The Blinded Lady lived in a little white cottage by the Mill Dam.
She had twenty-seven cats! And a braided rug! And a Chinese cabinet all
full of peacock-feather fans!
Our Father and Mother took us to see them.
It smelt furry.
Carol wore his blue suit. Rosalee wore an almost grown-up dress. I wore
my new middy blouse.
We looked nice.
The Blinded Lady looked nice too.
She sat in a very little chair in the middle of a very large room. Her
skirts were silk and very fat. They fluffed all around her like a
pen-wiper. She had on a white lace cap. There were violets in the cap.
Her eyes didn't look blinded.
We sat on the edge of our chairs. And stared at her. And stared. She
didn't mind.
All the cats came and purred their sides against our legs. It felt soft
and sort of bubbly.
The Blinded Lady recited poetry to us. She recited "Gray's Elegy in a
Country Churchyard." She recited "The Charge of the Light Brigade." She
recited "Bingen on the Rhine."
When she got all through reciting poetry she asked us if we knew any.
We did.
We knew "Onward Christian Soldiers," and "Hey Diddle, Diddle, the Cat
and the Fiddle." And Rosalee knew two verses about
It was many and many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee.
We hoped the Blinded Lady would be pleased.
She wasn't!
The Blinded Lady said it wasn't nearly enough just to know the first two
verses of anything! That you ought to know all the verses of everything!
The Blinded Lady said that every baby just as soon as it was born ought
to learn every poem that it possibly could so that if it ever grew up
and was blinded it would have something to amuse itself with!
We promised we would!
We asked the Blinded Lady what made her blinded.
She said it was because she made all her father's shirts when she was
six years old!
We promised we wouldn't!
"And now," said the Blinded Lady, "I'd like to have the Little Dumb Boy
come forward and stand at my knee so I can touch his face!"
Carol didn't exactly like to be called the Little Dumb Boy, but he came
forward very politely and stood at the Blinded Lady's knee. The Blinded
Lady ran her fingers all up and down his face. It tickled his nose. He
looked puckered.
"It's a pleasant face!" said the Blinded Lady.
"We like it!" said my Father.
"Oh _very_ much!" said my Mother.
"Has he always been dumb?" said the Blinded Lady.
"Always," said my Mother. "But never deaf!"
"Oh _Tush_!" said the Blinded Lady. "Don't be stuffy! Afflictions were
meant to talk about!"
"But Carol, you see," said my Mother, "can't talk about his! So _we_
don't!"
"Oh--_Tush_!" said the Blinded Lady.
She pushed Carol away. She thumped her cane on the braided rug.
"There's one here, isn't there," she said, "that hasn't got anything to
be sensitive about? Let the Young Lassie come forward," she said, "so I
can touch her face!"
It made Rosalee very pink to have her face explored.
The Blinded Lady laughed as she explored it.
"Ha!" she said. "Age about seventeen? Gold hair? Sky-blue eyes?
Complexion like peaches and cream?--Not much cause here," laughed the
Blinded Lady, "for this Young Lassie ever to worry when she looks in the
glass!"
"Oh but she does!" I cried. "She worries herself most to death every
time she looks!--She's afraid her hair will turn gray before Derry
comes!"
"S-s-h!" said everybody.
The Blinded Lady cocked her head. She ruffled herself. It looked like
feathers.
"Derry?" said the Blinded Lady. "Who's Derry?--A _beau_?"
My Father gruffed his throat.
"Oh Derry's just a young friend of ours," he said.
"He lives in Cuba," said my Mother.
"Cuba's an island!" I said. "It floats in water! They eat bananas! They
have fights! It's very hot! There's lots of moonlight! Derry's father
says that when Rosalee's married he'll build a----."
"Hush, Ruthy!" said my Father. "You've talked quite enough already!"
The Blinded Lady patted her skirts. They billowed all around her like
black silk waves. It looked funny.
"H-m-m-mmm!" she said. "Let the Child-Who's-Talked-Too-Much-Already come
forward now so that I can feel her face!"