“But while I looked a man came dashing up on a big black horse. It was the owner of Colonel and Rock. He had gone out early in the morning and saw that the horses were gone. He found the place where they left the field and saw that their tracks turned toward the river. Did he, too, realize that Rock and Colonel were never satisfied, and were always longing for the old home? “Mother went out and begged that the horses might be fed in their old stalls before taken away, but the man was angry, and cursed Rock and Colonel, and jerked at their bridles viciously and cut them severely with a wicked whip as he lashed them into a trot and started back over the old home-sick mountain road. At the bend of the road both horses turned and looked back longingly, and I burst into bitter tears.” THE BLIND CIGARMAKER Riding into the city one day on the overland stage I looked far ahead and there I saw a man coming down the middle the road. The highway was ankle deep with dust, and I surely thought the man was drunk. I remarked to the stage driver: “There comes a blind man;” and then I laughed, for I still thought the man was intoxicated. As we drew near I could see the man feeling his way with a heavy cane. He was blind, and I had laughed at his blindness! But, as God is my judge, I did not know it until after we drew so near to him that I could see his cane. The blind man heard the stage approach and stepped to the side of the road for us to pass. And then I recognized the poor fellow—it was Peter Paul. I knew him thirty years ago, when his diminishing eyesight warned him that total blindness was near at hand. Mentally Peter is far below the average, but he realizes that society owed him sufficient brotherly love to make an attempt to save him from the awful calamity of total blindness. He was a poor cigarmaker, and barely earned a livelihood. He had no money to pay for treatment that would help his poor eyes. Think of it, in a land of Christian civilization a man is left to walk in literal darkness right at our door, while zealous men and women send thousands of dollars to so-called heathen lands, to save the people there from so-called mental blindness. Justice and common sense should teach us to save the literally blind man at our door first, and then go out to enlighten the blinded mental eyes of the heathen. Charity begins at home: if charity jumps over human suffering at home, and goes far abroad to do spectacular work in the name of religion, both charity and religion are misplaced. I spoke to the blind man as the stage passed, and the response came so very promptly that any one could see how gladly he received the greetings of a human voice. And then came the words that showed so plainly that the blind always feel a sense of danger when walking alone: “Am I near the river bridge?” I told him how far it was to the bridge as the stage whirled by, and then I turned and watched the poor fellow feeling his way down the dusty road.