kite or a gun or a jack-knife so far gone that Uncle Joe Harrington
could not "fix it" somehow. And he was always so jolly about it, and
so glad to do it. But it took eyes to do such things, and if now he
was going to be blind--

"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-