Part 7 (1/2)

”Our only dissipation was clothes. We dressed loud. You could hear our clothes an incalculable distance. We had an idea it helped business.

Our plan was to take one firm of each business in town, painting its advertis.e.m.e.nt on every road leading to town.

”You've heard the story about my traveling all over the state as a blind sign-painter? Well, that started this way: One day we were in a small town, and a great crowd was watching us in breathless wonder and curiosity; and one of our party said; 'Riley, let me introduce you as a blind sign-painter.' So just for the mischief I put on a crazy look in the eyes, and pretended to be blind. They led me carefully to the ladder, and handed me my brush and paints. It was great fun. I'd hear them saying as I worked, 'That feller ain't blind.' 'Yes he is; see his eyes.' 'No, he ain't, I tell you; he's playin' off.' 'I tell you he _is_ blind. Didn't you see him fall over a box and spill all his paints?'

”Now, that's all there was to it. I was a blind sign-painter one day and forgot it the next. We were all boys, and jokers, naturally enough, but not lawless. All were good fellows, all had nice homes and good people.”

When he had spent four years with ”The Graphic Company” he accepted a position as reporter for a paper published at Anderson, Indiana. In addition to his reporting work he wrote many short poems in the Hoosier dialect that took well. So successful was his work on this paper that Judge Martindale of the Indianapolis Journal offered him a position on that paper. About the first thing he now did was to write a series of Benjamin F. Johnson poems. In speaking of this series Mr.

Riley said, ”These all appeared with editorial comment, as if they came from an old Hoosier farmer of Boone County. They were so well received that I gathered them together in a little parchment volume, which I called, 'The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems', my first book.”

This book met with immediate favor. Speakers from east to west quoted from it. All wanted to know who the author really was. Modest as Mr.

Riley was, he had to confess that he had written the book. Other books followed in close succession until when he died he had written forty-two volumes. But people were not satisfied with reading his books merely, they wanted to see and hear him. He, therefore, began in a modest way to read his poems before audiences in his native state.

So delighted were these audiences, for he was a charming reader as well as a capable writer, that urgent calls came from every state in the Union to come and read for them. For a number of years he traveled widely and appeared before thousands of audiences, but this kind of life never appealed to him.

Though he never married, Mr. Riley was always fond of the quiet of a modest home. Accordingly, the closing years of his life were spent in semi-retirement in his cozy home on Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis.

HELEN KELLER

A little girl was traveling with her father and mother. They were going from a little town in Alabama to the city of Baltimore. The journey was long and, as the little girl was only six years old, she wanted toys and playthings with which to pa.s.s the time.

The kind conductor let her have his punch when he was not using it.

She found that it was great fun to punch dozens of little holes in a piece of cardboard and she would touch each hole with one of her little fingers, but she did not count them because she had not learned how.

By and by a pleasant lady thought she would make a rag doll for the little traveler. She rolled two towels up in such a way that they looked very much like a doll, and the little girl eagerly took the new plaything in her arms. She rocked it and loved it; but something troubled her, for she kept feeling the doll's face and holding it out to the friends who sat near her. They did not understand what was the matter.

Suddenly she jumped down and ran over to where her mother's cape had been placed. This cape was trimmed with large beads. The little girl pulled off two beads and turning to her mother pointed once more to the doll's face. Then her mother understood that her daughter wanted the doll to have eyes; so she sewed the beads firmly to the towel and the little girl was happy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HELEN KELLER ”Hearing” Caruso Sing]

Are you wondering why the little girl did not talk and tell what she wanted? She could not. Just think, she was six years old and could not speak a word! All she could do was to make a few queer sounds.

Perhaps, too, you wonder why she was so anxious for the towel doll to have eyes. I think it was because although she herself was blind, she liked to fancy her doll had eyes that could see the beauties of the world. To be blind and speechless seems hard indeed, but besides lacking these two great gifts, this little girl was deaf. Think of it!

She could not hear, she could not see, and she could not talk.

Yet this same little girl learned to talk. She learned to read, with her fingers, books printed for the blind in raised letters. She studied the same lessons that other children had in school, and she worked so hard that she was able to go to college.

Should you not like to hear Helen Keller, for that is the name of the little girl, tell about herself?

She says: ”I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tusc.u.mbia, a little town of Northern Alabama. I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of an eager, self-a.s.serting disposition. They say I walked the day I was a year old. My mother had just taken me out of the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap, when I was suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from my mother's lap and almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I fell down, and cried for her to take me in her arms.

”These happy days did not last long, for an illness came which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new born baby. The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me, but I was never to see or hear again.”

From the time of her recovery until the journey of which we have been reading, Helen Keller lived in silence and darkness. This journey was undertaken in order to consult a famous physician who had cured many cases of blindness. Mr. and Mrs. Keller hoped this gentleman could help their child, and you can imagine how sad they were when he said he could do nothing. However, he sent them to consult Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, who had taught many deaf children to speak. Dr. Bell played with Helen and she sat on his knee and fingered curiously his heavy gold watch. He not only advised her parents to get a special teacher for her, but told them of a school in Boston in which he thought they could find some one able to unlock the doors of knowledge for the little girl. This was in the summer, and the next March Miss Sullivan went to Alabama to be Helen Keller's friend and teacher.

Let us read how the little girl felt when this kind, loving woman came. ”On the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand, as I supposed, to my mother. Some one took it and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me.