The days were growing very dark for George Graham. He had not known
at first what it meant that black specks should so dance between him
and the page he tried to read, that his eyes should ache so much,
that all things should seem so strangely dim about him. It would have
been better, no doubt, had he stopped work as soon as he felt these
symptoms; but how could he? This was his last term at school, and if he
passed his examination creditably, especially if he thoroughly mastered
the bookkeeping he was trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a
place in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that would not only
take care of himself, but greatly help his mother.
His mother was a widow, and George’s love for her was a sort of passion
of devotion. When he could scarcely talk, the first two words he put
together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since then she had been the
first and fairest of created beings to him. He was very fond of Susie
Hale, but Susie was only a nice girl,--a dear, sweet, good girl, such
as any fellow would like; but his mother was the elect lady to whom
were due his love, his care, his uttermost duty.
Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son to be romantic about. She
was only seventeen when George was born; and now, when he was sixteen
and she was thirty-three, she was, so he thought, more beautiful than
ever. She had been a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her
life,--one of those women toward whom every man feels the instinct of
protection. George’s father had felt it always, and had never allowed
care to come near his dainty darling. His one great agony, as he lay
dying, was that he must leave her almost unprovided for. That was when
George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget how his father had
called him to his bedside, and charged him to take care of his mother.
“You are old enough to be her staff, even now,” the dying man had said,
clinging to his boy’s hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand ways,
save her a thousand cares, and in a few years more you can work for
her, and keep her comfortably, as I have done.”
George never forgot this trust for one moment. The plans he made in
life were all for his mother’s sake--his future was to be spent in her
service. He wanted to come out of school at the time of his father’s
death, and try by all manner of little industries to help take care
of the household, but his mother was too wise to permit this. She
developed a strength of mind and of body for which no one who saw her
pink-and-white prettiness,--the prettiness of a girl still, despite all
her years of married life,--would have given her credit.
She saw clearly that if her boy’s education stopped at thirteen, he
would be held in check all his life by his own ignorance--he must be
drudge always, and never master. So she made him go to school three
years longer.
How she lived and kept up her refined little home puzzled all
lookers-on, and indeed she hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she
was busy from morning till night. She sewed for one neighbor, she
helped another through some season of sickness, she taught a naughty
child who had worn out its welcome at school, but who could not wear
out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,--and all these things helped. It is
true, it was very often hard work to compass the simple necessaries of
life, but she struggled on bravely.
When George was sixteen he should come out of school, well trained, she
hoped, for a business man, and then things would be so much easier.
With this hope in view, she never repined. She kept her strength of
soul and her sweetness of temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.
She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,--an adoration which was, as I said,
the romance of his life.
When the days began to grow so dark for George Graham, it was of his
mother that he thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes, that
were not centred in her. What if this growing shadow about him was to
increase until all was dark, until dense night shut him in,--a night
through whose blackness no star of hope could shine? What if he must
be no help to his mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden
lasting through heaven only knew how many helpless years?
He rebelled against such a fate madly. He stretched out his hands
toward heaven, he lifted the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no
help came.
Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about him, more and more desperate the
gloom of his hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine that his
teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual failures; and George
said nothing of the increasing darkness around him,--nothing to his
mother, for he felt that it would break her heart; nothing to teacher
or school-mates, for it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to
them. But one afternoon the crisis came.
His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at last, his teacher
spoke in severe terms of the neglect which had become habitual. No
one who was present that day--not even the smallest child--will ever
forget the look of despair that swept over George Graham’s face, or the
gesture of helpless anguish with which he stretched out his hands, as
if to seek among them all some friend, as he cried,--
“God help me, sir! I have been going blind; and now I cannot see one
figure in my book--I can hardly see your face.”
There was a silence after this, through which came no sound but the
audible beating of George Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent
away the others, for school hours were nearly over, and tried his best
to comfort his stricken pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an
oculist might help him, perhaps it was only temporary.
To all these well-meant consolations George listened in a sort of
dreary silence. The words of the teacher entered his ears, but they did
not reach his heart or kindle his hope.
As soon as he could, he went away. He did not go straight home.
How could he face his mother and tell her what he _must_ tell her
now,--what she would be sure to hear from others, if not from him? He
kept thinking how she would take it. Would not all the light go out of
her face? Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered she had done
when his father died.
He sat down on a bank, a little removed from the road-side, a bank
which overhung a swift and deep, yet narrow stream.
An awful temptation came over him,--such a temptation as, thank Heaven!
comes to few boys of sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot
in their veins. He thought, what if he should die, then and there? It
seemed to him the one desirable thing. To be sure, to die would be to
leave his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but also it would
relieve her from the heavy burden he must needs be to her if he lived.
The river rushing down there below invited him with its murmur. Should
he seek refuge there, and let his mother hear that he was dead, before
she heard that he was blind? He bent forward over the stream. Then he
drew back, for a longing came over him to go home first, and see his
mother just once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry burst from his
lips,--
“_See_ her! What am I talking about? Do I not know I shall _never_ see
her again?”
And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,--an utterly unexpected
voice,--answered him,--
“Yes, you _will_ see her again. Surely you will see her again.”
The boy turned his face toward the sound.
“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he asked.
“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice entreated. “I waited for
you. I could not go home till I had told you how sorry I was, and tried
to comfort you.”
“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful bitterness in the cry. “How
_can_ I be comforted? Do you think what it will be never to see the
green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any more, for ever and
ever?”
“But you will see them,” she said gently. “I did not mean that you
must be reconciled to give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,
and try to be cured. I have known people who could not see at all to be
helped, and why not you? At least, you must try.”