Longfellow.
Beneath the scorching rays of a blistering summer’s sun, or chilled by the piercing blast of winter, a puny, sickly youth might have been seen daily ascending a ladder, bearing on his head a heavy weight of slate. There is nothing about his appearance but his feeble step and emaciated frame, calculated to attract the attention of the passer-by: a closer observation, however, will show that he possesses an eye which bespeaks an amount of patient perseverance but seldom known.
On one occasion, when about twelve years of age, while engaged in his accustomed labor, his foot misses the round of the ladder which he had so long ascended, and the infirm youth is thrown a distance of thirty-five feet on the hard stone pavement beneath. In a state of perfect insensibility he is taken up and borne to the arms of his afflicted friends. For two long weeks he remains in a state of unconsciousness, not knowing the nearest and dearest of his relatives.
At the expiration of this time his mind begins to revive, and his feeble eye wanders about the room with listless indifference. Recovering from his attack, he immediately inquires for a book in which he had been deeply interested previous to the accident which came so near terminating his earthly career.
No one seems to answer his inquiries. “Why do you not speak? Pray let me have my book!” Still no one replies. At last some one takes a slate and writes upon it that the book had been returned to its owner.
“Why do you write to me?” exclaimed the sufferer—“speak, speak! SPEAK!” Again was the pencil taken and the three words—you are deaf—written.
How severe the affliction! No more can that ear drink in the sweet melody of the little warblers; no more listen to those words of affection which make home the brightest and happiest spot in the world; no more hear the gentle notes of the “sweet singer of Israel,” or gather the soul-stirring anthems that echo and reëcho through the vaulted roof of God’s sanctuary.
As his father was very poor, he was placed in an almshouse to keep him from starvation.
He was soon removed, however, from his lonely prison home, and placed under a shoemaker, but was treated so unkindly that his friends found it necessary to have him again put in the poorhouse.
His studious habits and intellectual qualities soon attracted the notice of the officers of the almshouse, and he was treated with marked kindness and attention. While others were wasting the golden moments of youth, the deaf shoemaker was busy garnering his spare minutes, and storing his mind with information which was destined to exert an influence throughout the world.