“I know nothing about that,” said he; “but as I lay there repeating those words over and over a great peace came to me. The shapes at my side disappeared, and I could walk away from that frightful place. Then I felt a hand on my head which somehow I recognized, and another smaller hand caught at my thumb. They loosened those hateful bandages and let in the light. Then I saw—as I seemed to know I should—my wife sitting beside me, and the little girl holding my hand.” I could assure ’Gene that I completely believed his story, for I have also felt the strong emotions and imaginings which stir the deaf at such times. Always the head noises grow louder when light is withdrawn from our hearing eyes, and the voices which go with subjective hearing become more pronounced. Probably the deaf are more sensitive to subconscious thought than are those who hear well; we are deprived of much of the sound which stimulates many trains of conscious thought. Also we deaf must naturally deal with the past where most subconscious thought is buried. I believe that the deaf hold very closely to memories and associations of childhood—our long, quiet hours of reflection are largely filled with remembering the most vivid impressions we have received. Perhaps this accounts for some of the terror which the darkness brings. Many of us remember the horrible shapes which peopled the black night around our beds, and lurked in shadowy corners, often emerging to dance grotesquely in the moonlight. When I was the “boy” on a New England farm there was only one room in the house which was reasonably warm in Winter, but at eight o’clock the old farmer would point with unmistakable significance to the tall clock in the corner, and there was nothing for me to do but to rush through the cold parlor, up the colder stairs into the still colder attic, where my bed was in the shadow of the great central chimney. Needless to say, I undressed in bed. Then down under the covers I lay and trembled at the snap of the frost. Once a piece of plaster fell from the unfinished wall above me and struck my shoulder; again “Malty,” the gray cat, crawled in through a hole in the roof and sprang upon my bed, striking terror to my soul, though she really came as an old friend. The appearance of this unknown crawling thing on my bed inspired a frenzy of fear—but I knew that it would do me no good to scream or call for help. My aunt was deaf, while my uncle slept like the proverbial log; both log and deaf ear are alike, unresponsive to sound. Also, I realized that the journey downstairs with my story would have been unprofitable (and freezing!). I should have been sent back with a scolding and perhaps a blow. My own little children sometimes waken in the night with some of these vague terrors, and I have known them to run through the dark to their mother’s bed, where they are always taken in. My old folks were not cruel or even consciously unkind; they merely lived in an arid region