"Worry never climbed a hill,
Worry never paid a bill,
Worry never led a horse to water.
Worry never cooked a meal,
Worry never darned a heel,
Worry never did a thing you'd think it oughter!"
"Yes, yes, I know, I know," sighed Mrs. McGuire again. "But John is so—well, you don't know my John. Nobody knows John as I do. He'd have made a big man if he'd lived—John would."
"'If he'd lived'!" repeated Susan severely. "Well, I never, Mis' McGuire, if you ain't talkin' already as if he was dead! You don't have to begin to write his obliquity notice yet, do you?"
"But he is dead," moaned Mrs. McGuire, catching at the one word in Susan's remark and paying no attention to the rest. "He's dead to everything he was goin' to do. He was ambitious,—my John was. He was always studyin' and readin' books nights an' Sundays an' holidays, when he didn't have to be in the store. He was takin' a course, you know."
"Yes, I know—one of them respondin' schools," nodded Susan. "John's a clever lad, he is, I'm free to confess."
Under the sunshine of Susan's appreciation Mrs. McGuire drew a step nearer.
"He was studyin' so he could 'mount to somethin'—John was," declared Mrs. McGuire. "He was goin' to be"—she paused and threw a hurried look over her shoulder—"he was keepin' it secret, but he won't mind my tellin' NOW. He was goin' to be a—writer some day, he hoped."
Susan's instantly alert attention was most flattering.
"Sho! You don't say! Poems?"
"I don't know." Mrs. McGuire drew back and spoke a little coldly. Now that the secret was out, Mrs. McGuire was troubled evidently with qualms of conscience. "He never said much. He didn't want it talked about."