“I thought perhaps it was you, but I wasn’t sure,” replied Billy.
“I should think you’d be as glad as anything, now that you can see,” said Sam.
Billy’s mother, who had seen the meeting between the two children, thought it time to explain matters to Sam.
“You see, Sam,” she said, “everything is so new to Billy that he must become accustomed to seeing.”
“He always used to know me just as soon as I came,” replied Sam, “and now he acts as if he didn’t know me at all.”
“He knew you by your step and your voice,” replied Billy’s mother, “but he didn’t know how you really looked before. His mind made a picture of you, but it was so different from the real _you_ that he must get used to the new one.”
Sam understood now why Billy had looked at him as if he did not know him. “Of course he didn’t know me, because he had never _seen_ me before,” he said. “I wonder what sort of a looking fellow he thought I was. What color did you think my eyes were, Billy?”
“I don’t know what seeing people call it,” replied Billy.
“You see, he will have to learn the names of the colors and a great many other things, too,” explained Billy’s mother.
“I should think he would know them,” said Sam. “Anne is only four years old, and she has known them ever so long.”
“Your little sister can see, you know,” said Billy’s mother.
“I suppose it makes a difference,” said Sam. “He’ll soon learn, though, won’t he?”
A new world was opened to Billy, and there were a great many things besides the names of colors for him to learn. Everything about him seemed so wonderful! The beauty about us, which those who are gifted with sight take as a matter of course, filled this newly awakened soul with wonder and admiration. The blue sky and the trees, whose buds were now bursting into their new life, the birds, and the blossoming plants in the parlor window, were a source of constant delight to him. His greatest pleasure was in drawing the objects that most pleased him. These were so well done that Mr. Ledwell gave him a box of paints, and the boy was so happy in this new work it was hard to get him to leave it long enough to take the exercise he so much needed.
“I want to see Billy as sturdy as Sam,” Mr. Ledwell said to his mother. “He must go to school and play with other boys, or we shall have a girl-boy, which we don’t want. There is nothing that makes a boy so independent as roughing it with other boys.”