She never had eyes to see, nor hands to feel;
all to her was a nebulous world of voices and things
which happened to her while all around offer her sympathy
but no understanding.

She was born that way they said, poor thing. Her brave mother
is a brave mother to have kept her at all they said.
She would walk the path in front of her house, a path she knew by heart and sang to herself songs no one had ever heard before; songs she made up we think.
They bought for her hooks which she learned to use to feed herself and to touch things; she learned to clang them together to accompany her singing.

They didn't send her to school. She didn't want to go and the school said they needed a special teacher for her that the school district could'nt afford. A local college girl would come over three times a week and tutor her, and Beth, her name, would tutor Laddie for those three hours three days a week and the two became the closet of friends.

Laddie told her mother, Mary, "Beth knows all my secrets. I told her."  Mary said "what secrets did you tell her Laddie?"

"I told her my big secret"

What is that" Mary asked.

"Well, she asked me if I was happy and I told her yes"

"That not a secret" Mary said

'It is" Laddie said, "most people don't know and don't think so"

" I suppose" Mary said. "I suppose you are right."

"I am right." Laddie said.