Dawn

 CHAPTER XV. AGAIN SUSAN TAKES A HAND

 That evening Daniel Burton told Susan. "Keith is to go home with Dr. Stewart next week. The doctor will operate as soon as possible. Keith will live at the sanatorium connected with the doctor's home and be under his constant supervision."

Susan tried to speak, but instead of speaking she burst into tears.

"Why, Susan!" exclaimed the man.

"I know, I know," she choked, angrily dashing the drops from her eyes. "An' me cryin' like this when I'm gettin' jest what I want, too!"

"But there's no certainty, Susan, that it'll be successful; remember that," warned the man, his face clouding a little. "We can only-- hope."

"An' there's the--the pay." Susan looked up, her voice vibrating with fearful doubts.

"Oh, that's all right." The man lifted his head with the air of one who at last has reached firm ground after a dangerous crossing on thin ice. "The doctor's going to buy the highboy and that mirror in the studio, and--oh, several other things."

"You mean that old chest of drawers in the settin'-room?" scorned Susan openly.

"Yes." Daniel Burton's lips twitched a little.

"But will he PAY anything for 'em? Mr. Burton, you can't get nothin', hardly, for second-hand furniture. My mother had a stove an' a real nice bedstead, an' a red-plush parlor set, an' she sold 'em. But she didn't get anything--not hardly anything, for 'em; an' they was 'most new, some of 'em, too."

"That's the trouble, Susan--they were too new, probably," laughed the man. "It's because these are old, very old, that he wants them, I suspect.

"An' he'll really pay MONEY for 'em?" Plainly Susan still had her doubts.

"He certainly will. I'd be almost ashamed to tell you HOW much he'll pay, Susan," smiled the man. "It seemed to me sheer robbery on my part. But he assures me they are very valuable, and that he's more than delighted to have them even at that price."

"Lan' sakes! An' when I'd been worryin' an' worryin' so about the money," sighed Susan; "an' now to have it fall plump into your lap like that. It jest shows you not to hunt for bridges till you get your feet wet, don't it? An' he's goin' jest next week?"

"Yes. The doctor and his daughter start Tuesday."

"You don't mean that girl Dorothy's goin' too?" Susan had almost bounced out of her chair.

"Why, yes, Dr. Stewart SAID she was. What's the matter?"

"Matter? Matter enough! Why, if she goes--Say, why IS she taggin' along, anyhow?" demanded Susan wrathfully.

"Well, I shouldn't exactly call it 'taggin' along' to go home with her father for the Christmas vacation," shrugged the man. "As I understand it, Dorothy's mother died several years ago. That's why the girl is here in the East so much with her relatives, going to school. The doctor's home has become practically a sanatorium--not the most desirable place in the world to bring up a young daughter in, I should say. Let's see, how old is Miss Dorothy?"

"Sixteen, Keith says. I asked him one day. She's about his age."

"Hm-m; well, however that may be, Susan, I don't see how we can help ourselves very well. I fancy Miss Dorothy'll still--tag along," he finished whimsically.

"Maybe, an' then maybe not," mumbled Susan darkly, as she turned away.

For two days after this Susan's kitchen, and even Keith himself, showed almost neglect; persistently and systematically Susan was running "down street" every hour or two--ostensibly on errands, yet she bought little. She spent most of her time tramping through the streets and stores, scrutinizing especially the face of every young girl she met.

On the afternoon of the second day she met Dorothy Parkman coming out of the post-office.

"Well, I've got you at last," she sighed, "though I'm free to confess I was beginnin' to think I never would see you."

"Oh, yes, about Keith," cried the girl joyously. "Isn't it splendid! I'm so glad! And he's going home with us right away, you know."

"Yes, I know. An' that's what--that is, I wanted--" stammered Susan, growing red in her misery. "Oh, Miss Dorothy, you WOULD do anything for that poor blind boy, wouldn't you?"

"Why, y-yes, of course," faltered Dorothy, stammering in her turn.

"I knew you would. Then please don't go home with your father this time."

"Don't go home--with--my father!" exclaimed the girl, in puzzled wonder.

"No. Because if you do--That is--Oh, I know it's awful for me to say this, but I've got to do it for Keith. You see, if you go,--Keith won't."

"If I go, he--I don't think--I quite understand." The girl drew back a little haughtily. Her face showed a painful flush.

"No, no, of course you don't! An' please, PLEASE don't look like that," begged Susan. "It's jest this. I found out. I wormed it out of him the other day--why he won't let you come to see him. He says that once, long ago, you said how you couldn't bear to look at blind people, an'--"

"Oh, I never, never could have said such a cruel thing to--to a blind boy," interposed the girl.

"He wasn't blind then. He said he wasn't. But, it was when he was 'fraid he was goin' to be blind; an' he see you an' Mazie Sanborn at the foot of Harrington Hill, one day. It was just after the old man had got blind, an' Keith had been up to see him. It seems that Keith was worryin' then for fear HE was goin' to be blind."

"He WAS?"

"Yes--things blurred, an' all that. Well, at the foot of the hill he see you an' Mazie, an' you shuddered at his goin' up to see Mr. Harrington, an' said how could he bear to look at folks that was blind. That YOU couldn't. An' he never forgot it. Bein' worried for fear he himself was goin' blind, you see, he was especially acceptable to anything like that."

"Oh, but I--I--At home I always did hate to see all the poor blind people that came to see father," she stammered. "But it--it was only because I felt so bad--for them. And that's one reason why father doesn't keep me at home any more. He says--But, about Keith--I--I didn't mean to--" Dorothy came to a helpless pause.

"Yes, I know. You didn't mean to hurt him," nodded Susan. "But it did hurt him. An' now he always thinks of it, if he knows you're 'round. You see, worse'n anything else, he hates to be stared at or to have folks think he's different. There ain't anything I can ever say to him that makes him half so happy as to act as if he wa'n't blind."

"Yes, I--see," breathed Dorothy, her eyes brimming.

"An' so now you won't go, will you? Because if you go, he won't."

Miss Dorothy frowned in deep thought for a moment.

"I shall have to go," she said at last, slowly. "Father is just counting on my being there Christmas, and he is so lonely--I couldn't disappoint him. But, Keith--I won't have to see much of him, anyway. I'll explain it to father. He won't mind. He's used to his patients taking notions. It'll be all right. Don't worry," she nodded, her face clearing.

"But you'll have to be with Keith--some."

"Oh, yes, a little. But he won't know who I am. I'm just Dr. Stewart's daughter. Don't you see?"

"But--he'll know your voice."

"I shan't talk much. Besides, he never did hear me talk much. It was always Mazie that talked most. And he hasn't heard me any for a year or more, except that little bit that day at the house."

"But your name, Dorothy," still argued Susan dubiously.

"Father never calls me that. I'm always 'Puss' to him. And there won't be anybody else with us on the journey. Don't you worry. You just send Keith right along, and trust me for the rest. You'll see," she nodded again brightly, as she turned away.

Susan went home then to her neglected work. There seemed really nothing else that she could do. But that she was far from following Miss Dorothy's blithe advice "not to worry" was very evident from her frowning brow and preoccupied air all the rest of the time until Tuesday morning when Keith went--until, indeed, Mr. Burton came home from seeing Keith off on his journey. Then her pent-up perturbation culminated in an onslaught of precipitate questions.

"Was he all right? Was that girl there? Did he know who she was? Do you think he'll find out?"

"One at a time, Susan, one at a time," laughed the man. "Yes, he was all right. He went off smiling, with the doctor's arm about his shoulders. Yes, the young lady was there, but she kept well away from Keith, so far as I...