her. Then, because her stock of patience was always small and she could not wait for his news, she demanded: "Well! Did you go? What did he say?"
"Yes, darling, I went," he answered, in a low tone and casting an anxious glance backward over his shoulder toward the house where Martha might be near enough to hear. But having replied to one question he ignored the rest.
However, the girl was not to be put off by silence and her whole heart was in her eyes as she leaned forward and peered into his. He still tried to evade her, but she was so closely bound up with his life, she understood him so quickly and naturally, that this was difficult; so when she commanded in her tender, peremptory way: "Out with it, father mine, body and bones!" he half-cried, half-groaned:
"Worse than all the others! I – am – doomed!"
Then he dropped his head on his hands and, regardless of the fact that they were on the street, conspicuous to every passer-by, he gave way to a mute despair. Now when a naturally light-hearted person breaks down the collapse is complete, but Dorothy did not know this nor that recovery is commonly very prompt. She was still staring in grieved amazement at her father's bowed head when he again lifted it and flashed a smile into her freshly astonished eyes. Then she laughed aloud, so great was her relief, and cried:
"There, father John! You've been fooling me again! I should have known you were teasing and not believed you!"
But he answered, though still smiling:
"It's pretty hard to believe the fact, myself. Yet it's true, all the same. Five different doctors have agreed upon it – which is wonderful, in itself; and though I'd much rather not face this kind of a truth I reckon I'll have to; as well as the next question: What is to become of us?"
Dorothy still retained her baby habit of wrinkling her nose when she was perplexed, and she did so now in an absurd earnestness that amused her father, even in the midst of his heartache. During her twelve years of life in the little brick house in Brown Street, she had made a deal of trouble for the generous couple which had given her a home there, but she had brought them so much more of happiness that they now believed they actually could not live without her. As the postman expressed it:
"Her first act in this house was to spill her milk on its tidy floor. She's been spilling milk all along the route from then till now, and long may she spill! Martha'd be 'lost' if she didn't have all that care of the troublesome child."
This sunshiny morning, for the first time since that far-back day when she arrived upon his doorstep, the good postman began to contemplate the possibility of their parting; and many schemes for her future welfare chased themselves through his troubled brain. If he could only spare Martha and Dorothy the unhappiness that had fallen upon himself he would ask no more of fortune. For a long time they sat there, pondering, till Martha's voice recalled them to the present:
"For goodness sake, Dorothy C.! What are you idling like that for? Don't you know I've to go to market and you have the lunch to get? Then there's that class picnic of yours, and what on earth will Miss Georgia say if you don't go this time? Come, come! Get to work. I'm ashamed to have the neighbors see my marble the way it is, so late in the day. You there, too, John? Finished your beat already? Well, you come, too. I've a mind to take up that dining-room carpet and put down the matting this very day. I never was so late in my spring cleaning before, but every time I say 'carpet' to you, you have an excuse to put me off. I confess I don't understand you, who've always been so handy and kind with my heavy jobs. But come, Dorothy, you needn't laze any longer. It beats all, the lots of talk you and your father always must have whenever you happen to get alongside. Come."
There was a hasty exchange of glances between father and child; then she sprang up, laughing, and as if it were part of her fun held out her hand to the postman and pulled him to his feet. But it was not fun; it was most painful, serious earnest. He could hardly have risen without her aid, and she had noticed, what his wife had not, that, for a long time now, he had never taken a seat without it was near a table, or some other firm object by which he could support himself in rising. Now, as he loosed her hand and climbed the steps, he kept his gaze fixed upon those same troublesome feet and caught hold of the brass hand-rail, which it was the housewife's pride and Dorothy's despair to keep polished to brilliancy.
Once within the house, Martha returned to the subject of the carpet lifting and again he put her off; but this time her suspicion that all was not right had been aroused and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, she demanded in a tone sharpened by sudden anxiety:
"John Chester, what is the matter with you?"
He started, staggered by her touch, light as it was, and sank into a chair; then knowing that the truth must out sometime, almost hurled it at her – though smiling to think how little she would, at first, comprehend:
"Oh! nothing but 'ataxy locomotor.'"
"But —what? Don't tease. I'm in earnest, and a hurry."
"So am I. In deadly earnest. I'm afflicted with 'ataxy locomotor,' or locomotor ataxia. It's come to stay. To change our whole lives."
She hadn't the slightest idea what he meant, as he had surmised would be the case, but something in his tone frightened her, though she answered with a mirthful affectation:
"Humph! I'm glad it's something so respectable!"
Then she turned away, made ready to go to market, and soon left with her basket on her arm. But she carried a now heavy heart within her. She had seen that underneath her husband's jesting manner lay some tragic truth; and in her preoccupied state, she bought recklessly of things she should not and went home without those which were needful. So that once back there, she had to dispatch Dorothy marketward again, while she herself prepared the simple lunch that served till their evening dinner which all enjoyed the more in the leisure of the day's work done. And now, in the absence of the child they both so loved, husband and wife at length discussed the trouble that had befallen.
"Do you mean, John, that you are losing the use of your feet? What in the world will a postman do without his sound feet and as sound a pair of legs above them?" demanded the anxious housemistress, still unable to accept the dreadful fact.
"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
