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Title: Dawn
Author: Eleanor H. Porter
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5874][Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on September 15, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAWN ***
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franksand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
[Illustration: "I MUST GO, NOW, I—MUST—GO!"]
DAWN
BY
ELEANOR H. PORTER
With Illustrations by Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
1919
To My Friend
MRS. JAMES D. PARKER
CONTENTS
I.THE GREAT TERROR
II. DAD
III.FOR JERRY AND NED
IV. SCHOOL
V.WAITING
VI. LIGHTS OUT
VII.SUSAN TO THE RESCUE
VIII. AUNT NETTIE MEETS HER MATCH
IX. SUSAN SPEAKS HER MIND
X.AND NETTIE COLEBROOK SPEAKS HERS
XI. NOT PATS BUT SCRATCHES
XII.CALLERS FOR "KEITHIE"
XIII. FREE VERSE—A LA SUSAN
XIV.A SURPRISE ALL AROUND
XV. AGAIN SUSAN TAKES A HAND
XVI.THE WORRY OF IT
XVII. DANIEL BURTON TAKES THE PLUNGE
XVIII. "MISS STEWART"
XIX.A MATTER OF LETTERS
XX. WITH CHIN UP
XXI.THE LION
XXII. HOW COULD YOU, MAZIE?
XXIII. JOHN MCGUIRE
XXIV. AS SUSAN SAW IT
XXV.KEITH TO THE RESCUE
XXVI. MAZIE AGAIN
XXVII. FOR THE SAKE OF JOHN
XXVIII. THE WAY
XXIX. DOROTHY TRIES HER HAND
XXX.DANIEL BURTON'S "JOB"
XXXI. WHAT SUSAN DID NOT SEE
XXXII. THE KEY
XXXIII. AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I must go, now. I—must—go!"
Susan Betts talking with Mrs. McGuire over the back-yard fence
"Want you? I always want you!"
"You've helped more—than you'll ever know"
He gave her almost no chance to say anything herself
Keith's arm shot out and his hand fell, covering hers
It was well that the Japanese screen on the front piazza was down
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT TERROR
It was on his fourteenth birthday that Keith Burton discovered theGreat Terror, though he did not know it by that name until some daysafterward. He knew only, to his surprise and distress, that the"Treasure Island," given to him by his father for a birthday present,was printed in type so blurred and poor that he could scarcely readit.
He said nothing, of course. In fact he shut the book very hastily,with a quick, sidewise look, lest his father should see and notice theimperfection of his gift.
Poor father! He would feel so bad after he had taken all that painsand spent all that money—and for something not absolutely necessary,too! And then to get cheated like that. For, of course, he had beencheated—such horrid print that nobody could read.
But it was only a day or two later that Keith found some more horridprint. This time it was in his father's weekly journal that came everySaturday morning. He found it again that night in a magazine, and yetagain the next day in the Sunday newspaper.
Then, before he had evolved a satisfactory explanation in his own mindof this phenomenon, he heard Susan Betts talking with Mrs. McGuireover the back-yard fence.
Susan Betts began the conversation. But that was nothing strange:
Susan Betts always began the conversation.
"Have you heard about poor old Harrington?" she demanded in what Keithcalled her "excitingest" voice. Then, as was always the case when shespoke in that voice, she plunged on without waiting for a reply, as iffearful lest her bit of news fall from the other pair of lips first."Well, he's blind—stone blind. He couldn't see a dollar bill—not ifyou shook it right before his eyes."
"Sho! you don't say!" Mrs. McGuire dropped the wet sheet back into thebasket and came to the fence on her side concernedly. "Now, ain't thattoo bad?"
"Yes, ain't it? An' he so kind, an' now so blind! It jest makes mesick." Susan whipped open the twisted folds of a wet towel. Susanseldom stopped her work to talk. "But I saw it comin' long ago. An' hedid, too, poor man!"
Mrs. McGuire lifted a bony hand to her face and tucked a flying wispof hair behind her right ear.
"Then if he saw it comin', why couldn't he do somethin' to stop it?"she demanded.
[Illustration: SUSAN BETTS TALKING WITH MRS. MCGUIRE 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'tdoctor 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 akite or a gun or a jack-knife so far gone that Uncle Joe Harringtoncould not "fix it" somehow. And he was always so jolly about it, andso glad to do it. But it took eyes to do such things, and if now hewas 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 saynothin' ter nobody, hardly, only me, I guess, an' I suspicioned it, orhe wouldn't 'a' said it to me, probably. Ye see, I found out he wa'n'treadin' 'em—the papers
