The World As I Have Found It E-Book

Mary L. Day Arms

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 263

Beschreibung

Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl.  First published in 1878. Autobiography of a blind woman, followed by the essays: Help the Blind Help Themselves, Sight of the Blind, How do the Blind See, Invocation to Light, Is It More to Lose Eyes than the Ears? and Education of the Blind. It also includes a collection of poems by the blind. Such a book as this has a value which, probably, has not occurred to its author. She has put on record the phenomena of her life as she has recollected them, with great simplicity, merely for the entertainment of her readers, without attaching any importance to the value which every such memoir has in the department of science. But it is just from the study of such phenomena as these that the students in mental and moral philosophy learn the laws of mind and the operations of a human soul under a divine, moral government. "

Leseprobe

THE WORLD AS I HAVE FOUND IT BY MARY L. DAY ARMS

SEQUEL TO Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl.

Published by Seltzer Books

established in 1974

offering over 14,000 books

feedback welcome: [email protected]

Books by and about the Blind, available from Seltzer Books:

The World As I Have Found it by Mary L. Day Arms

Two Books and a Poem by Helen Keller

Five Lectures on Blindness by Kate M. Foley

Poetical Works by  John Milton

Pope's Homer: Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in Heroic Couplets

The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling

Blindman's World by Edward Bellamy

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

By Rev. Charles F. Deems, LL.D.

BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY JAMES YOUNG, 112 West Baltimore Street.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by MARY L. DAY ARMS, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHAPTER XXXII.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CHAPTER XXXV.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

HELP THE BLIND TO HELP THEMSELVES.

"SIGHT OF THE BLIND."

"HOW DO THE BLIND SEE?"  BY L.V. HALL.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT BY MRS. HELEN ALDRICH DE KROYFT

IS IT MORE TO LOSE THE EYES THAN THE EARS?

EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

POEMS BY THE BLIND.

INTRODUCTION.

 Mrs. Arms has asked me to write an introduction to her book. It hardly seems to need it. The title-page shows that it was written by one who is blind. It is a sequel to another volume. That volume has been widely sold, and all who read it will, I am sure, have some desire to see how the stream of the life of its writer has been flowing since her first book was written. Her patient perseverance under privations has won her a large circle of personal friends, who will take pleasure in procuring and preserving this fresh memento of the Blind Girl.

Such a book as this has a value which, probably, has not occurred to its author. She has put on record the phenomena of her life as she has recollected them, with great simplicity, merely for the entertainment of her readers, without attaching any importance to the value which every such memoir has in the department of science. But it is just from the study of such phenomena as these that the students in mental and moral philosophy learn the laws of mind and the operations of a human soul under a divine, moral government. As a matter of taste we might omit the writer's description of her husband, whom she never yet has seen, p. 45, and her account of her love affairs, p. 49; and if we had discretionary editorship, and the volume had been written by one having always had her sight, we should unhesitatingly exclude such passages. But, as the records of the impressions, consciousnesses and general mental phenomena of a blind girl in love, they stand to be, perhaps, quoted hereafter in some abstruse scientific treatise, or bloom out in some perennial poem.

There is an immediate practical usefulness in such a book as this. It has its wholesome lesson for the young. It shows what strength of character and vigor of purpose will accomplish under even extraordinary embarrassments. The young lady had a hard early life. She had neither friends nor money nor sight, but she unwhiningly took up the task of taking care of herself, and discharged it so nobly as to make for herself a wide circle of friends, and keep for herself that sense of self-reliance as toward man, and of faith as toward God, which are worth more than all the dirty dollars that wickedness can give to weakness.

Let our young women who are in straitened circumstances, in circumstances that seem absolutely exclusive of all hope of retaining virtue and keeping life, read this book and its predecessor, and pluck up faith and hope. Let all our young ladies, daughters of loving parents, daughters who have no care for the morrow, daughters of delicious ease and happy opportunity, read this book, and then let their consciences ask them how they are to carry their idleness to be examined at the judgment sent of Christ, in contrast with this blind girl's industry, fidelity and perseverance.

CHARLES F. DEEMS. CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS, New York, 4th July, 1878.

 CHAPTER I.

    "Warriors and statesmen have their meed of praise,

And what they do, or suffer, men record;

While the long sacrifice of woman's days

Passes without a thought, without a word:

And many a holy struggle for the sake

Of duty, sternly, faithfully fulfil'd;

For which the anxious soul must watch and wait,

Goes by unheeded as the summer wind,

And leaves no memory, and no trace behind!

Yet, it may be, more lofty courage dwells

In one meek heart that braves an adverse fate,

Than his whose ardent soul indignant swells,

Warmed by the fight, or cheered through high debate.

The soldier dies surrounded; could he live

Alone to suffer, and alone to strive?"

So was rendered the sad soul-music of one of the legion,

    "Who learned in sorrow

What they taught in song."

and the weird words have been echoed by the voice of many a woman all along, whose weary wanderings have burned the sacrificial fires; amid the ashes of whose dead hopes the embers have flickered and faded only to rekindle the lurid, lustrous light of added, and still added offerings. There, waiting and watching the deep tracery "upon the sands beside the sounding sea," find wave after wave wash away the mystic hand-writing.

The ebbing tide carries afar the ships freighted with aching, anguished hearts; when borne upon the swell of the flowing sea, come the swift sails of Argosies richly laden with hope, full with fruition.

Within the heart of all there lies deeply imbedded the "Black Drop" of which the Mahometan legend tells, and which the angel revealed to the Prophet of Allah. 'Tis in aching anguish this drop must be probed and purified, to be healed only through the endless eloquence of duty done.

The sightless eyes have vivid visions. Theirs is the light in darkness which stirred the soul of a Milton with a "gift divine;" inspired a Homer with the "fire and frenzy" which crowned an Iliad and an Odyssey, the master pieces of Epic verse; gave to the antique and traditional literature of the Celtic race its meteoric brilliancy, and produced the weird, wondrous sublimity of an Ossian.

All who have read the Invocation to Light by the blind authoress, Mrs. De Kroyft, must have realized the luminous light of a soul sublimated by sorrow and swelling and soaring in eloquent strains.

'Tis but a simple song I must sing, a bird-note amid cathedral tones; but may not its minstrelsy meet the heart and search the soul of many a sorrowing one, or rise like the song of the nightingale to the throne of Him who sees the lives enthralled?

If this little lesson of life can find a single searcher for the truth it tells, or bear on the breath of the breeze "one soft Æolian strain," may I not hope that it may help to swell the harp-notes of the heavenly harmonies?

 CHAPTER II.

    "I remember, I remember

  How my childhood fleeted by--

The mirth of its December,

  And the warmth of its July."

 In a former volume I have recounted the varied scenes of an eventful childhood, whose auroral dawn was tinted with the rose-hue and perfumed with the breath of light-winged moments; even as the Goddess of the Morning ushers in the new-born day with her flower-laden chariot, and the bright Morning Star lends its light ere it sinks under the horizon.

Having my birth on the rich soil of a Southern land, and cradled under its tropical skies and sunny smiles, I was early transplanted to colder climes and ruder blasts, yet through the nurture of a mother's gentle hand, and the ministrations of a loving band of sisters and brothers, whose talismanic touch toned every note, softened every sorrow and heightened every hope, I could but bloom like an Alpine flower in its bed of snow.

But in the golden chain there came to be, in time, a "missing link;" the mother's life went out, and from the darkened fireside vanished the little flock, scattered through various ways to various destinies.

My own was a slippery path to tread, and ofttimes led my weary feet into the shadow, and gloom, and darkness. Through sickness, neglect and maltreatment came all too soon "sorrow's crown of sorrow;" when over the young life fell a dark pall, and eyes so used to light no longer held the prisoned sunbeams, and passed forever under the relentless bond and cruel curse of blindness. Then indeed my soul grew dark! And could my restless eyes wait in thraldom for the dawn of an eternal day, and must my wandering feet pass through the "valley of the shadow," ere I could see the light "around the Great White Throne?"

Through a singular complication of circumstances I was led to the home of a sister in Chicago, from whom I had long been separated; and by equally singular ways I was also there reunited to three of my brothers (Charles, William and Howard). Then my veiled vision could not shut out the loved lineaments living in the pictured halls of memory--the vision of a love-hallowed home, and a mother's face crowning all. Scenes and faces gone, passed like a panorama before my mind's eye, and

    "So the blessed train passed by me,

But the vision was sealed upon my soul."

Through the agency of family friends I returned to my birth-place, and with strange and mingled emotions was welcomed back to Baltimore, with kind greetings from relatives and friends. Some had passed beyond the portal of earthly existence, and others unexpectedly reappeared, among whom was my father, whose face I could not see, but whose emotion betokened great anguish at the sight of his blind daughter. Oh how many memories must have passed through his mind, as he clasped to his heart his chastened, motherless child, and, while other loves and other ties were his, "the shades of friends departed" as told by Longfellow must have entered a weird train, and amid other angel footsteps must have come--

    "That being beauteous

  Who unto his youth was given;

More than all things else to love him,

  And is now a saint in Heaven."

Notwithstanding so many former attempts at the restoration of my sight, another effort was made, involving a trip to New York, where a most painful operation was undergone. But, alas! although a brief period was accorded me, in which I saw with rapture objects around me, it was only to be shut out into utter and hopeless sightlessness. As the wounded hare seeks some cover remote from the human ken, so did my sinking soul seek the solace of solitude, where for twenty-four hours I searched my nature to its depths, and made resolves for my future course, known only to God and pitying angels. They alone comforted me then, and they have sustained and soothed through every succeeding trial!

 CHAPTER III.

    "The saddest day hath gleams of light,

  The darkest wave hath bright foam near it.

And, twinkles o'er the cloudiest night,

  Some solitary star to cheer it."

 In the year 1855, my heart still heavy with its burden of blindness, I entered the Baltimore Institution for the Blind. With kind friends to aid and cheer me, high hopes, rich resolutions and ambitious aims to inspire, I commenced the course of study which was to fit me for my new avocations. Ofttimes was I found in the deep valley of humiliation, where I sat me down and sighed; and in many a "Garden of Gethsemane" were seen the trickling "tears of blood." The cross and the crucifixion came, but afterwards came the resurrection of dead hopes and angels bearing the crown.

I must say with undying gratitude to all connected with the Institution, that it is to them I am indebted for the might and the mastery; for while many a daisy was crushed in my path, many a rose bloomed upon a thorny stem, and these kind ones led me at last to the sun-crowned mountain-tops and clear blue skies.

After being in school for three years, without consulting with any friend, I wrote, with much difficulty, a letter with pin-type, to Governor Hicks, asking a three years extension of time. I preserved secrecy in this matter in the fear of disappointment, and determined if it came to bear it alone. One day a professor called me to him and said: "You have written to the Governor, and his reply has come." With anxious, nervous silence, I "waited for the verdict," and when it came in an affirmative, how happy and joyous I felt! How determined to push on to the bright goal before me!

Meantime I had written a history of my life, and through assistance from ever kind friends had succeeded in securing its publication. A copy of it was sent to the Governor, as a tiny token of my appreciation of his kindness. I afterward accompanied a delegation from our school to Annapolis, where we gave an entertainment. The Governor, coming up to our little group, said, in cheerful tones, "I am going to see if I can recognize the one who wrote the book." And in pursuance of this announcement, easily selected me, and with kindly tones and hearty grasp of the hand, spoke many words of comfort, which are still carefully held in my casket of gems as

    "Treasures guarded with jealous care

And kept as sacred tokens."

Continuing my course of studies, I graduated in 1860 with, I hope, a fair degree of honor to myself and my instructors. Just previous to this time there came among our many visitors a good friend from Loudon county, Virginia, named Richard Henry Taylor, who promised if I would visit his home he would furnish me every facility for the sale of my book; and of him I shall have more to say hereafter.

Now commenced the real struggle of life. Alone I must brave the world, and with patience bear its frowns or enjoy its smiles, as the case might be. Alone I must earn my bread.

Meagre were many times the means and scanty was the allowance, yet they came in the hour of need as manna in the wilderness, ofttimes wet with the dews of heavenly love; and ever, in my laborious pilgrimage, I have been allowed to stand upon Mount Gerizim, to bless the people and the "rulers of the land."

 CHAPTER IV.

    "Let us then be up and doing

  With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

  Learn to labor and to wait."

 Deeming it proper to inaugurate my work in our nation's capital, I left my "Alma Mater" with all the trepidation of a child going out from the home-roof, and rushed into the exciting and excited vortex, where centralize our national interests, and where, as it were, throbs the great national heart, the city of Washington. I was kindly received at the house of my cousin, Mrs. Reese, in which sanctum my heart took fresh hope and courage. This was during the administration of Mr. Buchanan, and I first repaired to the bachelor President, who received me in his private audience-room with all of his characteristic and chivalrous courtesy. Taking both my hands in his, he said, with deep emotion--"I am so sorry for your deep affliction, but so glad that you have had the energy to write a book and the courage to make it a resource for support. I pray that God may bless and prosper you, and I know he will."

After this expression of his faith he showed his works by buying a book, for which he paid me two dollars and a half, more than double its price. So spoke, so did, the noble man, in whose heart was enshrined the memory of one cherished love, the idolized object of which precluded the possibility of a second affection, while the grand heart of the statesman went out in kindness and sympathy to all.

My second call was at one of the government offices, where my nervous excitement rendered me so nearly speechless that I could only silently and tremblingly tender a book to a young man who was one of the clerks. Seeing the movement, he asked:

"Do you wish, to sell the book?" to which I nodded an affirmative.

He turned jocularly toward me, and asked: "Were you ever in love?"

Speech suddenly followed in the wake of offended dignity, and I promptly replied: "Sir, I try to love every one."

"But," said he, in soaring strain, "suppose a young man should say to you--'You are the cherished idol of my worship, the one sweet flower blooming in my pathway, etc., etc.' what would you think?"

I quickly responded: "Sir, I should think he had more poetry than good sense in his composition."

Pleased, and apparently thoughtful, he turned from me, and going among the other employees, returned with the money for a dozen copies of my book in his hand, and on his lips a penitent and evidently heartfelt assurance that he meant no harm or insult by his words, humbly craved my pardon for the offense, and closed by wishing me many God speeds.

My next effort was in the Treasury Department, where the first person I approached exclaimed:

"Mary Day! where did you come from?" This exclamation was followed by many other expressions of joy and surprise. Suddenly the loving arm of a young girl encircled me. Kisses fell upon my forehead, cheek and lips, and words of endearment came in copious pearly showers. At the first lull in the sweet confusion I asked: "Who are you all?"

The first proved to be a brother of Mrs. Cook, of Michigan, who had been so kind to me in the past, and the second was her daughter, who rapidly recounted by-gone scenes, and lovingly lingered upon the many cherished memories my presence had evoked. They took me to their home in the city, and lavished upon me all the kindness and attention love could suggest. Among the many reminiscences came the one sad story of the father's death. In one of the darkest, sternest hours of my childhood he had held out to me the kind, paternal hand, and welcomed me to the protection of his own roof, and the story of his death deeply interested me. It was in substance this:

The family had returned from some festive scene on Christmas eve, and the father, leaving them to stable his horses, was so long absent as to arouse anxiety. They sought him everywhere, but found him not. After a night of untold suspense the morning revealed to them the shocking sight of his dead body lying in the corner of an adjoining lot, his face smiling and peaceful in death, his arms folded and limbs outstretched. He had been cruelly gored by a creature he had fed and fostered, cherishing it as a pet among his domestic animals, and it had turned upon him as many so-called human creatures repay those who have protected and loved them!

They knew not whether his wounds or the intense cold had been the final cause of death, but such was the sad dawning of their Christmas day, and so, amid the joy of my reunion with those dear friends, came the sad thought that--

    Ever amid life's roses

  Will the sombre cypress be twined,

And wherever a joy reposes,

  A dream of sorrow we find.

I feel it due to the various government officials at Washington to give them an expression of gratitude for the great facilities afforded me in the way of permits to canvass in the many public departments, knowing their strict rules and rigid restrictions in this regard.

I was volunteered an entrée everywhere, from the humblest government office to the Capitol and White House, and in each and all was courteously received. In subsequent years I had also great reason for gratitude to Mr. Colfax, who not only gave his own patronage, but presented me to Congress, the members of which vied with each other in liberality.

 CHAPTER V.

    "Thus, with delight, we linger to survey

The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;

Thus, from afar, each dim discovered scene

More pleasing seems than all the rest hath been;

And every form that fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there."

 My nature, in its first struggle with the world, shrank, like Mimosa, from every human touch; but the kind words of love and gentle acts of kindness already received transformed and ripened within me a more trusting and hopeful character, and I almost unconsciously accepted as immutable and inevitable the great law of compensation.

It is well that it was in the season of youth that my career began, that season which Jean Paul so poetically designates as "The Festival Day of Life," in which period friendship dwells as yet in a serenely open Grecian Temple, not, as in later years, in a narrow Gothic Chapel.

My heart accepting as genuine these pure expressions of friendship, I turned from Washington toward Virginia, and after a visit at Leesburg, in which I had good success, I wrote to Mr. Taylor, the friend I have before mentioned, asking him to meet me at Hamilton, which point was reached by the old-time stage-route. Some doubt may have entered my mind as to his remembrance of the promise to meet me, all of which must have been dispelled when, upon the arrival of the stage, a cheery, gentle voice, in a tone which would have filled the darkest moment of doubt with the sun-ray of trust, exclaimed: "How does thee do, Mary?" Miss Rachel Weaver, my companion, was a bright-eyed, sunny-hearted, English girl, whose presence irradiated the atmosphere around her. She was presented to him, and received the same quiet yet cordial greeting. His carriage was in waiting for us, and a refreshing drive of three miles brought us to his cozy home. The reception given us by his excellent wife was characterized by all the depth and warmth of her expanded and exalted nature, and we were at once domiciled as truly "at home."

The next day was the beginning of their Quarterly Meeting, and the impressions of a life-time can never efface the varied pictures stamped upon memory by each phase of that religious gathering. Not in a gorgeous chapel of Gothic architecture, frescoed nave and highly wrought transept; no stained glass windows of rainbow hue; no gorgeously draped altar or elaborate organ; but in a simple wooden meeting-house, upon a gently sloping grassy seclusion, came the feet of those "who went up to the worship of God." No robed priest with consecrated head was there, but all were privileged to express with the lips the heart's devotion.

Mr. Taylor carried to this meeting a number of my little books, and I am safe in saying that each member of that community bought one of them.

At noon we partook of a collation upon the lovely green sward, where sweet words solaced and kind hands tendered me hospitality. Prominent among the guests was Mrs. Hoag, a lady of lovely character and cultured mind, who insisted upon having us accompany her to her home, a mansion rich and elegant in its appointments, and, above all, its halls resounding with the music of innocent mirth, and hung with the "golden tapestry" of love.

We remained in this community four weeks, a sweet "season of refreshment," which so gently glided away that we awoke, like those aroused from peaceful sleep and dear dreams of pleasure, renewed and buoyant.

Our farewell was not unmingled with sad regret at parting, but upon my return to Baltimore my friends failed not to note the favorable change in my physical and mental condition. So talismanic is the touch of love, so inspiring and life giving! and 'tis to this dear community of Louden county, Virginia, I shall ever trace the first impetus which has given momentum to all the subsequent movements of my life.

 CHAPTER VI.

    "The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

  The soldier's last tattoo:

No more on life's parade shall meet

  That brave and fallen few;

On fame's eternal camping ground

  Their silent tents are spread,

And glory guards, with solemn round,

  The bivouac of the dead."

 After a short period of reunion with friends in Baltimore, I resolved, notwithstanding the agitated condition of the country, to wend my way southward, for I restlessly yearned for an active continuation of duty.

Miss Weaver having other engagements, it became necessary for me to seek another traveling companion. Trusting to the good fortune which had hitherto favored me in that regard, I engaged the services of Miss Mary Chase, who proved a valuable attendant, combining in her character so many graces and endowments, possessing, among her numerous attractions, a voice of rare, rich and mellow flexibility.

My uncle, Mr. Heald, having an interest in the Bay Line of steamers, his son, my cousin, Howard Heald, attended me to the steamer Belvidere, introduced me to the captain, and took every precautionary measure to enhance the pleasure of my trip. Subsequent events proved how salutary were these efforts. The captain did all that polite attention and study of my comfort could suggest, attended us to the table, pointed out the workings of the engine, the complications of the machinery and propelling power of the steamer, which so airily and so gracefully "walked the waters," directed attention to every object of note on the route and their charm of historic interest, thus making the trip one replete with instruction. Miss Chase, with the melody of a song-bird, drew around us a circle of charmed listeners, and her voice became a source of constant and soothing solace to me.

Arriving at the city of Richmond at the untimely hour of four o'clock in the morning, at the solicitation of the captain we remained on board until a later and more convenient time, when we found the streets of the city alive with soldiers and filled with sad sounds of sword and musketry, the first low reverberation of the din of war, the opening of the battle-song, whose weird refrain has been echoed by so many sorrowing ones, its mad music adapted to the thousands of crushed and broken hearts!

The little war-cloud, at first "no larger than a man's hand," was growing deeper and darker, and the stern rumble of the conflict becoming irrepressible. Every avenue in the way of business was closed, and being told that if I desired remaining north of Mason and Dixon's line I must go at once, I retraced my steps, and returned by the James river, since so memorable in the history of our civil conflict, and sought shelter in Baltimore, where I remained for the winter; and while so many relatives and friends would have welcomed me to their homes, I felt impelled to accept an invitation to the institution in which I had been educated, and could enjoy the association of those who had first directed my tottering steps, and my schoolmates, who were friends and co-workers.

 CHAPTER VII.

    "But if chains are woven shining,

Firm as gold and fine as hair,

Twisting round the heart, and twining.

Binding all that centres there

In a knot that, like the olden,

May be cut, but ne'er unfolden;

Would not something sharp remain

In the breaking of the chain?"

 Spring came with its "ethereal mildness" and budding beauty, and the ties which bound me to the Monumental City must, although with convulsive effort, be broken.

Miss Chase was but "a treasure lent," her sweet, loving nature having won the heart of one who made her his life companion; hence it became necessary for me to find another to fill her place. She came in the person of Miss Kate Fowler, a lovely young girl of seventeen years, who possessed great charms of person, mind and soul, as the sequel will show.

We traveled together throughout Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, meeting with greater success than we could have hoped for while the din of war was raging, always making sufficient for our support.

At Hollidaysburgh, Penn., I learned of the presence of General Anderson, and resolved that I would offer a tangible evidence of my appreciation of the "Hero of Fort Sumter." Entwining one of my little books with red, white and blue ribbons, I sent it to him with a little note, asking its acceptance from the authoress, a Baltimore lady, in behalf of her native city, then under a cloud, the Massachusetts troops having been stoned by a mob collected from various points, and for which she bore the undeserved odium. These I sent in their tri-colored dress, expecting only a silent reception. But, as I sat at dinner in my hotel, there came a singular and unexpected response in the person of the General himself. He was introduced by the landlord, and was accompanied by his little daughter, holding in her hand my token, as she smilingly approached me in her fairy-like beauty. A delightful chat ensued, and an urgent request upon his part that I should visit Cresson Springs, to which he had resorted with his family in order to recuperate his health, shattered by the protracted and gallant defense of one of our national citadels.

With a kind "good bye" he left, and as I passed out of the dining-room door I received an evidence of his great delicacy in a token he would not publicly tender. The landlord handed me a box from him containing a handsome plain gold ring, ever since cherished as a memento; and, although worn by time, there is still legible the name engraved within this shining circlet, even that of General Anderson.

After canvassing Altoona I went to Cresson Springs and was no sooner registered than I received a card from the General. Meeting me in the parlor, he gave me a cordial welcome, after which he said: "Now I am going to assist you in your sales." He drew together three of the parlor tables, and, taking one hundred of my books, he placed them thereon, together with specimens of my bead work, which he artistically arranged in the national colors. It needed but a wave of the magician's wand, for such he seemed, to evoke the spirits of generosity and love, and through these all of my volumes vanished, as well as much of the bead work. At General Anderson's request I took my work to the parlor, and amid a group of wondering ones, many of whom were members of his own family, I showed them how the blind could deftly weave these little trinkets, the fashioning of the "bijou" baskets needing no sight to arrange the colors, with celerity and skill. I was also, at his request, seated at his family table, and time will never erase the memory of words which fell from the lips of the warrior, as gently, as lovingly, as if a woman's voice were breathing words of comfort and affection. In after time, when tidings of his death were borne from a foreign land, when the perfumed breath of sunny France received the last sigh of our hero, I dropped many a tear, which truly welled up from the depths of a sorrowing heart.