great deal about "an accident," and a "consequent injury to the optic
nerve"; and he had to answer a lot of questions about the time when he
was eleven years old and ran into the big maple tree with his sled,
cutting a bad gash in his forehead. But as if that, so long ago, could
have anything to do with things looking blurred now!

But it did have something to do with it--several of the doctors said
that; and they said it was possible that a slight operation now might
arrest the disease. They would try it. Only one eye was badly affected
at present.

So it was arranged that Keith should stay a month with one of the
doctors, letting his father go back to Hinsdale.

It was not a pleasant experience, and it seemed to Keith anything but
a "slight operation"; but at the end of the month the bandages were
off, and his father had come to take him back home.

The print was not quite so blurred now, though it was still far from
clear, and Keith noticed that his father and the doctors had a great
deal to say to each other in very low tones, and that his father's
face was very grave.

Then they started for home. On the journey his father talked
cheerfully, even gayly; but Keith was not at all deceived. For perhaps
half an hour he watched his father closely. Then he spoke.

"Dad, you might just as well tell me."

"Tell you what?"