chapter14-2

At first Mr.Anagnos, though deeply troubled, seemed to believe me. He was unusually tender and kind to me, and for a brief space the shadow lifted. To please him I tried not to be unhappy, and to make myself as pretty as possible for the celebration of Washington's birthday, which took place very soon after I received the sad news.

I was to be Ceres in a kind of masque given by the blind girls. How well I remember the graceful draperies  that enfolded me, the bright autumn leaves that wreathed my head, and the fruit and grain at my feet and in my hands, and beneath all the piety  of the masque the oppressive sense of coming ill that made my heart heavy.

The night before the  celebration, one  of the teachers  of the Institution had asked me a question connected with“The Frost King”, and I was telling her that Miss Sullivan had talked to me about Jack Frost and his wonderful works. Something I said made her think she detected in my words a confession that I did remember Miss Canby's story of  “The Frost Fairies”, and she laid her conclusions before Mr. Anaghos, although I had told her most emphaticallythat she was mistaken.

Mr.Anagnos, who loved me tenderly,thinking that he had been deceived, turned a deaf ear to the pleadingsof love and innocence. He believed,or at least suspected, that Miss Sullivan and I had deliberately stolen the bright thoughts of another and imposed them on him to win his admiration. I was brought before a court of investigation composed of the teachers and officers of the Institution, and Miss Sullivan was  asked to leave me. Then I was questioned and cross-questioned with what seemed to me a determination on the part of my judges to force  me to acknowledge that I remembered having had “The Frost Fairies” read to me. I felt in every question the doubt and suspicion that was  in their minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me  reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words. The blood pressed about my  thumping heart, and I could scarcely speak, except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it was  only a dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when at last I was allowed to leave the room, I was dazed and did not notice my teacher's caresses,  or the tender words of my friends,  who said I was a brave little girl and they were proud of  me.

As I lay in my bed that night, I wept as I hope few children have wept. I  felt  so  cold, I  imagined  I should  die  before  morning, and  the thought comforted me. I think if this sorrow had come  to me when I was older, it would have broken my  spirit beyond repairing. But the angel of forgetfulness has gathered up and carried away much of the misery and all the bitterness of those sad days.

Miss  Sullivan  had never heard of  “The  Frost  Fairies” or of the book in which it was published.  With the assistance of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, she investigated the matter carefully,  and at last it came out that Mrs. Sophia C.Hopkins had a copy of Miss Canby's  “Birdie  and His Friends”  in 18 88, the year that we spent the summer with her at Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to  find  her  copy; but  she  has  told me that at that time, while Miss Sullivan was away on a vacation,   she tried to amuse me by reading from various books, and although she could not remember reading “The Frost Fairies” any more than I,  yet she felt sure that “Birdie and His Friends” was one of them.  She explained the disappearance of the book by the fact that she had a short  time before sold her house and disposed of  many juvenile books, such as old schoolbooks and fairy tales, and that “Birdie and His  Friends” was probably among them.