CHAPTER XXX
DANIEL BURTON'S "JOB"
Dorothy came at ten, or, to be strictly accurate, at five minutes pastten. The additional five minutes had been consumed by her going out ofher way around the block so that she might see if Keith were visiblein one of the McGuires' windows. He was visible--and when she went upthe Burton walk at five minutes past ten, her step was confident andher face eager; and there was about her manner none of the furtive,nervous questioning that had marked her coming the day before.
"Good-morning, Susan," she began cheerily, as Susan answered her ring."Did Mr. Burton say he would see me?"
"He did. And Mr. Keith is over to the McGuires' all safe, so you don'thave to worry about him." Susan's eyes were still mutinous, her voicestill coldly disapproving.
"Yes, I know he is," nodded Miss Dorothy with a bright smile.
"Oh, you do!"
"Yes. Well, that is--er--I--" Under Susan's uncompromising frigidityMiss Dorothy's stammering tongue came to a painful pause.
"Humph!" vouchsafed Susan. "Well, come in, an' I'll tell Mr. DANIELBurton you're here."
That the emphasis on "Daniel" was not lost was shown by the suddenbroad smile that chased away the confusion on Miss Dorothy's face, asSusan led the way to the living-room. Two minutes later Daniel Burton,thinner, paler, and more worn-looking than Dorothy had ever seen himbefore, entered the room and held out a cordial hand.
"Good-morning, Miss Dorothy. I'm glad to see you," he said. "What isit,--Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., Smileage Books?" The whimsical smile on hislips only served to emphasize the somber pain in his eyes.
"Not any of them. Then Susan didn't tell you?"
"Not a word. Sit down, please."
"Thank you. Then I shall have to begin at the beginning," sighed thegirl a little constrainedly as she took the chair he offered her."I--I have a certain project that I want to carry out, Mr. Burton,and I--I want your help."
"Why, of course--certainly. I shall be glad to, I know." DanielBurton's hand had already reached for his check-book. "Any project ofyours, Miss Dorothy--! How much do you want?"
But Miss Dorothy lifted her hand, palm outward.
"Thank you, Mr. Burton; but not any--in money, just yet. Oh, it'lltake money, probably, to get it started, before it's on aself-supporting basis, I suppose. But it isn't money I want to-day,Mr. Burton. It--it's yourself."
The man gave a short, dry laugh, not untinged with bitterness.
"I'm afraid I can't endorse either your taste or your judgment there,Miss Dorothy. You've come for a poor stick. I can't imagine myself asbeing much benefit to any sort of project. However, I shall be glad tohear about it, of course. What is it?"
And Miss Dorothy told him. With her eyes shining, and her voicequivering with eagerness, she told the story as she had told it toSusan the afternoon before, but with even greater elaboration ofdetail.
"And so now, Mr. Burton, you--you will help, won't you?" she begged,in closing.
"Help! But my dear girl, how?"
"Take charge. Be the head and shoulders, the backbone of the wholething. Oh, yes, I know it's a whole lot to ask," she hurried on, asshe saw the dawning dismay and refusal in his face. "But I thought,for the sake of the cause--"
"The cause!" The man's voice was bitter as he interrupted her. "I'dcrawl to France on my hands and knees if that would do any good! But,my dear young lady, I'm an ignoramus, and worse than an ignoramus,when it comes to machinery. I'll venture to wager that I wouldn't knowthe tape from the coils--or whatever they are."
"Oh, we'd have an engineer for that part, of course," interposed thegirl eagerly. "And we want your son, too."
"You want Keith! Pray, do you expect him to teach how to wind coils?"
"No--no--not exactly;--though I think he will be teaching before herealizes it. I want him to learn to wind them himself, and thus getothers to learn. You don't understand, Mr. Burton. I want you and Mr.Keith to--to do just what you did for John McGuire--arouse interestand enthusiasm and get them to do it. Don't you see?"
"But that was Keith, not I, in the case of John McGuire."
"It was you at the last," corrected the girl gently. "Mr. Burton, JohnMcGuire wouldn't have any book out this spring if it weren't for youand--your eyes."
"Hm-m, perhaps not. Still there'd have been a way, probably. But evenif I grant that--all you say in the case of John McGuire--that isn'twinding armatures, or whatever they are."
"Mr. Burton, you aren't going to refuse," pleaded the girl.
"What else can I do? Miss Dorothy, you don't want to stamp thisproject of yours a FAILURE from the start, do you?" Words, voice,manner, and gesture were unmistakable. All the longing and heartacheand bitterness of years of fruitless effort and final disappointmentpulsated through that one word FAILURE.
For a moment nobody spoke. Daniel Burton had got to his feet andcrossed the room to the window. The girl, watching him withcompassionate eyes as he stood looking out, had caught her breath witha little choking sigh. Suddenly she lifted her head resolutely.
"Mr. Burton, you've got one gift that--that I don't believe yourealize at all that you possess. Like John McGuire you can make folksSEE what you are talking about. Perhaps it's because you can paintpictures with a brush. Or--or perhaps it's because you've got such awonderful command of words." (Miss Dorothy stumbled a littleprecipitately into this sentence--she had not failed to see thedisdainful movement of the man's head and shoulders at the mention ofhis pictures.) "Whatever it is," she hurried on, "you've got it. I sawit first years ago, with--with your son, when I used to see him atfather's. He would sit and talk to me by the hour about the woods andfields and mountains, the sunsets and the flowers back home; andlittle by little I found out that they were the pictures you drew forhim--on the canvas of his soul. You've done it again now for JohnMcGuire. Do you suppose you could have caught those wonderful storiesof his with your pencil, if you hadn't been able to help him visualizethem for himself--you and Keith together with your wonderfulenthusiasm and interest?
"I know you couldn't. And that's what I want you now for--you and yourson. Because he is blind, and knows, and understands, as no seeingperson can know and understand, they will trust him; they will followwhere he leads. But behind him has got to be YOU. You've got to be theeyes for--for them all; not to teach the work--we'll have others forthat. Any good mechanic will do for that part. But it's the other partof it--the soul of the thing. These men, lots of them, are but littlemore than boys--big, strong, strapping fellows with the whole of lifebefore them. And they are--blind. Whichever way they turn a big blackcurtain shuts them in. And it's those four black curtains that I wantyou to paint. I want you to give them something to look at, somethingto think of, something to live for. And you can do it. And when youhave done it, you'll find they're the best and--and the biggestpictures you ever painted." Her voice broke with the last word andchoked into silence.
Over at the window the man stood motionless. One minute, two minutespassed. Then a bit abruptly he turned, crossed the room to the girl'sside, and held out his hand.
"Miss Dorothy, I--I'll take the job," he said.
He spoke lightly, and he smiled as he said the words; but neither thesmile nor the lightness of his manner quite hid the shake in his voicenor the moisture in his eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Burton. I was sure you would," cried the girl.
"And now for Keith! He's over to the McGuires'. I'll get him!"exclaimed the man boyishly.
But Miss Dorothy was instantly on her feet.
"No, no, please," she begged a little breathlessly. "I'd rather youdidn't--now. I--I think we'd better get it a little farther alongbefore we tell him. There's a whole lot to do, you know--getting theroom and the materials and the superintendent, and all that; and thereisn't a thing he can do--yet."
"All right. Very good. Perhaps that would be better," nodded the man."But, let me tell you, I already have some workers for your project."
"You mean Jack Green, here in town?"
> "No. Oh, we'd want him, of course; but it's some others--a couple ofboys from Hillsboro. I had a letter yesterday from the father of oneof the boys, asking what to do with his son. He thought because of--ofKeith, that I could help him. It was a pitiful letter. The man washeart-broken and utterly at sea. His boy--only nineteen--had come homeblind, and well-nigh crazed with the tragedy of it. And the fatherdidn't know which way to turn. That's why he had appealed to me. Yousee, on account of Keith--"
"Yes, I understand," said the girl gently, as the man left hissentence unfinished.
"I've had others, too--several of them--in the last few weeks. Ifyou'll wait I'll get the letters." He was already halfway to the door."It may take a minute or two to look them up; but--they'll be worthit, I think."
"Of course they will," she cried eagerly. "They'll be just exactlywhat we want, and I'm not in a bit of a hurry," she finished, droppingback in her chair as the door closed behind him.
Alone, she looked about the room, her eyes wistful, brimming withunshed tears. Over by the window was Keith's chair, before it thetable, with a half-completed picture puzzle spread upon it. Near thetable was a set of shelves containing other picture puzzles, games,and books--all, as the girl well knew, especially designed andconstructed for eyes that could not see.
She had risen to her feet and half started to cross the room towardthe table when the door to the side hall opened and Keith Burtonentered the room.
With a half-stifled gasp the girl stepped back to her chair. The blindboy stopped instantly, his face turned toward her.
"Is that--you, Susan?"
The girl wet her lips, but no words came.
"Who's there, please?" He spoke sharply this time. As everybodyknew--who knew Keith--the one thing that angered him more than anythingelse was the attempted deception as to one's presence in the room.
Miss Dorothy gave a confused little laugh, and put her hand to herthroat.
"Why, Keith, it's only I! Don't look so--"
"You?" For one brief moment his face lighted up as with a hiddenflame; then instantly it changed. It became like the gray of ashesafter the flame is spent. "Why didn't you speak, then?" he questioned."It did no good to keep quiet. You mustn't forget that I have ears--ifI haven't eyes."
"Nonsense, Keith!" She laughed again confusedly, though her own facehad paled a little. "I did speak as soon as I caught mybreath;--popping in on a body like that!"
"But I didn't know--you were here," stammered the young fellowuncertainly. "Nobody called me. I beg your pardon if--" He came to ahelpless pause.
"Not a bit of it! You needn't. It wasn't necessary at all." The girltossed off the words with a lightness so forced that it was almostflippancy. "You see, I didn't come to see you at all. It was yourfather."
"My father!"
"Certainly."
"But--but does he know?"
The girl laughed merrily--too merrily for sincerity.
"Know? Indeed he does. We've just been having a lovely talk. He's goneupstairs for some letters. He's coming right back--right back."
"Oh-h!" Was it an indefinable something in her voice, or was it therepetition of the last two words? Whatever it was that caused it,Keith turned away with a jerk, walked with the swift sureness of longfamiliarity straight to the set of shelves and took down a book. "ThenI'll not disturb you any further--as long as you're not needing me,"he said tersely. "I only came for this." And with barely a touch ofhis cane to the floor and door-casing, he strode from the room.
The pity of it--that he could not have seen Dorothy Parkman's eyeslooking after him!