Chapter 12: Callers for “Keithie”

And so inch by inch Susan fought her way, and inch by inch she gained ground. Sometimes it was by coaxing, sometimes by scolding; perhaps most often by taunts and dares, and shrewd appeals to Keith’s pride. But by whatever it was, each day saw some stride forward, some new victory that Keith had won over his blindness, until by the end of the week the boy could move about the house and wait upon himself with a facility almost unbelievable when one remembered his listless helplessness of a week before.

Then one day there entered into the case a brand-new element, a dainty element in white muslin and fluttering blue ribbons—Mazie Sanborn and Dorothy Parkman.

“We heard Keithie was lots better and up and dressed now,” chirped Mazie, when Susan answered her ring; “and so we’ve brought him some flowers. Please can’t we see him?”

Susan hesitated. Susan had not forgotten Keith’s feverish retreat from Mazie’s greeting called up to the veranda the month before. But then, for that matter, had he not retreated from everything until she determinedly took him in hand? And he must some time begin to mingle with the world outside the four walls of his house!

Why not now? What better chance could she hope to have for him to begin than this? Where could she find two more charmingly alluring ambassadors of that outside world than right here on the door-step now?

Susan’s lips snapped together with a little defiant nod of her head, then parted in a cordial smile.

“Sure, you may see him,” she cried, “an’ it’s glad that I am to have you come! It’ll do him good. Come in, come in!” And with only a heightened color to show her trepidation as to the reception that might be accorded her charges, she threw open the sitting-room door. “Well, Keith, here’s company come on purpose to see you. An’ they’ve brought you some flowers,” she announced gayly.

“No, no, Susan, I—I don’t want to see them,” stammered the boy. He had leaped to his feet, a painful red flooding his face.

“Well, I like that!” bridled Mazie, with playful indignation; “and when Dorothy and I have taken all this trouble to come and—”

“Is Dorothy here, too?” interrupted the boy sharply.

“Yes, Keith I am—here.” Dorothy was almost crying, and her voice sounded harsh and unnatural.

“And we brought you these,” interposed Mazie brightly, crossing the room to his side and holding out the flowers. Then, with a little embarrassed laugh, as he did not take them, she thrust them into his fingers. “Oh, I forgot. You can’t see them, can you?”

“Mazie!” remonstrated the half-smothered voice of Dorothy.

But it was Susan who came promptly to the rescue.

“Yes, an’ ain’t they pretty?” she cried, taking them from Keith’s unresisting fingers. “Here, let me put ‘em in water, an’ you two sit down. I always did love coronation pinks,” she declared briskly, as she left the room.

She was not gone long. Very quickly she came back, with the flowers in a vase. Keith had dropped back into his chair; but he was plainly so unwilling a host that Susan evidently thought best to assist him. She set the vase on a little stand near Keith’s chair, then dropped herself on to the huge haircloth sofa near by.