Years of Blindness. ^«^ 



Ketcham, a watchmaker livini^ hard by. Mr. Ketch- 

 am was a Quaker, and a genial old bachelor withal. 

 That he felt drawn toward the blind young man 

 was no more than natural — everybody felt drawn 

 toward him ; there never was such a magnetic crea- 

 ture as Edward Youmans. This circumstance was 

 the beginning of a pleasant acquaintance which soon 

 ripened into friendship, so that when Edward left the 

 neighborhood to go to Mrs. Chipman's boarding- 

 house he frequently spent a pleasant hour at the 

 watchmaker's shop. He was invited and urged to 

 visit Mr. Ketcham's household, over which a maiden 

 sister presided. This he for a long time declined to 

 do, because of the embarrassment of his blindness ; but 

 his hesitation was at length overcome and the invita- 

 tion was accepted. The interest he had awakened in 

 the brother was at once shared by the other members 

 of the family. This was soon after his escape from 

 the hospital. He was in delicate health, and so help- 

 less that the Ketchams insisted upon his making his 

 home with them, where he might have care and atten- 

 tion impossible in a boarding-house. He was very 

 glad to accept the proposal, and for many years there- 

 after his New York home was in the Ketcham family. 

 Thus, within three years after coming to New York, 

 blind and helpless as he was most of the time, he had 

 won friends on every side, friends whose sympathy 

 and kindness he gratefully remembered to the close of 

 his life. Seventeen years afterward, in 1859, he visited 

 Detroit on a lecturing tour ; Mrs. Cook was then living 

 in that city, and he called upon her. During their 

 conversation many reminiscences of his years of blind- 

 ness and privation were recalled, and he thus alludes 

 to it in a letter written at the time : *' I yearn for those 



