CHAPTER 4
Florence and I went to our respective homes that afternoon to face parental wrath on the one side, and a troubled household on the other. Florence, I later learned, faced her mother with a stoicism well becoming a girl of her age who was quite sure she knew her own mind. My situation was a far different one, particularly when the school head, Mr. Ward, called one night and made it very plain that I must leave the school, since my presence there was the cause of so many disturbances. The principal, however, was reasonable and considerate, freely acknowledging that I was not to blame; but as some of the boys could be counted on to keep up the trouble to the confusion of school work, it was deemed best that I leave. The principal then suggested that I be entered in some school for the deaf, what he termed a “ deaf and dumb asylum. ”
The word “ asylum ” struck me as being very offensive, a misnomer likely to hurt children sent to such a place, in that it would brand them with an unwholesome stigma. I asked Mr. Ward how he would like to be sent to an asylum, and wouldn’t “ deaf-mute ” be better than “ deaf and dumb ”? Also, I asked him what his chances in life would be if people knew that he had once been an “ inmate of an asylum ”? “ O, Michael, ” he wrote, laughing, “ we don’t mean it in that light. The place is a school where deaf children and deaf-mutes are sent to be educated. There they are taught the same things that hearing children learn. ” I then and there made up my mind that if I must attend such a place, later, when I should be a man, I would take up the cudgel and fight for the eradication of that unfair and damaging term, “ asylum, ” as applied to schools for the deaf.
A week later Mother and I left the town to visit the nearest state school for the deaf. If I had remained in the town school, I should have graduated next summer. Mother was vexed that I should lose that opportunity, and as she knew nothing about these schools for the deaf, she determined upon this trip in order to learn.
I had never been among deaf children before. Somehow the queer idea got in my head that I was the only deaf youth in a world of hearing people! Under such an impression the idea of my having deaf companions awakened happy fancies, and I would see before me other youths similarly stricken as I, who would share mutually with me my ways and my longings, my hopes and my ambitions—also my sorrows. No, I did not joy in the fact that others must suffer as I was suffering, but in the idea of mutual companionship. What was my surprise, on entering the institution grounds, to see hundreds of deaf children at play; while over in the field beyond the broad lawn a game of baseball was in progress! All the young players were deaf, and signaling to one another. My heart leaped for joy as I anticipated joining them in their sports. They seemed mutually bound in a strange friendship, or comradeship. We stood for minutes watching this strange and interesting scene, and I began to wonder if I could ever learn that wonderful sign language that was part of their very nature. But as I turned to Mother and looked into her face, I discerned a shade of disappointment, and instinctively I understood that she did not relish the idea of my going through life using such a strenuous and noticeable language. We were soon closeted with the superintendent, and I sat patiently for nearly an hour as he and Mother talked earnestly about me and the school. I had advanced in studies as far as the school’s graduating class, but I knew nothing of the silent language, so wouldn’t it be best for me to remain at the school these last few weeks and get acquainted with the deaf and pick up some of the signs? The idea was undoubtedly a good one; so it was settled that I return home to get my necessary things and come back.
So I was duly made one of the school and took my place in this little world of silent young people—the result of that memorable school battle. Everything about my new home was strange and foreign to me. With everyone using the signs, I was kept in a state of confusion. Again and again I would talk aloud as my inability to sign and spell rapidly would balk and irritate me. I could read the lips but little, and always with a dread of uncertainty. My breaking forth into speech would exasperate the boys and offend the girls, who would call me an “ oralist ” (a deaf person who has been taught by means of speech and lipreading) and I noticed that many of them held this manner of communication in contempt, and would make wry faces expressive of their displeasure! It was hard and discouraging to adjust myself to this new order of things; it was with no joy that I must again be subjected to plaguing and bullying, for I found these deaf boys just like their hearing brothers—good and bad. It amused me to see how they held in contempt another deaf boy who could not sign. But at last I saw their point of view. They thought I was too proud to be seen using their signs. Finally, I managed to tell some of the boys my story, whereupon they ceased their taunts and grew more friendly, and even chummy, teaching me their signs and explaining many things about the school.
In my state of rawness, everything about the school seemed too mechanical, the routine too monotonous. The fact that the children grew up here with every want supplied without their ever learning their value and their source filled me with a fear that we should grow up to be utter dependents. Then one day one of the boys took me through all the buildings. I saw the various shops, the printing office, the bakery, the arts and crafts departments, the sewing room and the art school. My fears left me, and my interest in the place grew like magic. Here, indeed, was a home, a school, a church, a hospital, and a playground all in one, where deaf children were being raised and well cared for.
And among the hundreds of deaf children I discovered just as much of the human side of life as among hearing children. They were just as bright, just as mischievous but more sensitive than their hearing brothers and sisters, and here and there, as in our public schools at large, I found dull ones, in fact, some stupid ones; but to more than balance that, I found embryo geniuses, little inventors and builders, writers, artists and poets. And there were deaf Billy Masons, and deaf Florence Lillian Worthingtons. In short, it was a little world complete in itself, but—silent. And these handicapped children were some day to be men and women, who should, perforce, go forth into a hard world to make their way against heavy odds, to fight for existence in a world where the law of survival of the fittest never relaxes.
Such were my thoughts one afternoon, and the evening following those hours of meditation, as I gave them, I went to my dormitory alone, some time before the other boys were wont to come. Some twenty boys occupied the room. I sat down, alone in my dreams, the day’s thoughts still filling my head, as the glow follows the flame, and then the full force of my condition—my deafness—came cruelly upon me. My mind reverted to the days when I could hear, and I traced the rapidly passing years with all their strange adventures. I thought of my mother, and I saw my father, in a vision, struggling to the last to save his ship. I recalled vividly, and with a shudder, the terrible ordeal in the open boat; I almost cried aloud for Danny. A great longing seized me again to be back with the friends of my childhood, and a maddening desire to hear came over me. I put my hand to one ear and bent towards my lips and shouted to see if I could hear at all. There was only a muffled tone, a deadened sound, and an impact of air against my eardrum. A tear dropped upon the table over which I bent, and I rubbed my eyes with my sleeve. Then my hand touched a book on the table which I had not paid any attention to. I opened the book at random and my eyes fell upon a verse of poetry in the midst of the prose. The story was about a friendless, homeless man nursing his bitterness and distress, even as I was doing. Perhaps one of the boys, having discovered the book in the school library, had brought it up to find some comfort in it. I began reading the verse, my eyes riveted upon the striking and coincident lines:
Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
‘ Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
‘ Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark,
Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children and their earliest words.‡
My eyes remained glued to the lines even after I had twice read them. Ah, how sweet! How sweet to one to whom that joy is now forever barred! Such joy, once known, but to be known no more. A person born deaf doesn’t feel this loss—the loss of sound, of human voices, the thrill and the glory of music. He has never known the sensation; to him there can be no consciousness of such a loss. But to him who has heard, and now hears no more, to him, comes the sting and the agony.
A rough jarring and a jolly pummeling roused me, as, asleep in my chair, my head and arms resting upon the table, the room filled with romping boys, hurrying to bed.