imes a week for almost a month, when he explained to
me, again with a plenitude of professionalism, that my case was a very
peculiar one and that it would require ten more treatments. But I could
not figure out how, if ten treatments had done me no good, ten more
would do any better. So I declined to try his methods any further. Once
again I said to myself, "Well, this has failed, too--I wonder what
next?"

The next happened to be electrical treatments. When I visited the
electrical treatment specialist, he explained to me in a very effective
manner just how (according to his views) stammering was caused by
certain contractions of the muscles of the vocal organs, etc., and told
me that his treatment surely was the thing to eliminate this
contraction and leave my speech entirely free from stammering. I knew
something about my stammering then, but not a great deal--consequently
his explanation sounded plausible to me and appealed to me as being
very sensible and so I decided to give it a trial. I was glad after it
was over that I had received no bad effects--that was ALL the cause I
had to be glad, for he had not changed my stammering one iota, nor had
he changed my speech in any way to make it easier for me to talk. Thus,
had I found another one of the things that will not work and chalked up
another failure against my attempts to be cured of stammering.

By this time, the reader may well wonder why I was not discouraged in
my efforts to be cured. Well, who will say that I was not? I believe I
was--as far as it was possible for me to be discouraged at that time.
But despite all my failures, I had made up my mind never to give up
until I was cured of stammering. I set myself doggedly to the task of
ridding myself of an impediment that I knew would always hold me down
and prevent any measure of success. I stayed with this task. I never
gave up. I kept this one thing always hi mind. It was a life job with
me if necessary--and I was not a "quitter." So failures and
discouragements simply steeled me to more intense endeavors to be
cured. And while these endeavors cost my parents many hundreds of
dollars and cost me many years of time, still, I feel today that they
were worth while--not worth while enough to go through again, or worth
while enough to recommend to any one else--but at least not a total
loss to me.

CHAPTER VI

I REFUSE TO BE DISCOURAGED

After I had tried the electric treatment and found it wantin