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."
"I wonder," went on Dotty to herself, "if they should tease God very hard, would he let their eyes come again? No, I s'pose not."
Then she reflected further that perhaps they were glad to be blind; she hoped so. The teacher now called out a class in geography, and began to ask questions.
"What can you tell me about the inhabitants of Utah?" said she.
"I know," spoke up a little boy with black hair, and eyes which would have been bright if the lids had not shut them out of sight,—"I know; Utah is inhabited by a religious INSECT called Mormons."
The superintendent and visitors knew that he meant sect and they laughed at the mistake; all but Dotty and Flyaway, who did not consider it funny at all. Flyaway was seated in a chair, busily engaged in picking dirt out of the heels of her boots with a pin.