Sight to the Blind | Page 7

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