Sight to the Blind | Page 2

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