THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of Julius Boerner, Chicago Purchased. 1918. H49&HI Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library ijjh &■& r Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/outfromdarknessa00hend_0 HOW CAN A RESPECTAI YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN WHO DESIRE AN ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION SHOULD SEND FOR THE JWagnifieent Heou Catalogue ISSUED FOR THEIR BENEFIT BY THE BRYANT & STRATTON CHICAGO BUSINESS COLLEGE, WASHINGTON ST. COR. WABASH AVE., CHICAGO, ILL. This Superb Volume, containing 112 Large Pages, 9^x12 inches, on finest enameled paper, with 80 Elegant full page Engravings, is sent by mail upon receipt of lEN CENTS TO PAY POSTAGE, A Great Faculty of Practical Business Educators AND A GRAND SUITE OF SIXTEEN ELEGANT APARTMENTS, WITH ACCOMMODATIONS FOR TWELVE HUNDRED STUDENTS. Address H. B. BRYANT & SON, Proprietors, LE LIVING BE EARNED ? IT WOULD BE WISE TO ENTER THE GREAT BUSINESS UNIVERSITY DF AMERICA WHICH IS PERSONALLY CONDUCTED BY |W1R. H. B. Bf^YATlT, Senior Member of the Original Firm of BRYANT & STRATTON, Where You Gan Secure Splendid Facilities in Every Department of Commercial * Education. INCLUDING THE COURSE OF Practical Business Training, WHICH EMBRACES Bookkeeping, Business Arithmetic, Commercial Law, Business and Legal Forms, Business Correspondence, Business Penmanship, Banking, Railroading, Manu- facturing, Importing and Jobbing, Real Estate and Loans, Merchandising, Ac. The Stenographer’s Course, WHICH COMPRISES Shorthand, Typewriting, Punctuation, Paragraphing, Composition, Syllabication, Orthography, Manifolding, Hektographing, Mimeographing, Letter Press Copying, Letter Indexing and Filing, Ac., ALSO AH EXCELLENT DEPARTMENT of ENGLISH TRAINING. ishington Street, Cor. Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois OUT FROM An Autobiography. UNFOLDING THE LIFE STORE AND SINGULAR VICISSITUDES OF A SCANDINAVIAN BARTIMvEUS. By HENRY HENDRICKSON. WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. CAREFULLY EDITED AND REVISED FOR THE PRESS, TO MAKE THE PUBLICATION MOW OFFERED TO FAMILIES THE BOOK OF THE DAY. CHICAGO: The Western Sunday-School Publishing- Company, No. 46 Madison Street. 1879. COPYRIGHT BY HENRY HENDRICKSON. ^Dec a 9 Ftvf s, & WtfSJk ) 7 TO MY GENEROUS FRIEND, MONS ANDERSON, Of LaCrosse, Wib., This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated, AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF THE APPRECIATION IN WHICH HE IS HELD BY THE AUTHOR : FOR NOBLE QUALITIES AND GENEROUS DEEDS WHICH HAVE WON THE RESPECT AND ESTEEM OF ALL CLASSES IN THE NORTHWEST. Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 20, 1879. PREFACE. Custom, which is ull but inexorable, demands from the author of a book* a few prefatory words to intro- duce his bantling to the world ; and it would be ungra- cious to regret the opportunity to say a few last words by way of a beginning. The preface to a book, like the prologue to a play, must be written after the work is otherwise complete; and it is pleasant to 'realize that the promises of long ago are within a few days of ful- fillment in the publication of this volume. The story of a blind man’s life will not, I trust, be found dull and uninteresting, for as Tennyson says, u I am a part of all that I have seen;” and that may be supplemented with the words of Hamlet, “ In my mind’s eye, Ho- ratio.” The gold fields of Australia and the peculiarities of its population; the perils of Chinese navigation and the possible dangers from Mongolian immigration; the great fire in Chicago in some of its phases; some of the dangers from American monopolists and “ ratteners,” and many other questions of social importance which more or less immediately affect the blind, have been wo- ven into the web of this tale. Beyond the hackneyed round of autobiography I have ventured to give brief sketches of the history of the Scandinavian peoples all 8 PREFACE. over the world, and following to its ultimatum in this country the growth of liberal institutions, have pre- sented to my readers some few ideas as to parliament- ary government as developed by the Anglo-Saxons in England. The Scandinavians as a people, are interested in every fact that shows how freedom has become the rule among the favored nations of the earth; and the blind of every race cannot fail to assist in the diffusion of a work from the hands of one of their own number. The Author. Bureau of Literature, 275 W. Monroe st., Chicago, 111. OUT FROM THE DARKNESS CHAPTER I. “This life is but a sleep, and a forgetting The soul that rises with us ; our life’s star Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar — Not in entire forgetfulness, nor jet in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home.” — Wordsworth. HE sublime mystery of life, fraught with joys for JL the saddest of mankind, and with sorrows for even those most aloof from the meaner cares of earth, dawned upon me in Norway, in the farming district of Valders, on the x6th day of December, 1843; and, although an environment of anxiety has been my lot, I have yet real- ized enough felicity on this green globe to enable me to thank my Creator for the boon of existence. I am con- tent with the mercies which have been allotted to me, with the compensations which are inseparable from my lot; and out from the darkness would raise my voice, in the hope that the lessons from my experience may prove of service to my fellows — as well to those who are blessed with the capacity to see the blue o’er-arching firmament, the emerald footstool adorned with flowers, and that emblem of eternity, the ocean, as to those who are bereft of the faculty of vision. My autobiography shall be faithfully written, and dull- ness shall be avoided, if that be possible, by omitting the 9 10 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. record of prosy details 5 such as are common to every career. There are no pet theories to be advanced in my pages; no self-laudations to sicken my readers, and alien- ate their regards; and there shall be no distortions of fact and experience, if the pen will obey the impulse of the mind. Sensationalism is the vice of the day, and, according to some authorities, the writer who will not resort to its attractions must suffer the pangs of neglect; but at all risks, I’ll none of it; my trust shall be in the best feelings and strong mentality of manhood and womanhood. The adventures of a blind man, if truly told, cannot be made picturesque by glowing delineations of wood, mountain, river and sea; that is a charm denied. The yielding sod beneath my feet lacks the emerald beauties which I find descanted on by others, and I would fain feel what others may describe in deathless words; but there are worlds of thought and action into which the landscape does not enter, which the mind * alone may grasp; and the seals of that vast library are open alike to the sightless and the seeing. There is ample scope and verge enough for all my powers of description, but I shall avoid trespassing beyond the bounds of patience ; a grace that is not always exemplified by able writers. It has often seemed to me that there are regions of con- centrated thought and vivid imagination, which can com- pensate the thousands who are bereft of vision for aU the glories of architectural excellence, for the exquisite colors of the rainbow, for the never-to-be-forgotten tints of sunset and sunrise, for the hues of flowers, for the OUT FROM THE DARKNESS, 11 brightness of the human face; and in that consciousness I find cause for unspeakable joy in the goodness of my Creator. A very large proportion of all the men with whom I come in contact in my travels, are careless about, or at the very best not diligent in, the cultivation of their mental powers; are even negligent as to the preserva- tion of their senses; as though the boons of heaven might be safely buried in the earth, as the tinrd stew- ard in the scripture parable did with his master’s treas- ure enfolded in a napkin. The facts of my infant life are necessarily known to me only by report; and in that respect the blind are on the same plane with the most favored of our race. My birthplace, and the time at which the mysteries of this form of existence first began to affect me, have been already told; and I was yet a child when my father transplanted the whole of his family to this great Republic; hence, I cannot describe, except from rumor and common report, the charms which for every true Scandinavian must ever cling to the land of Fjords and Fjells. I often find myself repeating that line from the genial Irish poet, Goldsmith, author of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” “The Deserted Village,” and other works that will long live in the minds of men: w A bold peasantry, their country’s pride, Which, once destroyed, can never be supplied;’* because those lines aptly describe the status of the class to which my father belonged, although it might be claimed that he was rather a yeoman than a peas- 12 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. ant. The two names describe the more and less wealthy members of the same great class, the noble army of industry, by whose conquests the earth is iubdued to the purposes of man, the prosperity of nations is builded upon a basis ten thousand times more ;o be relied upon than war, and upon whose succeses »n the humbler arts of life the triumphs of science, literature and art — advanced fruits of civilization — alone, become possible. My father was one of the most energetic and mus- cular men of his class in Valders, and his extraordi- nary powers of body were matched by a will power seldom equalled, a constancy of mind that could hardly be excelled. He had been wise or fortunate in the selection of a partner, for my mother was dear, not only to her children, but, as it seemed, to all per- sons with whom she came in contact. The sweetness of her disposition carried her through ceaseless trials and vexations which might well have exhausted her patience, and still there was always a smile in the tone of her voice which gladdened my soul like heav- enly sunshine, whenever the kind fates brought her across my path. Her life knew no idleness, and but little rest in all the long years that I can remember; she was industrious, almost to a fault, in providing for the wants of her seven daughters and four sons. I was the fourth child born of that happy marriage, but the first son, and therefore my position under the law and custom of primogeniture which then obtained in Norway made me a personage of some impor- OUT FROM iiiii, DAKKMiSS. 13 tance. Had we remained in Valders, and no change come over the customs of the country, the estate held by my father would upon his demise have descended to me as my birthright, subject only to minor claims on the part of my sisters and brothers. My earliest recollections are engrossed with acts of favoritism showered upon me by my grandfather, who loved in that way to distinguish the first boy, his lineal male descendant and namesake, successor to the paternal acres and to numberless traditions of the greatness and honor which in the earlier centuries of the Christian era belonged to the fighting race of sailors and navigators from which we sprung. Chil- dren have quick perceptions, but they are seldom able to divine remote causation; hence, while immediately conscious of his kindness as a special manifestation in my favor, I did not comprehend that my grandfather’s love for me was a consequence of my relation to the estate as heir at law. I can distinctly recall, however, that on many occasions I felt proud that I was not one of my sisters, a feeling that has not yet been totally eradicated. There must have been singular ties of sympathy between my grandfather and myself, although I was so young when I last felt the pressure of his hand upon my head. My parents left Valders for this country in 1847, when I was a little more than three years old, and of course I was brought with them; but his image is deeply engraved upon my mind, and, had my lingers the skill to express the yearnings 14 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. of my soul, the picture of the venerable Norseman, perhaps in some degree idealized, should illustrate this portion of my reminiscences. About sixteen years ago, when I was just eighteen years of age, and nearly fifteen years had elapsed since the last sounds of his benediction had died on my ears, I lay one day on my bed in a kind of waking trance, as sometimes happens to me even now; most assur- edly I was not sleeping; my thoughts were pleas- antly turned towards dear old Norway, and one by one the images of old times and my younger days were floating across my field of mental vision, with- out volition on my part — although the tender associa- tions of the days that are gone by forever are choice food for my soul, — when I heard the heavy and peculiar steps of that old man upon my stairway, approaching the bedroom door. The sounds struck me with wonderful distinctness, and I could locate them beyond a peradventure, for in the era of my reign as his favorite I had watched and waited for the first tokens of his accustomed visits, and my heart danced then ss it was dancing once again. Nearer and yet newer came the home-like and wel- come, sounds; the door did not seem to have been opened, but he was standing by my bedside, and in the natural sequence of events I felt the pressure of his hand, with a grasp slightly tremulous, more so than of yore — a sensation just as palpable as was ever communicated by one human being to another, yet in some mysterious degree still differing. Then OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 15 the tones of his well remembered voice, softened as it might have been by age or distance, filled my soul with emotions which are still undescribable, as he said: “I have come to bid you good-bye, my child; I shall never see you again. May God bless you!” When the voice ceased I was as vividly conscious to all external impressions as I am now; but there was no appearance that could account for my mental con- dition — no touch, no sound of retreating footsteps — and I was alone. There were no signs of trepidation, such as we are accustomed to connect with the remotest approaches of the supernatural, when in the long evenings our friends recount the links by which in every family the unseen world is drawn vividly towards this actual moving panorama. But I have no theory, cut and dried, by which the phenomena of my experience could be made plain as the school-book to a child; and I therefore simply state the fact, as it was recorded in my consciousness at that moment to be retained as long as memory holds a seat. I have tried to reason the matter to some possible conclusion, but my powers fail me in determining whether the mind was reached through the instrumentality of the senses, by some process of which we are normally unconscious, or whether, by some means just as full of the unknowable, unconscious cerebration was the spring from whence the phenomena arose, stimulat- ing the senses to an abnormal activity, in which the unreal and remote became tangible and immediate for a season. On any hypothesis the mystery remains, 16 OUT FROM THi£ DARKNESS. and I can throw no new light upon its causes. All the signs indicated a visit from my grandfather — his voice, his footsteps, the pressure of his hand; and if his house had been near our own, as it was in Valders, instead of being severed from us by thousands of miles of storm-lashed ocean, not to mention the travel from the seaboard to our new domicile, it would have demanded very powerful testimony, from witnesses ot known veracity, to prove that the dear old man was not present (unless the absence of sound and touch, and the apparent vacuity of the room, in my first mo- ments of awakening from the trance, had suggested to my judgment that the appearance had been spirit- ual rather than physical); failing the conclusion, at which some of my friends arrived, that the phenom- ena arose purely from delusion of the senses. It will be seen that the ties of mutual regard between my grandfather and myself must have been close and inti- mate, when my mind could go out towards him in the singular manner which I have endeavored to describe; but the most curious portion of the story remains yet ro be told, unless the laws of coincidence may be cited to account for all that is wonderful in our life on earth. At about the moment when that interview occurred, it was afterwards ascertained that my grandfather had passed away from this scene of being ; and about two months later the information reached the family in due course of post. Unfortu- nately for the exactness of my narrative — and I am aware that it militates against its scientific value in no OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 17 small degree — I did not record the exact moment, hour and day of that waking trance as I should have done. Life and not death were in my mind at the time, notwithstanding the purport of the solemn mes- sage which I undoubtedly received. One-half of all that is said to us, when we seem to be fully alive to every earthly influence, fails to convey its true pur- port to the mind, until subsequent reflection or un- looked for developments have become interpreters. The first whisperings of love, the warnings of destiny in a thousand forms, the words of the priests, the monitions of circumstances, the shadows of coming events of which seers tell us, which a readier and more highly cultivated mental being might enable humanity to read as the master perceives the melody in the cramped lines on the pages before him: are all in vain offered to us by the kind, ministering, unseen h inds that would warn us on our way from the cradle to the grave. Many incidents just as remarkable have written themselves into my eventful life, and they stand out in bold relief among my memories of things, clearly defined at this moment, linked more or less with the trance condition; but I advance no claims to be considered a clairvoyant, because it has frequently happened that I have not comprehended until long afterwards the significancy of my vision; hence it would be absurd to vaunt myself as a clair- voyant — as the French describe, one who can see clearly. I have no desire to build theories, but it is necessary, for the faithfulness of my narrative, that all IP OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. these strange experiences should be presented in the order of their occurrence, and the explanations which may reduce them to the rank of the ordinary phe- nomena of life must be relegated to the ingenuity and attainments of my courteous readers. My blindness overtook me when I was only jix months old, at which age I seem to have passed through the valley of the shadow of death, and to have been snatched thence only at the cost of being shut in forever, or as long as this earthly tenement endures, from all the physical beauties by which we are surrounded. Imagi- nation sometimes portrays the actual in robes which may transcend the loveliness of nature; but I have no standard whereby I might determine what is true, and my ideal is preserved from rude shocks such as the see- ing world must realize. I have heard my favored friends enthusiastically praise some charm or treasure promised to their vision, and have read the tones of their voices as they described their disappointments; in my case, the dream of beauty remains unchallenged, a living entity. The word-painting, by which I am dimly permitted to see the actual, would poorly serve my purpose, for want of a common medium between the seeing world ana myself, unless my imagination came to my aid. I have heard of a blind man, who said that touching scarlet cloth reminded him of the blare of a trumpet; but that explanatory statement, to my mind, makes a volume of explanation necessary. No words can make clear to me the lovely tints of the simple flower, whose fragrance and whose structure I can comprehend through oth^r OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 19 senses; but the deprivation which robs speech of half 't r excellence will be atoned for fully in the more per- 5*ct communion of souls toward which we are daily drawing near. My deprivation occurred after a long siege of wasting sickness, which had reduced my vital powers to zero. I was supposed dead; and, but for the custom of deferring the funeral for many days, which obtains in Norway, I might have been heard of never more until the graves are opened at the sound of the last trump. Thou- sands of human beings come to their end in that way, and only rouse from their lethargy to find that they are shrouded in the cerements of the tomb, enclosed with- in the narrow tenement to which all must come at last. Who has not heard of, read of, or may be even seen, the evidences of mute agony which are sometimes revealed when the opened coffin shows the loved sister, brother, husband or wife to have turned around in the last resting place, and to have struggled for an impossible relief ? The thought is terrible, but it is borne in upon me by this inci- dent in my own career. The trance condition is not more mysterious than sleep itself — a coma of the brain and nervous system, longer continued than the nightly rests to which we are accustomed, and wrap- ping the heart and respiratory organism in repose. We are inured to sleep and its phenomena in some degree, but there are features in that portion of our lives which few have thought of, and none have fully mastered. The simulation of death, called trance, in 20 OUT FROM TH* DV'KNESS. which the spent forces of body and soul seek renewal in perfect rest for a time, is a field of inquiry at which we have barely glanced; yet therein lies many a loved Lazarus between two worlds, awaiting the fiat of the Eternal to recall him to this sphere of our being. But let me return to the circumstance of my sup- posed death. Thirty-six hours elapsed from the time of my apparent demise, as I am informed, before there were any signs of returning animation. So settled was the conviction that I had gone to my final rest, that no mirror was held before my nostrils to be removed undimmed as a proof of my decease. My death was considered certain, and the coffin was ten- anted by me for more than a day, my grandmother performing for me the last sad offices, sadly closing the eyes which have never since opened to the light of day. The loving fingers which did for me that melancholy task would gladly have restored to me the blessing of sight, but to restore vision to the blind is a divine gift which has not been exercised since the first days of the Christian Era. It seems probable that the disease, which left me maimed and darkened, had done its work before her services were invoked, and in any case the affliction was irremediable. The story of my return to life has been told so often in my presence, from the first moments to which memory will carry me, that I almost seem to remember the circumstances myself. That is an admitted impossi- bility, although I certainly can recall physical appear- OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 21 ances which could only have reached my brain as ob- jects of vision in my early infancy, seeing that I have been blind since the early age of six months. The agonized suspense which waited on my second birth, in the minds of my parents, it is impossible for me to describe; none but parental hearts can fathom the depths of tenderness which such an awakening from death to life must have called forth, and to the imagi- nations of such of my readers I must leave the sub- ject. I have been told that as I lay in the coffin my eyeballs seemed to quiver beneath the lids, but the eyes were never opened voluntarily, and for hours my friends waited upon nature. I was removed from the narrow bed with tremulous joy, but it was a source of much anxiety that my eyes remained closed as though the lids had become paralyzed. At length the lids were raised with kind solicitude, and then a small white spot, no larger than a pin’s point, was discovered on each eyeball. That blemish increased so rapidly that within twenty-four hours the eyeballs were com- pletely covered, and on the morning next ensuing the eyes burst, discharging their humors. Thus I have been sightless almost all my life, unless there is a power, as 1 sometimes believe, in the brain or soul, by which we may see and comprehend immediately with- out the Intervention of organs of vision. It is not possible for me to exactly formulate my faith in this respect, but the mere enunciation of this crude idea may call out the views of other and abler men to whom the same thought must have occurred. 22 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS, The blind are not necessarily despondent under their deprivation, for nature abounds in compensations, as various as the changing conditions of mankind. We are comforted by tones of sympathy, oftentimes more precious than sight, when those who express their kindly regard are thoughtful enough to avoid an ap- pearance of patronizing us in our affliction. Kind voices reach us at brief intervals from out of the darkness, and loving hands are stretched forth to help us everywhere; but there have been times when I could almost endorse the sayings of a quaint friend, who expressed his regret that the expenditure incur- red for my tiny coffin should have been made in vain. Certainly we have come to a country where expend- itures are much more lavish than in frugal Norway, and my dimensions are much greater than they were ; but I trust that, all things considered, there are no rea- sons why I should be other than thankful *or my preservation from being buried alive I would not have it imagined for one moment that I am unmind- ful of the blessings which our Father has permitted me to enjoy. The mind of man is many-sided, and every facet receives light from heaven or earth, out of which happiness in some degree may come. Every tnought in the busy, teeming brain ; every fact presented to us for acceptance from out of the laboratory of nature, extending our knowledge of the materia) universe; every additional evidence of man's goodness vouch- safed in the struggle for life, wherein it is our privilege to lend some aid of’ greater or less value to OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 23 our fellow-men; every proof of the advancing intelli- gence of the race, and above all else, every new in- dustrial pursuit brought within the compass of our faculties, by which they may attain a riper develop- ment in the service of humanity and in the better protection of our families and ourselves from the ap- proach of want and suffering: are contributions to our pleasures of no mean order. Our joys are, in a great measure, proportioned to our fitness and energy in the discharge of the multifarious duties of life; and within the current century there have been wonderful advances made in the instruction of the blind ; — an item of large importance to the nation, seeing that the num- bers enduring the affliction of partial or utter dark- ness and isolation in this respect average about one in two thousand in the United States. The gainful employ n en of so gieat an aggregate is of vast im- portance to the community. There is an idea in many well informed minds that the blind are cooped up in perpetual and complete darkness, and some of my own expressions have that bearing when I consider them critically; yet nothing could be further from the truth than that impression. Egyptian darkness, such as may be felt, does appar- ently wall in and entomb some few sufferers, bearing them down body and soul with a terrible sadness, which we must hope will find its complement of joy in realms beyond the grave; but in my own case, al- though there is a complete annihilation of the organs of vision, I seem to live in unvarying brightness. I 24 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS, cannot pretend to bay under what optical law tins peculiarity arises, but the fact is just as I have stated, and some of the savans among my numerous friends may be able to help us out with a theory. Explana- tions have been frequently volunteered, but none of them, so far, have completely covered the ground. One attempt at an interpretation of the phenomena, which comes nearest to a solution to my mind, was recently offered by an ingenious friend. He says that, inasmuch as my supposed death and actual blindness fell upon me during the daytime, in our bright Nor- wegian climate, where the air is brilliant and clear, and the ground, even during winter, covered with virgin snow, undimmed by traffic and the smoke of great cities, the brilliant whiteness of that light must have impressed upon my retina just that strong sense of day which has lived in my optical memory from that moment until now. His suggestion would make what is to me a physical condition dependent upon memory, and it may be that he is right, but I wait for evidence. Memory, then, or some physical con- dition, or possibly both combined (for no man has yet clearly defined to my satisfaction in what man- ner memory does its WJrk, so that the distant past can be recalled in many cases more vividly than the affairs of yesterday), have aided in the preserva- tion of this luminous appearance, which never fails me in my waking hours by day or night. My ear- liest remembiances are permeated with that conscious- ness ot light, and to that fact, rightfully or not, I OUT FROM THE DARKNESS, 25 attribute the cheerfulness and constancy with which I have been enabled to‘ endure and sometimes conquer severe reverses. It would be to me a source of much pleasure could some of my more learned read- ers supplement my narrative with a lucid interpre- tation of the circumstances which it is* my duty to chronicle. The humblest human being, who will truthfully record exceptional facts, can contribute some few grains of sand toward the mountain of knowl- edge from which the masters of science, philosophy and religion may unfold the laws of being. I have striven honestly to do all that devolves upon me in the premises, in my exceptional condition. The childish reminiscences which were at one time of grave importance to myself, have sunken into in- significance when viewed through the media of ad- vancing years, and I shall not allow them to bur- then these pages, unless in the few instances where they point toward important epochs in my career. I distinctly remember that in my third year my pa- rents were engaged in preparations to emigrate to this country, and the even tenor of my young life seemed to have been broken adrift from all moor- ings, with the unsettling of our former condition. It may be that some of the incidents of that time, which seem to date from actual observation of oc- currences, as they transpired, were actually impressed upon my mind by subsequent narrations and remind- ers which, when we attempt to carry ourselves back toward childhood, surround every fact with misty 26 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. uncertainty, or with seeming certainties, which reason assures us must be ofttimes fabulous. Voyages across the Atlantic, which had few terrors for my remote ancestors, had become much more formidable with advancing civilization to the Norsemen of the nine- teenth century. Higher standards of comfort at home and better estimates of the value of time had much to do with the changed condition. It would be diffi- cult to convince me that there has been any falling off in the courage of the Scandinavian races, or in their peculiar fitness to encounter the perils of the ocean. In the year 1847, rapid sa i^ n g and steaming were in their infancy; clipper ships were only dreamed of by a few men, and the working out of the idea waited for such events as the discoveries of gold in Califor- nia, and still later in Australia, to make extraordi- narily expeditious voyages an object. The mod- ern improvements which have made the ocean a most convenient highway, such as our ancestors, Vik- ings though they were, could not foresee, had not yet begun to affect navigation from Norwegian ports in any material degree; and our transit from Europe to America was terribly slow, estimated according to the calculations of to-day. I suppose that my health was not very good on board ship, and my younger brother died; but whether this arose from constitu- tional weakness, an unsuitable dietary scale, or defec- tive ventilation, this deponent sayeth not. It must be patent to all observers that the deaths of chil- OUT FROM TIIE DARKNESS. 27 dren indicate some infraction of nature’s laws more significantly, by far, than deaths in advancing age. As a rule, on ship-board, when the vessels are well con- structed and well handled, “ the toddlin’, wee things ” that can keep the deck are better able to weather the vicissitudes of the voyage than the old people. It was no easy thing, even to get started on our way; passengers in sailing vessels were comparatively uncommon; they have since entered largely into the calculations of shipmasters; but we were detained at Dramman no less than three weeks, before we could procure a passage in a vessel bound for a port from which our final departure for this country could be ar- ranged. At Hamburg, our little family was detained five weeks. Travelers who seek pleasure in a lux- urious transit from one country to another, content to kill time with sport, or to be toted around in search of curiosities, expending competencies for which others have toiled, may have some difficulty in com- prehending the hardships to which my parents were subjected by that detention — adrift, as it were, be- tween two continents, losing sight of the ancient land- marks, and yet uncertain as to the new home toward which we had set our faces. We were pioneers in a new course, having been the first party of emi- grants for America that ever in our day had left the farming district of V alders; hence the delays to which we were subjected, with all the attendant losses, were quite natural. Our experiences, hard and unsatisfactory as they were, may have helped 28 OUT FROM TIKE DARKNESS. to smooth the way for thousands who have since fol- lowed us across the trackless deep; but that consid- eration does not seem to have presented itself to my father as a possibility, and if it had he would still have been inconvenienced in no small degree by the discomforts and the cost incidental to such long wait- ing. Steam voyages across the Atlantic are now often accomplished in less than as many days as we occupied weeks in the sailing vessel, and still we were expeditious, by comparison with the first Norsemen that visited this continent centuries before Columbus brought modern civilization to its shores. I should be far less Scandinavian than I am, and much less sensitive to the claims of his- toric truth, could I omit, on any suitable occasion, to assert the prior discovery and temporary coloniza- tion of this vast country by the Norsemen in the eleventh century. The facts are open to every student, and Longfellow has presented some of the incidents of that eventful time, begemmed with the jewels of his imagination, in deathless verse; but I must remember ‘that a child of three years, rocked by the billows of earth’s stormiest ocean, is not expected to wax eloquent in defining the labors of Leif Eriksson, so for the present the laurels of Columbus shall rest undisturbed while we complete our transit from the old world to the new. By the way, there was one incident connected with our detention at Dramman which it would be OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 29 wrong to pass without comment, as it serves to in- dicate a condition of mind which then existed among the so-called educated class in Norway, but which is probably now lost sight of by modern thinkers. 1 allude to the sturdy opposition and manifest alarm with which the clergy of my native land met the slowly rising tide of emigration. No sooner was it known in the neighborhood that my father meant to abandon the place of his nativity, than he was } beset by the slow-moving, conservative element in his own class, with warnings urgent and innumer- able against the rash step which he contemplated. Chimeras dire were hurled at his devoted head with- out ceasing. The young man who carried a banner with a quaint device, and said “ Excelsior ” when well- meaning people troubled him with their counsel, had an easy time compared with the plague of remon- strance that was endured by the first emigrants from Valders, and the fact that all the warnings were given in kindness rendered the task of replying more difficult. As the time for departure drew near, the members of the congregation to which my father belonged devolved upon their pastor the task of convincing my father that it was a sin to remove lfis family from the Christianizing influences of Norwegian life, and to carry them away to a heathen and barbarous land. With many prayers and arduous study, the good old man fitted himself for the momentous struggle in which he was to engage, and, while we waited for sailing orders at Dramman, the amiable 30 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. controversialist came down upon us, with the earnest- ness, though not with tl\e fell intent, with which “ The Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold.” Nearly all the old neighbors were on hand when the exhortation commenced, and the horrors of the jungle in India were freely used to people this country with wild beasts, so that there seemed to be no option for the emigrant, in the description that was given, but to die of storm and famine on the voyage, of fever and ague or some other malarial disease on the strange shore, or to be eaten alive by nameless monsters that held an unquestioned reign in the dense forests of this continent. The oracle spake, and, when his lips had closed, silence fell upon the little assembly. My father could not at- tempt to controvert the statements by which the other auditors had been overwhelmed, but he was not con- vinced that the Merciful Creator by whom he had been girt about with love in his old home would fail to protect him and his in the new. His pur- pose was usa shaken, but he was puzzled to render his determination into words, without failing in the courtesy that was due to one whose blameless life and loving intent made his long recognized author- ity almost omnipotent. “Are the diseases always fatal there?” queried my father. “Almost always,” was the answer; and an unconditional surrender was considered inevitable. “Do the people die more than once?” There was no response from the dear old pastor, who had OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 31 never dreamed of such a question, and, while the neighbors laughed uproariously at the strange sug- gestion, the dominie retired to another room to fight the battle over again in his own mind. Since that day hundreds of thousands of Scandi- navians have made their homes in America; pastors and their flocks have crossed the seas together; in- numerable churches have been built to Almighty God by Norsemen, from Maine to the Golden Gate, and experience has proved that, with care and foresight, disease and famine can be warded off as well in the new world as in the old, while the savage beasts, by which the early emigrants were to have been intimi- dated withal, are distanced in cruelty and hate by man himself in the very centres of civilization on either continent. The Blue Peter at the fore, the signal for sailing came at last. Dramman was left behind us with many a heart-breaking sob, and we looked out upon the immeasurable deep. The reflections of the old people have been recounted so often in my presence, from that day to this, that it almost seems as though I had passed through all the emotions and had seen all the sights which they realized. Hamburg was an unknown land to me when we left, as on our day of landing; but, looking back from to-day, it seems as though the busy streets were quite famil- iar to my sight. I can recall the bustling quays and wharves, the Bourse, the Botanical and Zoological Gardens, just as clearly as though standing on Elbe 32 OUT FROM TIIE DARKNESS. Hill I had literally seen them 0 The old city, more than a thousand years old, probably having its origin in one of the fortresses built by Charlemagne to repel the nomadic tribes and give fixity to European society, has taken a new lease of life in our day, under the aegis of steam and rapid transit, and bids fair to eclipse its Hanseatic greatness completely. But there is an end to everything, and so at last we bade adieu to Hamburg, where we had stayed long enough to form many enduring friendships. Traveling by land is relieved by an almost infinite variety in the prospect, but the ever-changing sea presents a sameness which only the poetic soul can fill with a sufficing joy. True enough, there may be no two billows precisely alike, but the family resemblance strikes every beholder, and, when day after day you look out upon seven miles of sea with a circumference of firmament coming down to embrace it on every hand, it is impossible to avoid praying for a change. No wonder the ignorant mariners that sailed under Christopher Columbus grew weary of their voyage into the unknown, and became mutinous. They had no chance of excite- ment from the cry, “ A Sail ! A Sail ! ” as we had ; no other keels but theirs had plowed the waters where they stood for four hundred years, and the canvas pendent from a strange mast would have been a cause for terror, unless the size of the craft permitted a hope of conquest. Passing vessels were not very numerous in our time, until we drew nigh OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 33 our destination; but I can remember more than once the hurry that there was at sea when the chance offered to send back a few words of greeting to the dear old home. Those who were not writing crowded to the ship’s side, as though every line in the strange hull was dear to their hearts, and, when the boat was lowered from the davits to carry the mail bag to the other ship, and effect some ex- changes in provisions, every sailor that manned an oar seemed to deserve the homage of those he left behind, because he was facing a peril of death to stretch out a hand to our friends in Norway. Quebec was our desired haven, but before we touched that port the news had reached Valders that we had foundered at sea, all hands perishing, and my father, the last survivor, making a manful recantation of his heresy in leaving Norway in op- position to the advice of his pastor. The com- pleteness of the narrative might have suggested its fabulous character, but my grandfather, never doubt- ing the tale, became delirious with grief. In his rhapsodies of sorrow, the fond old man would hold converse with 'his lost ones, as we arose weird and ghost-like from the briny bed to which lying rumor had consigned us; and when, months later, the fact of our safe arrival at our destination reached him through the mail, it required much persuasion, besides the testimony of the well remembered writ- ing, to combat the effects of his long continued phantasy. 3 34 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. Arrived at Quebec, we made our way through Montreal to Buffalo without noticeable incidents, and we there took passage by steamer to Milwaukee. I suppose my puny appearance attracted some atten- tion on the boat, as I can recall the wistful looks with which kind eyes regarded me. The dietary provision made in Valders for our passage across the Atlantic was not well 'calculated to sustain a weakly child, and my ailing appearance was largely due to that circumstance. Perhaps that possibility was divined by the head steward of the steamer, and his kind heart, yearning for some child that he had loved and lost, found comfort in showing attention to the writer. Certain it is that I was made free of the steward’s pantry, with all the hereditaments thereto belonging, and, while I reveled in sweets and cloying delicacies which would have afflicted one-half the grown people on board with nausea, I was the envy of every child. These lines may never meet the eyes of my un- known benefactor, who has probably joined the in- numerable caravan many years ago; even though alive, the good man may not have thought of his kindly acts in any such way as they affected me, for generous natures forget the services they render just as readily as the stream loses track of the shadow which was mirrored in its depths; but somehow I could not refer even cursorily to that brief voyage on the lakes without mentioning my sense of the loving kindness which was bestowed OUT FROM TIIE DARKNESS. 35 upon me, unless I would stand self-accused of black ingratitude. Col. Solomon Juneau, a French fur trader, gen- erous to a fault, was the first white settler in Milwaukee, and when our family landed in that city he was the richest and most influential man in that locality. The site of Milwaukee was oc- cupied by a Pottawatomie village at the time when the adventurous trader took up his abode in what is now called the Cream City. He had been a resident there twenty-two years when my fathei' landed in Wisconsin, in 1847, an< ^ th e population was over ten thousand, rapidly increasing. The lake bluff, and the lands rising from the river quite abruptly in many parts, were not occupied, and nearly the whole population had located itself on the swampy lowlands, where business is still largely transacted. The Colonel, who was Mayor, proprietor of much of the city lands, and a flour- ishing storekeeper, offered many advantages to my father to induce him to stay where he was, but my progenitor had an abiding sense of the value of health, and to all the suggestions of his generous friend he replied, “ If I can find nothing better than a swamp in this country, I will go back to Norway, where at all events we are solid.” The site of Milwaukee has been the home of many races at various times. The Pottawatomies had a village there when the first official record was made 36 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. as to the river and harbor in 1817, and the inef- faceable records of the Mound Builders, which may date from thousands of years before, are on hand in many directions to show that an industrious and partly civilized people with some knowledge of manufactures and art continued for a long term of centuries to enjoy life upon the margins of its lake and streams. Some curious ideas as to popular government were begotten in my father’s mind, during the stay that we made in Milwaukee. There was an election to some office, local or general, and Col. Juneau’s store was, as usual, the headquarters of the winning party. There was no lack of stirring eloquence, for the tongues of some men will wag as long as the river flows; but the main reliance of the astute Solomon was placed on a barrel of whisky, which stood near the entrance to the store. Voters were expected to help themselves to as much as they cared for of the contents of the barrel, and then, as the spirit of the occasion entered into them, they saw their way to deposit their ballots in favor of the Colonel and his friends. The barrel was certainly on the win- ning side, but my father did not admire the process. There were other ways besides handling the barrel in which Juneau was always to be reckoned upon, for he never failed to respond in a liberal manner to any proposal which had for its purpose the improvement of Milwaukee. None of the old residents ever men- OUT FROM TIIE DARKNESS. 37 tioned him without recognizing the generosity of his nature, but for which he might have become a million- aire. Notwithstanding all the inducements held out by the Colonel, my father resolved to continue a farmer, and, after many slips, succeeded in purchasing about two hundred acres of excellent land at Oakland, in Jeff- erson County, seventy miles west from Milwaukee, to which place we traveled on a team, over roads which reminded us continually of the ups and downs of exist- ence. Upon the newly purchased land was a make- shift dwelling, and a well, around and over which was no fence nor screen to prevent accidents. Prov- idence, in blessing me with an inquiring mind, has, on many occasions, led me to the very verge of great disasters; but always hitherto some circumstance has intervened in my favor, so that I have escaped the worst consequences which seemed for a time inevit- able. That unfenced well was jealously guarded by my father and friends, as long as they were around, and words of caution were strewn around me as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa; but the only result was that I grew more and more impatient to pursue knowl- edge under difficulties. One day my father was absent, and my mother so busy in household matters that I was for a time forgotten, so that the chances fa- vored an exploration. The well was speedily reached, and the rude windlass, which had often inflamed my curiosity, was hastily overhauled. I was congratulating myself on an undreamed-of sagacity, which could touch 38 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. pitch, handle fire and hang over a well without risk, when the bucket unshipped from its resting-place, ran down with a crash, and I followed it head- fore- most, forty feet into the bowels of the earth. Luck- ily the water in the well was deep enough to pro- tect my cervical vertebrae, and after sprawling around a few seconds I found my way to the coping of the stone work, about six inches above high-water mark, where I could sit, half dazed but secure, until help arrived. Truth lies in the bottom of a well, and I was very near the place; but it was not until long afterwards that I thought of our near contact, and about the same time it occurred to me as regret- able that truth should lie anywhere. An hour must have elapsed, when some neighbor, coming to draw water, discovered me on my modest perch, and her cries speedily attracted every woman in the locality, my good, mother among the rest. The first impulse of maternity was to share the trouble which she could not alleviate, and it required the combined strength of all her friends to prevent the dear soul throw- ing herself down into the water to sustain me until more serviceable help should come. Happily her design was frustrated, or I should almost certainly have been made an orphan. After a prolonged delay, which seemed an age, and was possibly an hour after my discovery in the well, a male neighbor was found, who was able and willing to descend to my rescue; and the rope, securely fastened about my waist and shoulders, brought me to the surface OUT FROM TIIE DARKNESS. 39 of the green earth again. That I had sustained some severe if not fatal fracture was a matter fully determined among the neighbors, but my mother, find- ing me inclined to sleep, left me to the influence of tired nature’s sweet restorer; and for nearly eighteen hours after my restoration to the paternal sod I slept the sleep of the just. When Morpheus at last abdicated his empire over me, I was hungry enough to have eaten the fatted calf, and, failing to obtain just such sustenance, my appetite has ever been a standing menace to my friends, although they have fenced their wells about ever since securely. From the time named until I was eleven years old, the days hung heavily upon my hands, as my deprivation of sight cut me off from such tuition and work as other children of similar ages could avail themselves of, and in the thinly settled neighbor- hood where we lived there were no little companions to join me in boyish games. Only children, and the very, very few grown people who can remem- ber when they were children, have an idea how much of solace there is in mud pies and such Like amusements for the youthful intellect, and the mud- pie-ist wants an audience, just as inexorably as the orator. My only refuge under the circumstances named was my dear sister Rachel, several years my senior, who constituted herself my guardian, and, so far as the differences in age would allow, entered into my pursuits. Advancing years have erased many things from my memory, which were at one 40 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. lime stamped there, as I bcdieved to last for ever, but the maturity of my faculties has only made more clear to me the debt of gratitude I owe to Rachel for her tender solicitude, and I cannot imagine that any lapse of time will cause me to forget my obliga- tion. I would gladly have attended the district school, but the distance from our house was an obstacle, two miles and a half being a weary pilgrimage for a blind child to attempt alone, twice every day, more especially when it is remembered that com- panionship was all I could obtain as the result of my travel. The teachers had no means at their dis- posal, nor any skill generally, which would adapt them for the schooling of a blind boy; and, unfor- tunately for my welcome, on the few occasions on which I visited the establishment my presence and peculiar condition called off the attention of the pupils generally from their studies. Could I have spoken English, oral instruction would have been possible to some extent, but that language was then as dead to me as Sanskrit is now. From all these considerations it will be seen that my circle of life was narrow in the extreme, and my chances for im- provement small. At home, where all that the exigen- cies of a new settler’s life would allow was gladly attempted on my behalf, my feelings were lacerated by almost every visitor commiserating my parents on the burden which they had to carry in the person of their sightless son. The barbed arrows of their OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 41 ,?ell intended sympathy rankled in new wounds for /nany years, and added incalculably to my suffering. There are but few men and women who under- stand how quickly a little child can grasp the mean- ing of a word half spoken, and apply to his own condition the seamy side of thek* very natural re- flections; yet their own memories might help almost every one, in some degree, to master the idea, if nature had not provided, in mercy to the race, for a speedy forgetfulness of all painful experiences. Where there are peculiar conditions of suffering, as in the blind, the feelings become more acutely, even morbidly sensitive, as in my own case. I could not close my ears against the talk, in which I was too often the subject, and molten lead could hardly have been more agonizing than some of the sentences uttered by good people who never dreamed that they were inflicting unmerited punishment. The sorrows of that day might have gone with me to my grave, however, but for the possibility that those few words, kindly spoken, may save some other tiny sufferer, blind or crippled in some other way, from being wounded in the house of his friends by ill considered speech. In that spirit I leave the subject thus introduced to be elaborated by the in- genious minds of my cultivated readers. Relief was long coming, but it came at last. A friendly neighbor, since dead, Mr. Gideon Ives, a man of more than average intelligence, and almost unbounded kindness, whose name was a household 42 OUT FROM TIIE DARKNESS. word in .our Scandinavian settlement, repeatedly urged my parents to send me to the Collegiate In- stitution for the Blind, at Janesville, Wisconsin. Old Joe Willett , proprietor of the Maypole, in Dickens’ novel, Barnaby Rudge, hated to come upon the county to repair the damages inflicted by the No-Popery mob, because there was, he thought, a savor of pauperism in the process, as though he came upon the Parish under the Poor Law; and just such an idea so entirely possessed the mind of my father, that every reference to the In- stitution was frowned down for nearly two years. Mr. Ives would not be silenced, because he saw in education my only chance for development into use- fulness. I was nine years old when the idea was first broached, and eleven when it was carried into operation, the interval being necessary to overcome the scruples of my parents. They had been told that children were half starved and almost wholly neglected by the managers, so that minds and bodies became stunted under the discipline, or want of dis- cipline, which prevailed in the State Institution; and that idea weighed upon them long after the thought as to semi-pauperism had been cast to the winds by inquiry. Similar doubts and fears obtain even now in many localities, and they operate with terrible effect against the welfare of many blind children; so that there cannot fail to be some advantage in referring to the subject here. Not long since, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, I found a promising* little fel- OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 43 low who was cooped up at home because of such prejudices on the part of his parents, and it afforded me much pleasure to disabuse their minds by nar- rating my own experiences as a pupil for several years and subsequently as a visitor to the Institution. He was sent soon afterwards to commence his career as a pupil; and, unless my skill in augury is entirely at fault, he will add largely to the credit and es- teem which has been fairly earned by the manage- ment. I owe it to the Institution to speak in the very highest terms of its usefulness, and shall not readily forget how much I am indebted to Gideon Ives for his perseverance in urging the matter upon the old folks at home. When admitted, at the com- mencement of the term, October i, 1854, I was the first pupil presented; and the loneliness which had been experienced at home was cheerful companion- ship by comparison with the sound of my own footsteps, echoing unanswered through the vacant rooms of the second story, where I had been put away for safe keeping while the Superintendent went into Janesville City, about three miles distant, on some business that demanded attention. After a time, having exhausted my devices within the class rooms, I started out to perambulate the halls, and was not long in discovering their metes and bounds. Only one wing of the structure, since burned, had then been erected; but the doorways which were to connect the first wing with the remainder had been 44 O.UT FROM THE DARKNESS. boarded across loosely to prevent accidents. Of course the loose boards and the doorway had a charm for me, which soon became irresistible, and my wandering footsteps returned to that point again and again. Why was it boarded? What was there concealed beyond the aperture? The adventure was worth prosecuting, and a minute later I was at work forcing my way under the lowest plank with some considerable ingenuity, only to fall head-first into the excavation for the basement of the body of thef building, a depth of more than twenty-five feet. Much shaken up as I was by my speedy descent, no bones were broken, and my voyage of discovery was extended in the hope that I might find means of escape from my cell. Happily for my peace of mind, my fall had not been unheeded; the contractor for stone for the [building, Mr. Miltimore, saw the result of my tour of investigation, from a distance, and hastened to fish me out from my dungeon. His arrival was so timed that I had just realized my own helplessness in the premises, when the sound of a friendly and most musical voice, although in a tongue unknown to me, brought me assurance of help. I have many times since then met Mr. Miltimore, and found him always a good friend, but his voice was sweeter when I first heard it than it has ever sounded since to my ears. My sister Mary, since dead, attended me to the Institution, and, after I had been duly installed, made her home for the winter in the Bower City — as OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 45 Janesville is called — so that she might be at hand to hear and investigate any complaints, should my treatment prove unsatisfactory. My accident was unknown to her until her next visit, a few days later, and then she had demonstrative evidence that I was uninjured. There was quite a large number of pupils in the establishment when my sister came again to see me, and, surrounded by companions in misfortune, I was inspired by the esprit de corps , which forbade any tendency to magnify our loss. The blind, as a rule, endeavor to make it appear that they find com- pensations in the cultivation of the other senses, which largely counterbalance their deprivation of sight. Certainly it is better to bear up against a loss bravely than to whine over what cannot be changed. Unquestionably it is wiser to thank God for what remains to us of all His mercies, than to grieve as beings without hope because one sense has been obliterated, or perhaps only impaired. I say perhaps only impaired, and the expression is used advisedly. Who can say how soon some Edi- son, equipped for discovery and invention, by means of scientific research and mechanical adaptation, may enable the sightless to see? The optic nerves re- main, and experiments innumerable have proven that some persons can decipher with their eyes closed and bandaged as readily as others with the aid of their natural organs of vision. We may yet learn under the blessing of our Creator, through the in- 4G OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. spirations which come to this earth by means of faithful investigation and insight, how to reach and inform the brain as to the phenomena of visible nature after the eyes have ceased their function. Not long ago it was believed that the deaf were beyond the reach of sound because of defects in their ears, although their auditory nerves remained intact; but science and discovery have revealed to us that by means of a very simple fan, allowed to rest against on? of the teeth of the patient, sounds just as minute as the faintest whisper can be conveyed to the brain, and deaf mutes are being enabled to comprehend and speak the languages from which they were supposed shut off forever. When an inexpensive diaphragm of gutta percha, expanded on a fan, touching a tooth set in the jaw, whether the tooth be natural or artificial, can instruct the nervous system, and remedy so many of the evil conse- quences of defective ears, can we imagine that the obstacles which prevent a similar action upon the brain through the optic nerves are insuperable? Faith will remedy ten thousand ills, when by its means the scientist is inspired to search with more diligence into the arcana of the unknown, for God appointed means of relief. Meantime it is well that the class which suffers bereavement should cheer- fully bear their burden, and wait for the evangel. Our boys and girls were not possessed by any such ideas as I have here set down, but they had borne enough in their several households, in the form of OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 47 implied reproach, or repining over their misfortunes, to be ready to grasp at the consolation of com- panionship with persons of their own class, and, thus reinforced, to set up an impcrium in imperio which made it an offense against the community for any one of the number to solicit the pity of visitors, or even to receive its expression without resenting the supposition of superiority which pity necessarily con- veys. My own condition of mind rendered the unlicensed training which was thus indulged pecu- liarly pleasant, as it filled my soul with a laudable ambition to be and to do something which should wipe out the stigma of helplessness from my ex- istence, and at some time, not far distant, as it seemed, enable me to challenge the respect and esteem of the little circle upon which I had so long felt myself a burden. ’ That ambition, which entered into my childish mind at the very beginning of my school days, has never ceased to animate my subsequent career; and when I am confronted by some half instructed zealot with denunciations of ambition per \se as a vice, I feel impelled to cry out that next 'to and akin with hope it is our Almighty Father’s choicest blessing. I could no longer complain of a lack of play- fellows, and our diversions were sufficiently numerous to render the old habit of moping, to which nearly all of the pupils had become more or less accus- tomed, an impossibility. I gave a wide berth to that loosely boarded doorway through which I fell sans 48 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. ceremonie on the day of my arrival; but I learned from my companions, to whom my adventure was well known, that the aperture had been securely guarded immediately after my mishap. The weather outdoors was still pleasant and inviting, and, although we could not see the variegated colors of the leaves which adorn the woods of autumn, the balmy atmosphere of the Indian summer was pecu- liarly grateful to our feelings, now that we could roam at large in the grounds in which the Insti- tution stood. We were not all absolutely blind; some of my classmates could see just enough to act as guides in our impromptu excursions, and we detailed them for special duty as a matter of course. There is an adage that, “ among the blind a man with one eye is king,” and our conduct verified the saying; but the leader won his spurs by being the servant of his subjects. There is a sublime mystery in the fact that our Saviour washed the feet of his disciples; all the rulers of mankind, who actually govern, must serve before they can command. There is still a pleasure, although time has dimmed the lustre of the delight, in recalling the al fresco sports of my Janesville days. We could descend the somewhat declivitous banks of Rock River, and whip its stream with flies of our own manufacture, when more costly equipments were impracticable, and sometimes our piscatorial labors were rewarded with a bite. When the weather was not too chilly, the water tempted us to venture on a swim, OUT FROM THE DAHKNKSS. 4 # although none of our little party could have been con- sidered dangerous rivals by Paul Boy ton or Captain Webb; and some of my escalades in and upon Rock River will tend to show that my constitutional rashness was not easily chastened; but of such matters we can speak in due time. There was very little limit to our enjoyment during our school terms, after the tasks of the classrooms were accomplished, unless for some reason needful discipline had been imposed upon evil doers. There is not a boy living and in good health at this moment, and it is likely that there never has been, who went through a course of tuition without deserving correction; and woe to the un- happy wight who escaped punishment in his tender years, by heaping up severer misfortunes for later life. There is a deep truth in the proverb, “If you won’t be ruled by the rudder, you will by the rock.” Perhaps there was an overdose of “rudder” in my case, for certainly up to this time I have experienced but very few “ rocks.” The management of the Insti- tution was not unnecessarily severe, and the course of study was not exhaustive; but the pleasantest part of our school lives was that which we spent in ram- bling the grounds between whiles, when all the boys were teachers and pupils in the various fields of their respective excellencies. In almost every educational establishment the same fact may be noted in some degree, but with us the load of restraint which had been endured at home made a semi- masterless con- dition especially enjoyable. Circumstances so far 50 OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. favored us during the terms of my attendance, that no serious accidents befell any of the pupils, although I can now see that we ran some terrible risks, which might have had fatal endings. One instance of misplaced ingenuity may be mentioned, which will give the gentle reader an inkling of the dan- gers which the boys daily dared in the prosecution of a practical joke. The Chicago & Northwestern Railroad passed near the Institution, through a deep cutting, which was in process of being bridged over, a few rude beams having been placed in position across the chasm in the roadway. Upon that very risky perch a bevy of blind boys might have been seen with clock-like regularity about train time, when- ever the classes were not in session, taking soundings* as to the depth below them. A number of clothes- lines, joined, with a big stone as a plummet, consti- tuted the simple but effective apparatus for our opera- tions. A few visits to the dangerous spot gave to each member of the party remarkable facility in scrambling along the beams; and, once in position, we waited patiently the arrival of the cars. The plummet was then sent down just far enough to reach the roof of the cars, along which it was dragged, bumping at every coupling, to the no small dismay of the uninitiated passengers within, who believed themselves on the verge of some disastrous, inexplicable accident. This curious experiment was continued day after day with monotonous regularity until the officers of the road became aware of the OUT FROM THE DARKNESS. 51 true inwardness of the phenomena, and then a spe- cial messenger to the Institution made prisoners of us all for an extended term, until we had satisfied the superintendent of our contrition, and pledged out words never more to offend the railroad company The chances of death which we all ran in that fool- hardy series of adventures never seemed to occur t