T1918.

Place: Domart Sur Le Luce, a small village a few kilometers to the right of Amiens.

A raw, cold day in spring, with a drizzle of rain, commonly called a Scotch mist. It had been raining or drizzling for the past three days, and every one in this particular battery was soaked right to the skin. We had been on the move since the 21st, stopping here and there to fire a few rounds and doing all that human beings and horses were capable of doing to stop Fritz on his last mad rush to the coast.

For nine terrible days no rations had reached us. We had lived on what we could find in the deserted villages we passed through in our retreat. Sleep? Yes, about ten hours all told since the "push" started. Most of us had slept on our horses, as we moved from place to place, having no recollection of towns and villages we passed or how far we had come, only taking note of our surroundings when we were roused by our horses stumbling or when we made a temporary halt.

This day, however, everybody had brightened up and we were more cheerful (not that we were ever downhearted), for news had just come to us that the "Aussies" had counter-attacked and driven Fritzy back three kilometers. Wherefore Bob Johnson, the Caruso of the battery, was singing a favorite parody which goes something like this:

"When the blinking war is over, Oh, how happy we shall be; We can tell the sergeant-major."

The last line I must omit, as it is never sung in polite society; but every one who was over there will recognize the old favorite.

Suddenly a quartet of five-nines from one of Fritz's batteries mingled their hoarse notes with Bob's song. Everybody was tense, seeming to get set, ready for the shock, wondering whether they would drop near.

Then Blooey, Blooey, Blooey, Blooey, the explosions so close together that it sounded just like one gigantic shell.

Ah! they fell short, seventy-five yards in front of the battery. But Fritz had some of our numbers on his next salvo, for they dropped on the battery.

Result: Yours truly took no more interest in the proceedings, for I had lost my hearing. Not a scratch, no marks whatever I simply could not recognize the loudest shout. Even the report of the guns a few feet away sounded like distant firing.

Nobody would believe I was deaf. In any case, what was deafness in all that death and mutilation! Our M. O. was with the ammunition column, and until we could get in touch with them I had to stay with the battery.

Finally, on the 6th of April, we pulled out of action, when I saw the M. O. and he sent me down the line to the base hospital. There I was sent to a so-called

ear specialist, who, as a specialist, was a good farmer. He told me that my ears were all right; therefore I had no treat

ment.

I rejoined my battery, where I carried on as best I could until the Armistice, when I asked to see another specialist. He tested my ears, then asked me how and when it happened. On my telling him eight months previous, he told me that if I had been treated at that time I could have been cured, but that now nothing could be done; that I would be deaf permanently.

I offered up a silent prayer for the "specialist" I had first seen.

However, the war over, I received my discharge and arrived back in Canada, intent on getting a position and settling down, after nearly five years' travel in Europe. Alas! I reckoned without my

ears.

I answered dozens of advertisements, but employers didn't want me without my hearing. I then answered advertisements by mail. In several instances I received replies making appointments, but when the employers found out that I was hard of hearing, in every case I was told they would write me whenever they could use me. I am still waiting to hear from them.

The inference is plain-"No Deaf Need Apply!"

By this time I was fed up, despondent; no nerve nor courage whatever. My friends all appeared to shun me, so that I used to go out of my way to keep from meeting them. If I happened on a bunch. of friends, it seemed to me that they did not include me in the conversation at all, and if they were laughing I used to imagine they were laughing at me. Confidence? That was an unknown quantity to me. I had lost all I ever had. To be introduced to strangers was torture, as I used to think they thought I was somewhat foolish; therefore I avoided introductions whenever possible. I tell you, I had reached the stage where, if something didn't happen to break the monotony. I would go crazy.

Then one day I went to see another ear specialist, and he advised me to take some lessons in lip-reading. At first I said. No. I thought it foolish to expect

lip-reading to do me any good, where specialists had failed. Finally, after a lot of argument, he got me to try it. I was sent to see Miss Grace K. Wadleigh. I'll admit that I was awfully nervous about going to see her. about going to see her. However, I got up enough courage to call, and made arrangements for my lesson.

I found Miss Wadleigh a very nice. quiet lady, who had a world of patience. with me and soon put me at ease. Up to the time of writing, I have had about twenty lessons, and, believe me, I feel like shouting how good lip-reading is. Confidence? I am bubbling over with it. and easily have nerve enough to give at public lecture on the subject of lip-reading, to let all deaf people know how good it is.

We all know that when a person loses confidence, he may as well quit. Lipreading and more lip-reading is the only medicine to restore your lost confidence. Confidence is half the battle, some say. I say it is all!

I have had more fun and joy crowded into the last three weeks than I had from the time I lost my hearing until I started to take lip-reading. I look forward to my lessons and the classes; more so the classes, as they give me an opportunity to try out my new accomplishment on different people. I had forgotten how to laugh. The funniest comedian couldn't get a laugh from me, before lip-reading. simply because I could not understand what he said. Now I laugh if somebody cracks an old chestnut, because I can

I was talking to a friend yesterday. After we had spoken awhile he said. "Gee, you hear a lot better!" I told him it was because I could see better. But I sometimes wonder whether I am hearing better or seeing better.

They say that seeing is believing. Once I knew nothing of lip-reading; therefore I thought there was nothing in it; but now I see and believe, and at the same time enjoy.

I wish all deaf people could know about this wonderful thing that can raise you from the depths of despair and give you back the confidence and will-power to try, try again.

All that is necessary is a good, patient teacher and the co-operation of yourself.

HE SEASON of the reign of the comTHE mon cold is here; the season when a "simple" cold may merge into serious complications or merely disappear after sowing the seeds of that which in later life may bring about loss of hearing. Thus the winter months might well be called the handicap gardening season; the season for sowing and developing the causes and conditions that sooner or later bring about loss of hearing and other disablements.

Until the sense of hearing has vanished, relatively few persons realize that loss of hearing may prove far more disastrous to many an individual, from an economic and a social point of view, than the loss of a leg, and not draw forth a hundredth part of the sympathy or of the sympathetic understanding and courtesies so freely extended to the user of crutches, whose loss is a visible one.

Therefore it appears 'appropriate to offer a timely word of warning and to address this warning more especially to mothers of young children, in the hope that there may be a reduction in the number of new cases of acquired deafness in children or of loss of hearing in later life. Each year brings thousands of new mothers, some of whom welcome helpful suggestions that may serve to keep the little ones free from illness. If only one mother in each community will get the habit of teaching her children to acquire the habit of keeping the nose clean and free from obstruction, the writer will feel richly repaid for this presentation of an old, a very old, but a very reliable suggestion.

Yes, keeping the nose clean and free from obstructions is the substance of all that follows. There are nicer subjects to write about, but few that may prove as helpful in maintaining good health. Honestly, have you ever given a thought to the important part your nose plays in the game of maintaining good health? Have you ever considered how many health duties were assigned to the nose or what an efficient organ the nose is when it is

clean and free from obstructions? Suppose you give just a moment's thought to the subject and endeavor to realize how disastrous not only to present health, but also to future comfort, any interference with the proper discharge of the duties assigned to the nose may prove.

Only the constant watchfulness of the thought ful mother will prevent any interference with the proper working of the nose in children; for the wise mother realizes that constant vigilance during the early years of childhood will be richly repaid in future freedom from many ailments the beginnings of which are easily traceable to obstructed nasal passages. The wise mother also realizes the wisdom and the economy in isolating her child and calling a physician when the first symptom of a common cold appears. In later years, does the grown-up child appreciate all this watchful care that may have prevented partial or complete loss of hearing?

The one great essential to continued good health is not food or water, necessary as nourishing food and uncontaminated water are, but an abundance of clean, fresh air. The most important of the functions devolving upon the nose is to supply a sufficient quantity of fresh air, cleanse it of all impurities, moisten it if the air is too dry and irritating, warm it to blood heat, no matter how cold the outer atmosphere may be, and then pass this cleansed and moistened and warmed air on to the tube down which it is drawn to the lungs. Yes, you were taught all this in your physiology class in school; but how much of it did you remember and put into practise? And did you remember how many were the penalties if the nose could not functionate properly? What is here presented is merely a repetition, in a new dress, of what has been and will be told again and again, as long as human beings do not keep their noses clean and free from obstructions.

Yes, it is possible for air to reach the lungs by way of the mouth; but Nature planned a better way than "mouth

breathing." Moreover, mouth-breathing is not a pretty exercise, while it is a standing advertisement of parental neglect. Did you ever see a "bright," intelligent "mouth-breather"? Because the mouth is not equipped to warm and filter and moisten the inhaled air is why Nature provided other passageways through which, in a healthy human being, all the fresh air is drawn in that is necessary to vitalize and revitalize the body. Hence, if the nose is not kept clean or if obstructions find lodgment, the nasal passageways are blocked and the nose cannot perform the work assigned to it.

The cleansing, warming, and moistening of the inhaled air occurs somewhat after the following fashion: There are two winding roadways in the nose, separated from each other by a thin strip of cartilage. Sometimes that dividing wall gets bent to a degree that obstructs not only one roadway, but both, thus making nasal breathing a difficult task. Then the crooked wall must be straightened, or it may be necessary to remove portions. The floor of the nasal roadways rests on the upper surface of the hard palate that forms the roof or the ceiling of the mouth-cavity. The ceiling of the nasal roadways is the curving under surface of the bony box that contains the brain. Neither floor nor ceiling of the nasal passages is level or straight; there are bumps and cavities, low hills and shallow valleys, over or down into which the inhaled air is drawn, this irregularity largely increasing the cleansing and warming surface of these respiratory roadways. This surface is lined with a mucous membrane richly interlaced with blood-vessels, arranged to warm the air; with cells having innumerable fine hairs on their surface, that serve to more completely cleanse the air than do the filtering, heavier hairs that are found at the entrance or vestibule of the nose; and then there are minute glands in the lining that supply the water necessary to moisten the air if it is too dry-if, for instance, it has been inhaled in an overheated and unventilated room. Now, all this warming and cleansing and moistening is necessary if the respiratory organs are to be kept in a healthy condition.

Though these nasal roadways are short

and neither broad nor high, yet the membranous lining supplies nearly a tablespoonful of water each hour for use in moistening the air that is too dry; each hour the inhaled air is cleansed of thousands of invisible germs, to say nothing of dust and dirt; and in cold weather that lining must increase the temperature of the inhaled air 40 degrees, 60 degrees, or even 80 degrees or more. It's a big job, and then some? Sure! And the nose carries no union card, but is willing to work the entire twenty-four hours, if its owner will only help to keep it clean. Honestly, are you helping or hindering the nose to efficiently take care of its big job?

AN "IF" FOR THE DEAF

(With Apologies to R. K.)

If you have entered in upon the “silence" And still can feel your place amidst the throng;

If you have found a help in time of darkness, And, having found, will pass that help along; If you can cope with bitter disappointment, And, conquering, plan your life work all

anew;

If you can laugh when laughter is in order, Nor falter when you know the joke's on you; If you can see the beauty in all nature,

And, seeing, know that hearing isn't all; If to your ear there comes no sound of music, And yet you keep the song within your soul; If you can greet the silence of the daytime,

And, too, the awesome stillness of the night With knowledge sure that in God's earth and heaven

All must, and will, and ever shall, be right; If you can learn to see what folks are saying, And therefore meet your handicap half way; If you can banish from your thought self-pity, In helping brighten some one else's day; If you can face the thing which would undo

MR. ELWOOD A. STEVENSON,
of Kansas

Mr. Stevenson is the son of deaf parents, and in consequence entirely at home in the work to which he is devoting his life.

After his graduation from the City College of New York, he became a normal student at Gallaudet College, and upon the completion of his course there went to the Fanwood School, where he served ten years as a teacher. He has thrown himself whole-heartedly into his work, taking an interest in club and social affairs among the adult deaf and making a special study of the correction. of speech defects and the possibilities of developing residual hearing.

Mrs. Stevenson, who was Miss Edith

Long, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, is also the child of deaf parents, and brings an understanding of the deaf and a sympathy with their problems to aid her husband in his work. She was formerly a teacher in the Gallaudet School, in St. Louis.

MR. HARRY L. WELTY, of South Dakota

Harry L. Welty, present superintendent of the South Dakota School for the Deaf, is a Missourian by birth. After completing his school work there, he went to Oklahoma and took advantage of Uncle Sam's generous offer of a free home. During his residence on this claim he taught in the rural schools.

Mr. A. A. Stewart, former superintendent of the Oklahoma School for the Deaf, induced Mr. Welty to come to that school and act as boys' supervisor and substitute teacher. This experience opened an entirely new field of work, which appealed strongly to him.

He was trained as a teacher at Clarke School in 1912-13, and in the autumn of 1913 went to the Nebraska School for the Deaf, where he remained until the first of the present year, at which time he accepted his present position.