love education

Chapter 44 May (8)
"It's all right," said the man, "thank God I've brought back a few coppers, but I wonder what my dumb little daughter has learned now? I left her She was only that big when she was. Poor little one, I don't have much faith in those so-called schools, has she learned how to sign? My wife used to write to me saying 'she's learning to speak now, she's getting progress.' But I was also asking myself, what good is it if she knows how to speak if I don't know how to sign myself? How can we understand each other's intentions? Poor little one, alas, as long as It’s enough for those children to understand each other, it’s good for a little deaf-mute to communicate with another little deaf-mute, how is she now? Is everything okay with her?”

My father smiled and replied:

"I won't tell you this, you have to go and have a look yourself, go, go, don't waste time here!" After a hasty farewell, we strode towards the school for the deaf.

The school for the deaf is not far from my home. Along the way, the gardener kept saying sadly to me:

"Oh, my poor Jigia, born with that defect, it makes me sick to think of it, and she hasn't called me papa since she came into this world, and she never heard I called her 'my daughter' and she couldn't utter a word or hear a sound. But the kind gentleman was so kind that he paid for the school, That's the way it is, she didn't go to that school until she was eight, and she's been away from home for three years now, and she's going to be 11 soon. She's grown taller, isn't she? Tell me, she's grown taller Right? Is she happy now?"

"You'll find out right away, you'd better see for yourself!" I replied, quickening my pace.

"But, where is this school?" He asked, "My wife has been here since I left, and I remember it should be nearby."

As soon as we got there, we went into the main hall, and a receptionist came over to greet us, "I am the father of Jigia Waj," said the gardener, "and let me meet my daughter!"

"They're playing a game," replied the receptionist, "I'll go talk to their head teacher."

He hurried away to report.While waiting anxiously, the gardener didn't say anything, just kept walking around, looking at the sign language paintings posted on the four walls, but didn't see anything.The door opened, and a teacher in black came in, leading a little girl.The gardener and the little girl stared at each other for a while, then threw themselves into each other's arms, still crying.The girl was wearing red and white striped clothes and a gray apron.She was a little taller than me, and she put her hands around his father's neck while crying, and the father took the girl's hands away and began to look at her from top to bottom, panting heavily, as if just now Had a long run.he cried:

"Oh, look what she has become! Look how beautiful she has become, oh my sweetheart, oh my poor Jigia, my poor little mute! You are her Is your teacher, madam? Tell her to give me some gestures, so that I can understand what she is talking about, and I will learn little by little in the future, tell her to teach me some of her gestures!" The teacher smiled and said something softly to the girl:

"Who is this person who came to see you?" The little girl also smiled, speaking in a strange and hoarse voice like a savage. This is the first time I have heard such a language. Her Although the voice was quite dissonant, it was very clear: "He is my father!" The man took a step back and roared like crazy:
"She talked! How is that possible? How is that possible! She is talking, and you can talk, can't you? My child, you can talk, can't you? Tell me something quickly, can you Is that right?"

He hugged his little girl again and kissed her forehead three times, "But she's not talking with sign language, is she? Ma'am? Not with her fingers, why is that?" "

"No, Mr. Vaji," said the teacher again, "this language is not fingered, that is the old way, and now we use the new way, how can you not know?"

"I don't know anything about it!" replied the gardener, looking very surprised. "I've been abroad for the past three years. Well, they wrote to me too, but I didn't understand, I'm out of my mind, oh my daughter, you see me, don't you? Can you hear me? Answer me, can you hear me? Can you hear me words?"

"What, no, well, look at you," said the teacher, "she can't hear you because her ears are deaf, and when you speak, she can understand what you say by watching the movement of your lips What, that's how she understands what you mean. Just because she can talk to you doesn't mean she hears you, she can speak because we taught them letter by letter, Teach them where to put their lips, how to move their tongues, and how to make sounds with their chest and throat."

The gardener didn't understand, just stood there with his mouth open, he couldn't believe it was true, "Tell me, Jigia," he asked his daughter, whispering in her ear "Father is back, are you happy?"

He raised his head again, and stood there waiting for his daughter's answer. The girl stood there looking at her father thoughtfully, without saying anything.He felt a little uneasy, and the teacher laughed and said:
"You are wrong again. She didn't answer your question because she didn't see the movement of your lips at all. You said it right next to her ear. You have to say it again, put your face in front of you." with her face."

The father, looking straight into his daughter's face, repeated his question as the teacher had said:
"Father is home, are you happy? He will never leave you again."

The girl looked intently at her father's lips, as if she wanted to put her little head into that mouth, and she said frankly and sincerely:
"Yes, I'm glad you're coming home, and you're never leaving, never again."

The father was so excited that he hugged his daughter, and asked his daughter a lot of questions, but the child couldn't answer, "What's your mother's name?"

"Antonia." "And what's your little sister's name?"

"Adelaide."

"Then what's the name of this school?"

"School for the deaf." "What is two times ten?"

"twenty."

At this time, we all thought that the father laughed happily, but we never thought that he suddenly cried out loud. This was also because of joy, weeping from extreme joy.

"Be brave," said the teacher to him, "you should be happy now, don't cry, you see you made your daughter cry. Are you happy now?"

The gardener took the teacher's hand, kissed it two or three times, and said:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, I really want to thank you a hundred times, a thousand times, my dear lady, I am stupid, I don't know what to say, you must forgive me!"

"But she doesn't just talk," the teacher added. "Your daughter has now learned how to write, and she knows how to do arithmetic, and knows the names of all the objects of daily life, and she knows a little history and geography. She now Already in the class of normal kids, she will know more when she finishes the remaining two subjects. When she graduates, she will be able to get a job, we already have deaf Students graduate and work as shop assistants in stores, and they can perform their duties like normal people.”

The gardener was very surprised again, as if his thinking had become fuzzy again. He stared at his daughter intently and scratched his hair. His blank expression told us that he couldn't figure out something again.The teacher turned to the receptionist again and said to him:

"Call one of my preschool classmates."

The receptionist returned shortly afterwards, bringing with him an eight or nine-year-old deaf-mute child who had just entered school a few days earlier.

"This girl," said the female teacher, "is a child in the elementary class we are cultivating. This is how we teach them. Now I want to teach her to pronounce the sound 'a'. Please pay attention to it."

The teacher opened her mouth, and the action was the same as when we pronounce the sound a, and then she motioned the little girl to do the same, and the teacher ordered her to pronounce the sound, but the girl did not pronounce "a" the sound of "o", "no," the teacher told her, "the sound is wrong."

She grabbed the child's two hands, put one of them on her throat and the other on her chest, and repeated the pronunciation "a". The little girl felt the teacher's throat and chest with both hands. She moved, then opened her mouth again as before, and this time she pronounced it perfectly: "a".In the same way, the teacher taught her to pronounce the c and d sounds again, still putting the little girl's two little hands on her throat and chest.

"Now, do you understand?" the teacher asked, the father finally understood, but he seemed more shocked now than he didn't understand.

"Did you all teach in this way?" asked the father, staring at the teacher after he had thought for a while.

"Do you really have the patience to teach them little by little like this? But there are still many such children! Is this how you survive year after year? Oh, you are a great saint, really a great saint. Saints, you are angels sent down from heaven! There is no reward in the world that can reward your deeds enough, what can I say? Oh, leave me alone with my daughter, let me be with her 5 minutes!"

The father pulled his daughter to sit on a chair beside him, and then began to ask her questions, and the girl answered them one by one. The father squinted his eyes and kept laughing, while patting his knee with his palm.He held his daughter's hands, looked at her, and heard that she was able to speak. The father was so happy, he listened so carefully, as if it was the voice falling from heaven.Excited, he asked the teacher again:

"May I meet Mr. Principal? I want to thank him in person."

"The headmaster is not here," replied the female teacher, "but there is one person you can thank. Every little girl in our place is entrusted to an older child who plays the role of sister or mother." The role of your youngest daughter is taken care of by a 17 year old deaf child. She is a baker's daughter and this girl is very good and kind to your daughter and she is now taking care of her Your daughter is two years old. Every morning, she helps her dress, combs her hair, teaches her how to sew, and even mends your daughter's clothes. She is a very good friend to your daughter Your companion, her name is Ligeia, and what was the name of your mother at school?"

The little girl smiled and said:

"Her name is Catrina Giordano." Then she said to her father, "She's a very, very nice person."

Just now, the receptionist took a cue from the teacher, and now brought another little girl.She is a deaf-mute child with light-colored hair. She is quite strong and has a smile on her face. She is also wearing a red and white striped top and a gray apron tied around her waist.She stopped at the door for a while, her face turned red, then she lowered her head with a smile. Although she had the figure of an adult, she was still a little girl at heart.Zorgio's daughter immediately ran to her, took her by the hand like a child, and led her to her father, saying in a heavy voice:
"This is Katrina Giordano."

"What a fine boy this is!" cried the father, and he stretched out his hand to touch the girl, then withdrew it, and kept saying:
"Oh, what a wonderful child she is! May God bless her and may God bless her with all good fortune and all good things. May God bless her and her family with happiness and well-being Oh, she is so kind! My poor Jigia! I am only a humble and honest worker, the head of a poor family, but I want to bless you with all my heart."

The tall girl kept stroking the little girl, keeping her head down all the time, with a smile still rippling on her face, and the gardener kept staring at her, as if looking at a statue of the Virgin Mary.

"You can take your daughter away for a day," said the governess.

"Oh, I can take her away, can't I?"

The gardener came back and said, "I'll take her back to Candover. I'll bring her back tomorrow morning. I can't think of any reason why I shouldn't take her out of here!"

The gardener's daughter was overjoyed, and hurried back to change her clothes.

"I haven't seen her for three years!" the gardener kept saying:

"And now that she can talk, I'll take her back to Candover right away. But first, I'm going to take her around Turin, and I'm going to take my little girl around Turin to show her to all, and to show her to my friends. Oh, what a day it is! What a joy it is, come, my Jigia, Come into your father's arms."

The little girl came back dressed, in a cloak and hat, and took her father by the hand.

"Thank you to everyone here!" When the father walked to the door, he said to the people behind:

"Thank you, I say this from the bottom of my heart, I will come back again, and I must thank all of you once again!"

After finishing speaking, he stood there in a daze for a while, and suddenly, he took his hand out of his little daughter's hand, turned around abruptly, and rummaged through his vest for something, and when he found it, he went crazy shouted:
"Come on, I'm no longer a pauper, well, I'll donate twenty lire to the school, a brand new gold coin."

With a bang, he slapped the gold coin on the table. "No, no, you are a good person," the female teacher said emotionally, "but please take your money back, I can't take your money, take it back, this is not something I can say Ah, if one day you can meet the principal here, you can talk to him. But he will not accept anything from you, I can guarantee this, in order to earn this little money, you must You have suffered a lot, you are also a poor person, but we will do our best to take care of your daughter for you, and we will."

"No, I must keep the money," the father insisted, his tone very firm.

"We'll see you later."

The female teacher put the money in his pocket again, without giving him any chance to resist or argue.The gardener shook his head and walked away, blowing kisses to the governess and the big girl.He took his little girl by the arm, and hurried out the door, saying to her:

"Come, come with me, my good daughter, my poor daughter, you are my treasure!"

The girl also said aloud in her hoarse voice:
"The sun is so beautiful today!"

(End of this chapter)