Chapter 7: Susan to the Rescue

It was when the nurse was resting and Susan was with Keith that the boy came to a full, realizing sense of himself, on his lips the time-worn question asked by countless other minds back from that mysterious land of delirium:

“Where am I?”

Susan sprang to her feet, then dropped on her knees at the bedside.

“In your own bed—honey.”

“Is that—Susan?” No wonder he asked the question. Whenever before had
Susan talked like that?
“Sure it’s Susan.”

“But I can’t—see you—or anything. Oh-h!” With a shudder and a quivering cry the boy flung out his hands, then covered his eyes with them. “I know, now, I know! It’s come—it’s come! I am—BLIND!”

“There, there, honey, don’t, please don’t. You’ll break Susan’s heart.
An’ you’re SO much better now.”
“Better?”

“Yes. You’ve been sick—very sick.”

“How long?”

“Oh, several weeks. It’s October now.”

“And I’ve been blind all that time?”

“Yes.”

“But I haven’t known I was blind!”

“No.”

“I want to go back—I want to go back, where I didn’t know—again.”

“Nonsense, Keith!” (Susan was beginning to talk more like herself.)
“Go back to be sick? Of course you don’t want to go back an’ be sick!
Listen!
Don’t you worry, an’ don’t you fret.
Somethin’ better is comin’ yet.
Somethin’ fine! What’ll you bet?
It’s jest the thing you’re wantin’ ter get!
Come, come! We’re goin’ to have you up an’ out in no time, now, boy!”

“I don’t want to be up and out. I’m blind, Susan.”

“An’ there’s your dad. He’ll be mighty glad to know you’re better.
I’ll call him.”
“No, no, Susan—don’t! Don’t call him. He won’t want to see me. Nobody will want to see me now. I’m blind, Susan—blind!”

“Shucks! Everybody will want to see you, so’s to see how splendid you are, even if you are blind. Now don’t talk any more—please don’t; there’s a good boy. You’re gettin’ yourself all worked up, an’ then, oh, my, how that nurse will scold!”

“I shan’t be splendid,” moaned the boy. “I shan’t be anything, now. I shan’t be Jerry or Ned or dad. I shall be just ME. And I’ll be pointed at everywhere; and they’ll whisper and look and stare, and say, ‘He’s blind—he’s blind—he’s blind.’ I tell you, Susan, I can’t stand it. I can’t—I can’t! I want to go back. I want to go back to where I didn’t—KNOW!”

The nurse came in then, and of course Susan was banished in disgrace. Of course, too, Keith was almost in hysterics, and his fever had gone away up again. He still talked in a high, shrill voice, and still thrashed his arms wildly about, till the little white powder the nurse gave him got in its blessed work. And then he slept.

Keith was entirely conscious the next day when Susan came in to sit with him while the nurse took her rest. But it was a very different Keith. It was a weary, spent, nerveless Keith that lay back on the pillow with scarcely so much as the flutter of an eyelid to show life.

“Is there anything I can get you, Keith?” she asked, when a long-drawn sigh convinced her that he was awake.

Only a faint shake of the head answered her.

“The doctor says you’re lots better, Keith.”

There was no sort of reply to this; and for another long minute Susan sat tense and motionless, watching the boy’s face. Then, with almost a guilty look over her shoulder, she stammered:

“Keith, I don’t want you to talk to me, but I do wish you’d just SPEAK to me.”

But Keith only shook his head again faintly and turned his face away to the wall.

By and by the nurse came in, and Susan left the room. She went straight to the kitchen, and she did not so much as look toward Keith’s father whom she met in the hall. In the kitchen Susan caught up a cloth and vigorously began to polish a brass faucet. The faucet was already a marvel of brightness; but perhaps Susan could not see that. One cannot always see clearly—through tears.

Keith was like this every day after that, when Susan came in to sit with him—silent, listless, seemingly devoid of life. Yet the doctor declared that physically the boy was practically well. And the nurse was going at the end of the week.

On the last day of the nurse’s stay, Susan accosted her in the hall somewhat abruptly.

“Is it true that by an’ by there could be an operator on that boy’s eyes?”

“Oper—er—oh, operation! Yes, there might be, if he could only get strong enough to stand it. But it might not be successful, even then.”

“But there’s a chance?”

“Yes, there’s a chance.”

“I s’pose it—it would be mighty expulsive, though.”

“Expulsive?” The young woman frowned slightly; then suddenly she smiled. “Oh! Oh, yes, I—I’m afraid it would—er—cost a good deal of money,” she nodded over her shoulder as she went on into Keith’s room.

That evening Susan sought her employer in the studio. Daniel Burton spent all his waking hours in the studio now. The woods and fields were nothing but a barren desert of loneliness to Daniel Burton—without Keith.

The very poise of Susan’s head spelt aggressive determination as she entered the studio; and Daniel Burton shifted uneasily in his chair as he faced her. Nor did he fail to note that she carried some folded papers in her hand.