“Oh, we had such an elegant time up there on the bank! only the boys came and plagued us,” cried Flaxie, bursting into the house, followed by Milly.

She said it to her papa, but he did not appear to listen. He sat holding Preston on his knee, and looking at him sadly.

Then Flaxie turned to her mother.

“Why, mamma, Willy Patten threw kisses to me when he was a boy, and wasn’t my cousin!”

But Mrs. Gray did not listen either. She too was looking at Preston. Mr. Garland had just been at the house talking with them about the dear child’s eyes, and she and Dr. Papa were heavy at heart. Flaxie did not know of this, but she felt vaguely that something was wrong.

Milly felt it too, and almost wished she had gone home with her father in the afternoon train.

“What has mamma been crying about?” thought Julia. “I’m afraid Preston has been a naughty boy, for she and papa have looked very sober ever since Mr. Garland was here.”

Preston himself understood the case a little better, and was saying to himself: “I guess there’s something awful the matter with my eyes, or father wouldn’t have told Mr. Garland he should take me to New York.”

There were cold turkey, and pop-overs, and honey for supper, but it wasn’t a pleasant meal; there was no chatting and laughing; and Dr. Papa hurried away from the table as soon as possible to go to see a sick lady up town.

It was some time before the children were told the dreadful news that Preston was losing his sight. They wondered the next week why he should be allowed to stay out of school and play, and why his father, who was always kind to him, should be so very gentle now, almost as gentle as he was to little Phil.

One day Dr. Gray took Preston to New York to see an oculist. An oculist is a physician who treats diseases of the eye.

When Dr. A. called Preston up to him, and looked at the beautiful eyes over which a veil was slowly stealing, he shook his head.

Poor little Preston! Not twelve years old, yet growing blind like an old man of ninety!

“But after he is blind, we can help him,” said Dr. A., stroking the boy’s white forehead. “When that dreadful veil, which is stealing over his eyes, has grown thick enough, then we can take it off, and he can see. But it is not thick enough yet. He must go home and wait.”

Dr. Gray was not at all surprised by this. He had known all the while that Preston’s eyes must grow worse before they could be made better. But how long the boy must wait, the oculist could not say; some months, at any rate, and perhaps a year.

It was a sorrowful time for the whole family when Dr. Gray took Preston home with him that night and told the story. Julia put her arms around her dear brother as if she wanted to hold him safe from this trial. Loving Julia! if darkness was coming upon him, she would surely be, as Uncle Ben had said:

“Like a little candle burning in the night.”

And what would Flaxie be? I am afraid Preston did not expect much of Flaxie, she was such a flyaway child.

She cried bitterly now, and said:

“Oh, I wish ’twas my eyes, ’cause I’m a naughty little girl; but Preston is splendid!”

Milly didn’t say a word, she only laid her soft cheek against Preston’s hand to let him know she pitied him.

“There, there, don’t feel so bad, all of you,” said he, holding up his head grandly. “I can bear it, you see if I can’t.”

How they all loved him for that! And he did bear it nobly and patiently, and the whole family helped him. That is one comfort of having a father and mother, and brothers and sisters; they always do help you bear your troubles.

“Let’s read to him,” said Milly to Flaxie. So they read,—first one of them, and then the other,—whenever he wished. This would have been very pleasant if he had liked “nice books” such as little girls enjoy; but no, he chose stories of lion-tamers, and sea-serpents, and wild, dreadful Indians.

“Isn’t it just awful?” said Flaxie to Milly; but they read away like young martyrs.

On the whole, as the family was so large, and every member of it so kind, Preston had a very good time, and seldom thought of his eyes.

One day the twin cousins were in the shade of the apple-blossoms, in what was called the “orchard garden,” driving a carriage full of dolls to a “wedding picnic.” Flaxie’s dolls led a very gay life, and perhaps that was one reason they all faded so young.

Just as “Christie Gretchen” was alighting from the carriage, assisted by her young husband, “Dr. Preston Smith,” and just as Milly had sweetened the lemonade exactly to the bride’s taste, and was cutting the cake, there was a quick call from Preston.

“Girls, girls, come here?”

“Oh, dear,” said Flaxie to Milly, “when the picnic is beginning so beautifully!”

But then they both remembered that Preston was growing blind and they must be kind to him; therefore Flaxie dropped Dr. Smith, and Milly dropped the cake, and they ran along to the stable.

Before they reached it, however, they had forgotten all about the picnic, for right in the stable-door stood a shaggy mustang pony, harnessed to a basket-phaeton; and in the phaeton sat Preston holding the reins, while Dr. Papa, mamma, and Julia stood looking on and smiling.

“Oh, I never did see anything so cunning,” cried Flaxie, forgetting she had seen several just such ponies when she went to the seaside with Mrs. Prim.

“Whoa! Jump in, both of you,” said Preston, turning the phaeton half round. His face was all aglow with delight.

“Yes, jump in,” said Dr. Papa and mamma.

“It’s Preston’s pony,” cried Julia, who had kept the secret for a whole day and night, till it “seemed as if she should fly.”

The way that gentle little beast walked out of the yard, the way he trotted after he turned into the road! I really cannot give a proper account of it myself; it needs a little girl about Flaxie’s age to describe a pony.

“Oh, he’s a darling, a beauty, the sweetest little thing, not half as big as Whiz! Why, Preston, aren’t you just as happy? Is it your carriage? Where’s the whip? Oh, the silver reins! Didn’t they cost a thou-sand dollars? What do you call the pony? May I drive?”

“Yes, by and by, when my eyes grow so bad that I can’t see,” replied Preston, a little sadly in spite of his joy; “but father says I may drive now.”

Flaxie had reached out for the reins, but Milly pinched her,—one of those sly pinches that both the cousins understood,—and she folded her little hands to keep them still. She did want to drive this very minute, but she wouldn’t plague Preston.

“Who is going to take care of your pony?” she asked.

They had a boy, Henry Mann, who took care of Whiz and Hiawatha.

“I shall attend to my pony myself,” replied Preston, driving off at high speed.

“Well, you must give him a quart of granary as quick as we get home,” said Miss Frizzle, looking wondrous wise; “Johnny Townsend feeds his pony with granary—a whole quart.”

Preston laughed and chirrupped. He was “just as happy,” there was no doubt about that.

“I guess I’ll call him Blackdrop, wouldn’t you, though?”

The little girls thought it was a queer name, but they said:

“Oh, yes, if you want to call him Blackdrop, I would.”

“It won’t do any hurt,” added Flaxie encouragingly.

I wish Blackdrop could have known how happy he made the whole family. Milly didn’t say much, but her eyes shone as she patted his neck, Julia sang every time she saw him, Phil “hugged him grizzly,” and Grandma Gray who was very timid about horses, said she wasn’t any more afraid of him than if he had been a Newfoundland dog.

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 passed 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.”