CHAPTER III

MY SEARCH CONTINUES


My parents' efforts to have me cured, however, did not cease with
my visit to the medicine man. We were still looking for something
that would bring relief. My teacher, Miss Cora Critchlow, handed
me an advertisement one day, telling me of a man who claimed to be
able to cure stammering by mail. In the hope that I would get some
good from the treatment, my parents sent this mail order man a
large sum of money. In return for this I was furnished with
instructions to do a number of useless things, such as holding
toothpicks between my teeth, talking through my nose, whistling
before I spoke a word, and many other foolish things. It was at
this time that I learned once and for all, the imprudence of
throwing money away on these mail order "cures," so-called, and I
made up my mind to bother no more with this man and his kind.

So far as the mail order instructions were concerned, they were
crude and unscientific--merely a hodge-podge of pseudo-technical
phraseology and crass ignorance--a meaningless jargon scarcely
intelligible to the most highly educated, and practically
impossible of interpretation by the average stammerer who was
supposed to follow the course. Even after I had, by persistent
effort, interpreted the instructions and followed them closely for
many months, there was not a sign of the slightest relief from my
trouble. It was evident to me even then that I could never cure
myself by following a mail cure.