That winter, Eleanor had whooping cough and her usual rounds of winter colds. She studied with the children of family friends and nursed her mother through many migraines. She heard bits and pieces of conversations that alluded to something being wrong with her father, but rejected the confused images of what she heard, certain that nothing could be wrong with her beloved father.
Then it was discovered that seven-year-old Eleanor could not read! When it was revealed that she also could not sew or cook, the family hired a tutor to make her proficient in these three arenas. Anna tried to make up for her earlier lack of attention to Eleanor's education by monitoring her lessons for many hours each day, correcting her spelling, and supervising her reading. Each afternoon, she also read reading aloud to all of her children. Eleanor became a proficient reader, but the tutoring in cooking was an abysmal failure.
With no prior symptoms, Eleanor suddenly became sullen and rebellious. She did what she was told not to, she put sugar on her cereal, and she lied about her conduct. She stole bagfuls of candy from the pantry, refused to go to parties, and had several public tantrums.
Meanwhile, her father returned to the States and entered another sanitarium. Anna refused to see him until he had been sober for a long period of time, and Eleanor had only his letters which she read and reread, fantasizing about the wishes and promises made, and turning them into realities in her imagination.
Suddenly eight-year-old Eleanor and her brothers were hurried out of the house and Eleanor was hustled to her godmother's home. A few days later she was told that her mother had died of diphtheria. The death made no impression on her at the moment; in fact, the only thing that registered in her mind was that her father was back and she would soon see him.
When they met at last, he told her that they must keep in close contact from now on, that someday she would make a home for him again, and that they would travel and do many interesting things together. Eleanor imagined herself in the role of "wife" to the extent that she wasn't quite sure if her brothers would be her and her father's children, or if they would be on their own.
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