CHAPTER XI
NOT PATS BUT SCRATCHES
Mrs. Colebrook went home the next day. She wore the air of an injuredmartyr at breakfast. She told her brother that, of course, if hepreferred to have an ignorant servant girl take care of his poorafflicted son, she had nothing to say; but that certainly he could notexpect HER to stay, too, especially after being insulted as she hadbeen.
Daniel Burton had remonstrated feebly, shrugged his shoulders andflung his arms about in his usual gestures of impotent annoyance.
Susan, in the kitchen, went doggedly about her work, singing,meanwhile, what Keith called her "mad" song. When Susan wasparticularly "worked up" over something, "jest b'ilin' inside" as sheexpressed it, she always sang this song--her own composition, to thetune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home":
"I've taken my worries, an' taken my woes, I have, I have, An' shut 'em up where nobody knows, I have, I have. I chucked 'em down, that's what I did, An' now I'm sittin' upon the lid, An' we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home. I'm sittin' upon the lid, I am, Hurrah! Hurrah!
I'm tryin' to be a little lamb, Hurrah! Hurrah! But I'm feelin' more like a great big slam Than a nice little peaceful woolly lamb, But we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home."
When Daniel Burton, this morning, therefore, heard Susan singing thissong, he was in no doubt as to Susan's state of mind--a fact whichcertainly did not add to his own serenity.
Upstairs, Keith, wearily indifferent as to everything that was takingplace about him, lay motionless as usual, his face turned toward thewall.
And at ten o'clock Mrs. Colebrook went. Five minutes later DanielBurton entered the kitchen--a proceeding so extraordinary that Susanbroke off her song in the middle of a "Hurrah" and grew actually pale.
"What is it?--KEITH? Is anything the matter with Keith?" she faltered.
Ignoring her question the man strode into the room.
"Well, Susan, this time you've done it," he ejaculated tersely.
"Done it--to Keith--ME? Why, Mr. Burton, what do you mean? IsKeith--worse?" chattered Susan, with dry lips. "It was only a littlehash I took up. He simply won't eat that oatmeal stuff, an'--"
"No, no, I don't mean the hash," interrupted the man irritably. "Keithis all right--that is, he is just as he has been. It's my sister, Mrs.Colebrook. She's gone."
"Gone--for good?"
"Yes, she's gone home."
"Glory be!" The color came back to Susan's face in a flood, and frankdelight chased the terror from her eyes. "Now we can do somethin'worthwhile."
"I reckon you'll find you have to do something, Susan. You know verywell I can't afford to hire a nurse--now."
"I don't want one."
"But there's all the other work, too."
"Work! Why, Mr. Burton, I won't mind a little work if I can have thatblessed boy all to myself with no one to feed him oatmeal mush with aspoon, an' snivel over him. You jest wait. The first elemental thingis to learn him self-defiance, so he can do things for himself. Thenhe'll begin to get his health an' strength for the operator."
"You're forgetting the money, Susan. It costs money for that."
Susan's face fell.
"Yes, sir, I know." She hesitated, then went on, her color deepening."An' I hain't sold--none o' them poems yet. But there's othermagazines, a whole lot of 'em, that I hain't tried. Somebody's sure totake 'em some time."
"I'm glad your courage is still good, Susan; but I'm afraid the dearpublic is going to appreciate your poems about the way it does--mypictures," shrugged the man bitterly, as he turned and left the room.
Not waiting to finish setting her kitchen in order, Susan ran up theback stairs to Keith's room.
"Well, your aunt is gone, an' I'm on, An' here we are together. We'll chuck our worries into pawn, An' how do you like the weather?"
she greeted him gayly. "How about gettin' up? Come on! Such a lazyboy! Here it is away in the middle of the forenoon, an' you abed likethis!"
But it was not to be so easy this time. Keith was not to be cajoledinto getting up and dressing himself even to beat Susan's record.Steadfastly he resisted all efforts to stir him into interest oraction; and a dismayed, disappointed Susan had to go downstairs inacknowledged defeat.
"But, land's sake, what could you expect?" she muttered to herself,after a sorrowful meditation before the kitchen fire. "You can't put abackbone into a jellyfish by jest showin' him the bone--an' that'swhat his aunt has made him--a flappy, transparallel jellyfish. Drather! But I ain't goin' to give up. Not much I ain't!" And Susanattacked the little kitchen stove with a vigor that would have broughtterror to the clinkers of a furnace fire pot.
Susan did not attempt again that day to get Keith up and dressed; andshe gave him his favorite "pop-overs" for supper with a running fireof merry talk and jingles that contained never a reference to theunpleasant habit of putting on clothes, But the next morning, aftershe had given Keith his breakfast (not of toast and oatmeal) shesuggested blithely that he get up and be dressed. When he refused shetried coaxing, mildly, then more strenuously. When this failed shetried to sting his pride by telling him she did not believe he couldget up now, anyhow, and dress himself.
"All right, Susan, let it go that I can't. I don't want to, anyhow,"sighed the boy with impatient weariness. "Say, can't you let a fellowalone?"
Susan drew a long breath and held it suspended for a moment. She hadthe air of one about to make a dreaded plunge.
"No, I can't let you alone, Keith," she replied, voice and manner nowcoldly firm.
"Why not? What's the use when I don't want to get up?"
"How about thinkin' for once what somebody else wants, young man?"Susan caught her breath again, and glanced furtively at thehalf-averted face on the pillow. Then doggedly she went on. "Maybe youthink I hain't got anything to do but trespass up an' down them stairsall day waitin' on you, when you are perfectly capacious of waitin' onyourself SOME."
"Why, SUSAN!" There was incredulous, hurt amazement in the boy'svoice; but Susan was visibly steeling herself against it.
"What do you think?--that I'm loafin' all day, an' your aunt gone now,an' me with it all on my hands?" she demanded, her stony gazecarefully turned away from the white face on the pillow. "An' to haveto keep runnin' up here all the mornin' when I've got to do thedishes, an' bake bread, an' make soap, an'--"
"If you'll get my clothes, Susan, I'll get up," said Keith veryquietly from the bed.
And Susan, not daring to unclose her lips, wrested the garments fromthe hooks, dropped them on to the chair by the bed, and fled from theroom. But she had not reached the hall below when the sobs shook herframe.
"An' me talkin' like that when I'd be willin' to walk all day on myhands an' knees, if't would help him one little minute," she choked.
Barely had Susan whipped herself into presentable shape again whenKeith's voice at the kitchen door caused her to face about with astartled cry.
"I'm downstairs, Susan." The boy's voice challenged hers for coldnessnow. "I'll take my meals down here, after this."
"Why, Keith, however in the world did you--" Then Susan pulled herselfup. "Good boy, Keith! That WILL make it lots easier," she saidcheerfully, impersonally, turning away and making a great clatter ofpans in the sink.
But later, at least once every half-hour through that long forenoon,Susan crept softly through the side hall to the half-open living-roomdoor, where she could watch Keith. She watched him get up and moveslowly along the side of the room, picking his way. She watched himpause and move hesitating fingers down the backs of the chairs that heencountered. But when she saw him stop and finger the books on thelittle table by the window, she crept back to her kitchen--and rattledstill more loudly the pots and pans in the sink.
Just before the noon meal Keith appeared once more at the kitchendoor.
"Susan, would it bother you very much if I ate out here--with you?" heasked.
"With me? Nonsense! You'll eat in the dinin'-room with your dad, ofcourse. Why, what would he say to your eatin' out here with me?"
"That's just it. It's dad. He'd like it, I'm sure," insisted the boyfeverishly. "You know sometimes I--I don't get any food on my fork,when I eat, an' I have to--to feel for things, an' it--it must bedisagreeable to see me. An' you know he never liked disagreeable--"
"Now, Keith Burton, you stop right where you are," interrupted Susanharshly. "You're goin' to eat with your father where you belong. An'do you now run back to the settin'-room. I've got my dinner to get."
Keith had not disappeared down the hall, however, before Susan washalfway up the back stairs. A moment later she was in the studio.
"Daniel Burton, you're goin' to have company to dinner," she panted.
"Company?"
"Yes. Your son." "KEITH?" The man drew back perceptibly.
"There, now, Daniel Burton, don't you go to scowlin' an' lookin' for aplace to run, just because you hate to see him feel 'round for what heeats."
"But, Susan, it breaks my heart," moaned the man, turning quite away.
"What if it does? Ain't his broke, too? Can't you think of him alittle? Let me tell you this, Daniel Burton--that boy has moreconsolation for your feelin's than you have for his, every time.Didn't he jest come to me an' beg to eat with me, 'cause his daddidn't like to see disagreeable things, an'--"
The man wheeled sharply.
"Did Keith--do that?"
"He did, jest now, sir."
"All right, Susan. I--I don't think you'll have to say--any more."
And Susan, after a sharp glance into the man's half-averted face, saidno more. A moment later she had left the room.
At dinner that day, with red eyes but a vivacious manner, she waitedon a man who incessantly talked of nothing in particular, and a boywho sat white-faced and silent, eating almost nothing.