Blind Boys and Baseball.
Blind boys can play baseball. It is not the baseball of the League, but it answers—blind boys. Only one man in the game must have good eyes—the umpire. The diamond is like the regular ones, save that bases are forty instead of ninety feet apart. Players are stationed the same as in a League game, but there is a second short stop, or ten men on each side.
The catcher sits on the ground. Think of it—sits on the ground! He stays well back from the home-plate, and wears a mask and breastplate. The pitcher aims, first, to enable the batter to hit the ball, and, second, to have the ball, if not batted, to strike the ground just in front of the catcher and be taken on the bound. The batsman uses a bat much like a cricket bat. Taking his position, the umpire says, "One, two, three," and on the instant the "three" is spoken the pitcher delivers the ball. The batter has to guess at the time the ball will reach him, and he guesses rightly in more cases than one would think possible. If the ball is missed it lands in the catcher's lap. Beginners at the bat strike ludicrously wide of the ball, but as all the players are blind, they miss the place to laugh. If the ball is batted, the umpire calls out the name of the player toward whom the ball is going. This player hears it, and if he fails to catch it, chases it into the grass. It is his if he gets it, no matter on what bound it may be.
When the batter runs, the first-base man calls out, "First," and keeps calling, so the runner may know in what direction to go. The second-base man does the same, calling, "Second." Six outs put a side out. These blind boys get a wonderful amount of fun out of the play, and become expert at it.
Life in Our Soldiers' Orphans' Home.
No one but a member of a home like this can know enough of the every-day life to fully understand the spirit in which the children take their confinement; for confinement it is in the end. Owing to a peculiar training received here, the average child knows more about the history of our country than any other class of children in the United States. We have good times among ourselves, and originate many plays and jokes. We have a band of sixteen pieces, a debating club, and several minor clubs. On going to school each boy salutes "Old Glory" as he passes it. To show that the boys are poetical (?), for instance, when cold slaw is being passed at the table, the first boy says, "Slaw"; if the next boy doesn't want any, he says, "Naw."
At present all thoughts are centred on Christmas. Ask a boy the day before Christmas or Thanksgiving what he intends to do next day; he will say, "Eat turkey, of course." We are always glad to get a letter, and to be certain of having one in the mail we get our relatives to mark the envelope, so we can tell it before the mail is distributed.
One of the Board of Trustees, who lives in Canton, O., recently visited William McKinley, and told him he was coming to the home next day. Then the President-elect of the United States, with tears coming to his eyes, said, "Give my love to every child there. God bless them!" When the board member told the children this in our chapel, every patriotic son of America raised his handkerchief and shook it, after the manner of the Chautauqua salute, and in his heart said, "Long live our next President!" The boys and girls over fourteen years of age learn a trade, devoting one-half of each day to it. But in every case a half-day pupil has better lessons than a whole-day one. Many children leave here in June next, and have no place to go. If any persons could put these in the way of employment they will find them faithful and true in every sense of the word.
Joseph L. Gill, Cottage 18.
Xenia, O.