1738 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 13, 1920 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Our children have been celebrating 
Hallowe’en with some of the old-fash¬ 
ioned ceremonies. There is a big tire 
blazing in the fireplace, and half a dozen 
hideous faces peer at us out of jack o’ 
lanterns carved from squash and pump¬ 
kins. The Japanese boy seems to be the 
only one who can bite into the swinging 
apple or the fruit floating in water. lie 
failed to blow out the candle while blind¬ 
folded. When he took off the handker¬ 
chief he was blowing hard at the side of 
the wall! It has been a strenuous day 
for all of us. The first hard frost struck 
us last night and wilted the eggplants 
and peppers. Jack Frost has held off 
for fully three weeks beyond his average 
visit, and we are well satisfied. The 
children have been picking apples. They 
are all off the trees now except about 100 
bushels of Ben Davis and 75 of Delaware 
Red Winter. Old Ben is somewhat like 
Cleopatra: 
Age cannot wither her, 
Nor custom stale. 
Then we had something of a job of 
assembling those 20 Red pullets for the 
new egg-laying contest. They were con¬ 
tributed by 20 women living all the way 
from Vermont to West Virginia and from 
Cape Cod to the Great Lakes. They 
were all sent here, and we took them to 
the contest grounds and saw them put in 
their house. I shall give a continued 
story of their doings. But all this has 
kept us bufey, and this little home enter¬ 
tainment is a relief. 
# * * # * 
Before they began my daughter came 
and informed me that the last thing on 
the program was to be a story by the 
Hope Farm man. They were to put out 
the lights and I was instructed to sit by 
the fire and tell the story. I do not know 
about other story tellers, but I like to 
have a little time ahead to oil up the 
hinges and joints of the tale. Otherwise 
it. may be as clumsy as a dog with a stiff 
tail. I have been reading a most remark¬ 
able book on “Artificial Light,” by M. 
Luekiesh, in which the author traces the 
development of such light from the first 
attempts to make use of fire, clear down 
to the modern miracle of electric light. 
Just as I was reading how primitive man 
used to put big glow-worms into thin 
gourds to serve ns a lantern our electric 
light suddenly snapped out. and we were 
left in darkness. Our folks bunted up 
the supply of candles and we were able 
to grope about until bed time. It Avas a 
sharp reminder of the necessary part 
which light plays in our lives, and I could 
appreciate what the author of this book 
says about the candle. He nays, and I 
think rightly, that in its day the candle 
was a more ingenious and helpful inven¬ 
tion than the modern electric light. 
Through many centuries it was the main¬ 
stay of artificial lighting. The fuel in the 
candle remains firm and solid, so that it 
will not spill or break, and may be easily 
carried about. Not until it is lighted does 
this fuel pass off. for the heat of the flame 
melts the fuel, and this turns the candle 
into a lamp. I thought of tb : « as my chil¬ 
dren demanded a story. In the slow 
climb of the human race up into civiliza¬ 
tion artificial light has played a wonder¬ 
ful part. It has driven away much of the 
terror which has always lurked in the 
darkness. Light seems such a simple, 
common thing to most, of ns that we do 
not realize its value. So when at last the 
children were ready and the lights were 
put out I told them a new “Adventure in 
the Silence,” which is the story of a deaf 
man in the dark. 
* * * * * 
This man was traveling in Georgia some 
years ago. Long after durk he reached a 
small town where he was to spend the 
night. We speak of “pitch darkness.” I 
do not know just how black true pitch 
may be, but there never was anything 
blacker than that portion of the atmos¬ 
phere which surrounded the railroad sta¬ 
tion as this deaf man stepped off the 
train ! The train went on, the last light 
disappeared around a curve, and the pas¬ 
senger was left in this black silence. Fi¬ 
nally a light, appeared from behind the 
station. It proved to be a dim lantern 
in the hands of a colored man so black 
that you could almost see the shadow of 
bis face in the dark. Conversation with 
the deaf regarding details under such 
conditions is not satisfactory. The col¬ 
ored man held his lantern up near his 
face and talked, but his mouth was too 
large and open to make lip-reading easy. 
The deaf man did finally grasp the fact 
that this agent of the night represented 
the leading hotel in'towri. So, guided by 
the hotel runner, my friend found his way 
to a rickety old carriage and climbed into 
it. The colored man hung his lantern on 
a spring, woke up his sleepy mule and off 
they started over a succession of humps 
an<i mudboles. -Finally, at one tremen¬ 
dous hump the lantern went out and the 
carriage halted. The deaf man could only 
see two small luminous spots ahead of 
him. They were the eyes of the mule, 
who, instead of running as a horse might 
have done, stood looking reproachfully at 
his driver. The colored man had no 
matches, hut. lie drove on through the 
blackness, trusting to the mule for guid¬ 
ance. Now there are times in the life of 
every deaf man when it seems as if he 
must aspire to philosophy or pass into in¬ 
sanity. My friend, inside that rickety 
carriage, smiled at the queer thought 
which entered his mind. Ages before, one 
of his ancestors, far back in the stone age, 
had crouched far back in his cave on his 
bed of leaves, shrinking in terror at the 
evil spirits which the darkness was hid¬ 
ing. Yet here he was, after all the ages 
of life which had passed since the cave 
man, still in the silent darkness, yet se¬ 
rene in soul beeause the long ages of arti¬ 
ficial light hud brought to him their mes¬ 
sage of courage and faith. 
* * * I|c ft 
The “hotel” proved to be an old-fash¬ 
ioned Southern mansion, rambling and 
shaky, with big, unpointed columns which 
sagged a little; windows that rattled, and 
big, echoing halls and chambers in which 
old memories congregated. My friend was 
tired and after a light supper he asked to 
he taken to his room. The landlord, a 
grave and dignified man, who limped from 
a wound received at Gettysburg, took up 
a lighted caudle and led the way to a big 
corner back room on the first floor. He 
put the candle and matches on the bureau 
and then pulled out a revolver and placed 
it beside the candle. 
“We have been having a little trouble 
with some of our negroes,” he said. “They 
steal. Keep your windows fastened and 
put your watch and money under your 
pillow. If anyone should get. in fire and 
inquire about it afterwards. That is our 
plan—good-night!” 
This deaf man would hardly know how 
to fire a modern revolver. It is doubtful 
if he could hit a barn door in sunlight, to 
say nothing of the inky blackness which 
encompassed that house! However, he 
put his valuables under the pillow, the big 
revolver on a chair beside the bed, blew 
out the light and retired. You can im¬ 
agine, If you will, the situation. It seems 
to me that quick, keen ears would have 
been a misfortune at such n time. The 
deaf man, being a philosopher, as well as 
being very tired, fell 'asleep before he 
could fully realize his situation. 
* * * * # 
How long he slept he cannot now tell, 
but he suddenly woke up with a start and 
sat up in bed, knowing that someone was 
within a few feet of him! I know that 
both the blind and the deaf have a curious 
faculty of feeling the presence of others 
in'the silence or darkness. I cannot tell 
you how this faculty is acquired, but I 
know it is acquired. My friend knew that 
somewhere in the silent darkness near 
him human beings were going through 
some stealthy performance. Ho reached 
out for the revolver, but the chair where 
he hud placed it was not there! As quiet¬ 
ly as possible he groped his way to the 
bureau and found the box of matches. 
Hut it was impossible to light them. He 
scratched at least a dozen until they were 
broken, hut they would not ignite. There 
was the candle, under his hand, but the 
light within it which he craved could not 
he produced. Alone, in. that silent, black¬ 
ness, for an instant a numb terror fell 
upon the heart of the deaf man. lie was 
as helpless as h ! s remote ancestor, the 
cave man, shrinking in his black cave. 
He was in worse condition, because the 
cave man had hearing with which to note 
the approach of his enemy. This modern 
man would not know the presence of his 
lurking enemy until he felt the clutching 
hands! He dared not cry out or go grop¬ 
ing for help through that rambling house. 
The landlord lmd told him that they shot 
first and asked questions later. Finally, 
urged by that mysterious instinct of the 
deaf, he groped his way alone: the wall 
until he reached the corner window. This 
he opened and stood there waiting. Sud¬ 
denly he became aware that someone had 
passed close to him in the darkness. lie 
even felt a slight movement of the air as 
a human being passed bv. It seemed as 
if a human hand was laid on the window 
sill in passimr to guide its owner in the 
darkness. With eyes strained to the 
limit of tension and ears quickened a lit¬ 
tle by terror, tin; deaf man heard and felt 
a door near h : m gently open. Then came 
the dim sound, and the air waves of a 
struggle, and the deaf man knew that 
someone was creeping back past him in 
the darkness. Then, as startling us would 
have been a nail driven into liis heart, 
came the thud and shock of a quick blow 
on the side of the house near him, and a 
low, stifled cry, which seemed to pene¬ 
trate even his dull ears. Then off through 
the darkness, past him, crept a human 
form, feeling its way along the side of 
the house. 
* * * * * 
No; the deuf man did not dream all 
this. It all happened just as I relate it. 
Out iu that silent blackness a tragedy 
had been enacted. After a time the deaf 
man cautiously reached his hand out of 
the window down toward the place where 
that quick blow lmd fallen. His reaching 
fingers slowly crept do%vn past the sill 
and reached the wooden post on which the 
house was built. There those eager fin¬ 
ger reached a soft, warm, sticky smear 
which coated the top of the post. There 
in the darkness stood the horror-stricken 
lonely man—holding out bis right band, 
not daring to close it over that warm, 
sticky smear which it bad encountered in 
the blackness. I told you that there ar. 
times when the deuf muii must aspire to 
philosophy or retire to insanity. This 
was one such time. Suddenly the man 
became aware that light was coming. Off 
in the east a crimson streak appeared | 
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