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."

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!"