“These beads are strung on wires, and it would be easy enough to do that with one’s eyes shut; but it always did puzzle me to see how blind people can tell one color from another with the ends of their fingers.”

The superintendent smiled.

“That would be strange indeed if it were true,” said he; “but it is a mistake.  The colors are put into separate boxes, and that is the way the children distinguish them.”

“I suppose they are much happier for being busy,” said Mr. Parlin.  “It is a beautiful thing that they can be made useful.”

“So it is,” said the superintendent.  “I am blind myself, and I know how necessary employment is to my happiness.”

The children looked up at the noble face of the speaker with surprise.  Was he blind?

“Why does he wear glasses, then?” whispered Dotty.  “Grandma wears ’em because she can see a little, and wants to see more.”

The superintendent was amused.  As he could not see, Dotty had unconsciously supposed his hearing must be rather dull; but, on the contrary, it was very quick, and he had caught every word.

“I suppose, my child,” remarked he, playfully, “these spectacles of mine may be called the gravestones for my dead eyes.”

Dotty did not understand this; but she was very sorry she had spoken so loud.

After looking at the show-cases as long as they liked, the visitors went across the hall into the little ones’ school-room.  This was a very pleasant place, furnished with nice desks; and at one end were book-cases containing “blind books” with raised letters.  Horace soon discovered that the Old Testament was in six volumes, each volume as large as a family Bible.

In this cheerful room were twenty or thirty boys and girls.  They looked very much like other children, only they did not appear to notice that any one was entering, and scarcely turned their heads as the door softly opened.

Dotty had a great many new thoughts.  These unfortunate little ones were very neatly dressed, yet they had never seen themselves in the glass; and how did they know whether their hair was rough or smooth, or parted in the middle?  How could they tell when they dropped grease-spots on those nice clothes?

“I don’t see,” thought Dotty, “how they know when to go to bed!  O, dear!  I should get up in the night and think ’twas morning; only I should s’pose ’twas night all the whole time, and not any stars either!  When my father spoke to me, I should think it was my mother, and say, ‘Yes’m.’  And p’rhaps I should think Prudy was a beggar-man with a wig on.  And never saw a flower nor a tree!  O, dear!”

While she was musing in this way, and gazing about her with eager eyes which saw everything, the children were reading aloud from their odd-looking books.  It was strange to see their small fingers fly so rapidly over the pages.  Horace said it was “a touching sight.”