Early Adventures—From Boston to the West—The Milkman and the Ear Trumpet—The “Milk Cure”—The Office of the Apple—Cases of Mistaken Identity—The Prohibitionist and the Missing Uncle George.

Until I went to Colorado as a young man to work on a dairy ranch, I did not fully realize the possibilities of deafness. I made a long jump to the Rocky Mountains. In those days it was something of a leap in longitude, culture and occupation. I had been working in a publishing house, and for several years part of my job had consisted in running errands for a group of the most distinguished authors ever brought together in America. Of course, no gentleman can be a hero to his valet, but a great author can be more than a hero to his errand boy. I went out once and bought a bag of peanuts for this merry group of serious-minded men; I suppose I am the only living person who ever ate peanuts with Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, Whittier and Aldrich. I saw Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes put a peanut shell on his thumb and shoot it across the room at John G. Saxe, as a boy would shoot a marble. To me the most impressive of all that group of supermen was John Greenleaf Whittier. He was quite deaf, and the affliction troubled him greatly. Some of the critics think that his inability to hear accurately accounts for some of his slips of rhyme. To me the remarkable thing is that in all Whittier’s writings I can find only one indirect reference to his severe affliction. This is in the poem entitled “My Birthday”:

There could be no finer advice for the deaf. I think Whittier’s gentle and placid philosophy (whose only sting was for slavery) was ripened and mellowed by his narrow life, which was still more closely circumscribed by the years of silence. But how strangely does compensation spring from a bitter root, and how surely are its best fruits reserved for “character”! Denied wide experience and education, deprived of one important avenue of approach to humanity, nevertheless Whittier’s voice came from his lonely hills with a rugged power all its own. And the message still rings true and sweet. He is truly a noble Apostle of the Silence.

It was indeed something of a jump from such associations as these to a milking-stool beside a bad-smelling cow in a dusty barnyard, or out among the cactus on the dry plains. Then I soon found that I was on the road to silence. In that dry country those who naturally suffer from catarrh are sure to have trouble with the head and ears unless they can have expert treatment in time. Our ranch was just outside a growing town; the cattle were herded on the open prairie. We milked our cows in the open air in Summer and in low sheds in Winter; the milk was peddled from door to door, dipped out of an open can, so that the dust might increase the amount of milk solids. That was long before these days of certified milk or sanitary inspection; I doubt if there was a single milk inspector in the whole of Colorado. Such milk as we handled could never be sold for human consumption in these critical modern days. Happily for us, we had never heard of germs or bacteria. We doubtless consumed thousands of them with every meal—and rather liked the taste!

Our custom was to drive up in front of a house and ring a large bell until someone came out with pail or pitcher. The milk was dipped out of the can and poured into the open dish. On an early morning in cool weather some of our customers were slow in responding to the bell. At those times we would ring patiently until the side door would open a narrow crack and a hand would appear holding a receptacle for the milk. Whenever I saw those hands extended, I thought of Whittier’s terrible lines on Daniel Webster: “Walk backward with averted face.” That was the way we were expected to approach the door.

On one occasion the milkman had forgotten his glasses, and he was somewhat near-sighted. He rang his bell before one house for several minutes with no visible response. Finally he saw the front door open, and what seemed to him a tin bucket was thrust through the opening. Being somewhat familiar with the vagaries of lazy housewives, he filled a quart measure with milk and backed up to the door. He was careful, for hardly ten minutes before a lady holding out a hand in much the same way had plainly cautioned him:

“Walk straight now, and if you bat an eye at this door I’ll call my husband!”

In a community where women were a minority such a command was emphatic, so the milkman proceeded with care and circumspection. Peering about uncertainly, he carefully poured the milk into what he supposed was a milkpail. There was a tremendous commotion within, for quite innocently he had sent a forcible message into the world of silence. It later appeared that the woman of the house was ill and had been greatly disturbed by the bell, so Aunt Sarah had volunteered to end the noise. But Aunt Sarah, though a woman of large and very superior intentions, was not an expert on noises. She was very deaf, and made use of one of the old-fashioned trumpets with a mouthpiece as large as a good-sized funnel. She had not been able to fully complete her toilet, so she did not throw the door wide open; but in order to hear what the milkman had to say for himself, she made an opening just wide enough to thrust out the mouthpiece of her trumpet. The man poured the milk into it—literally giving Aunt Sarah “an earful.” I have heard of several cases where a great nervous shock or a long continuance of trouble has suddenly destroyed the hearing. I wish I might say that Aunt Sarah’s hearing was restored or improved by this milk treatment; the dispenser of the liquid declares that it had a striking effect upon her voice, but that she was quite unable to appreciate his explanation. Were I to repeat some of her remarks, I should add to the force of this narrative, but hardly to its dignity.

The town of Greeley was organized as a temperance community. It was recorded in every deed or lease that the title was to be forfeited at any time that liquor was sold on the premises, and this regulation was absolutely enforced, for the settlers were a band of earnest “cranks,” who saw to it that the wheels went ’round. The result was that this town contained more cases of near-delirium tremens than any other place of equal size in the State. It came to be a favorite plan for those who had been elsewhere on a spree to come to Greeley to sober up. They could get no liquor except what they brought, and most of that was taken away from them. The first time I drove the milk wagon I encountered one of these “patients.” At a lonely place on the outskirts of town a disreputable character suddenly started up from the roadside and caught the horse’s bridle with his left hand, meanwhile pointing a long forefinger at me. He was red-eyed, unshaven and trembly, and I could not hear a word he said. I took it to be “Money or your life”—and who ever knew a milkman to have money? It turned out that he was demanding a quart of new milk with which to help float over a new leaf. I had nothing in which to serve the milk except the quart measure, but I filled that and handed it over. The man sat down on the grass and slowly drank his “medicine”; then I washed the measure in an irrigating ditch and was prepared for the next customer.

This man told me that he was making a desperate effort to recover from a protracted spree, and it was the general belief that a diet of warm milk was the best treatment. It came to be a common thing for us to meet these haggard, wild-eyed sufferers, and help them to the milk cure. I have seldom heard of the treatment elsewhere. It was there considered a standard remedy, though I have never been able to understand the psychology or the physiology of it. A friend of mine who is quite deaf tells me of another experience with a new cure for the drink habit.

He took his vacation one Summer on a steamer running from Buffalo up the Great Lakes. Among other supplies he carried a peck of good apples. I cannot say that apples are to be recommended as a cure for deafness, but to many of us they are better than tobacco for companionship. The first day out, while waiting for his fellow-passengers to realize that a deaf man was not likely to eat them up or convey some terrible disease, my friend took two mellow Baldwins, found a shady place on the forward deck, and prepared for a lazy lunch. He was about to bite into the first of his fruit when an excited man hurried up from below and began talking eagerly. The deaf man could not imagine what it was all about, and while he was trying to explain the newcomer snatched the apple out of his hand and buried his teeth far into it. My friend was reminded of a wild animal half-crazed for food. At this moment an anxious-faced woman appeared. The man turned to her, and with his mouth well filled shouted:

“Mary, you’ll find it in the false bottom of my bag. Get rid of it at once.”

The woman disappeared on the run, while the man finished the first apple and held out his hand for the other. Presently she returned with two bottles of whiskey, and, going to the side of the steamer, she deliberately threw them overboard. Then, while her husband kept at the apples, she made the deaf man understand.

It appeared that her man was a hard drinker, though he was trying with all his poor enfeebled will to free himself from the slavery. He had tried many “cures,” but the only way to overcome the desire for whiskey was to eat sour apples when the craving became too strong. It did not always work, but frequently this remedy was successful. This trip was a vacation for him and his wife, and just before the boat had started some of his companions had brought him two bottles of whiskey, which he had hidden in the bottom of his bag, and he was waiting for an opportunity to “enjoy life.” All the morning he had been prowling about the boat trying to fight off the craving. Finally down in the hold he had come upon what he called a “funeral outfit.” There was a coffin—but let him tell it.

“That coffin was going as freight to the last resting-place, and it made me realize that I was going by express to the same place. Beside it stood an undertaker—one of those melancholy individuals with black burnsides and a long chin. He looked at me, and I thought he was saying:

‘Come on, old man! This is what rum is bringing you to. Give me the job.’”

“I knew right there that I must decide between that coffin and a barrel of apples.”

There came upon him a fierce craving to brace his nerves with some of the whiskey in his bag. He ran through the ship praying as fervently as a drowning man for some saving straw. He saw the deaf man with the Baldwin apple, and he ran to the fruit like a hunted animal—eager to bite into it and to ease his heated tongue against its sour juice.

Since I first heard the story I have investigated many cases, and have never found a heavy drinker who was at the same time a large consumer of raw apples. And I have run upon several cases where sour apples eaten freely have safely tided men past the desire to drink. Surely a prohibition country must be one flowing with milk and apples!

We founded the Apple Consumers’ League largely on that theory. Something over twenty-five years ago I was lunching at a New York restaurant. There was a bumper apple crop that year, and a poor sale for it. Looking over the bill of fare, I found oranges, prunes and bananas, and an idea struck me.

“Bring me a baked apple.”

“We ain’t got none.”

“What, no baked apples? I thought this was an American place.”

“Sorry, boss, but we ain’t got none.”

By this time everyone within fifty feet was listening. Soon came an anxious-looking man, rubbing his hands and trying to smile.

“Nothing the matter with the food, I hope.”

I could not hear much that he said, and it did not matter. I did my best to deliver a public lecture on the apple, and all around me people were nodding as if to say:

“I’d order one if I could get it.”

The manager was impressed, and that night for supper he had “Baked Apple with Cream” written into his card in red ink. Later he came to me and asked names of varieties and where they could be found. As a result of this experiment a few of us founded the “American Apple Consumers’ League.” We pledged ourselves to call for apple in some form whenever we sat at any public table. Our declaration was cast in rhyme:

Some commercial travelers took it up, and soon nearly every restaurant in the country began providing baked apple. There was one result which we did not anticipate. The finer apples do not “stand up” well on baking; they are delicious, but they flatten to a jelly. The public demands something that stands up like an apple in shape. This has created a great demand for the coarse-fleshed fruit of inferior quality, which will stand up well in the pan.

We came upon another good office of the apple in this campaign. It is an ideal toothbrush. We found that the bacteria which cause pyorrhea are weakened by the mild acid, thus a wash of vinegar and water is an excellent remedy. This has been verified by dentists, and a mellow, sour apple eaten raw is likewise helpful. Using a sour apple as a toothbrush ought to be a popular method of scrubbing the teeth.

I have perhaps spent unnecessary time over these matters, but in my study of men who live in the silent world I have found a number who consider the deaf man justified in finding solace in drink. It is a most foolish prescription, but I fear the practice is all too common. The deaf are subject to periods of deep depression, and the argument is that the moderate use of alcohol will brighten their lives. I can think of nothing more pitiful or ridiculous than an intoxicated deaf man. Alcohol is the worst possible companion for the silence. There, if anywhere, the faithless and deceitful comrades of life lead only to darkness and misery. The deaf man needs every moral brace that life can give him; no other character who tries to find a place and to adjust himself to his fellow-men has greater need of the discipline which self-denial alone can give. Only the finer and more substantial hopes are worth considering when music no longer greets us and well-loved voices fade away or lose all their tenderness, when they become harsh and discordant sounds. Bottled sunshine, taken from coal or the electric wire, may be a fair substitute for daylight, but bottled happiness will finally bring nothing but misery to the deaf.

And yet you never can tell how people will size you up. There was a deaf man who became greatly interested in prohibition. He could not even drink coffee as a stimulant. He was to be chairman of the State prohibition convention, and so started on a night train for the meeting. Just before retiring he read over his speech, and then crawled into his berth very well satisfied with himself. About midnight he was awakened by a heavy hand on his shoulder. You must remember that it is a great shock for the deaf to be rudely started from sleep in this way; it is then impossible for them to grasp any new situation quickly. In the dim light of the Pullman our deaf man saw the figure of a man who was fumbling about in his suitcase. When he saw that he had awakened the sleeper, this intruder left the case, opened the curtains and held out his hand with some object presented straight at the deaf man’s head. As he was evidently asking some question, the deaf man imagined that he was a train robber presenting a pistol with a “Hands up,” “Money or your life,” or some such appropriate remark. The prohibition orator thrust up his hands and said:

“I’m deaf. Take it all!”

The “train robber” talked for a while and then lowered his hand, took the deaf man by the arm and led him to the smoking-room. There the “robber” turned out to be the colored porter, with no pistol, but a glass bottle in his hand. Finally, he slowly and laboriously wrote out the following:

“Man in lower four sick. Has got to have brandy. Says you look like a sport and probably have it on you. Can you fill this bottle?”

They had taken our prohibition friend for the other sort of a “rum-punisher.” Such cases of mistaken identity are quite common to the deaf, and some of them are never fully untangled.

Once when I entered a crowded dining-room in New York City a young woman jumped up from a table and greeted me with every evidence of affection. I had never seen her before, and was greatly embarrassed, especially as I could not hear a word she said. I tried to explain, but she continued talking rapidly, holding me by the arm. Of all the people present, no one thought of coming to my aid except the colored waiter. He was the good Samaritan who talked to the lady and wrote out her story for me on the back of his order card. She thought I was her Uncle George, who had agreed to meet her there. She insisted that I was playing a practical joke in pretending that I was only a plain and somewhat bewildered deaf man. Finally she obtained a side view of my face which convinced her of her mistake, and then, greatly startled by the publicity she had caused, she hurried away. To this day I do not know who “Uncle George” was or if he ever found his niece. My colored interpreter, however, is still on duty, and frequently writes out for me the conversations of people near by.