might be very slender and only partly visible. There is but one conclusion to draw a cane is useless.

In reality it is an impediment. A man may often overtake people going in the same direction, and may often have to pass people, silently standing with their backs toward him. A cane would not help him to pass these people, and they would not see him approaching. By training one's ears to catch the sounds of footsteps and voices, and by learning to use one's sense of feeling, one can pass them easily, as a normal person would.

I think that any fear of danger from vehicles can be dismissed just as quickly. In suburban or country districts one may often have occasion to follow muchtravelled roads. Then there is only one thing to do it is to keep well on the right-hand side of the road. There is little danger that an automobile will come over on the right-hand side of the road to run over a man, especially when he is well on the side and has the right of way. In a city, almost the only time one need fear passing vehicles is in crossing streets, and here again there is only one choice. A person can do positively nothing but wait until the street is quiet, and then cross. If there is an unusual amount of traffic, it saves time simply to ask somebody to assist one across the street. If, in either country or city, an automobile suddenly comes upon one, the driver is not likely to let his machine run over any pedestrian whom he sees; and again I think that if the driver cannot see a man, he could hardly be expected to see him any quicker when the man carries a cane. Here again there is but one conclusion to draw a cane is useless. In fact, I believe that if one depended on a cane to help him and warn others of his handicap he would take less care to be on the side of the road, trusting the driver would look out for him, and thus would be unnecessarily endangered.

Following the loss of my sight, I was placed in the California School for the Blind, which I attended for upward of six years. During this period there was not one student who used a cane. In fact, they derisively called blind people who did "Cane-ites." I shall always remember those boys as the finest, brav

est, most independent lot I have ever known.

The one recognized object of the school was to train the students to be as nearly as possible normal men and women. I came in personal contact with approximately thirty teachers, matrons, supervisors, and other officers, not one of whom, from the superintendent himself to the trained nurse in the hospital, ever suggested the use of a cane. Three of these teachers were totally blind and two partially, yet none of them used or ever advised a single student to use a cane. Indeed, the matron in my dormitory building once sharply reproved me for using a cane on account of a sprained ankle. When I made my explanation, she tersely ordered me to the hospital and to "put away that cane." One teacher has now worked with the blind for nearly forty years, another twenty-five; and the matron of whom I have spoken has held her position for twenty-four years.

While at the school, I observed that the very small boys played freely and happily with no thought of ever using a cane. As they grew in years and experience they gained more ability in moving about. To have put canes in their hands at any time would have been simply to restrict them; and it is evident the school has no idea of imposing any such restriction. It has a large swimming-tank in which all the students are expected to go, and even taught to swim. The boys are also required to attend regular gymnasium classes. The instructor has always encouraged apparatus work, such as jumping over booms and bucks, climbing ladders and swinging in rings, swinging on a trapeze and using parallel bars. He is also in the habit of taking the class out on the athletic field, where he divides it into two teams, matching them in a game of push-ball. Sometimes his exercises consist of running. If on the athletic field, the boys run in pairs, one who can see a little with one who cannot, because they must run in a circle. But sometimes the instructor takes them on the cement sidewalk just outside the school wall. Here they run singly, successfully avoiding each other and all accidents. All this can only preclude any dependence on a cane.

There is a certain deadly symbolism

behind the use of a cane by the blind, and it is this that I at present most deplore. The general public invariably thinks of a blind man as carrying a cane. Ask any one at all who has not been previously enlightened if he thinks blind men always carry canes, and your answer will certainly be in the affirmative. Thus it is that the cane has become the symbol of blindness, and of all its horror and hideous dependence. The one idea that has been impressed upon me during the last eight years is that I must take my place in the world just like a normal man. Since the cane is the symbol of blindness, if one carries a cane, he is going to feel his handicap. But, on the other hand, if he is capable of going around without a cane, he acquires new courage and manliness. He merely remembers that he is a man, and that he has a man's work to do. For seven years I honestly believed it would never be possible for me to learn my way around the place in which I now live. When I finally made the attempt, which proved successful, I started by

carrying a cane; but now I know it is more desirable by far to walk without one. When a blind man lays aside his cane, he rises incredibly in self-respect. He distinctly feels that he has cast aside all the hideousness of blindness; and when his friends understand his feelings and are accustomed to seeing him without a cane, I am confident their respect for him is greatly enhanced.

Finally, those who advise the use of a cane usually conclude by saying that there is nothing conspicuous in it, because a lot of men carry canes. This is certainly true, but it merely confirms my statement that a cane is useless; so, why carry one? In my opinion any one of the numerous objections I have cited is sufficient reason for discarding any dependence on a cane. My only concern in writing this very frank and thorough discussion is to help correct the noxious impression that all blind people should be "addicted" to the use of canes. This impression must vanish before the best results in the work for the blind can be attained.

OFTEN when you've smiled on me
I have looked into your eyes
With a sort of sick surmise
As to what the end would be

If you lived with me until

You had seen me as I am,
And laid bare this shallow sham,
Would you want to kiss me still?

If you glimpsed in me at last
Every weakness you can guess,
Saw my sorry selfishness
In our laughter of the past,

Saw surrender to my fears,

Shame and sorrow in me, too, Would I turn and find that you Still were smiling through your tears?

Brave and lovely, then be brave,

(Lovely you will always be) Do not take your eyes from me Nor recall the lips you gave:

If that day come, let it kill

Both our hearts and burst the barsMaybe somewhere past the stars You will dare to love me still.

on us as a savage cat mauls a hurt and skittering bird, tearing at our sail and often pressing the lee gunwale breathlessly under. It was as though the elements were competing, the wind striving to capsize us before the sea could whelm us. Now a great splash over the bow, now a deluge over the lee gunwale, now a great swash over the quarter from one of those pursuing monsters. Spray and spindrift were like an endless stinging shower-bath; water swirled about our feet. Several times I failed with the oar, and once she luffed badly, shipping a sea over the quarter for punishment.

It was then that Major Blakely rose angrily and bawled above the tumult to Captain Dick. "How long are you going to keep this up! Why don't you either let her run before it or lie to? What sort of a sea-captain are you, anyway?"

Brand and Bertha had taken Adria between them, trying to shelter her with their bodies; Brand was looking stronger; but he merely eyed the mutineer silently and his silence was enraging.

Blakely staggered over the after thwart, clinging with one hand to the side, looking as drenched and angry as an Adonis under a pump, and shook his finger. "Are you a mummy?" he shouted. "If you don't show some competency soon I'll take charge of this boat myself."

That prodded the young skipper to speech. In his clear voice that could pierce the roar of a tempest like an arrow, he hailed one of the seamen. "Hagan. Take that water-butt, stave in the head on the stem-post, and give it to the major thar to bale with."

Then he looked at me from under the bandage Bertha had swathed his head in and said quietly: "I'll spell ye soon, Sturgis."

The military man was calmed into resuming his seat by Alden's sympathetic though deprecating gestures. The emp-ty water-butt was flung to his feet, where it rolled and thumped idly.

Another hour passed. With the feeling of exhaustion creeping upon me grew a sense of wonder that the storm was not overtaking us more swiftly. At length the steward sang out to me from near my elbow. He was a sallow, weak-voiced English chap in a blue jersey. I thought

something must be ailing the sheet; but no, bending my knees I caught the surprising words: "Mr. Dorn was a good man, sir!"

Startled, I wondered whether the fellow's mind was gone.

"He was queer, though, sir," he shouted on. "Had queer notions, sentimental. I used to be his valet, you know; 'twas him got me this 'ere job with Mr. Alden.'

Seizing a moment I turned my head and peered down at him. What was he driving at? Surely he knew that the lady next him had been Dorn's wife. But a self-conscious yielding of his eyes enlightened me. He knew who she was; he had heard the discussion between the two women; he was shouting for their ears.

After a nervous laugh-"Sentimental, sir!" he repeated. "Some woman he'd known! Kept a room all fixed up with her things as though she lived there. Used to spend hours sitting in there alone mooning. Heard him call it to himself once 'Alice's room.' His orders was always to keep it dusted and ready in case she came. Sentimental man, sir, was Mr. Dorn."

Again I was striving with the oar, but out of the tail of my eye I saw Alice Dorn slowly sit erect and stiffen, staring into Edith Alden's eyes. When I caught her figure again she seemed to have sagged and fainted.

And now I pitied her from the bottom of my heart. She was a good sort. What a discovery for a woman to make in the face of death! The husband whom she had first goaded into giving her a bitter grievance, then when he craved forgiveness scorned as an immoral cad, and lastly in the hour of fate wounded and mortified with the sharpest cruelty, had been not only perfectly true to his profession of love, but unbelievably, almost fantastically, devoted to her memory. The very circumstance which she with a proud woman's jealousy had seized on as proving his perfidy, had been turned by a shout in a storm into evidence of the most touching loyalty. And she had spurned him in that last moment together. There was no chance now to set it right. And if by a miracle she should be saved, what a memory to live with! And how her friends would scorn her!