But she refused to be pitied， refused to be considered “ different”，As a child， she wanted to play hopscotch with other children， but she couldn‘t see the markings. So after the other cluldren had gone home， she got down on the ground and crawled along with her eyes near to the marks. She memorised every bit of the ground where she and her friends played and soon became an expert at running games. She did her reading at home， holding a book of large print so close to her eyes that her eyelashes brushed the pages. She earned two college degrees: an A B. from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Arts from Columbia Uruversity。
She started teachmg in the tiny village of Twm Valley， Minnesota， and rose until she became professor ofjournalism and literature at Augustana College in Sioux Falls， South Dakota. She taught there for thirteen years，lecturing before women’s clubs and giving radio talks about books and authors. “In the back of my mind，”she writes，“there had always lurked a fear of total blindness. In order to overcome this， I had adopted a cheerful，almost hilarious， attitude towards life。”
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