THE DEAF AND DUMB FRENCH BOY.
I was sitting, this morning, at my window, looking at a fine sunrise, when suddenly I thought, how terrible, were I to become blind! And then I asked myself, were I to choose between blindness and deafness, how should I decide? Never to see the dear faces, never to see the blue sky, or green earth, or delicate flowers;—never to listen to the melody of birds, or the sweet voices of the trees and streams, or hum of busy insect-life; or, more dreadful still, never to hear the sweet voices of those I love;—oh, how could I choose? When we murmur and complain, surely we forget the blessings of hearing and sight; they are so common, that we forget to be grateful; so common, that we need to have written pitying words to the deaf of our own kin, or led the sightless, fully to understand their sufferings. And yet all the world is not now dark to the blind, or voiceless to the deaf, thanks to the good people who teach both these unfortunates. How different was their position once, a long while ago! Let me tell you about it.
In France lived a little boy, born of parents who had six deaf and dumb children, three boys and three girls. It must have been very dull to them all; but one of them, little Pierre, seemed to feel it most. Children of his own age would not play with him, they seemed to despise him; so he trotted round like a little dog, trying to amuse himself with sticks, and stones, and anything that came in his way; his body grew tall, like other children’s, but his mind remained a little baby. He didn’t know whether he had been made, or had made himself. His father taught him to make prayers by signs, morning and evening. Poor little fellow! he would get on his knees, and look upward, and make his lips move, as if he had been speaking; but he did not know there was any God: he was worshiping the beautiful sky. He took a great fancy to a particular star, because it was so bright and beautiful; and at one time, when his mother lay very sick, he used to go out every evening, and kneeling down, make signs to it, to make her well; but finding that she did not get any better, he grew very angry, and threw stones at the star, supposing that it might, after all, be the cause of his deafness, his mother’s sickness, and all their other troubles. Seeing others move their lips when speaking, he moved his, hoping the talk would come out; and sometimes he made noises like an animal. When people told him the trouble was in his ears, then he took some brandy, poured it into his ears, and then stopped them up with cotton, as he had seen people do who had cold in their heads. Pierre desired much to learn to read and write. He often saw young boys and girls who were going to school, and he desired to follow them; not that he knew what reading and writing really were, but from a feeling that there were some privileges and enjoyments from which he ought not to be shut out. The poor child begged his father, as well as he knew how, with tears in his eyes, to let him go to school. His father refused, making signs to him that he was deaf and dumb, and therefore could never learn anything. Then little Pierre cried very loud, and taking some books, tried to read them; but he neither knew the letters nor the words. Then he became angry, and putting his fingers into his ears, demanded impatiently to have them cured. Then his father told him again, that there was no help for it; and Pierre was quite heart-broken. He left his father’s house, and without telling him, started off alone to school, and going into the schoolhouse, asked the master, by signs, to teach him to read and write. The schoolmaster (I think he could not have had any little children of his own) refused him roughly and drove him away from the school. Then Pierre cried very much; but you will be glad when I tell you that, although only twelve years old, he was such a little hero that he wouldn’t give up. He took a pen, and tried, all alone, to form the writing signs; and that, indeed, was the best and only thing he could do, and he stuck to it, though everybody discouraged him.
His father used sometimes to set him to watch the flocks; oftentimes people, in passing, who found out his condition, gave the boy money. One day—and it was a great day for poor Pierre—when he was thus watching the flocks, a gentleman who was passing took a fancy to him, and inviting him to his house, gave him something to eat and drink. Then the gentleman went off to Bordeaux, where he lived. Not long after, Pierre’s father, for some reason or other, moved to Bordeaux; and then this kind gentleman spoke of Pierre to a learned man of his acquaintance, who was interested in deaf and dumb persons, and he consented to take Pierre and try to teach him. Are you not glad? and you will be gladder still, when I tell you how fast he learned, and how, by his own strong will, assisted by his kind tutor, he unriveted, one by one, the chains with which his wits were bound, and casting them aside, stood forth under the bright star, at which he used to throw stones, and understood now what it was, and who made it. You may be sure that nobody had to tease little Pierre to learn his lessons, as some little children have to be teased to study theirs. No indeed! he felt like jumping and leaping for joy that he was able to learn; and it seemed to him that there was nothing left in the world worth fretting about, now that he could learn, like other children.
That is all I know about little Pierre, but I hope he grew up a good as well as a smart man; don’t you?