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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11998-0.txt b/11998-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f0c88e --- /dev/null +++ b/11998-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1025 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11998 *** + +SIGHT TO THE BLIND + + +A STORY + +BY + +LUCY FURMAN + + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +IDA TARBELL + + + + +1914 + + + + +TO HARRIET BUTLER + + + + +Contents + +INTRODUCTION BY IDA M. TARBELL SIGHT TO THE BLIND AFTERWORD + + +The illustrations reproduced in the Introduction to this volume +have been selected from those in Miss Furman's "Mothering on +Perilous." + + + + +Introduction Ida M. Tarbell + + + + +Introduction + +A more illuminating interpretation of the settlement idea than Miss +Furman's stories "Sight to the Blind" and "Mothering on Perilous" +does not exist. Spreading what one has learned of cheerful, +courageous, lawful living among those that need it has always been +recognized as part of a man's work in the world. It is an +obligation which has generally been discharged with more zeal than +humanity. To convert at the point of a sword is hateful business. +To convert by promises of rewards, present or future, is hardly +less hateful. And yet much of the altruistic work of the world has +been done by one or a union of these methods. + +That to which we have converted men has not always been more +satisfactory than our way of going at it. It has often failed to +make radical changes in thought or conduct. Our reliance has been +on doctrines, conventions, the three R's. They are easily +sterile--almost sure to be if the teacher's spirit is one of +cock-sure pride in the superiority of his religion and his +cultivation. + +The settlement in part at least is the outgrowth of a desire to +find a place in which certain new notions of enlightening men and +women could be freely tested and applied. The heart of the idea +lies in its name. The modern bearers of good tidings instead of +handing down principles and instructions at intervals from pulpit +or desk _settle_ among those who need them. They keep open house +the year around for all, and to all who will, give whatever they +have learned of the art of life. They are neighbors and comrades, +learners as well as teachers. + +It would be hard to find on the globe a group of people who need +more this sort of democratic hand-to-hand contact than those Miss +Furman describes, or a group with whom it is a greater satisfaction +to establish it. Tucked away on the tops and slopes of the +mountains of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee are thousands of +families, many of them descendants of the best of English stock. +Centuries of direful poverty combined with almost complete +isolation from the life of the world has not been able to take from +them their look of race, or corrupt their brave, loyal, proud +hearts. Encircled as they are by the richest and most highly +cultivated parts of this country, near as they are to us in blood, +we have done less for their enlightenment than for that of the +Orient, vastly less than we do for every new-come immigrant. On +the religious side all that they have had is the occasional +itinerant preacher, thundering at them of the wrath of God; and on +the cultural what Aunt Dalmanutha calls the "pindling" district +school. In the teachings of both is an over-weight of sternness +and superstition, little "plain human kindness," almost nothing +that points the way to decent, happy, healthy living. + +The results are both grotesque and pitiful. Is it strange that the +feud should flourish in a land ruled by a "God of wrath?" Is +anything but sickness and death to be expected where both are +looked on as visitations of an angry God? + +Among these victims of our neglect and our blundering methods of +teaching the settlement school has gone. It goes to stay. Not +three months, but twelve months its teaching goes on; not one +Sabbath in the month, but three hundred and sixty-five days in the +year it preaches. Literally it is a new world which the settlement +opens to the mountaineers, one ruled by cleanliness, thrift, +knowledge and good-will. The beauty of it is that living day after +day under this order they come to know that its principles are +practical truths; that they work out. To be told that the baby is +dying not because the Lord is angry with the family but because the +milk is impure may seem little better than impiety at first, but +save the baby by proper care and you have gone a long way to +proving that pure milk is God's law and that all the prayers in the +world will not change His ruling. + +For distorted imaginings of the way the world is run the settlement +is giving to the mountaineers something of the harmony and beauty +of science. + +New notions of heroism and honor are filtering into the country +along with the notions of sanitation and health. That injuries +can be honorably forgiven and forgotten is a hard doctrine to +swallow in Eastern Kentucky, but when you see it practiced by those +from the great world of which you have only dreamed it comes easier. + +The contrast between the two ways of living--that in the settlement +and that in their mountain homes--is not long in doing its work. +Decent living even in great poverty is possible if you know how, +and the settlement shows what can be done with what you have. The +relation of their poverty and ill-health to their lack of knowledge +and their perpetual lawless warfare is quickly enough grasped by +the young, and means a new generation with vastly improved morals, +health, self-control. + +What more fruitful and appealing world for work, particularly for +women, do these United States offer? If there is an idle or lonely +woman anywhere revolting against the dullness of life, wanting work +with the flavor and virility of pioneering in it, let her look to +these mountains. She 'll find it. And what material to work with +will come under her hands! "I often ask myself," says the heroine +of "Mothering on Perilous," one of Miss Furman stories of the +settlement school, "What other boys have such gifts to bring to +their nation? Proud, self-reliant, the sons of heroes, bred in +brave traditions, knowing nothing of the debasing greed for money, +strengthened by a hand-to-hand struggle with nature from their very +infancy (I have not known of one who did not begin at five or six +to shoulder family responsibilities such as hoeing corn, tending +stock, clearing new ground, grubbing, hunting, gathering the crops) +they should bring to their country primal energy of body and +spirit, unquenchable valor, and minds untainted by the lust of +wealth." + +IDA M. TARBELL + + + + +Sight to the Blind + +One morning in early September, Miss Shippen, the trained nurse at +the Settlement School on Perilous, set off for a day of +district-visiting over on Clinch, accompanied by Miss Loring, +another of the workers. After riding up Perilous Creek a short +distance, they crossed Tudor Mountain, and then followed the +headwaters of Clinch down to Skain's Fork, where in a forlorn little +district-school-house the trained nurse gave a talk on the causes +and prevention of tuberculosis, the spitting of tobacco-juice over +the floor by teacher and pupils abating somewhat as she proceeded. +Two miles farther on she stopped at the Chilton home for a talk to +half a dozen assembled mothers on the nursing and prevention of +typhoid, of which there had been a severe epidemic along Clinch +during the summer. + +Afterward the school-women were invited to dinner by one of the +visiting mothers. Mrs. Chilton at first objected to their going, +but finally said: + +"That 's right; take 'em along with you, Marthy. I allow it 'll +pyeerten Aunt Dalmanuthy up to hear some new thing. She were +powerful' low in her sperrits the last I seed." + +"Pore maw!" sighed Marthy, her soft voice vibrant with sympathy. +"It looks like things is harder for her all the time. Something new +to ruminate on seems to lift her up a spell and make her forgit her +blindness. She has heared tell of you school-women and your quare +doings, and is sort of curious." + +"She is blind?" inquired the nurse. + +"Blind as a bat these twelve year'," replied Mrs. Chilton; "it fell +on her as a judgment for rebelling when Evy, her onliest little gal, +was took. She died of the breast-complaint; some calls it the +galloping consumpt'." + +"I allus allowed if Uncle Joshuay and them other preachers had +a-helt off and let maw alone a while in her grief," broke in +Marthy's gentle voice, "she never would have gone so far. But Uncle +Joshuay in especial were possessed to pester her, and inquire were +she yet riconciled to the will of God, and warn her of judgment if +she refused." + +"Doubtless Uncle Joshuay's high talk did agg her on," said Mrs. +Chilton, impartially, "but she need n't to have blasphemed like she +done at Evy's funeral occasion." + +Marthy covered her face with her hands. + +"Oh, that day!" she exclaimed, shuddering. "Will I ever forgit it? +John and me had got married just a month before Evy died in October, +and gone to live up the hollow a small piece from maw, and even then +she were complaining of a leetle scum over her eyes. Losing Evy, +and rebelling like she done atterward, and Uncle Joshuay's talk, +holp it along fast, and it were plain to all before winter were over +that he had prophesied right, and her sight were a-going. I would +come down the branch of a morning and beg her to let me milk the cow +and feed the property and red up the house and the like, but she +would refuse in anger, and stumble round over chairs and table and +bean-pot and wash-kittle, and maintain all spring and summer her +sight were as good as ever. Never till that day of the funeral +occasion, one year atter Evy died, did she ever give in." + +Here Marthy again covered her face with her hands, and Mrs. Chilton +took up the tale: + +"I can see her now, up thar on the hill-shoulder, betwixt you and +John on the front log, by Evy's grave-house, and Uncle Joshuay +a-hollering and weeping and denouncing like he does, and her setting +through it like a rock. Then finally Uncle Joshuay he thundered at +her the third time, 'Hain't it the truth, Sister Dalmanuthy, that +the judgment and the curse of God has fell on you for your +rebelliousness, like I prophesied, and that you hain't able to see +John thar or Marthy thar or the hand thar before your face thar?' +when Aunt Dalmanuthy riz up sudden, and clinched her hands, and says +slow and fierce: 'Man, it _is_ the truth you speak. The curse _has_ +fell; and I hain't able to see John here or Marthy here or the hand +here before my face here. But listen what I got to say about it. +I'm able to hate and to curse as good as God. And I do! I hate and +curse the Hand that, after taking all else I loved, snatched from my +bosom the one little yoe lamb I treasured thar; I hate and curse Him +that expected me to set down tame and quiet under such cruelty and +onjestice; I hate and curse and defy the Power that hated and spited +me enough, atter darkening the light of my life, to put out the +sight of my eyes! Now,' she says, 'you lay claim to being mighty +familiar with the Lord; take that message to Him!' she says. + +"Women, that whole funeral meeting kotch its breath at them awful +words, and sot there rooted and grounded; and she turnt and looked +around defiant-like with them sightless eyes, and strode off down +the hill, John and Marthy follering." + +[Illustration: "Aunt Dalmanuthy riz up sudden, and clinched her +hands"] + +After a somewhat protracted silence, Marthy's gentle voice resumed: + +"And from that day to this John and me hain't left her sence. We +shet up our house and moved down to hern; and she tuck to setting by +the fire or out on the porch, allus a-knitting, and seldom speaking +a word in all them years about Evy or her sorrow or her curse. When +my first little gal come along, I named it Evy, thinking to give her +some easement or pleasure; but small notice has she ever showed. +'Pears like my young uns don't do much but bother her, her hearing +and scent being so powerful' keen. I have allus allowed if she +could git her feelings turnt loose one time, and bile over good and +strong, it might benefit her; but thar she sets, day in, day out, +proud and restless, a-bottling it all up inside." + +"She biles over a right smart on you, Marthy, I should say," +remarked the hostess. + +"No, now, Susan, she don't, neither, considering her provocations. +She were the smartest, most managing woman in these parts, and I +never did have no faculty, and don't run her house like I ought; and +John is a puny man and not able to do all her bidding; and the young +uns they gits terrible noisy and feisty at times, all but Evy." + +"The women" rode with Marthy a mile farther, stopping before a +lonely log-house, with corn-fields climbing to meet the timber +half-way up the mountain in the rear. Marthy ushered her guests +into the porch with the words, "Here 's the fotch-on women, Maw." + +The tall, gaunt, forbidding-looking old woman sitting there turned +sightless eyes toward them, putting forth a strong hand. + +"Howdy, women," she said grimly. "Git cheers for 'em, Evy." + +They seated themselves, and Aunt Dalmanutha resumed her knitting, +swiftly and fiercely, all the pent-up force of a strong nature +thrown into the simple act. Instead of the repose that +characterizes the faces of the blind, her eaglelike countenance bore +the marks of fretful, sullen, caged, almost savage energy. + +"Go quick and take a look that 'ere pot of beans, Marthy," she +ordered. "Evy declar's they hain't scorching, but my nose informs +me different'. Take the women's bonnets, Evy, and lay 'em on my +'stead; and round up all the young uns back in the corn-crib, so 's +I can git the benefit of the talk. Now, women," she continued +peremptorily, "I been hearing a whole passel about your doings and +goings and comings these four or five year' gone, and I 'm right +smart curious to know what it 's all about. What air you in these +parts for, anyhow, and how come you to come?" + +"We are here," began Miss Shippen, quietly, "first and foremost +because we want to educate the children who have never had the +chance they deserve--" + +"That 's so; they hain't, more shame to the State," interrupted Aunt +Dalmanutha. "Take me, now; I were raised forty-five mile' from a +school-house or church-house, and never had no chance to l'arn 'a' +from 'izard.' And these few pindling present-day district-schools +scattered here and yan they only spiles the young uns for work, and +hain't no improvement on nothing." + +"Next," proceeded the trained nurse, "we want to be friendly and +helpful to the grown-up people who need it, especially to the sick +and suffering." + +"I heared of the nursing you done in these parts in the typhoid last +summer," said Aunt Dalmanutha, "and certainly it sounded good. But, +women, one more question I crave to put to you. Do you mix in +religion and preachifying as you go along?" + +"We do not preach at all," replied Miss Shippen; "we let our deeds +speak for us." + +Aunt Dalmanutha extended a swift hand. "I am proud to make your +acquaintance then," she said. "I have had my 'nough of religion and +preachifying, but of plain human friendliness not, because there is +little of it on the ramble." + +"My special work," continued the trained nurse, "is of course with +the sick, nursing and teaching how to nurse, and how to prevent as +well as to cure illness, and sending cases I cannot help down to the +level country for proper treatment. I see, Aunt Dalmanutha, that +you are blind. Have you any objection to letting me take a close +look at your eyes?" + +"Look all you want," was the grim reply; "I am used to being a' +object and a spectacle." + +The nurse took from her satchel a glass with which she carefully +examined the dulled and lifeless eyes, sitting down afterward +without a word. + +"And not only a' object and a spectacle," continued Aunt Dalmanutha, +bitterly, "but a laughing-stock and a byword for the preachers in +especial to mock and flout at. Yes, I that were once the workingest +and most capablest woman up and down Clinch; I that not only could +weave my fourteen yard', or hoe my acre of corn, or clear my man's +stint of new ground, a day, but likewise had such faculty in my +head-piece that I were able to manage and contrive and bring to +pass; I that rejoiced in the work of my hands and the pyeertness of +my mind and the fruits of my industry, and when my man died were +able to run the farm and take keer of the children as good as +before--I am sot down here in the midst of rack and ruin, with the +roof a-leaking over me, the chimbly sagging out, the fence rotten +and the hogs in the corn, the property eatin' their heads off, and +the young uns lacking warm coats and kivers, John and Marthy being +so mortal doless; I am sot here bound hand and foot, my strength +brought to naught, my ambition squenched, my faculty onusable, a +living monument to the hate and revenge and onjestice of God!" She +spoke with growing passion, but checked herself, and began more +calmly. + +"And if it were just, Dalmanuthy Holt would be the last to speak +ag'in' it. I allus prided myself on being a reasoning woman. But +just it is not, and never were, and never will be. I have seed a +sight of trouble in my day, women, and bore up under it patient and +courageous. Besides the man of my love, and the payrents that begot +me, seven sons of my body have I laid in the grave, three in infancy +of summer-complaint, two with the choking-disease, two with typhoid; +and in all this I never once lifted up my voice ag'in' God, but bore +it still and patient, even when I were reduced down to just John, my +sorriest son, and little Evy, my onliest daughter and the child of +my prayer. But, women,"--and again strong passion thrilled in her +voice,--"when I seed that one little tender yoe lamb that I +cherished with deathless love begin for to pale and cough and pine, +then and thar the sword entered my soul, my heart turnt over in my +breast, and I cried out wild and desperate: 'Not this! not this! +Take all else I got, but not her! It is cruel, it is onjust. I +rebel ag'in' it, I will never endure it.' And I kep' a-crying it as +I seed her fade and thin; I cried it when the last breath flickered +from her pore little body; I cried it when I laid her in the cold +ground; I cried it when the preachers come to see me atterward, +threatening judgment; I cried it when I felt the curse a-falling and +the sight of my-eyes a-going; I cried it loud and fierce at her +funeral occasion; and cry it I will to the end of my darkened days! +It were cruel, it were onjust, it were horrible, it were wicked, of +God to treat me that way, and never will I say it wa' n't!" + +Miss Shippen waited a full minute before answering quietly and +slowly: "It was cruel, it was unjust, it was horrible, it was +wicked, that you should have been made to suffer so; above all, Aunt +Dalmanutha, it was unnecessary. With a little knowledge, and proper +food and fresh air, your daughter's life could have been saved; with +knowledge and proper treatment your sons need not have died of +dysentery or typhoid or even diphtheria; with knowledge your +blindness itself, which is no curse, but would as surely have come +upon you had you never lost Evy and never rebelled in your heart, +need have lasted only a few months. For these are cataracts that +you have on your eyes, and nothing would have been simpler and +easier than their removal." + +Amazement, incredulity, almost horror were written upon Aunt +Dalmanutha's countenance as she heard these quiet words. + +"Where do you get your authority over preachers, woman?" she +demanded, leaning fiercely forward, + +"I get my authority," replied the trained nurse, firmly, "from my +knowledge of modern medicine and surgery; I get my authority from +things seen with my eyes and heard with my ears during days and +nights of duty on the battle-line between life and death; I get my +authority," she continued more solemnly, "from Him whose spirit of +freedom and tolerance has made possible the advances in modern +science; who is the source of the rising tide of helpfulness +manifest in human hearts everywhere; who, when he was on earth, went +about doing good, and proclaiming not the hate, the vengeance, the +cruelty of God, but His mercy, His kindness, His pity, His fatherly +love." + +The blind woman sat as though turned to stone, except that the veins +in her neck and temples throbbed violently. + +"Do you mean to tell me God never wanted to take my loved ones from +me?" she asked at length from a dry throat. + +"I do. I mean that their deaths, so far from being the will of God, +were the fruit alone of ignorance and of evil conditions." + +"You mean to say that the hand of vengeance wa' n't never lifted +ag'in' me, and I hain't never sot under no curse?" + +"I do." + +"And that the preachers has lied to me?" she said through clenched +jaws. + +"They were simply mistaken; they knew no better." + +Aunt Dalmanutha lifted a shaking arm. "Woe to them if ever they +cross my path ag'in!" she cried hoarsely. + +"Don't think about them," said the nurse; "the thing for you to do +at once is to go down to Lexington, in the Blue Grass country, to a +doctor I know there who does great things for eyes, and who, if it +is not too late, will remove those cataracts and restore you to +sight and usefulness and strength, as God intends. I will write at +once to the hospital, and make the arrangements; you should start +within a week. The trip," she added, "need cost you nothing, if you +are unable to pay your way." + +Aunt Dalmanutha drew herself up proudly. + +"I hain't a' object of charity," she said. "If I go, I 'll pay my +way. I got something laid by still from my weaving days. But it +has come on me too sudden'; I feel all lost; I will have to study a +heap before, I can make up my mind." She moved her hands about +before her in a dazed, helpless way. + +During the rest of the visit she was silent and distraught. Twice +at dinner her shaking hands knocked over her coffee-cup, and once +the sorghum-pitcher, little fair-haired Evy cleaning up quietly +after her granny, and placing things to her hand so deftly and +furtively that she did not know it was done at all, while on her +other side sat Marthy, ever kind, solicitous, and patient, and at +the far end of the table John vied with her in unobtrusive but +loving attentions to "maw." Never had "the women" seen an elderly +or afflicted person more tenderly and devotedly cared for. But the +object of it all sat rigid, self-absorbed, frowning, as oblivious to +the light and warmth of love as to the light of day, her sole +remarks being contemptuous apologies for Marthy's cooking, and +complaints of the hardship of having to "gum it," or eat without +teeth. + + +One week later there was a call from the road in front of the school +hospital, and Miss Shippen was pleased and relieved to see Aunt +Dalmanutha mounted on a nag behind John. In her black calico +sunbonnet and dress, and long, drab apron, with her hand tightly +clutched to John's arm, and dark apprehension written upon her blind +face, she was indeed a pitiable sight. + +"I have pondered your words," she said to Miss Shippen, "and have +made up my mind to foller them. With naught but them to swing out +on, I am setting forth into the unknown. I that hain't never so +much as rid in a wagon, am about to dare the perils of the railroad; +that hain't been twenty mile' from home in all my days, am +journeying into a far and absent country, from which the liabilities +are I won't never return. Far'well, if far'well it be!" + + +On the last day of October, Miss Shippen had just dismissed her +seventh-grade class in home-nursing, and was standing in the +hospital porch drinking in the unspeakable autumnal glory of the +mountains, when a wagon, rumbling and groaning along the road and +filled with people, stopped with a lurch at the gate. Advancing, +the nurse was at first puzzled as to the identity of the people; +then she recognized the faces of John and Marthy Holt and of little +Evy. But for several seconds she gazed without recognition at the +striking figure on the front seat beside John. This figure wore a +remarkable hat, bristling with red, yellow, and green flowers, and a +plaid silk waist in which every color of the rainbow fought with +every other. Her bright and piercing dark eyes traveled hungrily +and searchingly over the countenance of the trained nurse; her lips +opened gradually over teeth of dazzling whiteness and newness. +Then, leaning swiftly from the wagon, she gathered the nurse into a +powerful, bear-like hug, exclaiming, with solemn joy: + +"You air the woman! I know you by your favorance to your talk. I +allowed you would look that fair and tender. Here air the woman, +John and Marthy, that restored unto me my sight, and brung me up out +of the Valley of the Shadow. She tolt me what to do, and I follered +it, and, lo! the meracle was performed; wonderful things was done +unto me!" Here Aunt Dalmanutha--for it was she--supplemented the +embrace with kisses rained upon the head and brow of the trained +nurse. + +Extricating herself at last from the strong arms in which she was +lifted from the ground and rocked powerfully back and forth, Miss +Shippen was able to look once more into the face she had failed to +recognize, and from which at least a score of years were now erased. + +"Yes, John and Marthy and Evy and t' other seven young uns, take the +look of your life at that 'ere angel messenger that brung me the +good tidings of great joy; that lifted me up out of the pit of +darkness on to the mountain-tops whar I now sojourn. Yes, look, for +in heaven you 'll never see no better sight." + +Embarrassed by the open-mouthed family gaze, and by the additional +presence of several teachers, who stopped to see and listen, Miss +Shippen said: + +"Tell me all about your trip, Aunt Dalmanutha." + +"Tell about it? Tell that which ten thousand tongues could scarce +relate? God knows my stumbling speech hain't equal to the occasion; +but I 'll do my best. You last seed me a-taking my fearsome way to +the railroad; and what were the sinking of my heart when John left +me thar on the cyar, words will never do jestice to; seemed like I +were turnt a-loose in space, rushing I knowed not whither. The +first ground I toch was when I heared the voice of that 'ere doctor +you writ to inquiring for me at the far eend. He said he allowed I +would be skeered and lonesome, so he come hisself to fetch me to the +hospital. Woman, it were the deed of a saint, and holp me up +wonderful'. Then I were put to bed a spell, and soft-footed women +waited on me. Then one morning he tolt me he were aiming to peel +them 'ere ingun-skins off my eyes, and for me to have no fears, but +trust in him; that he believed them eye-nerves, shet back thar in +the dark, was still alive and able to do business. And though my +heart shuck like a ager, I laid down on that table same as a +soldier. When I got up, I were blind as ever, with rags tied thick +around my eyes. And I sot there patient day after day, and the +doctor he 'd drap in and cheer me up. 'Aunt Dally,' he would +say--he claimed he never had no time to git out the Dalmanuthy--'in +just a leetle while you 'll be a-trotting around the Blue Grass here +worse 'n a race-hoss; but you got to git your training gradual.' +Then he 'd thin the bandages more and more, till a sort of gray +twilight come a-sifting through. 'And don't think,' he would say, +'that I am aiming to let you lope back to them mountains till I git +you plumb made over. Fust thing is a new set of teeth,--you done +gummed yourself into dyspepsy and gineral cantankerousness,--and +then I 'm sot on taking you to my house to visit a month and eat +good victuals and git your stummick opened up whar it done growed +together, and your mind unj'inted, and your sperrits limbered +similar.' And straightway he sont for a tooth-dentist, that tuck a +pictur' of my gums in wax then and thar. Then come the great day +when I looked my fust on a human countenance ag'in. I axed that it +be the doctor's, and I seed him only through black glasses darkly; +but, O God! what a sight it were none but the blind can ever tell! +Then for quite a spell I looked out through them dark glasses at the +comings and goings and people there in the hospital. Then one day +the doctor he run in and says, 'Time for you to look on the +sunlight, Aunt Dally. Keep on them glasses, and wrop a shawl round +you, and come with me. I 'm aiming to show you the prettiest +country God ever made.' Then he holp me into a chariot that run +purely by the might of its own manoeuvers, and I seed tall houses +and chimblys whiz by dimlike, and then atter a while he retch over +and lifted my glasses. + +"Women, the tongue of Seraphim hain't competent to tell what I seed +then! That country hain't rugged and on-eend like this here, but is +spread out smooth and soft and keerful, with nary ragged corner +nowhar', and just enough roll to tole the eye along. Thar I, beheld +the wide, green pastures I had heared tell of in Scriptur', thar I +seed still waters, clear as crystal, dotted here and yan, and on +them pastures and by them waters thousands of sleek nags and cattle +a-feeding and drinking, peaceful and satisfied; thar, bowered back +amongst lofty trees, was the beautiful many mansions and homes of +the blest; thar was the big road, smooth and white as glass, down +which pretty boys and gals too fair for this world, come on prancing +nags; thar, best of all, hovering and brooding tender over +everything, was the warm, blue sky and the golden sunlight. Them +alone would have been enough for me. Yes, it were indeed a heavenly +vision. I set, scarcely knowing if I were in or out of the body. +'Am I translated,' I axed the doctor, 'and is this here the New +Jerusalem, and them pretty creeturs the angels of heaven?' 'Far +from it, Aunt Dally,' he says, sighing. 'Them air the fortunate +Blue-Grass folk, that be so used to blessings they don't even know +they got 'em, let alone makin' a' effort to share 'em with the +needy. If they was as onselfish within as they air fair and +prosperous without, we would n't need no millennium.' + +"I can't say I had any rale, realizing sense of sight that day. It +were all too wonderful and visionary. And them weeks that follered +at the doctor's house, too, they seem like a love-lie dream--the +delicate victuals that fairly melted down my throat before these +here fine store teeth could clutch 'em, the kindness of him and his +woman, and of his little gal, that teached me my a-b-c's. For she +said, 'With your head-piece, Aunt Dally, it hain't too late for you +to die a scholar yet; you got to git l'arning.' And, women, I got +it. I knowed all my letters and were quite a piece in the primer +before I left, and Evy here she aims to finish my education and have +me reading Scriptur' come summer. Yes, it all seemed too good and +fair to be true, and I lived in a daze. I come to myself +sufficient', though, to have the little gal write John to hire a +wagon and bring Marthy and all the young uns to the railroad for to +meet me, and see the world and the cyars; and also, realizing I were +going to git back my faculty and workingness, and not being able to +make the doctor take ary cent for his doings,--he said it were the +least the Blue Grass could do for the mountains,--I tuck what money +I had left and bought me some fine store clothes for to match my +teeth and my innard feelings. 'Peared like I could n't noway feel +at home in them sorry gyarments I had wore in sorry days. + +"But it were not till I sot in the railroad cyars ag'in, and the +level country had crinkled up into hills, and the hills had riz up +into mountains, all a-blazin' out majestical' in the joy of yaller +and scarlet and green and crimson, that I raley got my sight and +knowed I had it. Yes, the Blue Grass is fine and pretty and smooth +and heavenly fair; but the mountains is my nateral and everlastin' +element. They gethered round me at my birth; they bowed down their +proud heads to listen at my first weak cry; they cradled me on their +broad knees; they suckled me at their hard but ginerous breasts. +Whether snow-kivered, or brown, or green, or many-colored, they +never failed to speak great, silent words to me whensoever I lifted +up my eyes to 'em; they still holds in their friendly embrace all +that is dear to me, living or dead; and, women, if I don't see 'em +in heaven, I 'll be lonesome and homesick thar. + +"Yes, when I laid eyes on them well-beloved forms, I knowed for sure +I had my sight. And the folks in the cyar they knowed it, too. I +am in gineral one to keep things locked and pinned down inside me; +but for once I let go all holts and turnt a-loose. Then and thar I +bu'sted out into shouts of joy and songs of praise; I magnified the +Lord and all His works; I testified of my salvation from blindness +of body and sperrit; I hollered till natur' went plumb back on me +and I could n't fetch nary 'nother breath. + +"Then when I stepped off the train, thar was the living human faces +of my own blood, John and Marthy, and the eight young uns whose +countenances I had never beheld. And as I gazed, women, more scales +drapped from my long-blind eyes. In the face of John here, the boy +I had allus abused for no-git-up and shiftless, I beheld +loving-kindness and onselfishness writ large and fair; looking on +little Evy, I seed love divine in her tender eyes, and light raying +out from her yaller hair and from the other seven smaller head' +bunched around her like cherubim'. And Marthy! Right here, women, +I ax your pardon if I stop a spell, for of a truth words fails me +and tears squenches me. What did I see in that kind, gentle, +patient face of hern? Women, it were the very living sperrit of +Christ hisself I seed thar--the sperrit that returned love for hate, +mercy for revilement, joy and life for curses and death. Yes, when +them eyes of hers was turnt on me so full of love, right thar my +heart broke. I had bemeaned and berated and faulted her so +continual', and belt her up as a pore, doless creetur', without no +backbone or ambition; and now I knowed that if thar ever were a +tender, ginuwine, angel daughter on this here earth, it were her to +me. Women, when she tuck me to her bosom, I just slid right down +thar on 'my unworthy knees thar on the ground at her feet thar, and +with bitter tears beseeched of her to forgive and forgit my +hard-heartedness and stone-blindness and dog-meanness, which of +course, being Marthy, she had already done allus-ago. + +"Then, friends, my cup were running over; and as we journeyed up +creeks and down mountains nigh these three days, we was the +nunitedest and joyfullest family that ever follered a trail; and all +the way I laid my plans for to set the farm on its feet ag'in, and +clear new ground, and maul rails for the fence, and rive boards for +the roof, and quairy out rock for a new chimbly, and bring up the +yield of corn, and weed out the eatingest of the cattle, and git my +loom sot up and running so 's to have a-plenty of kivers and linsey +for sale come cold weather; and we all rejoiced amazing, knowing +prosperity wa' n't no further from us than yan side the mountain. + +"And now, fellow-sisters, you see before you a ree-surrected woman. +I hain't only got the sight of my eyes; I got mind-sight, +heart-sight, soul-sight. I hain't only got these fine store-teeth +and a tamed and biddable stummick; but the innard power to chaw and +digest speritual truth. I hain't only wearing these gayly, boughten +clothes, I 'm a-fla'nting the robes of joy and the gyarments of +praise. I know the Lord don't hate me and never did; I know I am +free, restored, and saved; I know my Redeemer liveth, and has fotch +me up out of the blackness of darkness on to the top-most peaks of +joy and peace and thanksgiving. + +"And don't think, women,--don't never, never think I hain't aiming +to let my light shine! I aim to use my faculty not for worldly +betterment alone, but to turn it loose likewise in the line of +religion and preachifying. Yes, every night this enduring winter +will see me a-s'arching the Scriptur'; and what I can't read I can +ricollect; and come August, when the craps is laid by and the +funeral occasions sets in, I will be ready for 'em. There won't be +one in twenty mile' that won't see me a-coming, and a-taking my +stand by the grave-houses in these reesurrection gyarments, for to +norate the wonders of my experience, and to shame and confound and +drownd out Uncle Joshuay and t'other blind leaders of the blind +whatever they dare raise their gray heads and hoary lies, and +gin'rally to publish abroad, world-without-eend, the ons'archable +riches and glory and power of the love of God." + + + + +Afterword + +In the heart of the Kentucky mountains, that romantic and +little-known region popularly regarded as the "home of feuds and +moonshine," a rural social settlement, the first in the world, was +begun fifteen years ago under the auspices of the State Federation +of Women's Clubs of Kentucky. + +Half a dozen young women from the prosperous Blue-Grass section, +headed by Miss Katherine Pettit and Miss May Stone, went up into the +mountains, several days' journey from a railroad, and, pitching +their tents, spent three successive summers holding singing, sewing, +cooking and kindergarten classes, giving entertainments, visiting +homes, and generally establishing friendly relations with the men, +women, and children of three counties. + +One of the many surprises was to find the mountains so thickly +populated,--the regulation family boasting a dozen children,--and +the most inadequate provision made by the State for the education of +these young sons and daughters of heroes. For it is well known that +much of this section was settled originally by men who received +land-grants for their services in the Revolution, and who, with +their families, disappeared into these fastnesses to emerge later +only at their country's call,--the War of 1812, the Mexican, the +Civil, and the Spanish Wars bringing them out in full force, to +display astonishing valor always. + +Aware of this ancestry, the visiting women were not surprised to +find much personal dignity, native intelligence, and gentleness of +manner, even among men who conceived it their duty to "kill off" +family enemies, and women who had never had the first chance at +"book-l'arning." + +One of the three summers was spent on Troublesome Creek, at the +small village of Hindman, the seat of Knott County. Here the +"citizens" so appreciated the "quare, foreign women" as to be +unwilling to let them depart. "Stay with us and do something for +our young ones, that mostly run wild now, drinking and shooting," +they said. "We will give you the land to build a school on." + +Touched to the heart, seeing the great need, and asking nothing +better than to spend their lives in such a service, Miss Stone and +Miss Pettit went "out into the world" that winter and gave talks in +various cities, by spring raising enough money to start the desired +Settlement School at Hindman. + +During a dozen years this remarkable school has grown and prospered, +until more than a hundred children now live in it, and two hundred +more attend day-school. + +While its academic work is excellent, special stress is laid upon +the industrial courses, the aim being to fit the children for +successful lives in their own beloved mountains. To this end the +boys are taught agriculture, carpentry, wood and metal work, and the +rudiments of mechanics; the girls cooking, home-nursing, sewing, +laundry work, and weaving, these subjects being learned not only in +classes, but by doing the actual labor of school and farm. + +Aside from educational work proper, various forms of social service +are carried on,--district nursing, classes in sanitation and +hygiene, social clubs and entertainments for people of all ages, and +a department of fireside industries, through which is created an +outside market for the beautiful coverlets, blankets and homespun, +woven by the mountain women, as well as for their attractive baskets. + +When the children trained in our school go out to teach in the +district schools, they take with them not only what they have +learned in books, but our ideas as to practical living and social +service also, each one becoming a center of influence in a new +neighborhood. + +A feature of the work that deserves special mention is the nursing +and hospital department, the ministrations of our trained nurse. +Miss Butler, having done more, possibly, than any other one thing, +not only to spread a knowledge of sanitation and preventive hygiene, +but also to establish confidential and friendly relations with the +people. + +The foregoing story, "Sight to the Blind," gives some idea of this +branch of the work, the scope of which has been much extended, +however, during the three years since the story was written for _The +Century Magazine_. In that period the half-dozen clinics held in +the school hospital by Dr. Stucky of Lexington, and his co-workers, +have brought direct surgical and other relief to the afflicted of +four counties. To be present at one of these clinics is to live +Bible days over again, and to see "the lame walk, the deaf hear, the +blind receive their sight, and the poor have the good news preached +to them." + +And not only this,--these clinics have demonstrated that nearly +one-half the people examined have trachoma or other serious eye +diseases, and have been the means of awakening the Government to its +responsibility in the matter, so that three government hospitals +have already been started in the mountains for the treatment of +trachoma. + +So valuable, in many directions, has been the influence of the +Settlement School, that tracts of land have been offered in a number +of other mountain counties for similar schools; but so far only one, +that at Pine Mountain in Harlan County, has been begun. + +An intimate account of life within the Hindman School is given in a +recently published book, "Mothering on Perilous," in which are set +forth the joys--and some of the shocks--experienced by the writer in +mothering the dozen little mountaineers who, in the early days, +shared with her the small boys' cottage. The real name of the +school creek is of course Troublesome, not Perilous. + +Alas, nearly a thousand eager, lovable children are turned away +yearly for lack of room and scholarships. The school is supported +by outside contributions, one hundred dollars taking a child through +the year. What better use of money could possibly be made by +patriotic persons and organizations than to open the doors of +opportunity to these little Sons and Daughters of the Revolution? + + LUCY FURMAN + HINDMAN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL, + October, 1914. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +Mothering on Perilous + +Decorated cloth, illustrated, 12mo. $1.50 net: postage extra, + +This book tells in lively fashion of the experiences of a young +woman who, to escape from grief and loneliness, goes to work in a +settlement school in the heart of the Kentucky mountains. + +There she instantaneously "acquires a family" of a dozen small boys +and henceforth finds her life "crammed with human interest." The +ludicrously funny and sometimes pathetic doings of the little, +untamed feudists, moonshiners, and hero worshippers, form the +subject-matter of the tale. + +The story centers about one of the boys who has an "active war" in +his family and whose martial adventures with those of his grown-up +brother give a strong appeal to the narrative and furnish an +exciting climax. + +"Good luck to this admirably written narrative, a model of direct +and simple humor and very sincere human understanding."--_The +Bellman_. + +"Certainly no romance of the Kentucky mountains ever told more that +was amusing, or picturesque, or tragic than her chronicle +does."--_N. Y. Post_. + +"Her style is graceful and clear, and her fascinating narrative +cannot fail to widen the horizon of her readers in more ways than +one."--_N. Y. Times_. + +"A charming story and it is well told."--_Christian Advocate_. + +"A story full of humor and pathos."--_Chicago Evening Post_. + +"The book forms a valuable link between an interesting and isolated +people and the reading public."--_San Francisco Chronicle_. + + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + +Saturday's Child + +By KATHLEEN NORRIS, Author of "Mother," "The Treasure," etc. With +frontispiece in colors by F. Graham Cootes. Decorated cloth, 12mo. +$1.50 net. + + "Friday's child is loving and giving, + Saturday's child must work for her living." + +The title of Mrs. Norris' new novel at once indicates its theme. It +is the life story of a girl who has her own way to make in the +world. The various experiences through which she passes, the +various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to +realize that service for others is the only thins that counts, are +told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy +optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that +have distinguished all of this author's writing. The book is +intensely alive with human emotions. The reader is bound to +sympathize with Mrs. Norris' people because they seem like _real_ +people and because they are actuated by motives which one is able to +understand. _Saturday's Child_ is Mrs. Norris' longest work. Into +it has gone the very best of her creative talent. It is a volume +which the many admirers of _Mother_ will gladly accept. + + + +The Game of Life and Death: Stories of the Sea + +By LINCOLN COLCORD, Author of "The Drifting Diamond," etc. With +frontispiece. Decorated cloth, 12mo. $1.25 net. + +Upon the appearance of Mr. Colcord's _The Drifting Diamond_, critics +throughout the country had a great deal to say on the pictures of +the sea which it contained. Mr. Colcord was compared to Conrad, to +Stevenson, and to others who have written of the sea with much +success. It is gratifying, therefore, that in this book the briny +deep furnishes the background--in some instances the plot +itself--for each one of its eleven tales. Coupled with his own +intimate knowledge and appreciation of the oceans and the life that +is lived on them--a knowledge and appreciation born in him through a +long line of seafaring ancestry and fostered by his own love for the +sea--he has a powerful style of writing. Vividness is perhaps its +distinguishing characteristic, though fluency and a peculiar feeling +for words also mark it. + + + +The Mutiny of the Elsinore + +By JACK LONDON, Author of "The Sea Wolf," "The Call of the Wild," +etc. With frontispiece in colors by Anton Fischer. Cloth, 12mo. +$1.35 net. + +Everyone who remembers _The Sea Wolf_ with pleasure will enjoy this +vigorous narrative of a voyage from New York around Cape Horn in a +large sailing vessel. _The Mutiny of the Elsinore_ is the same kind +of tale as its famous predecessor, and by those who have read it, it +is pronounced even more stirring. Mr. London is here writing of +scenes and types of people with which he is very familiar, the sea +and ships and those who live in ships. In addition to the adventure +element, of which there is an abundance of the usual London kind, a +most satisfying kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance +involving a wealthy, tired young man who takes the trip on the +_Elsinore_ and the captain's daughter. The play of incident, on the +one hand the ship's amazing crew and on the other the lovers, gives +a story in which the interest never lags and which demonstrates anew +what a master of his art Mr. London is. + + + +Neighbors: Life Stories of the Other Half + +By JACOB A. RIIS, Author of "How the Other Half Lives," etc. With +illustrations by W. T. Benda. Decorated cloth, 12mo. $1.25 net. + +One of the most remarkable books ever written is Jacob Riis' _How +the Other Half Lives_. At the time of its appearance it created +nothing short of a literary sensation, and it is still found among +the widely read and discussed publications. The present volume is a +continuation or an elaboration of that work. In it Mr. Riis tells +with that charm which is peculiarly his own and with a wonderful +fidelity to life, little human interest stories of the people of the +"other half." He has taken incidents in their daily lives and has +so set them before the reader that there is gained a new and a real +insight into the existence of a class which is, with each year, +making its presence felt more and more in the nation. These tales, +though in the garb of fiction, are true. "I could not have invented +them had I tried; I should not have tried if I could," Mr. Riis +tells us in a prefatory note. + + + +The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman + +By H. G. WELLS. Cloth, 12mo. $1.50 net. + +The name of H. G. Wells upon a title page is an assurance of merit. +It is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an +absorbing story told with master skill. In the present hook Mr. +Wells surpasses even his previous efforts. He is writing of modern +society life, particularly of one very charming young woman, Lady +Harman, who finds herself so bound in by convention, so hampered by +restrictions, largely those of a well-intentioned but short-sighted +husband, that she is ultimately moved to revolt. The real meaning +of this revolt, its effect upon her life and those of her +associates, are narrated by one who goes beneath the surface in his +analysis of human motives. In the group of characters, writers, +suffragists, labor organizers, social workers and society lights +surrounding Lady Harman, and in the dramatic incidents which compose +the years of her existence which are described by Mr. Wells, there +is a novel which is significant in its interpretation of the trend +of affairs today, and fascinatingly interesting as fiction. It is +Mr. Wells at his best. + + + +The Rise of Jennie Cushing + +By MARY S. WATTS, Author of "Nathan Burke," "Van Cleve," etc. +Cloth, 12mo. $1.35 net. + +In _Nathan Burke_ Mrs. Watts fold with great power the story of a +man. In this, her new book, she does much the same thing for a +woman. Jennie Cushing is an exceedingly interesting character, +perhaps the most interesting of any that Mrs. Watts has yet given +us. The novel is her life and little else, but that is a life +filled with a variety of experiences and touching closely many +different strata of humankind. Throughout it all, from the days +when as a thirteen-year-old, homeless, friendless waif. Jennie is +sent to a reformatory, to the days when her beauty is the +inspiration of a successful painter, there is in the narrative an +appeal to the emotions, to the sympathy, to the affections, that +cannot be gainsaid. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sight to the Blind, by Lucy Furman + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11998 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a1e986 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11998 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11998) diff --git a/old/11998.txt b/old/11998.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a416ff --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11998.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1443 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sight to the Blind, by Lucy Furman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sight to the Blind + +Author: Lucy Furman + +Release Date: April 11, 2004 [EBook #11998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIGHT TO THE BLIND *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + +SIGHT TO THE BLIND + + +A STORY + +BY + +LUCY FURMAN + + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +IDA TARBELL + + + + +1914 + + + + +TO HARRIET BUTLER + + + + +Contents + +INTRODUCTION BY IDA M. TARBELL SIGHT TO THE BLIND AFTERWORD + + +The illustrations reproduced in the Introduction to this volume +have been selected from those in Miss Furman's "Mothering on +Perilous." + + + + +Introduction Ida M. Tarbell + + + + +Introduction + +A more illuminating interpretation of the settlement idea than Miss +Furman's stories "Sight to the Blind" and "Mothering on Perilous" +does not exist. Spreading what one has learned of cheerful, +courageous, lawful living among those that need it has always been +recognized as part of a man's work in the world. It is an +obligation which has generally been discharged with more zeal than +humanity. To convert at the point of a sword is hateful business. +To convert by promises of rewards, present or future, is hardly +less hateful. And yet much of the altruistic work of the world has +been done by one or a union of these methods. + +That to which we have converted men has not always been more +satisfactory than our way of going at it. It has often failed to +make radical changes in thought or conduct. Our reliance has been +on doctrines, conventions, the three R's. They are easily +sterile--almost sure to be if the teacher's spirit is one of +cock-sure pride in the superiority of his religion and his +cultivation. + +The settlement in part at least is the outgrowth of a desire to +find a place in which certain new notions of enlightening men and +women could be freely tested and applied. The heart of the idea +lies in its name. The modern bearers of good tidings instead of +handing down principles and instructions at intervals from pulpit +or desk _settle_ among those who need them. They keep open house +the year around for all, and to all who will, give whatever they +have learned of the art of life. They are neighbors and comrades, +learners as well as teachers. + +It would be hard to find on the globe a group of people who need +more this sort of democratic hand-to-hand contact than those Miss +Furman describes, or a group with whom it is a greater satisfaction +to establish it. Tucked away on the tops and slopes of the +mountains of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee are thousands of +families, many of them descendants of the best of English stock. +Centuries of direful poverty combined with almost complete +isolation from the life of the world has not been able to take from +them their look of race, or corrupt their brave, loyal, proud +hearts. Encircled as they are by the richest and most highly +cultivated parts of this country, near as they are to us in blood, +we have done less for their enlightenment than for that of the +Orient, vastly less than we do for every new-come immigrant. On +the religious side all that they have had is the occasional +itinerant preacher, thundering at them of the wrath of God; and on +the cultural what Aunt Dalmanutha calls the "pindling" district +school. In the teachings of both is an over-weight of sternness +and superstition, little "plain human kindness," almost nothing +that points the way to decent, happy, healthy living. + +The results are both grotesque and pitiful. Is it strange that the +feud should flourish in a land ruled by a "God of wrath?" Is +anything but sickness and death to be expected where both are +looked on as visitations of an angry God? + +Among these victims of our neglect and our blundering methods of +teaching the settlement school has gone. It goes to stay. Not +three months, but twelve months its teaching goes on; not one +Sabbath in the month, but three hundred and sixty-five days in the +year it preaches. Literally it is a new world which the settlement +opens to the mountaineers, one ruled by cleanliness, thrift, +knowledge and good-will. The beauty of it is that living day after +day under this order they come to know that its principles are +practical truths; that they work out. To be told that the baby is +dying not because the Lord is angry with the family but because the +milk is impure may seem little better than impiety at first, but +save the baby by proper care and you have gone a long way to +proving that pure milk is God's law and that all the prayers in the +world will not change His ruling. + +For distorted imaginings of the way the world is run the settlement +is giving to the mountaineers something of the harmony and beauty +of science. + +New notions of heroism and honor are filtering into the country +along with the notions of sanitation and health. That injuries +can be honorably forgiven and forgotten is a hard doctrine to +swallow in Eastern Kentucky, but when you see it practiced by those +from the great world of which you have only dreamed it comes easier. + +The contrast between the two ways of living--that in the settlement +and that in their mountain homes--is not long in doing its work. +Decent living even in great poverty is possible if you know how, +and the settlement shows what can be done with what you have. The +relation of their poverty and ill-health to their lack of knowledge +and their perpetual lawless warfare is quickly enough grasped by +the young, and means a new generation with vastly improved morals, +health, self-control. + +What more fruitful and appealing world for work, particularly for +women, do these United States offer? If there is an idle or lonely +woman anywhere revolting against the dullness of life, wanting work +with the flavor and virility of pioneering in it, let her look to +these mountains. She 'll find it. And what material to work with +will come under her hands! "I often ask myself," says the heroine +of "Mothering on Perilous," one of Miss Furman stories of the +settlement school, "What other boys have such gifts to bring to +their nation? Proud, self-reliant, the sons of heroes, bred in +brave traditions, knowing nothing of the debasing greed for money, +strengthened by a hand-to-hand struggle with nature from their very +infancy (I have not known of one who did not begin at five or six +to shoulder family responsibilities such as hoeing corn, tending +stock, clearing new ground, grubbing, hunting, gathering the crops) +they should bring to their country primal energy of body and +spirit, unquenchable valor, and minds untainted by the lust of +wealth." + +IDA M. TARBELL + + + + +Sight to the Blind + +One morning in early September, Miss Shippen, the trained nurse at +the Settlement School on Perilous, set off for a day of +district-visiting over on Clinch, accompanied by Miss Loring, +another of the workers. After riding up Perilous Creek a short +distance, they crossed Tudor Mountain, and then followed the +headwaters of Clinch down to Skain's Fork, where in a forlorn little +district-school-house the trained nurse gave a talk on the causes +and prevention of tuberculosis, the spitting of tobacco-juice over +the floor by teacher and pupils abating somewhat as she proceeded. +Two miles farther on she stopped at the Chilton home for a talk to +half a dozen assembled mothers on the nursing and prevention of +typhoid, of which there had been a severe epidemic along Clinch +during the summer. + +Afterward the school-women were invited to dinner by one of the +visiting mothers. Mrs. Chilton at first objected to their going, +but finally said: + +"That 's right; take 'em along with you, Marthy. I allow it 'll +pyeerten Aunt Dalmanuthy up to hear some new thing. She were +powerful' low in her sperrits the last I seed." + +"Pore maw!" sighed Marthy, her soft voice vibrant with sympathy. +"It looks like things is harder for her all the time. Something new +to ruminate on seems to lift her up a spell and make her forgit her +blindness. She has heared tell of you school-women and your quare +doings, and is sort of curious." + +"She is blind?" inquired the nurse. + +"Blind as a bat these twelve year'," replied Mrs. Chilton; "it fell +on her as a judgment for rebelling when Evy, her onliest little gal, +was took. She died of the breast-complaint; some calls it the +galloping consumpt'." + +"I allus allowed if Uncle Joshuay and them other preachers had +a-helt off and let maw alone a while in her grief," broke in +Marthy's gentle voice, "she never would have gone so far. But Uncle +Joshuay in especial were possessed to pester her, and inquire were +she yet riconciled to the will of God, and warn her of judgment if +she refused." + +"Doubtless Uncle Joshuay's high talk did agg her on," said Mrs. +Chilton, impartially, "but she need n't to have blasphemed like she +done at Evy's funeral occasion." + +Marthy covered her face with her hands. + +"Oh, that day!" she exclaimed, shuddering. "Will I ever forgit it? +John and me had got married just a month before Evy died in October, +and gone to live up the hollow a small piece from maw, and even then +she were complaining of a leetle scum over her eyes. Losing Evy, +and rebelling like she done atterward, and Uncle Joshuay's talk, +holp it along fast, and it were plain to all before winter were over +that he had prophesied right, and her sight were a-going. I would +come down the branch of a morning and beg her to let me milk the cow +and feed the property and red up the house and the like, but she +would refuse in anger, and stumble round over chairs and table and +bean-pot and wash-kittle, and maintain all spring and summer her +sight were as good as ever. Never till that day of the funeral +occasion, one year atter Evy died, did she ever give in." + +Here Marthy again covered her face with her hands, and Mrs. Chilton +took up the tale: + +"I can see her now, up thar on the hill-shoulder, betwixt you and +John on the front log, by Evy's grave-house, and Uncle Joshuay +a-hollering and weeping and denouncing like he does, and her setting +through it like a rock. Then finally Uncle Joshuay he thundered at +her the third time, 'Hain't it the truth, Sister Dalmanuthy, that +the judgment and the curse of God has fell on you for your +rebelliousness, like I prophesied, and that you hain't able to see +John thar or Marthy thar or the hand thar before your face thar?' +when Aunt Dalmanuthy riz up sudden, and clinched her hands, and says +slow and fierce: 'Man, it _is_ the truth you speak. The curse _has_ +fell; and I hain't able to see John here or Marthy here or the hand +here before my face here. But listen what I got to say about it. +I'm able to hate and to curse as good as God. And I do! I hate and +curse the Hand that, after taking all else I loved, snatched from my +bosom the one little yoe lamb I treasured thar; I hate and curse Him +that expected me to set down tame and quiet under such cruelty and +onjestice; I hate and curse and defy the Power that hated and spited +me enough, atter darkening the light of my life, to put out the +sight of my eyes! Now,' she says, 'you lay claim to being mighty +familiar with the Lord; take that message to Him!' she says. + +"Women, that whole funeral meeting kotch its breath at them awful +words, and sot there rooted and grounded; and she turnt and looked +around defiant-like with them sightless eyes, and strode off down +the hill, John and Marthy follering." + +[Illustration: "Aunt Dalmanuthy riz up sudden, and clinched her +hands"] + +After a somewhat protracted silence, Marthy's gentle voice resumed: + +"And from that day to this John and me hain't left her sence. We +shet up our house and moved down to hern; and she tuck to setting by +the fire or out on the porch, allus a-knitting, and seldom speaking +a word in all them years about Evy or her sorrow or her curse. When +my first little gal come along, I named it Evy, thinking to give her +some easement or pleasure; but small notice has she ever showed. +'Pears like my young uns don't do much but bother her, her hearing +and scent being so powerful' keen. I have allus allowed if she +could git her feelings turnt loose one time, and bile over good and +strong, it might benefit her; but thar she sets, day in, day out, +proud and restless, a-bottling it all up inside." + +"She biles over a right smart on you, Marthy, I should say," +remarked the hostess. + +"No, now, Susan, she don't, neither, considering her provocations. +She were the smartest, most managing woman in these parts, and I +never did have no faculty, and don't run her house like I ought; and +John is a puny man and not able to do all her bidding; and the young +uns they gits terrible noisy and feisty at times, all but Evy." + +"The women" rode with Marthy a mile farther, stopping before a +lonely log-house, with corn-fields climbing to meet the timber +half-way up the mountain in the rear. Marthy ushered her guests +into the porch with the words, "Here 's the fotch-on women, Maw." + +The tall, gaunt, forbidding-looking old woman sitting there turned +sightless eyes toward them, putting forth a strong hand. + +"Howdy, women," she said grimly. "Git cheers for 'em, Evy." + +They seated themselves, and Aunt Dalmanutha resumed her knitting, +swiftly and fiercely, all the pent-up force of a strong nature +thrown into the simple act. Instead of the repose that +characterizes the faces of the blind, her eaglelike countenance bore +the marks of fretful, sullen, caged, almost savage energy. + +"Go quick and take a look that 'ere pot of beans, Marthy," she +ordered. "Evy declar's they hain't scorching, but my nose informs +me different'. Take the women's bonnets, Evy, and lay 'em on my +'stead; and round up all the young uns back in the corn-crib, so 's +I can git the benefit of the talk. Now, women," she continued +peremptorily, "I been hearing a whole passel about your doings and +goings and comings these four or five year' gone, and I 'm right +smart curious to know what it 's all about. What air you in these +parts for, anyhow, and how come you to come?" + +"We are here," began Miss Shippen, quietly, "first and foremost +because we want to educate the children who have never had the +chance they deserve--" + +"That 's so; they hain't, more shame to the State," interrupted Aunt +Dalmanutha. "Take me, now; I were raised forty-five mile' from a +school-house or church-house, and never had no chance to l'arn 'a' +from 'izard.' And these few pindling present-day district-schools +scattered here and yan they only spiles the young uns for work, and +hain't no improvement on nothing." + +"Next," proceeded the trained nurse, "we want to be friendly and +helpful to the grown-up people who need it, especially to the sick +and suffering." + +"I heared of the nursing you done in these parts in the typhoid last +summer," said Aunt Dalmanutha, "and certainly it sounded good. But, +women, one more question I crave to put to you. Do you mix in +religion and preachifying as you go along?" + +"We do not preach at all," replied Miss Shippen; "we let our deeds +speak for us." + +Aunt Dalmanutha extended a swift hand. "I am proud to make your +acquaintance then," she said. "I have had my 'nough of religion and +preachifying, but of plain human friendliness not, because there is +little of it on the ramble." + +"My special work," continued the trained nurse, "is of course with +the sick, nursing and teaching how to nurse, and how to prevent as +well as to cure illness, and sending cases I cannot help down to the +level country for proper treatment. I see, Aunt Dalmanutha, that +you are blind. Have you any objection to letting me take a close +look at your eyes?" + +"Look all you want," was the grim reply; "I am used to being a' +object and a spectacle." + +The nurse took from her satchel a glass with which she carefully +examined the dulled and lifeless eyes, sitting down afterward +without a word. + +"And not only a' object and a spectacle," continued Aunt Dalmanutha, +bitterly, "but a laughing-stock and a byword for the preachers in +especial to mock and flout at. Yes, I that were once the workingest +and most capablest woman up and down Clinch; I that not only could +weave my fourteen yard', or hoe my acre of corn, or clear my man's +stint of new ground, a day, but likewise had such faculty in my +head-piece that I were able to manage and contrive and bring to +pass; I that rejoiced in the work of my hands and the pyeertness of +my mind and the fruits of my industry, and when my man died were +able to run the farm and take keer of the children as good as +before--I am sot down here in the midst of rack and ruin, with the +roof a-leaking over me, the chimbly sagging out, the fence rotten +and the hogs in the corn, the property eatin' their heads off, and +the young uns lacking warm coats and kivers, John and Marthy being +so mortal doless; I am sot here bound hand and foot, my strength +brought to naught, my ambition squenched, my faculty onusable, a +living monument to the hate and revenge and onjestice of God!" She +spoke with growing passion, but checked herself, and began more +calmly. + +"And if it were just, Dalmanuthy Holt would be the last to speak +ag'in' it. I allus prided myself on being a reasoning woman. But +just it is not, and never were, and never will be. I have seed a +sight of trouble in my day, women, and bore up under it patient and +courageous. Besides the man of my love, and the payrents that begot +me, seven sons of my body have I laid in the grave, three in infancy +of summer-complaint, two with the choking-disease, two with typhoid; +and in all this I never once lifted up my voice ag'in' God, but bore +it still and patient, even when I were reduced down to just John, my +sorriest son, and little Evy, my onliest daughter and the child of +my prayer. But, women,"--and again strong passion thrilled in her +voice,--"when I seed that one little tender yoe lamb that I +cherished with deathless love begin for to pale and cough and pine, +then and thar the sword entered my soul, my heart turnt over in my +breast, and I cried out wild and desperate: 'Not this! not this! +Take all else I got, but not her! It is cruel, it is onjust. I +rebel ag'in' it, I will never endure it.' And I kep' a-crying it as +I seed her fade and thin; I cried it when the last breath flickered +from her pore little body; I cried it when I laid her in the cold +ground; I cried it when the preachers come to see me atterward, +threatening judgment; I cried it when I felt the curse a-falling and +the sight of my-eyes a-going; I cried it loud and fierce at her +funeral occasion; and cry it I will to the end of my darkened days! +It were cruel, it were onjust, it were horrible, it were wicked, of +God to treat me that way, and never will I say it wa' n't!" + +Miss Shippen waited a full minute before answering quietly and +slowly: "It was cruel, it was unjust, it was horrible, it was +wicked, that you should have been made to suffer so; above all, Aunt +Dalmanutha, it was unnecessary. With a little knowledge, and proper +food and fresh air, your daughter's life could have been saved; with +knowledge and proper treatment your sons need not have died of +dysentery or typhoid or even diphtheria; with knowledge your +blindness itself, which is no curse, but would as surely have come +upon you had you never lost Evy and never rebelled in your heart, +need have lasted only a few months. For these are cataracts that +you have on your eyes, and nothing would have been simpler and +easier than their removal." + +Amazement, incredulity, almost horror were written upon Aunt +Dalmanutha's countenance as she heard these quiet words. + +"Where do you get your authority over preachers, woman?" she +demanded, leaning fiercely forward, + +"I get my authority," replied the trained nurse, firmly, "from my +knowledge of modern medicine and surgery; I get my authority from +things seen with my eyes and heard with my ears during days and +nights of duty on the battle-line between life and death; I get my +authority," she continued more solemnly, "from Him whose spirit of +freedom and tolerance has made possible the advances in modern +science; who is the source of the rising tide of helpfulness +manifest in human hearts everywhere; who, when he was on earth, went +about doing good, and proclaiming not the hate, the vengeance, the +cruelty of God, but His mercy, His kindness, His pity, His fatherly +love." + +The blind woman sat as though turned to stone, except that the veins +in her neck and temples throbbed violently. + +"Do you mean to tell me God never wanted to take my loved ones from +me?" she asked at length from a dry throat. + +"I do. I mean that their deaths, so far from being the will of God, +were the fruit alone of ignorance and of evil conditions." + +"You mean to say that the hand of vengeance wa' n't never lifted +ag'in' me, and I hain't never sot under no curse?" + +"I do." + +"And that the preachers has lied to me?" she said through clenched +jaws. + +"They were simply mistaken; they knew no better." + +Aunt Dalmanutha lifted a shaking arm. "Woe to them if ever they +cross my path ag'in!" she cried hoarsely. + +"Don't think about them," said the nurse; "the thing for you to do +at once is to go down to Lexington, in the Blue Grass country, to a +doctor I know there who does great things for eyes, and who, if it +is not too late, will remove those cataracts and restore you to +sight and usefulness and strength, as God intends. I will write at +once to the hospital, and make the arrangements; you should start +within a week. The trip," she added, "need cost you nothing, if you +are unable to pay your way." + +Aunt Dalmanutha drew herself up proudly. + +"I hain't a' object of charity," she said. "If I go, I 'll pay my +way. I got something laid by still from my weaving days. But it +has come on me too sudden'; I feel all lost; I will have to study a +heap before, I can make up my mind." She moved her hands about +before her in a dazed, helpless way. + +During the rest of the visit she was silent and distraught. Twice +at dinner her shaking hands knocked over her coffee-cup, and once +the sorghum-pitcher, little fair-haired Evy cleaning up quietly +after her granny, and placing things to her hand so deftly and +furtively that she did not know it was done at all, while on her +other side sat Marthy, ever kind, solicitous, and patient, and at +the far end of the table John vied with her in unobtrusive but +loving attentions to "maw." Never had "the women" seen an elderly +or afflicted person more tenderly and devotedly cared for. But the +object of it all sat rigid, self-absorbed, frowning, as oblivious to +the light and warmth of love as to the light of day, her sole +remarks being contemptuous apologies for Marthy's cooking, and +complaints of the hardship of having to "gum it," or eat without +teeth. + + +One week later there was a call from the road in front of the school +hospital, and Miss Shippen was pleased and relieved to see Aunt +Dalmanutha mounted on a nag behind John. In her black calico +sunbonnet and dress, and long, drab apron, with her hand tightly +clutched to John's arm, and dark apprehension written upon her blind +face, she was indeed a pitiable sight. + +"I have pondered your words," she said to Miss Shippen, "and have +made up my mind to foller them. With naught but them to swing out +on, I am setting forth into the unknown. I that hain't never so +much as rid in a wagon, am about to dare the perils of the railroad; +that hain't been twenty mile' from home in all my days, am +journeying into a far and absent country, from which the liabilities +are I won't never return. Far'well, if far'well it be!" + + +On the last day of October, Miss Shippen had just dismissed her +seventh-grade class in home-nursing, and was standing in the +hospital porch drinking in the unspeakable autumnal glory of the +mountains, when a wagon, rumbling and groaning along the road and +filled with people, stopped with a lurch at the gate. Advancing, +the nurse was at first puzzled as to the identity of the people; +then she recognized the faces of John and Marthy Holt and of little +Evy. But for several seconds she gazed without recognition at the +striking figure on the front seat beside John. This figure wore a +remarkable hat, bristling with red, yellow, and green flowers, and a +plaid silk waist in which every color of the rainbow fought with +every other. Her bright and piercing dark eyes traveled hungrily +and searchingly over the countenance of the trained nurse; her lips +opened gradually over teeth of dazzling whiteness and newness. +Then, leaning swiftly from the wagon, she gathered the nurse into a +powerful, bear-like hug, exclaiming, with solemn joy: + +"You air the woman! I know you by your favorance to your talk. I +allowed you would look that fair and tender. Here air the woman, +John and Marthy, that restored unto me my sight, and brung me up out +of the Valley of the Shadow. She tolt me what to do, and I follered +it, and, lo! the meracle was performed; wonderful things was done +unto me!" Here Aunt Dalmanutha--for it was she--supplemented the +embrace with kisses rained upon the head and brow of the trained +nurse. + +Extricating herself at last from the strong arms in which she was +lifted from the ground and rocked powerfully back and forth, Miss +Shippen was able to look once more into the face she had failed to +recognize, and from which at least a score of years were now erased. + +"Yes, John and Marthy and Evy and t' other seven young uns, take the +look of your life at that 'ere angel messenger that brung me the +good tidings of great joy; that lifted me up out of the pit of +darkness on to the mountain-tops whar I now sojourn. Yes, look, for +in heaven you 'll never see no better sight." + +Embarrassed by the open-mouthed family gaze, and by the additional +presence of several teachers, who stopped to see and listen, Miss +Shippen said: + +"Tell me all about your trip, Aunt Dalmanutha." + +"Tell about it? Tell that which ten thousand tongues could scarce +relate? God knows my stumbling speech hain't equal to the occasion; +but I 'll do my best. You last seed me a-taking my fearsome way to +the railroad; and what were the sinking of my heart when John left +me thar on the cyar, words will never do jestice to; seemed like I +were turnt a-loose in space, rushing I knowed not whither. The +first ground I toch was when I heared the voice of that 'ere doctor +you writ to inquiring for me at the far eend. He said he allowed I +would be skeered and lonesome, so he come hisself to fetch me to the +hospital. Woman, it were the deed of a saint, and holp me up +wonderful'. Then I were put to bed a spell, and soft-footed women +waited on me. Then one morning he tolt me he were aiming to peel +them 'ere ingun-skins off my eyes, and for me to have no fears, but +trust in him; that he believed them eye-nerves, shet back thar in +the dark, was still alive and able to do business. And though my +heart shuck like a ager, I laid down on that table same as a +soldier. When I got up, I were blind as ever, with rags tied thick +around my eyes. And I sot there patient day after day, and the +doctor he 'd drap in and cheer me up. 'Aunt Dally,' he would +say--he claimed he never had no time to git out the Dalmanuthy--'in +just a leetle while you 'll be a-trotting around the Blue Grass here +worse 'n a race-hoss; but you got to git your training gradual.' +Then he 'd thin the bandages more and more, till a sort of gray +twilight come a-sifting through. 'And don't think,' he would say, +'that I am aiming to let you lope back to them mountains till I git +you plumb made over. Fust thing is a new set of teeth,--you done +gummed yourself into dyspepsy and gineral cantankerousness,--and +then I 'm sot on taking you to my house to visit a month and eat +good victuals and git your stummick opened up whar it done growed +together, and your mind unj'inted, and your sperrits limbered +similar.' And straightway he sont for a tooth-dentist, that tuck a +pictur' of my gums in wax then and thar. Then come the great day +when I looked my fust on a human countenance ag'in. I axed that it +be the doctor's, and I seed him only through black glasses darkly; +but, O God! what a sight it were none but the blind can ever tell! +Then for quite a spell I looked out through them dark glasses at the +comings and goings and people there in the hospital. Then one day +the doctor he run in and says, 'Time for you to look on the +sunlight, Aunt Dally. Keep on them glasses, and wrop a shawl round +you, and come with me. I 'm aiming to show you the prettiest +country God ever made.' Then he holp me into a chariot that run +purely by the might of its own manoeuvers, and I seed tall houses +and chimblys whiz by dimlike, and then atter a while he retch over +and lifted my glasses. + +"Women, the tongue of Seraphim hain't competent to tell what I seed +then! That country hain't rugged and on-eend like this here, but is +spread out smooth and soft and keerful, with nary ragged corner +nowhar', and just enough roll to tole the eye along. Thar I, beheld +the wide, green pastures I had heared tell of in Scriptur', thar I +seed still waters, clear as crystal, dotted here and yan, and on +them pastures and by them waters thousands of sleek nags and cattle +a-feeding and drinking, peaceful and satisfied; thar, bowered back +amongst lofty trees, was the beautiful many mansions and homes of +the blest; thar was the big road, smooth and white as glass, down +which pretty boys and gals too fair for this world, come on prancing +nags; thar, best of all, hovering and brooding tender over +everything, was the warm, blue sky and the golden sunlight. Them +alone would have been enough for me. Yes, it were indeed a heavenly +vision. I set, scarcely knowing if I were in or out of the body. +'Am I translated,' I axed the doctor, 'and is this here the New +Jerusalem, and them pretty creeturs the angels of heaven?' 'Far +from it, Aunt Dally,' he says, sighing. 'Them air the fortunate +Blue-Grass folk, that be so used to blessings they don't even know +they got 'em, let alone makin' a' effort to share 'em with the +needy. If they was as onselfish within as they air fair and +prosperous without, we would n't need no millennium.' + +"I can't say I had any rale, realizing sense of sight that day. It +were all too wonderful and visionary. And them weeks that follered +at the doctor's house, too, they seem like a love-lie dream--the +delicate victuals that fairly melted down my throat before these +here fine store teeth could clutch 'em, the kindness of him and his +woman, and of his little gal, that teached me my a-b-c's. For she +said, 'With your head-piece, Aunt Dally, it hain't too late for you +to die a scholar yet; you got to git l'arning.' And, women, I got +it. I knowed all my letters and were quite a piece in the primer +before I left, and Evy here she aims to finish my education and have +me reading Scriptur' come summer. Yes, it all seemed too good and +fair to be true, and I lived in a daze. I come to myself +sufficient', though, to have the little gal write John to hire a +wagon and bring Marthy and all the young uns to the railroad for to +meet me, and see the world and the cyars; and also, realizing I were +going to git back my faculty and workingness, and not being able to +make the doctor take ary cent for his doings,--he said it were the +least the Blue Grass could do for the mountains,--I tuck what money +I had left and bought me some fine store clothes for to match my +teeth and my innard feelings. 'Peared like I could n't noway feel +at home in them sorry gyarments I had wore in sorry days. + +"But it were not till I sot in the railroad cyars ag'in, and the +level country had crinkled up into hills, and the hills had riz up +into mountains, all a-blazin' out majestical' in the joy of yaller +and scarlet and green and crimson, that I raley got my sight and +knowed I had it. Yes, the Blue Grass is fine and pretty and smooth +and heavenly fair; but the mountains is my nateral and everlastin' +element. They gethered round me at my birth; they bowed down their +proud heads to listen at my first weak cry; they cradled me on their +broad knees; they suckled me at their hard but ginerous breasts. +Whether snow-kivered, or brown, or green, or many-colored, they +never failed to speak great, silent words to me whensoever I lifted +up my eyes to 'em; they still holds in their friendly embrace all +that is dear to me, living or dead; and, women, if I don't see 'em +in heaven, I 'll be lonesome and homesick thar. + +"Yes, when I laid eyes on them well-beloved forms, I knowed for sure +I had my sight. And the folks in the cyar they knowed it, too. I +am in gineral one to keep things locked and pinned down inside me; +but for once I let go all holts and turnt a-loose. Then and thar I +bu'sted out into shouts of joy and songs of praise; I magnified the +Lord and all His works; I testified of my salvation from blindness +of body and sperrit; I hollered till natur' went plumb back on me +and I could n't fetch nary 'nother breath. + +"Then when I stepped off the train, thar was the living human faces +of my own blood, John and Marthy, and the eight young uns whose +countenances I had never beheld. And as I gazed, women, more scales +drapped from my long-blind eyes. In the face of John here, the boy +I had allus abused for no-git-up and shiftless, I beheld +loving-kindness and onselfishness writ large and fair; looking on +little Evy, I seed love divine in her tender eyes, and light raying +out from her yaller hair and from the other seven smaller head' +bunched around her like cherubim'. And Marthy! Right here, women, +I ax your pardon if I stop a spell, for of a truth words fails me +and tears squenches me. What did I see in that kind, gentle, +patient face of hern? Women, it were the very living sperrit of +Christ hisself I seed thar--the sperrit that returned love for hate, +mercy for revilement, joy and life for curses and death. Yes, when +them eyes of hers was turnt on me so full of love, right thar my +heart broke. I had bemeaned and berated and faulted her so +continual', and belt her up as a pore, doless creetur', without no +backbone or ambition; and now I knowed that if thar ever were a +tender, ginuwine, angel daughter on this here earth, it were her to +me. Women, when she tuck me to her bosom, I just slid right down +thar on 'my unworthy knees thar on the ground at her feet thar, and +with bitter tears beseeched of her to forgive and forgit my +hard-heartedness and stone-blindness and dog-meanness, which of +course, being Marthy, she had already done allus-ago. + +"Then, friends, my cup were running over; and as we journeyed up +creeks and down mountains nigh these three days, we was the +nunitedest and joyfullest family that ever follered a trail; and all +the way I laid my plans for to set the farm on its feet ag'in, and +clear new ground, and maul rails for the fence, and rive boards for +the roof, and quairy out rock for a new chimbly, and bring up the +yield of corn, and weed out the eatingest of the cattle, and git my +loom sot up and running so 's to have a-plenty of kivers and linsey +for sale come cold weather; and we all rejoiced amazing, knowing +prosperity wa' n't no further from us than yan side the mountain. + +"And now, fellow-sisters, you see before you a ree-surrected woman. +I hain't only got the sight of my eyes; I got mind-sight, +heart-sight, soul-sight. I hain't only got these fine store-teeth +and a tamed and biddable stummick; but the innard power to chaw and +digest speritual truth. I hain't only wearing these gayly, boughten +clothes, I 'm a-fla'nting the robes of joy and the gyarments of +praise. I know the Lord don't hate me and never did; I know I am +free, restored, and saved; I know my Redeemer liveth, and has fotch +me up out of the blackness of darkness on to the top-most peaks of +joy and peace and thanksgiving. + +"And don't think, women,--don't never, never think I hain't aiming +to let my light shine! I aim to use my faculty not for worldly +betterment alone, but to turn it loose likewise in the line of +religion and preachifying. Yes, every night this enduring winter +will see me a-s'arching the Scriptur'; and what I can't read I can +ricollect; and come August, when the craps is laid by and the +funeral occasions sets in, I will be ready for 'em. There won't be +one in twenty mile' that won't see me a-coming, and a-taking my +stand by the grave-houses in these reesurrection gyarments, for to +norate the wonders of my experience, and to shame and confound and +drownd out Uncle Joshuay and t'other blind leaders of the blind +whatever they dare raise their gray heads and hoary lies, and +gin'rally to publish abroad, world-without-eend, the ons'archable +riches and glory and power of the love of God." + + + + +Afterword + +In the heart of the Kentucky mountains, that romantic and +little-known region popularly regarded as the "home of feuds and +moonshine," a rural social settlement, the first in the world, was +begun fifteen years ago under the auspices of the State Federation +of Women's Clubs of Kentucky. + +Half a dozen young women from the prosperous Blue-Grass section, +headed by Miss Katherine Pettit and Miss May Stone, went up into the +mountains, several days' journey from a railroad, and, pitching +their tents, spent three successive summers holding singing, sewing, +cooking and kindergarten classes, giving entertainments, visiting +homes, and generally establishing friendly relations with the men, +women, and children of three counties. + +One of the many surprises was to find the mountains so thickly +populated,--the regulation family boasting a dozen children,--and +the most inadequate provision made by the State for the education of +these young sons and daughters of heroes. For it is well known that +much of this section was settled originally by men who received +land-grants for their services in the Revolution, and who, with +their families, disappeared into these fastnesses to emerge later +only at their country's call,--the War of 1812, the Mexican, the +Civil, and the Spanish Wars bringing them out in full force, to +display astonishing valor always. + +Aware of this ancestry, the visiting women were not surprised to +find much personal dignity, native intelligence, and gentleness of +manner, even among men who conceived it their duty to "kill off" +family enemies, and women who had never had the first chance at +"book-l'arning." + +One of the three summers was spent on Troublesome Creek, at the +small village of Hindman, the seat of Knott County. Here the +"citizens" so appreciated the "quare, foreign women" as to be +unwilling to let them depart. "Stay with us and do something for +our young ones, that mostly run wild now, drinking and shooting," +they said. "We will give you the land to build a school on." + +Touched to the heart, seeing the great need, and asking nothing +better than to spend their lives in such a service, Miss Stone and +Miss Pettit went "out into the world" that winter and gave talks in +various cities, by spring raising enough money to start the desired +Settlement School at Hindman. + +During a dozen years this remarkable school has grown and prospered, +until more than a hundred children now live in it, and two hundred +more attend day-school. + +While its academic work is excellent, special stress is laid upon +the industrial courses, the aim being to fit the children for +successful lives in their own beloved mountains. To this end the +boys are taught agriculture, carpentry, wood and metal work, and the +rudiments of mechanics; the girls cooking, home-nursing, sewing, +laundry work, and weaving, these subjects being learned not only in +classes, but by doing the actual labor of school and farm. + +Aside from educational work proper, various forms of social service +are carried on,--district nursing, classes in sanitation and +hygiene, social clubs and entertainments for people of all ages, and +a department of fireside industries, through which is created an +outside market for the beautiful coverlets, blankets and homespun, +woven by the mountain women, as well as for their attractive baskets. + +When the children trained in our school go out to teach in the +district schools, they take with them not only what they have +learned in books, but our ideas as to practical living and social +service also, each one becoming a center of influence in a new +neighborhood. + +A feature of the work that deserves special mention is the nursing +and hospital department, the ministrations of our trained nurse. +Miss Butler, having done more, possibly, than any other one thing, +not only to spread a knowledge of sanitation and preventive hygiene, +but also to establish confidential and friendly relations with the +people. + +The foregoing story, "Sight to the Blind," gives some idea of this +branch of the work, the scope of which has been much extended, +however, during the three years since the story was written for _The +Century Magazine_. In that period the half-dozen clinics held in +the school hospital by Dr. Stucky of Lexington, and his co-workers, +have brought direct surgical and other relief to the afflicted of +four counties. To be present at one of these clinics is to live +Bible days over again, and to see "the lame walk, the deaf hear, the +blind receive their sight, and the poor have the good news preached +to them." + +And not only this,--these clinics have demonstrated that nearly +one-half the people examined have trachoma or other serious eye +diseases, and have been the means of awakening the Government to its +responsibility in the matter, so that three government hospitals +have already been started in the mountains for the treatment of +trachoma. + +So valuable, in many directions, has been the influence of the +Settlement School, that tracts of land have been offered in a number +of other mountain counties for similar schools; but so far only one, +that at Pine Mountain in Harlan County, has been begun. + +An intimate account of life within the Hindman School is given in a +recently published book, "Mothering on Perilous," in which are set +forth the joys--and some of the shocks--experienced by the writer in +mothering the dozen little mountaineers who, in the early days, +shared with her the small boys' cottage. The real name of the +school creek is of course Troublesome, not Perilous. + +Alas, nearly a thousand eager, lovable children are turned away +yearly for lack of room and scholarships. The school is supported +by outside contributions, one hundred dollars taking a child through +the year. What better use of money could possibly be made by +patriotic persons and organizations than to open the doors of +opportunity to these little Sons and Daughters of the Revolution? + + LUCY FURMAN + HINDMAN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL, + October, 1914. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +Mothering on Perilous + +Decorated cloth, illustrated, 12mo. $1.50 net: postage extra, + +This book tells in lively fashion of the experiences of a young +woman who, to escape from grief and loneliness, goes to work in a +settlement school in the heart of the Kentucky mountains. + +There she instantaneously "acquires a family" of a dozen small boys +and henceforth finds her life "crammed with human interest." The +ludicrously funny and sometimes pathetic doings of the little, +untamed feudists, moonshiners, and hero worshippers, form the +subject-matter of the tale. + +The story centers about one of the boys who has an "active war" in +his family and whose martial adventures with those of his grown-up +brother give a strong appeal to the narrative and furnish an +exciting climax. + +"Good luck to this admirably written narrative, a model of direct +and simple humor and very sincere human understanding."--_The +Bellman_. + +"Certainly no romance of the Kentucky mountains ever told more that +was amusing, or picturesque, or tragic than her chronicle +does."--_N. Y. Post_. + +"Her style is graceful and clear, and her fascinating narrative +cannot fail to widen the horizon of her readers in more ways than +one."--_N. Y. Times_. + +"A charming story and it is well told."--_Christian Advocate_. + +"A story full of humor and pathos."--_Chicago Evening Post_. + +"The book forms a valuable link between an interesting and isolated +people and the reading public."--_San Francisco Chronicle_. + + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + +Saturday's Child + +By KATHLEEN NORRIS, Author of "Mother," "The Treasure," etc. With +frontispiece in colors by F. Graham Cootes. Decorated cloth, 12mo. +$1.50 net. + + "Friday's child is loving and giving, + Saturday's child must work for her living." + +The title of Mrs. Norris' new novel at once indicates its theme. It +is the life story of a girl who has her own way to make in the +world. The various experiences through which she passes, the +various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to +realize that service for others is the only thins that counts, are +told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy +optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that +have distinguished all of this author's writing. The book is +intensely alive with human emotions. The reader is bound to +sympathize with Mrs. Norris' people because they seem like _real_ +people and because they are actuated by motives which one is able to +understand. _Saturday's Child_ is Mrs. Norris' longest work. Into +it has gone the very best of her creative talent. It is a volume +which the many admirers of _Mother_ will gladly accept. + + + +The Game of Life and Death: Stories of the Sea + +By LINCOLN COLCORD, Author of "The Drifting Diamond," etc. With +frontispiece. Decorated cloth, 12mo. $1.25 net. + +Upon the appearance of Mr. Colcord's _The Drifting Diamond_, critics +throughout the country had a great deal to say on the pictures of +the sea which it contained. Mr. Colcord was compared to Conrad, to +Stevenson, and to others who have written of the sea with much +success. It is gratifying, therefore, that in this book the briny +deep furnishes the background--in some instances the plot +itself--for each one of its eleven tales. Coupled with his own +intimate knowledge and appreciation of the oceans and the life that +is lived on them--a knowledge and appreciation born in him through a +long line of seafaring ancestry and fostered by his own love for the +sea--he has a powerful style of writing. Vividness is perhaps its +distinguishing characteristic, though fluency and a peculiar feeling +for words also mark it. + + + +The Mutiny of the Elsinore + +By JACK LONDON, Author of "The Sea Wolf," "The Call of the Wild," +etc. With frontispiece in colors by Anton Fischer. Cloth, 12mo. +$1.35 net. + +Everyone who remembers _The Sea Wolf_ with pleasure will enjoy this +vigorous narrative of a voyage from New York around Cape Horn in a +large sailing vessel. _The Mutiny of the Elsinore_ is the same kind +of tale as its famous predecessor, and by those who have read it, it +is pronounced even more stirring. Mr. London is here writing of +scenes and types of people with which he is very familiar, the sea +and ships and those who live in ships. In addition to the adventure +element, of which there is an abundance of the usual London kind, a +most satisfying kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance +involving a wealthy, tired young man who takes the trip on the +_Elsinore_ and the captain's daughter. The play of incident, on the +one hand the ship's amazing crew and on the other the lovers, gives +a story in which the interest never lags and which demonstrates anew +what a master of his art Mr. London is. + + + +Neighbors: Life Stories of the Other Half + +By JACOB A. RIIS, Author of "How the Other Half Lives," etc. With +illustrations by W. T. Benda. Decorated cloth, 12mo. $1.25 net. + +One of the most remarkable books ever written is Jacob Riis' _How +the Other Half Lives_. At the time of its appearance it created +nothing short of a literary sensation, and it is still found among +the widely read and discussed publications. The present volume is a +continuation or an elaboration of that work. In it Mr. Riis tells +with that charm which is peculiarly his own and with a wonderful +fidelity to life, little human interest stories of the people of the +"other half." He has taken incidents in their daily lives and has +so set them before the reader that there is gained a new and a real +insight into the existence of a class which is, with each year, +making its presence felt more and more in the nation. These tales, +though in the garb of fiction, are true. "I could not have invented +them had I tried; I should not have tried if I could," Mr. Riis +tells us in a prefatory note. + + + +The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman + +By H. G. WELLS. Cloth, 12mo. $1.50 net. + +The name of H. G. Wells upon a title page is an assurance of merit. +It is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an +absorbing story told with master skill. In the present hook Mr. +Wells surpasses even his previous efforts. He is writing of modern +society life, particularly of one very charming young woman, Lady +Harman, who finds herself so bound in by convention, so hampered by +restrictions, largely those of a well-intentioned but short-sighted +husband, that she is ultimately moved to revolt. The real meaning +of this revolt, its effect upon her life and those of her +associates, are narrated by one who goes beneath the surface in his +analysis of human motives. In the group of characters, writers, +suffragists, labor organizers, social workers and society lights +surrounding Lady Harman, and in the dramatic incidents which compose +the years of her existence which are described by Mr. Wells, there +is a novel which is significant in its interpretation of the trend +of affairs today, and fascinatingly interesting as fiction. It is +Mr. Wells at his best. + + + +The Rise of Jennie Cushing + +By MARY S. WATTS, Author of "Nathan Burke," "Van Cleve," etc. +Cloth, 12mo. $1.35 net. + +In _Nathan Burke_ Mrs. Watts fold with great power the story of a +man. In this, her new book, she does much the same thing for a +woman. Jennie Cushing is an exceedingly interesting character, +perhaps the most interesting of any that Mrs. Watts has yet given +us. The novel is her life and little else, but that is a life +filled with a variety of experiences and touching closely many +different strata of humankind. Throughout it all, from the days +when as a thirteen-year-old, homeless, friendless waif. Jennie is +sent to a reformatory, to the days when her beauty is the +inspiration of a successful painter, there is in the narrative an +appeal to the emotions, to the sympathy, to the affections, that +cannot be gainsaid. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sight to the Blind, by Lucy Furman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIGHT TO THE BLIND *** + +***** This file should be named 11998.txt or 11998.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/9/9/11998/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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