handkerchief;--fancy any one carrying a handkerchief in the front line;
one had essentials enough to carry without being burdened with such a
feminine article;--another of the boys was sitting writing a letter with
his ground-sheet under him in the mud. The sissified one blurted out:
"Holy gee! but I'm perspiring profusely." The kid writing the letter
looked up and sarcastically answered, "Wouldn't sweatin' like 'ell be
more to the point." Later in my military career I had a chat with the
commander of the company to which the "sissy" belonged, and he
incidentally remarked that the lad had turned out to be one of the most
reliable and plucky fellows in the battalion. I have often wondered
since if that little remark "sweatin' like hell" had not helped him to
buck up and fit into his general surroundings.

Since I have been sightless, two things have deeply impressed
themselves on my mind. The first is that no person with sight can, or
ever will be able to, see from a blind man's point of view; the second,
that no one who can see can ever understand or gauge a blind man's
capabilities or limitations. When I speak of a blind man in this sketch,
I, of course, refer to those who have suddenly been deprived of sight.
Of the man who was born blind or who became sightless early in life I do
not profess to know anything. But the viewpoint of the blind is, in the
majority of cases, different from that of the sighted--I mean in the
matter of earning one's living and making oneself independent of
charity. The man who has been blinded in battle has seen life--and death
for that matter--stripped of all its frills and flounces. His mind and
viewpoint have been enlarged and broadened by his life in the Army. But
he sees life from an angle that is denied the sighted. To be made into a
wage-earner he must be handled rightly. He must not be "mollycoddled";
to do so would be to leave him a burden to himself and to his friends.
He must not be made to feel that he is an object to be set in a corner
where he can hurt neither himself nor others. It does not do to treat
blind men in the lump; they must be handled individually. Each and every
case stands by itself. Tact, and a lot of it, patience, and perseverance
are the essentials for re-making a man who has lost his sight, into what
he desires to be--a being capable of earning a living and producing
results in the industrial world. For the attainment of this end, two
things are necessary--con