"Nothing. I can't be a postman any longer. I must resign my position at once. I've kept it longer than I should. I haven't done justice to myself or the office in hanging on as I have. But——"
"How long have you known about it?"
"For several months I've noticed that my feet felt queer, but it's only been a few weeks since they became so uncontrollable. I've not been able to walk without keeping my eyes fixed on my toes. My legs have a wild desire to fly out at right angles to my body and—Face it, little woman, face it! You have a cripple on your hands for as long as he may live."
"I haven't! You shan't be a—a cripple!" protested the impulsive housewife, whose greatest griefs, heretofore, had been simple domestic ones which shrank to nothingness before this real calamity. Then she bowed her head on her arms and let the tears fall fast. This served to relieve the tension of her nerves, and when she again lifted her head her face was calm as sad, while she made him tell her all the details of his trouble. He had been to the best specialists in the city. That very day he had consulted the last, whom he had hoped might possibly help him and whose fee had staggered him by its size.
"How long has Dorothy known this?" asked Martha, with a tinge of jealousy.
"Almost from the beginning. It was quite natural that she should, for she has so often run alongside me on my routes—going to and from school. Besides, you know, she has the very sharpest eyes in the world. Little escapes them. Nothing escapes which concerns us whom she loves so dearly. It was her notion that you shouldn't be told till it was necessary, but it fell in with my own ideas. I—I think, though I never heard of anybody else doing such a thing, that I'll have her go along with me this afternoon, when I make my—my last rounds. I confess that since that doctor's word, to-day, I've lost all my courage and my power to walk half-decently. Decently? It hasn't been that for a long time, so if you can spare her I'll have her go."
"Of course I can spare her. She was to go to a class picnic, anyway, but she'd rather go with you. Now, I'll to work; and, maybe, I can think a way out of our trouble. I—I can't bear it, John! You, a cripple for life! It can't be true—it shall not be true. But—if it has to be,—well, you've worked for me all these years and it's a pretty how-de-do if I can't work for you in turn. Now, lie down on the lounge till it's time to go to the office again, and I'll tackle my kitchen floor."
For the first time he allowed her to help him across the room and to place him comfortably on the lounge, and she suddenly remembered how often, during the past few weeks, she had seen Dorothy do this very same thing. She had laughed at it as a foolish fondness in the girl, but now she offered the assistance with a bitter heartache.
Dorothy came back and was overjoyed at the changed program for her holiday afternoon. All along she had longed to go with the postman, to help him, but had not been permitted. Now it was not only a relief that her mother knew their secret and that they could talk it over together, but she had formed a scheme by which she believed everything could go on very much as before.
So with a cane in one hand and his other resting on her shoulder, John Chester made his last "delivery." Fortunately, the late mail of the day was always small and the stops, therefore, infrequent. Most of these, too, were at houses fronting directly on the street, so that the postman could support himself against the end of the steps while Dorothy ran up them and handed in the letters.