Dawn | Page 2

OVER THE BACKYARD FENCE]
"I don't know. But he couldn't. Dr. Chandler said he couldn't. An' they had a man up from Boston--one of them eye socialists what doesn't doctor anythin' but eyes--an' he said he couldn't."
Keith, on his knees before the beet-bed adjoining the clothes-yard, sat back on his heels and eyed the two women with frowning interest.
He knew old Mr. Harrington. So did all the boys. Never was there a kite or a gun or a jack-knife so far gone that Uncle Joe Harrington could not "fix it" somehow. And he was always so jolly about it, and so glad to do it. But it took eyes to do such things, and if now he was going to be blind--
"An' you say it's been comin' on gradual?" questioned Mrs. McGuire. "Why, I hadn't heard-"
"No, there hain't no one heard," interrupted Susan. "He didn't say nothin' ter nobody, hardly, only me, I guess, an' I suspicioned it, or he wouldn't 'a' said it to me, probably. Ye see, I found out he wa'n't readin' 'em--the papers Mr. Burton has me take up ter him every week. An' he owned up, when I took him ter task for it, that he couldn't read 'em. They was gettin' all blurred."
"Blurred?" It was a startled little cry from the boy down by the beet- bed; but neither Susan nor Mrs. McGuire heard--perhaps because at almost the same moment Mrs. McGuire had excitedly asked the same question.
"Blurred?" she cried.
"Yes; all run tergether like--the printin', ye know----so he couldn't tell one letter from t'other. 'T wa'n't only a little at first. Why, he thought 't was jest somethin' the matter with the printin' itself; an'--"
"And WASN'T it the printing at ALL?"
The boy was on his feet now. His face was a little white and strained- looking, as he asked the question.
"Why, no, dearie. Didn't you hear Susan tell Mis' McGuire jest now? 'T was his EYES, an' he didn't know it. He was gettin' blind, an' that was jest the beginnin'."
Susan's capable hands picked up another wet towel and snapped it open by way of emphasis.
"The b-beginning?" stammered the boy. "But--but ALL beginnings don't-- don't end like that, do they?"
Susan Betts laughed indulgently and jammed the clothespin a little deeper on to the towel.
"Bless the child! Won't ye hear that, now?" she laughed with a shrug. "An' how should I know? I guess if Susan Betts could tell the end of all the beginnin's as soon as they're begun, she wouldn't be hangin' out your daddy's washin', my boy. She'd be sittin' on a red velvet sofa with a gold cupola over her head a-chargin' five dollars apiece for tellin' yer fortune. Yes, sir, she would!"
"But--but about Uncle Joe," persisted the boy. "Can't he really see-- at all, Susan?"
"There, there, child, don't think anything more about it. Indeed, forsooth, I'm tellin' the truth, but I s'pose I hadn't oughter told it before you. Still, you'd 'a' found it out quick enough--an' you with your tops an' balls always runnin' up there. An' that's what the poor soul seemed to feel the worst about," she went on, addressing Mrs. McGuire, who was still leaning on the division fence.
"'If only I could see enough ter help the boys!' he moaned over an' over again. It made me feel awful bad. I was that upset I jest couldn't sleep that night, an' I had ter get up an' write. But it made a real pretty poem. My fuse always works better in the night, anyhow. 'The wail of the toys'--that's what I called it--had the toys tell the story, ye know, all the kites an' jack-knives an' balls an' bats that he's fixed for the boys all these years, an' how bad they felt because he couldn't do it any more. Like this, ye know:
'Oh, woe is me, said the baseball bat, Oh, woe is me, said the kite.'
'T was real pretty, if I do say it, an' touchy, too."
"For mercy's sake, Susan Betts, if you ain't the greatest!" ejaculated Mrs. McGuire, with disapproving admiration. "If you was dyin' I believe you'd stop to write a poem for yer gravestone!"
Susan Betts chuckled wickedly, but her voice was gravity itself.
"Oh, I wouldn't have ter do that, Mis' McGuire. I've got that done already."
"Susan Betts, you haven't!" gasped the scandalized woman on the other side of the fence.
"Haven't I? Listen," challenged Susan Betts, striking an attitude. Her face was abnormally grave, though her eyes were merry.
"Here lieth a woman whose name was Betts, An' I s'pose she'll deserve whatever she gets; But if she hadn't been Betts she might 'a' been Better, She might even been Best if her name would 'a' let her."
"Susan!" gasped Mrs. McGuire once more; but Susan only chuckled again wickedly, and fell to work on