"But, Susan, I don't see," began Miss Dorothy, lifting puzzled eyes from the last line of the poem, "I don't see what there is about that to make Mr. Keith—cry."
"No, I didn't, till this mornin'; an' then—Well, Keith came out into the kitchen an' begun one of them tramps of his up an' down the room. It always drives me nearly crazy when he does that, but I can't say anything, of course. I did begin this mornin' to talk about John McGuire an' how fine it was he'd got somethin' he could do. I thought't would take the poor boy's mind off hisself, if I could get him talkin' about John McGuire—he's been SO interested in John all winter! An' so glad he could help him. You know he's always so wanted to HELP somebody hisself instead of always havin' somebody helpin' him. But, dear me, instead of its bein' a quieter now for him, it was a regular stirrup.
"'That's just it, that's just it, Susan,' he moans. 'You've got to have work or you die. There's nothin' in the whole world like work—YOUR WORK! John McGuire's got his work, an' I'm glad of it. But where's mine? Where's mine, I tell you?'
"An' I told him he'd jest been havin' his work, helpin' John McGuire. You know it was wonderful, perfectly wonderful, Miss Dorothy, the way them two men got hold of John McGuire. You know John wouldn't speak to anybody, not anybody, till Keith an' his father found some way to get on the inside of his shell. An' Keith's been so happy all winter doin' it; an' his father, too. So I tried to remind him that he'd been doin' his work.
"But it didn't do no good. Keith said that was all very well, an' he was glad, of course; but that was only a little bit of a thing, an' 't was all past an' gone, an' John didn't need 'em any more, an' there wasn't anything left for him now at all. Oh, Miss Dorothy, he talked awfully. I never heard him run on so. An' I knew, from a lot of it that he said, that he was thinkin' of that poem—he wouldn't ask for wealth or beauty or fame, or anything, an' that there didn't anything count but labor. You see?"
"Yes, I—see." Miss Dorothy's voice was very low. Her face was turned quite away, yet Susan was very sure that there were tears in her eyes.
"An' his father!—he's 'most as bad as Keith," sighed Susan. "They're both as nervous as witches, what with the war an' all, an' they not bein' able to do anything. Oh, they do give money—lots of it—Liberty Bonds an' Red Cross, an' drives, of course. You knew they'd got it now—their money, didn't you, Miss Dorothy?"
"Yes, I had heard so."
"Not that it seems to do 'em any particular good," complained Susan wistfully. "Oh, of course things ain't so—so ambiguous as they was, an' we have more to eat an' wear, an' don't have to worry about bills. But they ain't any happier, as I can see. If only Keith could find somethin'—"
"Yes, I know," sighed Miss Dorothy again, as she turned slowly away.
"I wish he—could."