A blind man's offering.

  • B. B. Bowen
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A blind man's offering. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    them to the houses in different parts of the place, to dis- pose of, receiving for my services twenty per cent. The value of some of the fish was marked in notches on the head; by counting these, I was able to tell the amount I was to receive. Some kinds, however, I was accus- tomed to weigh with a pair of steelyards which were prepared for my use. My misfortunes secured for me the patronage of the wealthy; and I knew what days to supply them, and what each customer would require. I would sometimes go in company with others to fish myself, and on such occasions would receive my share as well as my commissions for selling. I could help manage the boat, bait a hook and haul in the fish, almost as well as if I had been blessed with eyesight. These employments, although they enabled me to obtain my daily bread, brought me in contact with those whose influence on me was anything but favorable; familiarizing me with habits which in after life it was difficult to overcome. Yet I was happy, for I enjoyed a kind of equality with them, which I have found it difficult to maintain with those with whom I associated in after life. At length I heard that something was to be done for the blind, —that a school was to be established, where they were to be educated; and one day, when I was about fourteen years of age, I received notice that I was one of the six pupils selected by Dr. Howe to commence the Institution for the Blind, at Boston. Most gladly did I exchange the SANT for the school-room! As I have in another place spoken of the institutions at Bos- ton and elsewhere,* I need not go into particulars here * See article entitled Blindness and the Blind.
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