goin' ter speak ter me, is he? Well, 't will be mighty little
good that'll do, as he ought to know very well. Beefsteaks an' roast
fowls cost money. Has he got the money for me?"
Without waiting for an answer to her question, she strode through the
door leading to the dining-room and shut it crisply behind her.
The boy did not follow her. Alone, in the kitchen he drummed idly on
the window-pane, watching the first few drops of a shower that had
been darkening the sky for an hour past.
After a minute he turned slowly and gazed with listless eyes about the
kitchen. On the table lay a folded newspaper. After a moment's
hesitation he crossed the room toward it. He had the air of one
impelled by some inner force against his will.
He picked the paper up, but did not at once look at it. In fact, he
looked anywhere but at it. Then, with a sudden jerk, he faced it.
Shivering a little he held it nearer, then farther away, then nearer
again. Then, with an inarticulate little cry he dropped the paper and
hurried from the room.
No one knew better than Keith himself that he was not reading much
this summer. Not that he put it into words, but he had a feeling that
so long as he was not SEEING how blurred the printed words were, he
would not be sure that they were blurred. Yet he knew that always,
whenever he saw a book or paper, his fingers fairly tingled to pick it
up--and make sure. Most of the time, however, Keith tried not to
notice the books and papers. Systematically he tried to forget that
there were books and papers--and he tried to forget the Great Terror.
Sometimes he persuaded himself that he was doing this. He contrived to
keep himself very busy that summer. Almost every day, when it did not
rain, he was off for a long walk with his father in the woods. His
father liked to walk in the woods. Keith never had to urge him to do
that. And what good times they had!--except that Keith did wish that
his father would not talk quite so much about what great things he,
Keith, was going to do when he should have become a man--and a great
artist.
One day he ventured to remonstrate.
"But, dad, maybe I--I shan't be a great artist at all. Maybe I shan't
be even a little one. Maybe I shall be just a--a man."
Keith never forgot his father's answer nor his father's anguished face
as he made that answer.
"Keith, I don't ever want you to let me hear you say that again. I
want you to KNOW that you're going to succeed. And you will succeed.
God will not be so cruel as to deny me that. _I_ have failed. You
needn't shake your head, boy, and say 'Oh, dad!' like that. I know
perfectly well what I'm talking about. _I_ HAVE FAILED--though it is
not often that I'll admit it, even to myself. But when I heard you say
to-day----
"Keith, listen to me. You've got to succeed. You've got to succeed not
only for yourself, but for Jerry and Ned, and for--me. All my hopes
for Jerry and Ned and for--myself are in you, boy. That's why, in all
our walks together, and at home in the studio, I'm trying to teach you
something that you will want to know by and by."
Keith never remonstrated with his father after that. He felt worse
than ever now when his father talked of what great things he was going
to do; but he knew that remonstrances would do no good, but rather
harm; and he did not want to hear his father talk again as he had
talked that day, about Jerry and Ned and himself. As if it were not
bad enough, under the best of conditions, to have to be great and
famous for one's two dead brothers and one's father; while if one were
blind----
But Keith refused to think of that. He tried very hard, also, to
absorb everything that his father endeavored to teach him. He listened
and watched and said "yes, sir," and he did his best to make the
chalks and charcoal that were put into his hands follow the copy set
for him.
To be sure, in this last undertaking, his efforts were not always
successful. The lines wavered and blurred and were far from clear.
Still, they were not half so bad as the print in books; and if it
should not get any worse--Besides, had he not always loved to draw
cats and dogs and faces ever since he could hold a pencil?
And so, with some measure of hope as to the results, he was setting
himself to be that great and famous artist that his father said he
must be.
But it was not all work for Keith these summer days. There were games
and picnics and berry expeditions with the boys and girls, all of
which he hailed with delight--one did not have to read, or even study
wavering lines and figures, on picnics or berrying expeditions! And
that WAS a relief. To be sure, there was nearly always Mazie, and if
there was Mazie, there was bound to be Dorothy. And Dorothy had said--
Some way he could never see Dorothy without remembering what she did
say on that day he had come home from Uncle Joe Harrington's.
Not that he exactly blamed her, either. For was not he himself acting
as if he felt the same way and did not like to look at blind persons?
Else why did he so persistently keep away from Uncle Joe now? Not
once, since that first day, had he been up to see the poor old blind
man. And before--why, before he used to go several times a week.