When the days began to grow so dark for George Graham, it was of his mother that he thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes, that were not centred in her. What if this growing shadow about him was to increase until all was dark, until dense night shut him in,—a night through whose blackness no star of hope could shine? What if he must be no help to his mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden lasting through heaven only knew how many helpless years?
He rebelled against such a fate madly. He stretched out his hands toward heaven, he lifted the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no help came.
Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about him, more and more desperate the gloom of his hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine that his teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual failures; and George said nothing of the increasing darkness around him,—nothing to his mother, for he felt that it would break her heart; nothing to teacher or school-mates, for it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to them. But one afternoon the crisis came.
His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at last, his teacher spoke in severe terms of the neglect which had become habitual. No one who was present that day—not even the smallest child—will ever forget the look of despair that swept over George Graham’s face, or the gesture of helpless anguish with which he stretched out his hands, as if to seek among them all some friend, as he cried,—
“God help me, sir! I have been going blind; and now I cannot see one figure in my book—I can hardly see your face.”
There was a silence after this, through which came no sound but the audible beating of George Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent away the others, for school hours were nearly over, and tried his best to comfort his stricken pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an oculist might help him, perhaps it was only temporary.
To all these well-meant consolations George listened in a sort of dreary silence. The words of the teacher entered his ears, but they did not reach his heart or kindle his hope.
As soon as he could, he went away. He did not go straight home. How could he face his mother and tell her what he must tell her now,—what she would be sure to hear from others, if not from him? He kept thinking how she would take it. Would not all the light go out of her face? Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered she had done when his father died.
He sat down on a bank, a little removed from the road-side, a bank which overhung a swift and deep, yet narrow stream.
An awful temptation came over him,—such a temptation as, thank Heaven! comes to few boys of sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot in their veins. He thought, what if he should die, then and there? It seemed to him the one desirable thing. To be sure, to die would be to leave his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but also it would relieve her from the heavy burden he must needs be to her if he lived. The river rushing down there below invited him with its murmur. Should he seek refuge there, and let his mother hear that he was dead, before she heard that he was blind? He bent forward over the stream. Then he drew back, for a longing came over him to go home first, and see his mother just once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry burst from his lips,—