"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. Ye see, I found out he wa'n't readin' 'em—the papers Mr. Burton has me take up ter him every week. An' he owned up, when I took him ter task for it, that he couldn't read 'em. They was gettin' all blurred."
"Blurred?" It was a startled little cry from the boy down by the beet-bed; but neither Susan nor Mrs. McGuire heard—perhaps because at almost the same moment Mrs. McGuire had excitedly asked the same question.
"Blurred?" she cried.
"Yes; all run tergether like—the printin', ye know—so he couldn't tell one letter from t'other. 'T wa'n't only a little at first. Why, he thought 't was jest somethin' the matter with the printin' itself; an'—"
"And WASN'T it the printing at ALL?"
The boy was on his feet now. His face was a little white and strained-looking, as he asked the question.
"Why, no, dearie. Didn't you hear Susan tell Mis' McGuire jest now? 'T was his EYES, an' he didn't know it. He was gettin' blind, an' that was jest the beginnin'."
Susan's capable hands picked up another wet towel and snapped it open by way of emphasis.
"The b-beginning?" stammered the boy. "But—but ALL beginnings don't—don't end like that, do they?"