Show the old settler my dear san juanema juanera Jua nera ners in that we found fave plute sisters el their father their asep mother and also their grand mother that was seven years ago no formal offhand introduction can ever make us really acquainted with people to discern ardapple chate the sacred depths of their inner lives and to understand and lovo love them as the years may teach us ua to do three girls went away to but the two younger ones canes about nine and twelve beirs years old had never yet spoken a word nor heard a sound deaf and dumb from birth they had taken tor for granted the strange limitation to which they were born bom and reconciled gamely to a world of silence making their hands and their eyes suffice for the tongues and the ears enjoyed byl by everybody else that tha t is what pled th the e cause of the two girls with us as soon as we understood and we longed to know what went on in their secIl secilie id ed world and contribute any element of comfort within our hands to give when we discerned the wondrous devotion of that old grandmother and how her very life was slanted without comp compromise romiZ to the of the two girls girla we began an in a small way to view them through her eyes and to cherish an interest which took us often to the camp the me true love which out all fear gleamed brightly above the rags and ignorance of that old grand mothe it covered her like a mantle hiding biding her tattered old dress ornamenting her grizzly disheveled hair and beaming through her wrinkled old face with magic appeal we read in it the of a tragic day when the girls were bereft of their mother a day when the solicitous old woman had come tearfully to the rescue and of another dav latr on when she had renewed her diligence to compensate for the failure of a stepmother to evaluate these girls as she evaluated her own baby through the swift flying sel sei sons we watched with such solitude as our alien natures permitted making us efforts to have the girls sent to a school adapted to their needs but besides the hindering tangles of red tape tale we encountered the grandmother and the father feared that the girls would be misunderstood and ill III treated and our efforts became lost in difficulty when the old grandmother fell sick and had to be taken away to a hospital we felt a new concern for the girls dependent now on their motions to make themselves understood in what seemed to us a sr angely different environment the grandmother grand mother never came back not even for burial a row rew and bitter crisis for the two girls yet they had developed a certain element of assertiveness and independence pen dence and out of the conflicting tides of the new situation it was determined the younger of the two should go away to school the older sister past her middle teens faced the necessity of adjusting herself in the tribe where she was looked upon more as a mature adult than a child from her solemn speechless world her mother had gone her grandmother had gone and now her sister who could feel and understand as no one else had also gone leaving her in a great desolation we wondered and hoped for her what could the world offer that was worth living for then men one day ane came to us dressed in gayer style than ever before and carding an armful of bundles among which was the linings and the bat for a quilt which she wanted us to make with her was a kindly old piute diute who for age could have been her grandfather and he too was beaming with smiles and reflecting the good cheer in her face they seemed to have developed a wondrous system of silent communication and when he told us she was his wife she read the message of his lips and smiled her pleasure at what it meant to her we were shocked and astonished and pleased and startled all at once but we had to recognize that in it at least for the present was the love and appreciation for which her speechless soul hindered hun dered we wondered and admired brave girl brave woman to face the perils of motherhood and unless she died young to be left a widow and possibly with children to care for and to carry with all her afflictions flit ions the heavy burden is hard enough even for 4 suffering no handicap albert ir i i cin c |