The blind children were often my playmates. We were so accustomed to seeing and being with them that we thought little about their privation of sight. My father’s aim was to make them as much like seeing people as possible. Thus they were taught to go about the house and grounds very freely, running down-stairs as rapidly as seeing boys and girls. Some of them walked in the streets and even traveled in the cars alone. Usually, however, a leader was required. Occasionally I went with them, as guide, to opera or concert. Many tickets were generously sent to them, especially for the less popular performances. In the summer of 1867 sister Maud was in her thirteenth year—a handsome child of generous and noble impulses, but of an impetuous disposition that made her at times difficult to deal with. “Old Splendid” was the name given her by a dressmaker to whom we were all attached. “The Stormy Petrel” was another nickname. Her lack of respect for the gods of the school-room filled my more conventional soul with horror. To call the excellent Mr. Greenleaf, the author of our arithmetic, a fool seemed to me eminently unreasonable. When, in a fit of exasperation over her studies, the ink-bottle was flung across the room, spattering the wall with its contents, I stood aghast. I did the best I could for my young charge while the family were in Europe and was rewarded a hundredfold by her affection and gratitude. My mother and sisters assisted in the work of distributing to the Cretan refugees the ten thousand garments sent out from America. Sister Laura has described “the stately, dark-eyed Cretan women, majestic even in their rags and misery; the slender girls; the lovely, dirty children.” She has told us of many romantic incidents which found no place in my father’s reports.[10] He always suppressed his own part in any undertaking, writing down only what was necessary to secure the interest of the reader. A price was set upon his head by the Turkish authorities of Crete. Nevertheless, he visited the island and the small rocky fortress where he had been besieged in the old days of the Greek Revolution. Footnote 10: _Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe._ Dana Estes & Co. The Howe sisters made a trip on a small steamer where there was a grim passenger—the head of a famous brigand who had just been captured and killed. They would have liked to see this horrible trophy, but my father would not permit it.