"Oh, Susan, Susan!" half groaned the man. There was a smile on his lips, but there were tears in his eyes.
"Well, it's so," argued Susan earnestly. "Oh, I read to him, of course. I read him everything I can get hold of, especially about men an' women that have become great an' famous an' extinguished, even if they was blind or deaf an' dumb, or lame—especially blind. But I can't learn him books, Mr. Burton. You've got to do that. You've got to be eyes for him, an' he's got to go to school to you. Mr. Burton,"—Susan's voice grew husky and unsteady,—"you've got a chance now to paint bigger an' grander pictures than you ever did before, only you won't be paintin' 'em on canvas backs. You'll be paintin' 'em on that boy's soul, an' you'll be usin' words instead of them little brushes."
"You've put that—very well, Susan." It was the man who spoke unsteadily, huskily, now.
"I don't know about that, but I do know that them pictures you're goin' to paint for him is goin' to be the makin' of him. Why, Mr. Burton, we can't have him lazin' behind, 'cause when he does get back his eyes we don't want him to be too far behind his class."
"But what—if he doesn't ever get his eyes, Susan?"
"Then he'll need it all the more. But he's goin' to get 'em, Mr. Burton. Don't you remember? The nurse said if he got well an' strong he could have somethin' done. I've got the doctor, an' all I need now is the money. An'—an' that makes me think." She hesitated, growing suddenly pink and embarrassed. Then resolutely she put her hand into the pocket of her apron and pulled out two folded papers.
"I was goin' to tell you about these, anyhow, so I might as well do it now," she explained. "You know, them—them other poems didn't sell much—there was only one went, an' the man wouldn't take that till he'd made me promise he could print my letter, too, that I'd wrote with it—jest as if that was worth anything!—but he only paid a measly dollar anyhow." Susan's voice faltered a little, though her chin was at a brave tilt. "An' I guess now I know the reason. Them kind of poems ain't stylish no longer. Rhymes has gone out. Everything's 'free verse' now. I've been readin' up about it. So I've wrote some of 'em. They're real easy to do—jest lines chopped off free an' easy, anywheres that it happens, only have some long, an' some short, for notoriety, you know, like this." And she read:
"A great big cloud
That was black
Came up
Out of the West. An' I knew
Then
For sure
That a storm was brewin'.
An' it brewed."
"Now that was dead easy—anybody could see that. But it's kind of pretty, I think, too, jest the same. Them denatured poems are always pretty, I think—about trees an' grass an' flowers an' the sky, you know. Don't you?"
"Why, er—y-yes, of course," murmured the man faintly.