"And I do so hope he'll like it."
"Of course, he'll like it!" cried Daniel Burton. "You wait and see."
But she did not see. She was not there to see.
Promptly at nine o'clock Daniel Burton appeared at the winding-room with Keith. But Dorothy Parkman was nowhere in sight. He waited ten, fifteen minutes; then he told Keith the story of the room, and of what they hoped to do there, fuming meanwhile within himself because he had to tell it alone.
But it was not lack of interest that kept Miss Dorothy away. It could not have been; for that very afternoon she sought Daniel Burton out and asked eagerly what his son had said, and how he had taken it. And her eyes shone and her breath quickened at the story Daniel Burton told; and so eager was she to know every little word that had fallen from Keith's lips that she kept Daniel Burton repeating over and over each minute detail.
Yet the next day when Keith and four other blind youths began work in earnest, she never once went near Keith's chair, though she went often to the others, dropping here and there a word of encouragement or a touch of aiding fingers. When night came, however, and she found an opportunity for a few words alone with Daniel Burton, she told him that, in her opinion, Keith had done the best work of the five, and that it was perfectly marvelous the way he was taking hold. And again her eyes sparkled and her breath quickened; and she spent the entire ten minutes talking about Keith to his father. Yet the next day, when the work began again, she still went to the back of every chair but Keith's.
Things happened very rapidly after that. It was not a week before the first long table in the big room was filled with eager workers, and the second one had to be added to take care of the newcomers.
The project was already the talk of the town, and not the least excited and interested of the observers was John McGuire's mother. When the news came of the second table's being added to the equipment of the place, she hurried over to Susan's kitchen without delay—though with the latest poem of her son's as the ostensible excuse.
"It's 'The Stumbling-Block,'" she announced. "He just got it done yesterday, an' I copied it for you. I think it's the best yet," she beamed, handing over a folded paper. "It's kind of long, so don't stop to read it now. Say, is it true? Have they had to put in another table at that blind windin'-room?"
"They have."