It was the funniest thing, but really and truly, before many days that dear old lady used to step into the pony carriage and let little Flaxie drive her all around the town! Everybody nodded and smiled as the couple pa.s.sed by, and said it was "the cunningest sight," for grandma wasn"t so very much bigger than Flaxie, and they looked like two little girls riding out, only grandma"s hair was silver-white, and Flaxie"s spun gold.
Through the whole summer Preston"s eyes grew worse and worse. It was all twilight to him now, or, as somebody calls it, "the edge of the dark."
He still took care of Blackdrop, by the help of Henry, but he could not ride out unless somebody else held the reins.
"But then this sort of thing won"t last always," said he to his particular friend, Bert Abbott. "Just wait a year or two, sir, and I shall be as good as anybody."
CHAPTER XI.
FLAXIE A COMFORT.
The days went on, and still Preston"s eyes were not "ready." Winter came, then spring, and Milly paid another visit to Laurel Grove. She was one of those quiet, happy little girls, who make hardly any more noise than a sunbeam; but everybody likes to see a sunbeam, and everybody was glad to see Milly.
She was even more welcome than usual at Laurel Grove just now, for by this time Preston"s eyes were "ready," and his father was about taking him to New York.
There were four grown people left in the house, and five children beside Milly; still it seemed lonesome, for everybody was thinking about Preston, and wondering if the doctor would hurt him very much.
"He can"t see _what_ the doctor is doing to him," said Flaxie to Milly; "I shouldn"t think G.o.d would let my brother be blind, my _good_ brother Preston!"
"G.o.d knows what is best," replied Milly, meekly.
"Yes, but, oh dear, I feel so bad! Let"s go out in the kitchen and see what Dodo is doing."
Grandma, mamma, and Julia looked sadder than ever to hear Flaxie talk in this way and run out of the parlor crying.
Dora stood by the kitchen-table ironing very cheerfully.
"Dodo," said Flaxie, "what shall we do to have a good time?"
"Such a funny child as you are, Miss Flaxie," said the girl, trying another flatiron; "haven"t you everything to your mind, and haven"t you always had ever since you were born?"
"No, indeed, Dodo," said Flaxie, mournfully, breaking off a corner from a sheet of sponge-cake which stood cooling in the window; "_I_ don"t want my brother to be blind."
"Well, but you can"t help it, though. So you"d better not go round the house, moping in this way and worrying your mother," returned Dora, making a quick plunge with her flatiron into the folds of a calico dress.
Worrying her mother! Flaxie had not thought of that. She supposed she was showing very kind and tender feelings when she cried about Preston.
"Let"s go back to the parlor," said Milly; "perhaps Aunt Emily will feel better if we talk and laugh and play with the baby."
"That"s the nicest little thing I ever saw," thought Dora, gazing after Milly; "she don"t fret about her own feelings, but tries to make other folks happy."
This was very true, but you mustn"t suppose that Flaxie didn"t also try to make other people happy. She did whenever she could think of it. She was really learning lessons in unselfishness every day; and how could she help it when everybody in the house set her such a good example?
She and Milly went back to the parlor now, and talked to grandma about their western cousins, Pollio and Posy Pitcher; and then they made little Phil eat apples like a squirrel,--a very funny performance. After that they told him to go into the middle of the room, make a bow, and "speak his piece." That was funny too, and Ethel joined in on a high key:
"Poor little fish, I know you wish To live as well as I; I will not hook you from the brook, Or even wish to try.
"And you, old frog, behind the log, I will not stop your song; Your great round eyes may watch the flies, I will not do you wrong."
Mrs. Gray and grandma did not know this exhibition was called for on purpose to amuse them, but they laughed heartily, and felt the better for it; and so did Flaxie and Milly. Wasn"t it much better than sitting in silence and thinking about Preston, when they couldn"t help him at all?
You may know it was a very sad day for the poor boy. When he found himself in the "awful chair," his heart failed him and he sprang out of it.
"No, no, he never could have his eyes cut with little daggers. Even if they did give him ether, he couldn"t; Papa must take him right home again. It was of no use!"
It was pitiful to see Preston"s struggles with himself, and the still greater struggles of the father, who tried to hide his feelings for his boy"s sake.
"Wait till to-morrow," said Preston; "just wait, and I _will_!"
So they waited.
All the afternoon Preston"s heart kept sinking down, down, like a plummet let into the sea, and his father"s heart sank with it, for a child cannot feel a sorrow that does not touch his parent too.
But it chanced in the night, as Preston lay awake, that he fell to thinking how his father loved him.
"He would do anything in this world for me. He"d take his eyes right out and give them to me if he could."
And then Preston wondered if it were really true that G.o.d loved him better yet?
Oh, yes, loved him so that he would never, never let anything really bad happen to his little boy.
"So this isn"t really bad," thought he, clapping his hands softly under the coverlet; "it seems awful, but it isn"t. G.o.d sent it, and I can bear it--yes, for his sake and father"s sake!"
"Surely what He wills is best, Happy in His will I rest,"
repeated Preston, and went quietly to sleep "like closing flowers at night."
Dr. Gray was joyfully surprised at his bright looks next morning.
"Smile up your face, Dr. Papa," said he, playfully. This was what Flaxie used to say in her baby days, when they didn"t call her Flaxie Frizzle, but Pinky Pearly. "Smile up your face, Dr. Papa, and see what Preston Gray can do."
The horror was over then for Dr. Gray; his son was going to behave like a man.
He did not know when he saw Preston take his seat so calmly in that "awful chair," that he was strong because he felt G.o.d"s arms about him.
But when Preston left that chair, the trouble was not all over. He could not bear any light yet, so he had to go home a few days afterwards with a bandage over his eyes, and stay in a dark room for many weeks.
But didn"t they make the room pleasant for him? Didn"t they treat him like a prince? Didn"t Bert Abbott and the other boys go up and down on that stair-carpet till they nearly wore it out?
Of course Julia was good to the young prisoner; you would have expected that. Flaxie was good too. She seemed at this time to have forgotten all her little fretful, troublesome ways, and was always willing to stay in Preston"s chamber, and tell him everything that happened in the house or out of it; just how the pony looked and acted, and how he coughed a little dot of a mouse out of his nose, supposed to have run up his nostril when he was eating his "granary." Flaxie could be very interesting when she chose, and Preston"s face began to light up at the sound of her little feet on the stairs.
She had never loved her brother so well as she did now that she had become useful to him, and it made her very happy to hear Preston tell his mother that "Flaxie grew better and better; she was almost as good now as Julia."
Milly had gone home, but she came back again in June. You see that the twin cousins were not very particular about taking turns in their visits, but went and came just as their two mothers found it most convenient.