It was on his fourteenth birthday that Keith Burton discovered the Great Terror, though hedid not know it by that name until some days afterward. He knew only, to his surprise anddistress, that the "Treasure Island," given to him by his father for a birthday present, wasprinted in type so blurred and poor that he could scarcely read it.He said nothing, of course. In fact he shut the book very hastily, with a quick, sidewise look, lest his father should see and notice the imperfection of his gift.Poor father! He would feel ...
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It was on his fourteenth birthday that Keith Burton discovered the Great Terror, though hedid not know it by that name until some days afterward. He knew only, to his surprise anddistress, that the "Treasure Island," given to him by his father for a birthday present, wasprinted in type so blurred and poor that he could scarcely read it.He said nothing, of course. In fact he shut the book very hastily, with a quick, sidewise look, lest his father should see and notice the imperfection of his gift.Poor father! He would feel so bad after he had taken all that pains and spent all thatmoney-and for something not absolutely necessary, too! And then to get cheated like that.For, of course, he had been cheated-such horrid print that nobody could read.But it was only a day or two later that Keith found some more horrid print. This time it wasin his father's weekly journal that came every Saturday morning. He found it again thatnight in a magazine, and yet again the next day in the Sunday newspaper.Then, before he had evolved a satisfactory explanation in his own mind of thisphenomenon, he heard Susan Betts talking with Mrs. McGuire over the back-yard fence.Susan Betts began the conversation. But that was nothing strange: Susan Betts always began the conversation."Have you heard about poor old Harrington?" she demanded in what Keith called her"excitingest" voice. Then, as was always the case when she spoke in that voice, she plungedon without waiting for a reply, as if fearful lest her bit of news fall from the other pair oflips first. "Well, he's blind-stone blind. He couldn't see a dollar bill-not if you shook itright before his eyes.""Sho! you don't say!" Mrs. McGuire dropped the wet sheet back into the basket and came tothe fence on her side concernedly. "Now, ain't that too bad?""Yes, ain't it? An' he so kind, an' now so blind! It jest makes me sick." Susan whipped openthe twisted folds of a wet towel. Susan seldom stopped her work to talk. "But I saw itcomin' long ago. An' he did, too, poor man!"Mrs. McGuire lifted a bony hand to her face and tucked a flying wisp of hair behind her rightear."Then if he saw it comin', why couldn't he do somethin' to stop it?" she demanded.[Illustration: SUSAN BETTS TALKING WITH MRS. MCGUIRE OVER THE BACKYARDFENCE]"I don't know. But he couldn't. Dr. Chandler said he couldn't. An' they had a man up fromBoston-one of them eye socialists what doesn't doctor anythin' but eyes-an' he said hecouldn't."Keith, on his knees before the beet-bed adjoining the clothes-yard, sat back on his heels andeyed the two women with frowning interest.He knew old Mr. Harrington. So did all the boys. Never was there a kite or a gun or a jackknife so far gone that Uncle Joe Harrington could not "fix it" somehow. And he was alwaysso jolly about it, and so glad to do it. But it took eyes to do such things, and if now he wasgoing to be blind-"An' you say it's been comin' on gradual?" questioned Mrs. McGuire."Why, I hadn't heard-""No, there hain't no one heard," interrupted Susan. "He didn't say nothin' ter nobody, hardly, only me, I guess, an' I suspicioned it, or he wouldn't 'a' said it to me, probably. Yesee, I found out he wa'n't readin' 'em-the papers Mr. Burton has me take up ter him everyweek. An' he owned up, when I took him ter task for it, that he couldn't read 'em. They wasgettin' all blurred.""Blurred?" It was a startled little cry from the boy down by the beet-bed; but neither Susannor Mrs. McGuire heard-perhaps because at almost the same moment Mrs. McGuire hadexcitedly asked the same questi
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