Stammering, Its Cause and Cure Part 18

"School now began to be a burden. I think I must have supplied fun for every boy on the school grounds during recess-time, for if there was a boy who didn't make fun of me and mock me and laugh at me, then I don't know who he was.

"Then one day I started back to school at noontime, saw a crowd of boys on the corner a couple of blocks away, thought of what a task it would be to go into that crowd or try to pa.s.s it. A mortal and unreasoning fear came over me. Try as I would, I couldn't screw my courage up to the point of going past that crowd. But I had small choice. It was either go that way or stay out of school. And stay out of school I did.

"And then came the crucial day. I could not ask my parents to vouch for any absence--I dared not tell them I was not there. So I went back without an excuse. The teacher was angry. She tried to get me to talk, but I could not say a word. So she sent me to the princ.i.p.al. She, too, asked me to explain. Try as I would, I couldn't get the first word out.

Not a sound.

"She, too, failed to understand. Result: I was expelled from school--sorry day--n.o.body seemed to understand my trouble--n.o.body seemed to sympathize with me--a stammerer.

"Although I pretended to be at school, before the week was out, my parents found out. Then a storm ensued. I tried to tell them the truth.

They wouldn't listen. Father stormed and mother scolded. There seemed to be no living for me there. So I ran away from home--ran away because my parents wouldn't listen--because they wouldn't try to understand.

"Then my troubles began in real earnest. I won't worry you with the details. I got a job--lost it. Got another--lost that. How many times that story was repeated I do not know. And remember--I was but a boy!"

Here the old man stopped, his head dropped, his unkempt beard brushed the front of a tattered shirt, that had seen its day. He seemed lost in thought--he was living again those days and those nights when he had wandered an outcast from the world. He was living over a lifetime in a moment.

He sat there several moments--thoughts far away. Then he raised his head and there was a tear in the corner of his eye as he said, "But why should I go on? Look at me. See WHERE I am. See WHAT I am. You would think I am over 70--I am not yet 50. But it is too late to do any good.

Here I am homeless, friendless, almost penniless. n.o.body cares what happens. n.o.body would notice if anything should happen. n.o.body has a job for me--a stammerer. If I could talk, I could work. If I could talk--Oh, but why tell it again? It is too late now--too late to do any good!!"

He was right. It was too late. Too late, indeed.

This man was one of the Too-Laters--one of the Put-It-Offs, one of the Procrastinators. His might be called the story of the Man Who Waited.

First, his parents refused to listen. His teachers, even, failed to understand his trouble. And when he got out in the world he put it off, this matter of being cured of stammering. He Waited! He kept saying to himself that he would do it tomorrow--next week--next month. And tomorrow never came. Next week and next month ran into next year--and next year ran into a case that was hopeless and incurable.

He Waited!! How tragic those two words. He Waited! And his waiting sounded the death-knell of a thousand boyhood hopes. HE WAITED!! And health slowly took wings and flew away. HE WAITED!! And the insidious little Devil-of-Fear piece by piece tore down his will-power, sapped his power-of-concentration. HE WAITED!! And that first simple nervous condition turned into something near akin to palsy.

On the tombstone of that man when they lay him under his six-feet-of-earth, they might truly inscribe the words: "A Failure"--and should they wish to set down the reason, they might add: "He Waited!"

To the stammerer's question: "When should I begin treatment for my stammering?" and "At what stage will I stand the best chance of being most quickly cured?" there is but one answer. The time for the stammerer or stutterer to begin treatment for his malady is the day he discovers his stammering or stuttering. The best chance for being quickly cured exists today.

The stammerer, then, to paraphrase Emerson, should "Write it on his heart that TODAY is the very best day in the year." He should remember that indecision, delay, uncertainty, vacillation, lead to oblivion and that his only redemption lies in that golden opportunity known as--TODAY!