Sight to the Blind | Page 8

finish my education and have me reading Scriptur' come
summer. Yes, it all seemed too good and fair to be true, and I lived in a
daze. I come to myself sufficient', though, to have the little gal write
John to hire a wagon and bring Marthy and all the young uns to the
railroad for to meet me, and see the world and the cyars; and also,
realizing I were going to git back my faculty and workingness, and not
being able to make the doctor take ary cent for his doings,--he said it
were the least the Blue Grass could do for the mountains,--I tuck what
money I had left and bought me some fine store clothes for to match
my teeth and my innard feelings. 'Peared like I could n't noway feel at
home in them sorry gyarments I had wore in sorry days.
"But it were not till I sot in the railroad cyars ag'in, and the level
country had crinkled up into hills, and the hills had riz up into
mountains, all a-blazin' out majestical' in the joy of yaller and scarlet
and green and crimson, that I raley got my sight and knowed I had it.
Yes, the Blue Grass is fine and pretty and smooth and heavenly fair;
but the mountains is my nateral and everlastin' element. They gethered
round me at my birth; they bowed down their proud heads to listen at
my first weak cry; they cradled me on their broad knees; they suckled
me at their hard but ginerous breasts. Whether snow-kivered, or brown,
or green, or many-colored, they never failed to speak great, silent
words to me whensoever I lifted up my eyes to 'em; they still holds in
their friendly embrace all that is dear to me, living or dead; and, women,
if I don't see 'em in heaven, I 'll be lonesome and homesick thar.
"Yes, when I laid eyes on them well-beloved forms, I knowed for sure I
had my sight. And the folks in the cyar they knowed it, too. I am in
gineral one to keep things locked and pinned down inside me; but for
once I let go all holts and turnt a-loose. Then and thar I bu'sted out into
shouts of joy and songs of praise; I magnified the Lord and all His
works; I testified of my salvation from blindness of body and sperrit; I
hollered till natur' went plumb back on me and I could n't fetch nary
'nother breath.
"Then when I stepped off the train, thar was the living human faces of

my own blood, John and Marthy, and the eight young uns whose
countenances I had never beheld. And as I gazed, women, more scales
drapped from my long-blind eyes. In the face of John here, the boy I
had allus abused for no-git-up and shiftless, I beheld loving-kindness
and onselfishness writ large and fair; looking on little Evy, I seed love
divine in her tender eyes, and light raying out from her yaller hair and
from the other seven smaller head' bunched around her like cherubim'.
And Marthy! Right here, women, I ax your pardon if I stop a spell, for
of a truth words fails me and tears squenches me. What did I see in that
kind, gentle, patient face of hern? Women, it were the very living
sperrit of Christ hisself I seed thar--the sperrit that returned love for
hate, mercy for revilement, joy and life for curses and death. Yes, when
them eyes of hers was turnt on me so full of love, right thar my heart
broke. I had bemeaned and berated and faulted her so continual', and
belt her up as a pore, doless creetur', without no backbone or ambition;
and now I knowed that if thar ever were a tender, ginuwine, angel
daughter on this here earth, it were her to me. Women, when she tuck
me to her bosom, I just slid right down thar on 'my unworthy knees thar
on the ground at her feet thar, and with bitter tears beseeched of her to
forgive and forgit my hard-heartedness and stone-blindness and
dog-meanness, which of course, being Marthy, she had already done
allus-ago.
"Then, friends, my cup were running over; and as we journeyed up
creeks and down mountains nigh these three days, we was the
nunitedest and joyfullest family that ever follered a trail; and all the
way I laid my plans for to set the farm on its feet ag'in, and clear new
ground, and maul rails for the fence, and rive boards for the roof, and
quairy out rock for a new chimbly, and bring up the yield of corn, and
weed out the eatingest of the cattle, and git my loom sot up and running