The boy flushed painfully. Keith did not like girls—that is, he SAIDhe did not like them. They made him conscious of his hands and feet,and stiffened his tongue so that it would not obey his will. Theprettier the girls were, the more acute was his discomfiture.Particularly, therefore, did he dislike these two girls—they were theprettiest of the lot. They were Mazie Sanborn and her friend DorothyParkman.
Mazie was the daughter of the town's richest manufacturer, and Dorothywas her cousin from Chicago, who made such long visits to her Easternrelatives that it seemed sometimes almost as if she were as much of aHinsdale girl as was Mazie herself.
To-day Mazie's blue eyes and Dorothy's brown ones were full ofmischief.
"Well, why don't you say something? Why don't you apologize?" demanded
Mazie.
'"Pol—pologize? What for?" In his embarrassed misery Keith resortedto bravado in voice and manner.
"Why, for passing us by in that impertinent fashion," returned Mazieloftily. "Do you think that is the way ladies should be treated?"(Mazie was thirteen and Dorothy fourteen.) "The idea!"
For a minute Keith stared helplessly, shifting from one foot to theother. Then, with an inarticulate grunt, he turned away.
But Mazie was not to be so easily thwarted. With a mere flit of herhand she tossed aside a score of years, and became instantly nothingmore than a wheedling little girl coaxing a playmate.
"Aw, Keithie, don't get mad! I was only fooling. Say, tell me, HAVEyou been up to Uncle Joe Harrington's?"
Because Mazie had caught his arm and now held it tightly, the boyperforce came to a stop.
"Well, what if I have?" he resorted to bravado again.
"And is he blind, honestly?" Mazie's voice became hushed andawestruck.
"Uh-huh." The boy nodded his head with elaborate unconcern, but heshifted his feet uneasily.
"And he can't see a thing—not a thing?" breathed Mazie.
"'Course he can't, if he's blind!" Keith showed irritation now, andpulled not too gently at the arm still held in Mazie's firm littlefingers.
"Blind! Ugghh!" interposed Miss Dorothy, shuddering visibly. "Oh, howcan you bear to look at him, Keith Burton? I couldn't!"
A sudden wave of red surged over the boy's face. The next instant ithad receded, leaving only a white, strained terror.
"Well, he ain't to blame for it, if he is blind, is he?" chattered theboy, a bit incoherently. "If you're blind you're blind, and you can'thelp yourself." And with a jerk he freed himself from Mazie's graspand hurried down the road toward home.
But when he reached the bend of the road he turned and looked back.The two girls had returned to their perch on the fence, and weredeeply absorbed in something one of them held in her hand.
"And she said she couldn't bear—to look at 'em—if they were blind,"he whispered. Then, wheeling about, he ran down the road as fast as hecould. Nor did he stop till he had entered his own gate.
"Well, Keith Burton, I should like to know where you've been," criedthe irate voice of Susan Betts from the doorway.
"Oh, just walking. Why?"
"Because I've been huntin' and huntin' for you.
But, oh, dear me,
You're worse'n a flea,
So what's the use of talkin'?
You always say,
As you did to-day,
I've just been out a-walkin'!"
"But what did you want me for?"
"I didn't want you. Your pa wanted you. But, then, for that matter,he's always wantin' you. Any time, if you look at him real good an'hard enough to get his attention, he'll stare a minute, an' then say:'Where's Keith?' An' when he gets to the other shore, I suppose he'lldo it all the more."
"Oh, no, he won't—not if it's talking poetry. Father never talkspoetry. What makes you talk it so much, Susan? Nobody else does."
Susan laughed good-humoredly.
"Lan' sakes, child, I don't know, only I jest can't help it. Why,everything inside of me jest swings along to a regular tune—kind ofkeeps time, like. It's always been so. Why, Keithie, boy, it's been myjoy—There, you see—jest like that! I didn't know that was comin'. Itjest—jest came. That's all. I can make a rhyme 'most any time. Oh, ofcourse, most generally, when I write real poems, I have to sit downwith a pencil an' paper, an' write 'em out. It's only the spontaneouscombustion kind that comes all in a minute, without predisposedthinkin'. Now, run along to your pa, child. He wants you. He's beenfrettin' the last hour for you, jest because he didn't know exactlywhere you was. Goodness me! I only hope I'll never have to live withhim if anything happens to you."
The boy had crossed the room; but with his hand on the door knob heturned sharply.
"W-what do you mean by that?"
Susan Betts gave a despairing gesture.
"Lan' sakes, child, how you do hold a body up! I meant what I said—that I didn't want the job of livin' with your pa if anything happenedto you. You know as well as I do that he thinks you're the very axlefor the earth to whirl 'round on. But, there, I don't know as Iwonder—jest you left, so!"
The boy abandoned his position at the door, and came close to Susan
Betts's side.
"That's what I've always wanted to know. Other boys have brothers andsisters and—a mother. But I can't ever remember anybody only dad.Wasn't there ever any one else?"
Susan Betts drew a long sigh.
"There were two brothers, but they died before you was born. Thenthere was—your mother."
"But I never—knew her?"
"No, child. When they opened the door of Heaven to let you out sheslipped in, poor lamb. An' then you was all your father had left. Soof course he dotes on you. Goodness me, there ain't no end to the finethings he's goin' ter have you be when you grow up."
"Yes, I know." The boy caught his breath convulsively and turned away.
"I guess I'll go—to dad."
At the end of the hall upstairs was the studio. Dad would probably bethere. Keith knew that. Dad was always there, when he wasn't sleepingor eating, or out tramping through the woods. He would be sittingbefore the easel now "puttering" over a picture, as Susan called it.Susan said he was a very
