“You can see?” asked the father in wonder, when Peterkin had explained whence he came. “What does it mean to see? Isn’t all the world a thing of blackness? Is there anything more to it than the dark nothing of the blind?”
“Oh, yes, indeed!” cried Peterkin, his own eyes filling with tears of pity. “There’s the sunshine and the trees, and all the bright flowers of the garden. There are birds of bright plumage, and moonbeams on the surface of the water, and the smiles on people’s faces. Oh, the world is so full of things to see.... I could not tell you all of them.”
The mother nodded. “Yes, that is just the way my father’s father used to speak,” she said slowly. “It was in his youth that this became the Vale of the Blind. Before that, it was known in all the Four Kingdoms as the Vale of Bright Eyes. But now——” Her voice sank away and she sighed.
“Tell me the story,” begged Peterkin. “Tell me how this great misfortune came upon your grandfathers.”
It was the father who answered him. “Our valley,” he began, “was the happiest-hearted of all hereabouts fifty years ago. These things you speak of—these colors and sunshine which we do not know—were here in smiling plenty. The fields were neat and trim with golden grain. The pastures were like new-swept velvet, clean and green. The roads were smooth and bright. The houses were all handsome, with pretty lawns and gardens. Men wore fine clothes and took pride in themselves and in one another.
“But one day, there came into our Valley of Bright Eyes a haggard stranger. He was the saddest being that e’er trudged down over the boundary hills, my grandfather used to tell me. He wept, the whole day long, because he had no teeth. Think of it! he could not be happy for want of a set of teeth!
“Now, all their happiness had made my grandparents and their neighbors a kind, soft-hearted lot. No sooner did they see this man—who said he was a farmer—than they took pity on him. They fed him with porridge and honey—for they knew he could not eat what must be chewed—and they gave him a bed of fragrant blossoms to lie on when the night came.
“But he would not sleep, at once. He got up every little while to ask them: ‘And are you sure this Valley of Bright Eyes is one of the Four Kingdoms, hey? Are you sure that the King of the Four Kingdoms is its ruler, hey?’
“Every time they told him ‘Yes’ he would chuckle and mumble strange words through his toothless gums. In the middle of the night, he arose and looked out across the moonlit fields, where the grain was rich, and down the gleaming road, where the handsome houses stood in sleeping order. He laughed aloud, this time, the story goes. Then he strode out into the road and ran and ran—faster than ever a man had run before.
