“For goodness’ sake, don’t ‘poor’ me any more! My eyes will be all right as soon as they get a good rest—the doctor said so. I guess I can stand it if they don’t hurt like sin. Everybody comes in like a funeral procession asking me how I feel, and hoping it will be a lesson to me to take better care of my eyes. People needn’t rub it in because a fellow’s down—and the last thing he wants to think of is how he feels!”
“I think you must be feeling better, Ernest, or you wouldn’t be so cross,” retorted Marian slyly.
Ernest relaxed his gloom enough to grin.
“Well, I don’t care—Mother hangs around babying me as if I were six years old!”
Ernest’s catastrophe had come about so gradually no one had suspected it. He was reading a letter from Alice, who wrote a fine close hand, when his father noticed that he was holding the paper almost to his eyes. An examination revealed the fact that the poor eyes were sadly overstrained and would have to have a complete rest for weeks or his eyesight would be permanently injured.
This was distressing news to bookworm Ernest who was never so happy as when lost in a book. The lad was immensely proud of his school standing, too, and he chafed sadly at the thought of losing it.
“No school for three months, Son,” his father said sorrowfully after the boy’s eyes had been thoroughly tested.
“It must be a dark room and a bandage for three weeks at the very least, Dr. Allerton says.”
Ernest groaned and growled rather more than usual to keep from breaking down and playing the baby, when he heard this verdict.
“It was all that confounded scroll work!”