"I'm going home, whether you are or not," cut in Miss Dorothy, with
dignity. And with a low chuckle Mazie tossed a good-bye to Keith and
followed her lead.

Keith, his chin aggressively high, strode in the opposite direction.

"I suppose she wanted to see how really bad I did look," he was
muttering fiercely, under his breath. "Well, she needn't worry. If I
do get blind, I'll take good care she don't have to look at me, nor
Mazie, nor any of the rest of them."

Keith went out on the street very little after that, and especially he
kept away from it after school hours. They were not easy--those winter
days. The snow lay deep in the woods, and it was too cold for long
walks. He could not read, nor paint, nor draw, nor use his eyes about
anything that tried them. But he was by no means idle. He had found
now "the boy to do the reading"--his father. For hours every day they
studied together, Keith memorizing, where it was necessary, what his
father read, always discussing and working out the problems together.
That he could not paint or draw was a great cross to his father, he
knew.

Keith noticed, too,--and noticed it with a growing heartache,--that
nothing was ever said now about his being Jerry and Ned and dad
himself all in a bunch. And he understood, of course, that if he was
going to be blind, he could not be Jerry and--

But Keith was honestly trying not to think of that; and he welcomed
most heartily anything or anybody that helped him toward that end.