Story of My Life
by
Helen Keller
Part 1 out of 8
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
BY HELEN KELLER
WITH HER LETTERS (1887-1901)
AND A SUPPLEMENTARY ACCOUNT OF HER EDUCATION,
INCLUDING PASSAGES FROM THE REPORTS AND LETTERS
OF HER TEACHER, ANNE MANSFIELD SULLIVAN
By John Albert Macy
Special Edition, Illustrated
CONTAINING ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS BY HELEN KELLER
To ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
Who has taught the deaf to speak
and enabled the listening ear to hear speech
from the Atlantic to the Rockies,
I dedicate
this Story of My Life.
Editor's Preface
This book is in three parts. The first two, Miss Keller's story
and the extracts from her letters, form a complete account of her
life as far as she can give it. Much of her education she cannot
explain herself, and since a knowledge of that is necessary to an
understanding of what she has written, it was thought best to
supplement her autobiography with the reports and letters of her
teacher, Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. The addition of a further
account of Miss Keller's personality and achievements may be
unnecessary; yet it will help to make clear some of the traits of
her character and the nature of the work which she and her
teacher have done.
For the third part of the book the Editor is responsible, though
all that is valid in it he owes to authentic records and to the
advice of Miss Sullivan.
The Editor desires to express his gratitude and the gratitude of
Miss Keller and Miss Sullivan to The Ladies' Home Journal and to
its editors, Mr. Edward Bok and Mr. William V. Alexander, who
have been unfailingly kind and have given for use in this book
all the photographs which were taken expressly for the Journal;
and the Editor thanks Miss Keller's many friends who have lent
him her letters to them and given him valuable information;
especially Mrs. Laurence Hutton, who supplied him with her large
collection of notes and anecdotes; Mr. John Hitz, Superintendent
of the Volta Bureau for the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge
relating to the Deaf; and Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins, to whom Miss
Sullivan wrote those illuminating letters, the extracts from
which give a better idea of her methods with her pupil than
anything heretofore published.
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company have courteously permitted
the reprinting of Miss Keller's letter to Dr. Holmes, which
appeared in "Over the Teacups," and one of Whittier's letters to
Miss Keller. Mr. S. T. Pickard, Whittier's literary executor,
kindly sent the original of another letter from Miss Keller to
Whittier.
John Albert Macy.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 1, 1903.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editor's Preface
Part I. The Story of My Life Chapter I-XXIII
II. Introduction to Letters, Letters
III. A Supplementary Account of Helen Keller's Life and
Education
Chapter I. The Writing of the Book
II. Personality
III. Education
IV. Speech
V. Literary Style
Part I. The Story of My Life
Chapter I
It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my
life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting
the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The
task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try
to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy
look alike across the years that link the past with the present.
The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A
few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my
life; but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest."
Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost
their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my
early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great
discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try
to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to
me to be the most interesting and important.
I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of
northern Alabama.
The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a
native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss
ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a
book on the subject of their education--rather a singular
coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not
had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a
king among his.
My grandfather, Caspar Keller's son, "entered" large tracts of
land in Alabama and finally settled there. I have been told that
once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback
to purchase supplies for the plantation, and my aunt has in her
possession many of the letters to his family, which give charming
and vivid accounts of these trips.
My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette's aides,
Alexander Moore, and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, an
early Colonial Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin
to Robert E. Lee.
My father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate
Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many
years younger. Her grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna
E. Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for many years.
Their son, Charles Adams, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts,
and moved to Helena, Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out, he
fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general.
He married Lucy Helen Everett, who belonged to the same family of
Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After the
war was over the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee.
I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my
sight and hearing, in a tiny house consisting of a large square
room and a small one, in which the servant slept. It is a custom
in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an
annex to be used on occasion. Such a house my father built after
the Civil War, and when he married my mother they went to live in
it. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and
honeysuckles. From the garden it looked like an arbour. The
little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and
Southern smilax. It was the favourite haunt of humming-birds and
bees.
The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps
from our little rose-bower. It was called "Ivy Green" because the
house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered with
beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise
of my childhood.
Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the
square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell
would find the first violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit
of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the
cool leaves and grass. What joy it was to lose myself in that
garden of flowers, to wander happily from spot to spot, until,
coming suddenly upon a beautiful vine, I recognized it by its
leaves and blossoms, and knew it was the vine which covered the
tumble-down summer-house at the farther end of the garden! Here,
also, were trailing clematis, drooping jessamine, and some rare
sweet flowers called butterfly lilies, because their fragile
petals resemble butterflies' wings. But the roses--they were
loveliest of all. Never have I found in the greenhouses of the
North such heart-satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my
southern home. They used to hang in long festoons from our porch,
filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any
earthy smell; and in the early morning, washed in the dew, they
felt so soft, so pure, I could not help wondering if they did not
resemble the asphodels of God's garden.
The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other
little life. I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the
family always does. There was the usual amount of discussion as
to a name for me. The first baby in the family was not to be
lightly named, every one was emphatic about that. My father
suggested the name of Mildred Campbell, an ancestor whom he
highly esteemed, and he declined to take any further part in the
discussion. My mother solved the problem by giving it as her wish
that I should be called after her mother, whose maiden name was
Helen Everett. But in the excitement of carrying me to church my
father lost the name on the way, very naturally, since it was one
in which he had declined to have a part. When the minister asked
him for it, he just remembered that it had been decided to call
me after my grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen Adams.
I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many
signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I
saw other people do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I
could pipe out "How d'ye," and one day I attracted every one's
attention by saying "Tea, tea, tea" quite plainly. Even after my
illness I remembered one of the words I had learned in these
early months. It was the word "water," and I continued to make
some sound for that word after all other speech was lost. I
ceased making the sound "wah-wah" only when I learned to spell
the word.
They tell me I walked the day I was a year old. My mother had
just taken me out of the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap,
when I was suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves
that danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from
my mother's lap and almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I
fell down and cried for her to take me up in her arms.
These happy days did not last long. One brief spring, musical
with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit
and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their
gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the
dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes
and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born
baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain.
The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however,
the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come.
There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but no one,
not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again.
I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I
especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to
soothe me in my waling hours of fret and pain, and the agony and
bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and
turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall away from the
once-loved light, which came to me dim and yet more dim each day.
But, except for these fleeting memories, if, indeed, they be
memories, it all seems very unreal, like a nightmare. Gradually I
got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and
forgot that it had ever been different, until she came--my
teacher--who was to set my spirit free. But during the first
nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green
fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that
followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, "the
day is ours, and what the day has shown."
Chapter II
I cannot recall what happened during the first months after my
illness. I only know that I sat in my mother's lap or clung to
her dress as she went about her household duties. My hands felt
every object and observed every motion, and in this way I learned
to know many things. Soon I felt the need of some communication
with others and began to make crude signs. A shake of the head
meant "No" and a nod, "Yes," a pull meant "Come" and a push,
"Go." Was it bread that I wanted? Then I would imitate the acts
of cutting the slices and buttering them. If I wanted my mother
to make ice-cream for dinner I made the sign for working the
freezer and shivered, indicating cold. My mother, moreover,
succeeded in making me understand a good deal. I always knew when
she wished me to bring her something, and I would run upstairs or
anywhere else she indicated. Indeed, I owe to her loving wisdom
all that was bright and good in my long night.
I understood a good deal of what was going on about me. At five I
learned to fold and put away the clean clothes when they were
brought in from the laundry, and I distinguished my own from the
rest. I knew by the way my mother and aunt dressed when they were
going out, and I invariably begged to go with them. I was always
sent for when there was company, and when the guests took their
leave, I waved my hand to them, I think with a vague remembrance
of the meaning of the gesture. One day some gentlemen called on
my mother, and I felt the shutting of the front door and other
sounds that indicated their arrival. On a sudden thought I ran
upstairs before any one could stop me, to put on my idea of a
company dress. Standing before the mirror, as I had seen others
do, I anointed mine head with oil and covered my face thickly
with powder. Then I pinned a veil over my head so that it covered
my face and fell in folds down to my shoulders, and tied an
enormous bustle round my small waist, so that it dangled behind,
almost meeting the hem of my skirt. Thus attired I went down to
help entertain the company.
I do not remember when I first realized that I was different from
other people; but I knew it before my teacher came to me. I had
noticed that my mother and my friends did not use signs as I did
when they wanted anything done, but talked with their mouths.
Sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and
touched their lips. I could not understand, and was vexed. I
moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result. This
made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was
exhausted.
I think I knew when I was naughty, for I knew that it hurt Ella,
my nurse, to kick her, and when my fit of temper was over I had a
feeling akin to regret. But I cannot remember any instance in
which this feeling prevented me from repeating the naughtiness
when I failed to get what I wanted.
In those days a little coloured girl, Martha Washington, the
child of our cook, and Belle, an old setter, and a great hunter
in her day, were my constant companions. Martha Washington
understood my signs, and I seldom had any difficulty in making
her do just as I wished. It pleased me to domineer over her, and
she generally submitted to my tyranny rather than risk a
hand-to-hand encounter. I was strong, active, indifferent to
consequences. I knew my own mind well enough and always had my
own way, even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it. We spent a
great deal of time in the kitchen, kneading dough balls, helping
make ice-cream, grinding coffee, quarreling over the cake-bowl,
and feeding the hens and turkeys that swarmed about the kitchen
steps. Many of them were so tame that they would eat from my hand
and let me feel them. One big gobbler snatched a tomato from me
one day and ran away with it. Inspired, perhaps, by Master
Gobbler's success, we carried off to the woodpile a cake which
the cook had just frosted, and ate every bit of it. I was quite
ill afterward, and I wonder if retribution also overtook the
turkey.
The guinea-fowl likes to hide her nest in out-of-the-way places,
and it was one of my greatest delights to hunt for the eggs in
the long grass. I could not tell Martha Washington when I wanted
to go egg-hunting, but I would double my hands and put them on
the ground, which meant something round in the grass, and Martha
always understood. When we were fortunate enough to find a nest I
never allowed her to carry the eggs home, making her understand
by emphatic signs that she might fall and break them.
The sheds where the corn was stored, the stable where the horses
were kept, and the yard where the cows were milked morning and
evening were unfailing sources of interest to Martha and me. The
milkers would let me keep my hands on the cows while they milked,
and I often got well switched by the cow for my curiosity.
The making ready for Christmas was always a delight to me. Of
course I did not know what it was all about, but I enjoyed the
pleasant odours that filled the house and the tidbits that were
given to Martha Washington and me to keep us quiet. We were sadly
in the way, but that did not interfere with our pleasure in the
least. They allowed us to grind the spices, pick over the raisins
and lick the stirring spoons. I hung my stocking because the
others did; I cannot remember, however, that the ceremony
interested me especially, nor did my curiosity cause me to wake
before daylight to look for my gifts.
Martha Washington had as great a love of mischief as I. Two
little children were seated on the veranda steps one hot July
afternoon. One was black as ebony, with little bunches of fuzzy
hair tied with shoestrings sticking out all over her head like
corkscrews. The other was white, with long golden curls. One
child was six years old, the other two or three years older. The
younger child was blind--that was I--and the other was Martha
Washington. We were busy cutting out paper dolls; but we soon
wearied of this amusement, and after cutting up our shoestrings
and clipping all the leaves off the honeysuckle that were within
reach, I turned my attention to Martha's corkscrews. She objected
at first, but finally submitted. Thinking that turn and turn
about is fair play, she seized the scissors and cut off one of my
curls, and would have cut them all off but for my mother's timely
interference.
Belle, our dog, my other companion, was old and lazy and liked to
sleep by the open fire rather than to romp with me. I tried hard
to teach her my sign language, but she was dull and inattentive.
She sometimes started and quivered with excitement, then she
became perfectly rigid, as dogs do when they point a bird. I did
not then know why Belle acted in this way; but I knew she was not
doing as I wished. This vexed me and the lesson always ended in a
one-sided boxing match. Belle would get up, stretch herself
lazily, give one or two contemptuous sniffs, go to the opposite
side of the hearth and lie down again, and I, wearied and
disappointed, went off in search of Martha.
Many incidents of those early years are fixed in my memory,
isolated, but clear and distinct, making the sense of that
silent, aimless, dayless life all the more intense.
One day I happened to spill water on my apron, and I spread it
out to dry before the fire which was flickering on the
sitting-room hearth. The apron did not dry quickly enough to suit
me, so I drew nearer and threw it right over the hot ashes. The
fire leaped into life; the flames encircled me so that in a
moment my clothes were blazing. I made a terrified noise that
brought Viny, my old nurse, to the rescue. Throwing a blanket
over me, she almost suffocated me, but she put out the fire.
Except for my hands and hair I was not badly burned.
About this time I found out the use of a key. One morning I
locked my mother up in the pantry, where she was obliged to
remain three hours, as the servants were in a detached part of
the house. She kept pounding on the door, while I sat outside on
the porch steps and laughed with glee as I felt the jar of the
pounding. This most naughty prank of mine convinced my parents
that I must be taught as soon as possible. After my teacher, Miss
Sullivan, came to me, I sought an early opportunity to lock her
in her room. I went upstairs with something which my mother made
me understand I was to give to Miss Sullivan; but no sooner had I
given it to her than I slammed the door to, locked it, and hid
the key under the wardrobe in the hall. I could not be induced to
tell where the key was. My father was obliged to get a ladder and
take Miss Sullivan out through the window--much to my delight.
Months after I produced the key.
When I was about five years old we moved from the little
vine-covered house to a large new one. The family consisted of my
father and mother, two older half-brothers, and, afterward, a
little sister, Mildred. My earliest distinct recollection of my
father is making my way through great drifts of newspapers to his
side and finding him alone, holding a sheet of paper before his
face. I was greatly puzzled to know what he was doing. I imitated
this action, even wearing his spectacles, thinking they might
help solve the mystery. But I did not find out the secret for
several years. Then I learned what those papers were, and that my
father edited one of them.
My father was most loving and indulgent, devoted to his home,
seldom leaving us, except in the hunting season. He was a great
hunter, I have been told, and a celebrated shot. Next to his
family he loved his dogs and gun. His hospitality was great,
almost to a fault, and he seldom came home without bringing a
guest. His special pride was the big garden where, it was said,
he raised the finest watermelons and strawberries in the county;
and to me he brought the first ripe grapes and the choicest
berries. I remember his caressing touch as he led me from tree to
tree, from vine to vine, and his eager delight in whatever
pleased me.
He was a famous story-teller; after I had acquired language he
used to spell clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes, and
nothing pleased him more than to have me repeat them at an
opportune moment.
I was in the North, enjoying the last beautiful days of the
summer of 1896, when I heard the news of my father's death. He
had had a short illness, there had been a brief time of acute
suffering, then all was over. This was my first great sorrow--my
first personal experience with death.
How shall I write of my mother? She is so near to me that it
almost seems indelicate to speak of her.
For a long time I regarded my little sister as an intruder. I
knew that I had ceased to be my mother's only darling, and the
thought filled me with jealousy. She sat in my mother's lap
constantly, where I used to sit, and seemed to take up all her
care and time. One day something happened which seemed to me to
be adding insult to injury.
At that time I had a much-petted, much-abused doll, which I
afterward named Nancy. She was, alas, the helpless victim of my
outbursts of temper and of affection, so that she became much the
worse for wear. I had dolls which talked, and cried, and opened
and shut their eyes; yet I never loved one of them as I loved
poor Nancy. She had a cradle, and I often spent an hour or more
rocking her. I guarded both doll and cradle with the most jealous
care; but once I discovered my little sister sleeping peacefully
in the cradle. At this presumption on the part of one to whom as
yet no tie of love bound me I grew angry. I rushed upon the
cradle and over-turned it, and the baby might have been killed
had my mother not caught her as she fell. Thus it is that when we
walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the
tender affections that grow out of endearing words and actions
and companionship. But afterward, when I was restored to my human
heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts, so that we
were content to go hand-in-hand wherever caprice led us, although
she could not understand my finger language, nor I her childish
prattle.
Chapter III
Meanwhile the desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used
became less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself
understood were invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I
felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic
efforts to free myself. I struggled--not that struggling helped
matters, but the spirit of resistance was strong within me; I
generally broke down in tears and physical exhaustion. If my
mother happened to be near I crept into her arms, too miserable
even to remember the cause of the tempest. After awhile the need
of some means of communication became so urgent that these
outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.
My parents were deeply grieved and perplexed. We lived a long way
from any school for the blind or the deaf, and it seemed unlikely
that any one would come to such an out-of-the-way place as
Tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind. Indeed,
my friends and relatives sometimes doubted whether I could be
taught. My mother's only ray of hope came from Dickens's
"American Notes." She had read his account of Laura Bridgman, and
remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet had been
educated. But she also remembered with a hopeless pang that Dr.
Howe, who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind, had
been dead many years. His methods had probably died with him; and
if they had not, how was a little girl in a far-off town in
Alabama to receive the benefit of them?
When I was about six years old, my father heard of an eminent
oculist in Baltimore, who had been successful in many cases that
had seemed hopeless. My parents at once determined to take me to
Baltimore to see if anything could be done for my eyes.
The journey, which I remember well was very pleasant. I made
friends with many people on the train. One lady gave me a box of
shells. My father made holes in these so that I could string
them, and for a long time they kept me happy and contented. The
conductor, too, was kind. Often when he went his rounds I clung
to his coat tails while he collected and punched the tickets. His
punch, with which he let me play, was a delightful toy. Curled up
in a corner of the seat I amused myself for hours making funny
little holes in bits of cardboard.
My aunt made me a big doll out of towels. It was the most comical
shapeless thing, this improvised doll, with no nose, mouth, ears
or eyes--nothing that even the imagination of a child could
convert into a face. Curiously enough, the absence of eyes struck
me more than all the other defects put together. I pointed this
out to everybody with provoking persistency, but no one seemed
equal to the task of providing the doll with eyes. A bright idea,
however, shot into my mind, and the problem was solved. I tumbled
off the seat and searched under it until I found my aunt's cape,
which was trimmed with large beads. I pulled two beads off and
indicated to her that I wanted her to sew them on my doll. She
raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way, and I nodded
energetically. The beads were sewed in the right place and I
could not contain myself for joy; but immediately I lost all
interest in the doll. During the whole trip I did not have one
fit of temper, there were so many things to keep my mind and
fingers busy.
When we arrived in Baltimore, Dr. Chisholm received us kindly:
but he could do nothing. He said, however, that I could be
educated, and advised my father to consult Dr. Alexander Graham
Bell of Washington, who would be able to give him information
about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children. Acting on
the doctor's advice, we went immediately to Washington to see Dr.
Bell, my father with a sad heart and many misgivings, I wholly
unconscious of his anguish, finding pleasure in the excitement of
moving from place to place. Child as I was, I at once felt the
tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many
hearts, as his wonderful achievements enlist their admiration. He
held me on his knee while I examined his watch, and he made it
strike for me. He understood my signs, and I knew it and loved
him at once. But I did not dream that that interview would be the
door through which I should pass from darkness into light, from
isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.
Dr. Bell advised my father to write to Mr. Anagnos, director of
the Perkins Institution in Boston, the scene of Dr. Howe's great
labours for the blind, and ask him if he had a teacher competent
to begin my education. This my father did at once, and in a few
weeks there came a kind letter from Mr. Anagnos with the
comforting assurance that a teacher had been found. This was in
the summer of 1886. But Miss Sullivan did not arrive until the
following March.
Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power
divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many
wonders. And from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said,
"Knowledge is love and light and vision."
Chapter IV
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on
which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am
filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts
between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of
March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch,
dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and
from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual
was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the
steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that
covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers
lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms
which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I
did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me.
Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and
a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a
tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense
and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and
sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to
happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I
was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing
how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the
wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in
that very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I
supposed to my mother. Some one took it, and I was caught up and
held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things
to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.
The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and
gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins
Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I
did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a
little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word
"d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried
to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters
correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running
downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters
for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that
words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like
imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this
uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup
and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had been
with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a
name.
One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put
my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to
make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the
day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r."
Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug
and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the
two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to
renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her
repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the
floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the
broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my
passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark
world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or
tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of
the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of
my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I
was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless
sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with
pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the
fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one
was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.
As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the
other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still,
my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something
forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery
of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r"
meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.
That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set
it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that
could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and
each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the
house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.
That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight
that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I
had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces.
I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with
tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I
felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what
they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher
were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for
me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been
difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib
at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had
brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.
Chapter V
I recall many incidents of the summer of 1887 that followed my
soul's sudden awakening. I did nothing but explore with my hands
and learn the name of every object that I touched; and the more I
handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous
and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the
world.
When the time of daisies and buttercups came Miss Sullivan took
me by the hand across the fields, where men were preparing the
earth for the seed, to the banks of the Tennessee River, and
there, sitting on the warm grass, I had my first lessons in the
beneficence of nature. I learned how the sun and the rain make to
grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight
and good for food, how birds build their nests and live and
thrive from land to land, how the squirrel, the deer, the lion
and every other creature finds food and shelter. As my knowledge
of things grew I felt more and more the delight of the world I
was in. Long before I learned to do a sum in arithmetic or
describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to
find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass, and
in the curves and dimples of my baby sister's hand. She linked my
earliest thoughts with nature, and made me feel that "birds and
flowers and I were happy peers."
But about this time I had an experience which taught me that
nature is not always kind. One day my teacher and I were
returning from a long ramble. The morning had been fine, but it
was growing warm and sultry when at last we turned our faces
homeward. Two or three times we stopped to rest under a tree by
the wayside. Our last halt was under a wild cherry tree a short
distance from the house. The shade was grateful, and the tree was
so easy to climb that with my teacher's assistance I was able to
scramble to a seat in the branches. It was so cool up in the tree
that Miss Sullivan proposed that we have our luncheon there. I
promised to keep still while she went to the house to fetch it.
Suddenly a change passed over the tree. All the sun's warmth left
the air. I knew the sky was black, because all the heat, which
meant light to me, had died out of the atmosphere. A strange
odour came up from the earth. I knew it, it was the odour that
always precedes a thunderstorm, and a nameless fear clutched at
my heart. I felt absolutely alone, cut off from my friends and
the firm earth. The immense, the unknown, enfolded me. I remained
still and expectant; a chilling terror crept over me. I longed
for my teacher's return; but above all things I wanted to get
down from that tree.
There was a moment of sinister silence, then a multitudinous
stirring of the leaves. A shiver ran through the tree, and the
wind sent forth a blast that would have knocked me off had I not
clung to the branch with might and main. The tree swayed and
strained. The small twigs snapped and fell about me in showers. A
wild impulse to jump seized me, but terror held me fast. I
crouched down in the fork of the tree. The branches lashed about
me. I felt the intermittent jarring that came now and then, as if
something heavy had fallen and the shock had traveled up till it
reached the limb I sat on. It worked my suspense up to the
highest point, and just as I was thinking the tree and I should
fall together, my teacher seized my hand and helped me down. I
clung to her, trembling with joy to feel the earth under my feet
once more. I had learned a new lesson--that nature "wages open
war against her children, and under softest touch hides
treacherous claws."
After this experience it was a long time before I climbed another
tree. The mere thought filled me with terror. It was the sweet
allurement of the mimosa tree in full bloom that finally overcame
my fears. One beautiful spring morning when I was alone in the
summer-house, reading, I became aware of a wonderful subtle
fragrance in the air. I started up and instinctively stretched
out my hands. It seemed as if the spirit of spring had passed
through the summer-house. "What is it?" I asked, and the next
minute I recognized the odour of the mimosa blossoms. I felt my
way to the end of the garden, knowing that the mimosa tree was
near the fence, at the turn of the path. Yes, there it was, all
quivering in the warm sunshine, its blossom-laden branches almost
touching the long grass. Was there ever anything so exquisitely
beautiful in the world before! Its delicate blossoms shrank from
the slightest earthly touch; it seemed as if a tree of paradise
had been transplanted to earth. I made my way through a shower of
petals to the great trunk and for one minute stood irresolute;
then, putting my foot in the broad space between the forked
branches, I pulled myself up into the tree. I had some difficulty
in holding on, for the branches were very large and the bark hurt
my hands. But I had a delicious sense that I was doing something
unusual and wonderful so I kept on climbing higher and higher,
until I reached a little seat which somebody had built there so
long ago that it had grown part of the tree itself. I sat there
for a long, long time, feeling like a fairy on a rosy cloud.
After that I spent many happy hours in my tree of paradise,
thinking fair thoughts and dreaming bright dreams.
Chapter VI
I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to
use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular
effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the
wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must
trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the
process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object
we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance
between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in
a line of Shakespeare.
At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very
few questions. My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was
inadequate; but as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned
more and more words, my field of inquiry broadened, and I would
return again and again to the same subject, eager for further
information. Sometimes a new word revived an image that some
earlier experience had engraved on my brain.
I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the
word, "love." This was before I knew many words. I had found a
few early violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher.
She tried to kiss me: but at that time I did not like to have any
one kiss me except my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently
round me and spelled into my hand, "I love Helen."
"What is love?" I asked.
She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my
heart, whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her
words puzzled me very much because I did not then understand
anything unless I touched it.
I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in
signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of
flowers?"
"No," said my teacher.
Again I thought. The warm sun was shining on us.
"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which
the heat came. "Is this not love?"
It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than
the sun, whose warmth makes all things grow. But Miss Sullivan
shook her head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I
thought it strange that my teacher could not show me love.
A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes
in symmetrical groups--two large beads, three small ones, and so
on. I had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them
out again and again with gentle patience. Finally I noticed a
very obvious error in the sequence and for an instant I
concentrated my attention on the lesson and tried to think how I
should have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched my forehead
and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."
In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that
was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception
of an abstract idea.
For a long time I was still--I was not thinking of the beads in
my lap, but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of
this new idea. The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there
had been brief showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all
its southern splendour.
Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"
"Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before
the sun came out," she replied. Then in simpler words than these,
which at that time I could not have understood, she explained:
"You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and
know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it
after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the
sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would
not be happy or want to play."
The beautiful truth burst upon my mind--I felt that there were
invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of
others.
From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a
practice to speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child;
the only difference was that she spelled the sentences into my
hand instead of speaking them. If I did not know the words and
idioms necessary to express my thoughts she supplied them, even
suggesting conversation when I was unable to keep up my end of
the dialogue.
This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child
does not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the
numberless idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily
intercourse. The little hearing child learns these from constant
repetition and imitation. The conversation he hears in his home
stimulates his mind and suggests topics and calls forth the
spontaneous expression of his own thoughts. This natural exchange
of ideas is denied to the deaf child. My teacher, realizing this,
determined to supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did
by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard,
and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But
it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and
still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at
the right time.
The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the
amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be
augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They
cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assistance,
go up and down the gamut of tones that give significance to
words; nor can they watch the expression of the speaker's face,
and a look is often the very soul of what one says.
Chapter VII
The next important step in my education was learning to read.
As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of
cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters. I
quickly learned that each printed word stood for an object, an
act, or a quality. I had a frame in which I could arrange the
words in little sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the
frame I used to make them in objects. I found the slips of paper
which represented, for example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and
placed each name on its object; then I put my doll on the bed
with the words is, on, bed arranged beside the doll, thus making
a sentence of the words, and at the same time carrying out the
idea of the sentence with the things themselves.
One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word girl on my
pinafore and stood in the wardrobe. On the shelf I arranged the
words, is, in, wardrobe. Nothing delighted me so much as this
game. My teacher and I played it for hours at a time. Often
everything in the room was arranged in object sentences.
From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book. I
took my "Reader for Beginners" and hunted for the words I knew;
when I found them my joy was like that of a game of
hide-and-seek. Thus I began to read. Of the time when I began to
read connected stories I shall speak later.
For a long time I had no regular lessons. Even when I studied
most earnestly it seemed more like play than work. Everything
Miss Sullivan taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a
poem. Whenever anything delighted or interested me she talked it
over with me just as if she were a little girl herself. What many
children think of with dread, as a painful plodding through
grammar, hard sums and harder definitions, is to-day one of my
most precious memories.
I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with my
pleasures and desires. Perhaps it was the result of long
association with the blind. Added to this she had a wonderful
faculty for description. She went quickly over uninteresting
details, and never nagged me with questions to see if I
remembered the day-before-yesterday's lesson. She introduced dry
technicalities of science little by little, making every subject
so real that I could not help remembering what she taught.
We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to
the house. All my early lessons have in them the breath of the
woods--the fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the
perfume of wild grapes. Seated in the gracious shade of a wild
tulip tree, I learned to think that everything has a lesson and a
suggestion. "The loveliness of things taught me all their use."
Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom had
a part in my education-noisy-throated frogs, katydids and
crickets held in my hand until forgetting their embarrassment,
they trilled their reedy note, little downy chickens and
wildflowers, the dogwood blossoms, meadow-violets and budding
fruit trees. I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and fingered their
soft fiber and fuzzy seeds; I felt the low soughing of the wind
through the cornstalks, the silky rustling of the long leaves,
and the indignant snort of my pony, as we caught him in the
pasture and put the bit in his mouth--ah me! how well I remember
the spicy, clovery smell of his breath!
Sometimes I rose at dawn and stole into the garden while the
heavy dew lay on the grass and flowers. Few know what joy it is
to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful
motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze.
Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking, and I
felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a
sudden terror, as the little creature became aware of a pressure
from without.
Another favourite haunt of mine was the orchard, where the fruit
ripened early in July. The large, downy peaches would reach
themselves into my hand, and as the joyous breezes flew about the
trees the apples tumbled at my feet. Oh, the delight with which I
gathered up the fruit in my pinafore, pressed my face against the
smooth cheeks of the apples, still warm from the sun, and skipped
back to the house!
Our favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old tumbledown
lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to
land soldiers. There we spent many happy hours and played at
learning geography. I built dams of pebbles, made islands and
lakes, and dug river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I
was learning a lesson. I listened with increasing wonder to Miss
Sullivan's descriptions of the great round world with its burning
mountains, buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other
things as strange. She made raised maps in clay, so that I could
feel the mountain ridges and valleys, and follow with my fingers
the devious course of rivers. I liked this, too; but the division
of the earth into zones and poles confused and teased my mind.
The illustrative strings and the orange stick representing the
poles seemed so real that even to this day the mere mention of
temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and I believe
that if any one should set about it he could convince me that
white bears actually climb the North Pole.
Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like. From
the first I was not interested in the science of numbers. Miss
Sullivan tried to teach me to count by stringing beads in groups,
and by arranging kintergarten straws I learned to add and
subtract. I never had patience to arrange more than five or six
groups at a time. When I had accomplished this my conscience was
at rest for the day, and I went out quickly to find my playmates.
In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.
Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a
collection of fossils--tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked,
and bits of sandstone with the print of birds' claws, and a
lovely fern in bas-relief. These were the keys which unlocked the
treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling
fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the
terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, which once
went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing down the
branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal
swamps of an unknown age. For a long time these strange creatures
haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a somber
background to the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and
echoing with the gentle beat of my pony's hoof.
Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child's
surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the
lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights,
when there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on
the blue waters of the Indian Ocean in his "ship of pearl." After
I had learned a great many interesting things about the life and
habits of the children of the sea--how in the midst of dashing
waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the
Pacific, and the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a
land--my teacher read me "The Chambered Nautilus," and showed me
that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of
the development of the mind. Just as the wonder-working mantle of
the Nautilus changes the material it absorbs from the water and
makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers
undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought.
Again, it was the growth of a plant that furnished the text for a
lesson. We bought a lily and set it in a sunny window. Very soon
the green, pointed buds showed signs of opening. The slender,
fingerlike leaves on the outside opened slowly, reluctant, I
thought, to reveal the loveliness they hid; once having made a
start, however, the opening process went on rapidly, but in order
and systematically. There was always one bud larger and more
beautiful than the rest, which pushed her outer, covering back
with more pomp, as if the beauty in soft, silky robes knew that
she was the lily-queen by right divine, while her more timid
sisters doffed their green hoods shyly, until the whole plant was
one nodding bough of loveliness and fragrance.
Once there were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe set in a window
full of plants. I remember the eagerness with which I made
discoveries about them. It was great fun to plunge my hand into
the bowl and feel the tadpoles frisk about, and to let them slip
and slide between my fingers. One day a more ambitious fellow
leaped beyond the edge of the bowl and fell on the floor, where I
found him to all appearance more dead than alive. The only sign
of life was a slight wriggling of his tail. But no sooner had he
returned to his element than he darted to the bottom, swimming
round and round in joyous activity. He had made his leap, he had
seen the great world, and was content to stay in his pretty glass
house under the big fuchsia tree until he attained the dignity of
froghood. Then he went to live in the leafy pool at the end of
the garden, where he made the summer nights musical with his
quaint love-song.
Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a
little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and
developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of
love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never since let
pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is in
everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and
example to make my life sweet and useful.
It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact
which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was
because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made
it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's
mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily
over the stony course of its education and reflects here a
flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to
guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be
fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened
out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid
surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the
blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower.
Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every
teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he
feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must
feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment
before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and
resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of
textbooks.
My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart
from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is
innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I
feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the
footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to
her--there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that
has not been awakened by her loving touch.
Chapter VIII
The first Christmas after Miss Sullivan came to Tuscumbia was a
great event. Every one in the family prepared surprises for me,
but what pleased me most, Miss Sullivan and I prepared surprises
for everybody else. The mystery that surrounded the gifts was my
greatest delight and amusement. My friends did all they could to
excite my curiosity by hints and half-spelled sentences which
they pretended to break off in the nick of time. Miss Sullivan
and I kept up a game of guessing which taught me more about the
use of language than any set lessons could have done. Every
evening, seated round a glowing wood fire, we played our guessing
game, which grew more and more exciting as Christmas approached.
On Christmas Eve the Tuscumbia schoolchildren had their tree, to
which they invited me. In the centre of the schoolroom stood a
beautiful tree ablaze and shimmering in the soft light, its
branches loaded with strange, wonderful fruit. It was a moment of
supreme happiness. I danced and capered round the tree in an
ecstasy. When I learned that there was a gift for each child, I
was delighted, and the kind people who had prepared the tree
permitted me to hand the presents to the children. In the
pleasure of doing this, I did not stop to look at my own gifts;
but when I was ready for them, my impatience for the real
Christmas to begin almost got beyond control. I knew the gifts I
already had were not those of which friends had thrown out such
tantalizing hints, and my teacher said the presents I was to have
would be even nicer than these. I was persuaded, however, to
content myself with the gifts from the tree and leave the others
until morning.
That night, after I had hung my stocking, I lay awake a long
time, pretending to be asleep and keeping alert to see what Santa
Claus would do when he came. At last I fell asleep with a new
doll and a white bear in my arms. Next morning it was I who waked
the whole family with my first "Merry Christmas!" I found
surprises, not in the stocking only, but on the table, on all the
chairs, at the door, on the very window-sill; indeed, I could
hardly walk without stumbling on a bit of Christmas wrapped up in
tissue paper. But when my teacher presented me with a canary, my
cup of happiness overflowed.
Little Tim was so tame that he would hop on my finger and eat
candied cherries out of my hand. Miss Sullivan taught me to take
all the care of my new pet. Every morning after breakfast I
prepared his bath, made his cage clean and sweet, filled his cups
with fresh seed and water from the well-house, and hung a spray
of chickweed in his swing.
One morning I left the cage on the window-seat while I went to
fetch water for his bath. When I returned I felt a big cat brush
past me as I opened the door. At first I did not realize what had
happened; but when I put my hand in the cage and Tim's pretty
wings did not meet my touch or his small pointed claws take hold
of my finger, I knew that I should never see my sweet little
singer again.
Chapter IX
The next important event in my life was my visit to Boston, in
May, 1888. As if it were yesterday I remember the preparations,
the departure with my teacher and my mother, the journey, and
finally the arrival in Boston. How different this journey was
from the one I had made to Baltimore two years before! I was no
longer a restless, excitable little creature, requiring the
attention of everybody on the train to keep me amused. I sat
quietly beside Miss Sullivan, taking in with eager interest all
that she told me about what she saw out of the car window: the
beautiful Tennessee River, the great cotton-fields, the hills and
woods, and the crowds of laughing negroes at the stations, who
waved to the people on the train and brought delicious candy and
popcorn balls through the car. On the seat opposite me sat my big
rag doll, Nancy, in a new gingham dress and a beruffled
sunbonnet, looking at me out of two bead eyes. Sometimes, when I
was not absorbed in Miss Sullivan's descriptions, I remembered
Nancy's existence and took her up in my arms, but I generally
calmed my conscience by making myself believe that she was
asleep.
As I shall not have occasion to refer to Nancy again, I wish to
tell here a sad experience she had soon after our arrival in
Boston. She was covered with dirt--the remains of mud pies I had
compelled her to eat, although she had never shown any special
liking for them. The laundress at the Perkins Institution
secretly carried her off to give her a bath. This was too much
for poor Nancy. When I next saw her she was a formless heap of
cotton, which I should not have recognized at all except for the
two bead eyes which looked out at me reproachfully.
When the train at last pulled into the station at Boston it was
as if a beautiful fairy tale had come true. The "once upon a
time" was now; the "far-away country" was here.
We had scarcely arrived at the Perkins Institution for the Blind
when I began to make friends with the little blind children. It
delighted me inexpressibly to find that they knew the manual
alphabet. What joy to talk with other children in my own
language! Until then I had been like a foreigner speaking through
an interpreter. In the school where Laura Bridgman was taught I
was in my own country. It took me some time to appreciate the
fact that my new friends were blind. I knew I could not see; but
it did not seem possible that all the eager, loving children who
gathered round me and joined heartily in my frolics were also
blind. I remember the surprise and the pain I felt as I noticed
that they placed their hands over mine when I talked to them and
that they read books with their fingers. Although I had been told
this before, and although I understood my own deprivations, yet I
had thought vaguely that since they could hear, they must have a
sort of "second sight," and I was not prepared to find one child
and another and yet another deprived of the same precious gift.
But they were so happy and contented that I lost all sense of
pain in the pleasure of their companionship.
One day spent with the blind children made me feel thoroughly at
home in my new environment, and I looked eagerly from one
pleasant experience to another as the days flew swiftly by. I
could not quite convince myself that there was much world left,
for I regarded Boston as the beginning and the end of creation.
While we were in Boston we visited Bunker Hill, and there I had
my first lesson in history. The story of the brave men who had
fought on the spot where we stood excited me greatly. I climbed
the monument, counting the steps, and wondering as I went higher
and yet higher if the soldiers had climbed this great stairway
and shot at the enemy on the ground below.
The next day we went to Plymouth by water. This was my first trip
on the ocean and my first voyage in a steamboat. How full of life
and motion it was! But the rumble of the machinery made me think
it was thundering, and I began to cry, because I feared if it
rained we should not be able to have our picnic out of doors. I
was more interested, I think, in the great rock on which the
Pilgrims landed than in anything else in Plymouth. I could touch
it, and perhaps that made the coming of the Pilgrims and their
toils and great deeds seem more real to me. I have often held in
my hand a little model of the Plymouth Rock which a kind
gentleman gave me at Pilgrim Hall, and I have fingered its
curves, the split in the centre and the embossed figures "1620,"
and turned over in my mind all that I knew about the wonderful
story of the Pilgrims.
How my childish imagination glowed with the splendour of their
enterprise! I idealized them as the bravest and most generous men
that ever sought a home in a strange land. I thought they desired
the freedom of their fellow men as well as their own. I was
keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of their
acts of persecution that make us tingle with shame, even while we
glory in the courage and energy that gave us our "Country
Beautiful."
Among the many friends I made in Boston were Mr. William Endicott
and his daughter. Their kindness to me was the seed from which
many pleasant memories have since grown. One day we visited their
beautiful home at Beverly Farms. I remember with delight how I
went through their rose-garden, how their dogs, big Leo and
little curly-haired Fritz with long ears, came to meet me, and
how Nimrod, the swiftest of the horses, poked his nose into my
hands for a pat and a lump of sugar. I also remember the beach,
where for the first time I played in the sand. It was hard,
smooth sand, very different from the loose, sharp sand, mingled
with kelp and shells, at Brewster. Mr. Endicott told me about the
great ships that came sailing by from Boston, bound for Europe. I
saw him many times after that, and he was always a good friend to
me; indeed, I was thinking of him when I called Boston "the City
of Kind Hearts."
Chapter X
Just before the Perkins Institution closed for the summer, it was
arranged that my teacher and I should spend our vacation at
Brewster, on Cape Cod, with our dear friend, Mrs. Hopkins. I was
delighted, for my mind was full of the prospective joys and of
the wonderful stories I had heard about the sea.
My most vivid recollection of that summer is the ocean. I had
always lived far inland and had never had so much as a whiff of
salt air; but I had read in a big book called "Our World" a
description of the ocean which filled me with wonder and an
intense longing to touch the mighty sea and feel it roar. So my
little heart leaped high with eager excitement when I knew that
my wish was at last to be realized.
No sooner had I been helped into my bathing-suit than I sprang
out upon the warm sand and without thought of fear plunged into
the cool water. I felt the great billows rock and sink. The
buoyant motion of the water filled me with an exquisite,
quivering joy. Suddenly my ecstasy gave place to terror; for my
foot struck against a rock and the next instant there was a rush
of water over my head. I thrust out my hands to grasp some
support, I clutched at the water and at the seaweed which the
waves tossed in my face. But all my frantic efforts were in vain.
The waves seemed to be playing a game with me, and tossed me from
one to another in their wild frolic. It was fearful! The good,
firm earth had slipped from my feet, and everything seemed shut
out from this strange, all-enveloping element--life, air, warmth
and love. At last, however, the sea, as if weary of its new toy,
threw me back on the shore, and in another instant I was clasped
in my teacher's arms. Oh, the comfort of the long, tender
embrace! As soon as I had recovered from my panic sufficiently to
say anything, I demanded: "Who put salt in the water?"
After I had recovered from my first experience in the water, I
thought it great fun to sit on a big rock in my bathing-suit and
feel wave after wave dash against the rock, sending up a shower
of spray which quite covered me. I felt the pebbles rattling as
the waves threw their ponderous weight against the shore; the
whole beach seemed racked by their terrific onset, and the air
throbbed with their pulsations. The breakers would swoop back to
gather themselves for a mightier leap, and I clung to the rock,
tense, fascinated, as I felt the dash and roar of the rushing
sea!
I could never stay long enough on the shore. The tang of the
untainted, fresh and free sea air was like a cool, quieting
thought, and the shells and pebbles and the seaweed with tiny
living creatures attached to it never lost their fascination for
me. One day Miss Sullivan attracted my attention to a strange
object which she had captured basking in the shallow water. It
was a great horseshoe crab--the first one I had ever seen. I felt
of him and thought it very strange that he should carry his house
on his back. It suddenly occurred to me that he might make a
delightful pet; so I seized him by the tail with both hands and
carried him home. This feat pleased me highly, as his body was
very heavy, and it took all my strength to drag him half a mile.
I would not leave Miss Sullivan in peace until she had put the
crab in a trough near the well where I was confident he would be
secure. But next morning I went to the trough, and lo, he had
disappeared! Nobody knew where he had gone, or how he had
escaped. My disappointment was bitter at the time; but little by
little I came to realize that it was not kind or wise to force
this poor dumb creature out of his element, and after awhile I
felt happy in the thought that perhaps he had returned to the
sea.
Chapter XI
In the autumn I returned to my Southern home with a heart full of
joyous memories. As I recall that visit North I am filled with
wonder at the richness and variety of the experiences that
cluster about it. It seems to have been the beginning of
everything. The treasures of a new, beautiful world were laid at
my feet, and I took in pleasure and information at every turn. I
lived myself into all things. I was never still a moment; my life
was as full of motion as those little insects that crowd a whole
existence into one brief day. I met many people who talked with
me by spelling into my hand, and thought in joyous sympathy
leaped up to meet thought, and behold, a miracle had been
wrought! The barren places between my mind and the minds of
others blossomed like the rose.
I spent the autumn months with my family at our summer cottage,
on a mountain about fourteen miles from Tuscumbia. It was called
Fern Quarry, because near it there was a limestone quarry, long
since abandoned. Three frolicsome little streams ran through it
from springs in the rocks above, leaping here and tumbling there
in laughing cascades wherever the rocks tried to bar their way.
The opening was filled with ferns which completely covered the
beds of limestone and in places hid the streams. The rest of the
mountain was thickly wooded. Here were great oaks and splendid
evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of
which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees,
the odour of which pervaded every nook and corner of the wood--an
illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad. In places
the wild muscadine and scuppernong vines stretched from tree to
tree, making arbours which were always full of butterflies and
buzzing insects. It was delightful to lose ourselves in the green
hollows of that tangled wood in the late afternoon, and to smell
the cool, delicious odours that came up from the earth at the
close of day.
Our cottage was a sort of rough camp, beautifully situated on the
top of the mountain among oaks and pines. The small rooms were
arranged on each side of a long open hall. Round the house was a
wide piazza, where the mountain winds blew, sweet with all
wood-scents. We lived on the piazza most of the time--there we
worked, ate and played. At the back door there was a great
butternut tree, round which the steps had been built, and in
front the trees stood so close that I could touch them and feel
the wind shake their branches, or the leaves twirl downward in
the autumn blast.
Many visitors came to Fern Quarry. In the evening, by the
campfire, the men played cards and whiled away the hours in talk
and sport. They told stories of their wonderful feats with fowl,
fish and quadruped--how many wild ducks and turkeys they had
shot, what "savage trout" they had caught, and how they had
bagged the craftiest foxes, outwitted the most clever 'possums
and overtaken the fleetest deer, until I thought that surely the
lion, the tiger, the bear and the rest of the wild tribe would
not be able to stand before these wily hunters. "To-morrow to the
chase!" was their good-night shout as the circle of merry friends
broke up for the night. The men slept in the hall outside our
door, and I could feel the deep breathing of the dogs and the
hunters as they lay on their improvised beds.
At dawn I was awakened by the smell of coffee, the rattling of
guns, and the heavy footsteps of the men as they strode about,
promising themselves the greatest luck of the season. I could
also feel the stamping of the horses, which they had ridden out
from town and hitched under the trees, where they stood all
night, neighing loudly, impatient to be off. At last the men
mounted, and, as they say in the old songs, away went the steeds
with bridles ringing and whips cracking and hounds racing ahead,
and away went the champion hunters "with hark and whoop and wild
halloo!"
Later in the morning we made preparations for a barbecue. A fire
was kindled at the bottom of a deep hole in the ground, big
sticks were laid crosswise at the top, and meat was hung from
them and turned on spits. Around the fire squatted negroes,
driving away the flies with long branches. The savoury odour of
the meat made me hungry long before the tables were set.
When the bustle and excitement of preparation was at its height,
the hunting party made its appearance, struggling in by twos and
threes, the men hot and weary, the horses covered with foam, and
the jaded hounds panting and dejected--and not a single kill!
Every man declared that he had seen at least one deer, and that
the animal had come very close; but however hotly the dogs might
pursue the game, however well the guns might be aimed, at the
snap of the trigger there was not a deer in sight. They had been
as fortunate as the little boy who said he came very near seeing
a rabbit--he saw his tracks. The party soon forgot its
disappointment, however, and we sat down, not to venison, but to
a tamer feast of veal and roast pig.
One summer I had my pony at Fern Quarry. I called him Black
Beauty, as I had just read the book, and he resembled his
namesake in every way, from his glossy black coat to the white
star on his forehead. I spent many of my happiest hours on his
back. Occasionally, when it was quite safe, my teacher would let
go the leading-rein, and the pony sauntered on or stopped at his
sweet will to eat grass or nibble the leaves of the trees that
grew beside the narrow trail.
On mornings when I did not care for the ride, my teacher and I
would start after breakfast for a ramble in the woods, and allow
ourselves to get lost amid the trees and vines, with no road to
follow except the paths made by cows and horses. Frequently we
came upon impassable thickets which forced us to take a round
about way. We always returned to the cottage with armfuls of
laurel, goldenrod, ferns and gorgeous swamp-flowers such as grow
only in the South.
Sometimes I would go with Mildred and my little cousins to gather
persimmons. I did not eat them; but I loved their fragrance and
enjoyed hunting for them in the leaves and grass. We also went
nutting, and I helped them open the chestnut burrs and break the
shells of hickory-nuts and walnuts--the big, sweet walnuts!
At the foot of the mountain there was a railroad, and the
children watched the trains whiz by. Sometimes a terrific whistle
brought us to the steps, and Mildred told me in great excitement
that a cow or a horse had strayed on the track. About a mile
distant there was a trestle spanning a deep gorge. It was very
difficult to walk over, the ties were wide apart and so narrow
that one felt as if one were walking on knives. I had never
crossed it until one day Mildred, Miss Sullivan and I were lost
in the woods, and wandered for hours without finding a path.
Suddenly Mildred pointed with her little hand and exclaimed,
"There's the trestle!" We would have taken any way rather than
this; but it was late and growing dark, and the trestle was a
short cut home. I had to feel for the rails with my toe; but I
was not afraid, and got on very well, until all at once there
came a faint "puff, puff" from the distance.
"I see the train!" cried Mildred, and in another minute it would
have been upon us had we not climbed down on the crossbraces
while it rushed over our heads. I felt the hot breath from the
engine on my face, and the smoke and ashes almost choked us. As
the train rumbled by, the trestle shook and swayed until I
thought we should be dashed to the chasm below. With the utmost
difficulty we regained the track. Long after dark we reached home
and found the cottage empty; the family were all out hunting for
us.
Chapter XII
After my first visit to Boston, I spent almost every winter in
the North. Once I went on a visit to a New England village with
its frozen lakes and vast snow fields. It was then that I had
opportunities such as had never been mine to enter into the
treasures of the snow.
I recall my surprise on discovering that a mysterious hand had
stripped the trees and bushes, leaving only here and there a
wrinkled leaf. The birds had flown, and their empty nests in the
bare trees were filled with snow. Winter was on hill and field.
The earth seemed benumbed by his icy touch, and the very spirits
of the trees had withdrawn to their roots, and there, curled up
in the dark, lay fast asleep. All life seemed to have ebbed away,
and even when the sun shone the day was
Shrunk and cold,
As if her veins were sapless and old,
And she rose up decrepitly
For a last dim look at earth and sea.
The withered grass and the bushes were transformed into a forest
of icicles.
Then came a day when the chill air portended a snowstorm. We
rushed out-of-doors to feel the first few tiny flakes descending.
Hour by hour the flakes dropped silently, softly from their airy
height to the earth, and the country became more and more level.
A snowy night closed upon the world, and in the morning one could
scarcely recognize a feature of the landscape. All the roads were
hidden, not a single landmark was visible, only a waste of snow
with trees rising out of it.
In the evening a wind from the northeast sprang up, and the
flakes rushed hither and thither in furious melee. Around the
great fire we sat and told merry tales, and frolicked, and quite
forgot that we were in the midst of a desolate solitude, shut in
from all communication with the outside world. But during the
night the fury of the wind increased to such a degree that it
thrilled us with a vague terror. The rafters creaked and
strained, and the branches of the trees surrounding the house
rattled and beat against the windows, as the winds rioted up and
down the country.
On the third day after the beginning of the storm the snow
ceased. The sun broke through the clouds and shone upon a vast,
undulating white plain. High mounds, pyramids heaped in fantastic
shapes, and impenetrable drifts lay scattered in every direction.
Narrow paths were shoveled through the drifts. I put on my cloak
and hood and went out. The air stung my cheeks like fire. Half
walking in the paths, half working our way through the lesser
drifts, we succeeded in reaching a pine grove just outside a
broad pasture. The trees stood motionless and white like figures
in a marble frieze. There was no odour of pine-needles. The rays
of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like
diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched them. So dazzling
was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that veils my
eyes.
As the days wore on, the drifts gradually shrunk, but before they
were wholly gone another storm came, so that I scarcely felt the
earth under my feet once all winter. At intervals the trees lost
their icy covering, and the bulrushes and underbrush were bare;
but the lake lay frozen and hard beneath the sun.
Our favourite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In
places the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's
edge. Down these steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on
our toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we went!
Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, swooping down upon the
lake, we would shoot across its gleaming surface to the opposite
bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For one wild, glad
moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining
hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine!
Chapter XIII
It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak. The impulse
to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used
to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other
hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything
that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog
bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a
piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and
hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was
found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear. I used
to sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep my hands on her
face because it amused me to feel the motions of her lips; and I
moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking was. My
friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for awhile I
made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means
of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal
organs was imperative. There was, however, one word the meaning
of which I still remembered, WATER. I pronounced it "wa-wa." Even
this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss
Sullivan began to teach me. I stopped using it only after I had
learned to spell the word on my fingers.
I had known for a long time that the people about me used a
method of communication different from mine; and even before I
knew that a deaf child could be taught to speak, I was conscious
of dissatisfaction with the means of communication I already
possessed. One who is entirely dependent upon the manual alphabet
has always a sense of restraint, of narrowness. This feeling
began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reaching sense of a
lack that should be filled. My thoughts would often rise and beat
up like birds against the wind, and I persisted in using my lips
and voice. Friends tried to discourage this tendency, fearing
lest it would lead to disappointment. But I persisted, and an
accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of
this great barrier--I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.
In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgman's
teachers, and who had just returned from a visit to Norway and
Sweden, came to see me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and
blind girl in Norway who had actually been taught to speak. Mrs.
Lamson had scarcely finished telling me about this girl's success
before I was on fire with eagerness. I resolved that I, too,
would learn to speak. I would not rest satisfied until my teacher
took me, for advice and assistance, to Miss Sarah Fuller,
principal of the Horace Mann School. This lovely, sweet-natured
lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth
of March, 1890.
Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over
her face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips
when she made a sound. I was eager to imitate every motion and in
an hour had learned six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I.
Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all. I shall never forget
the surprise and delight I felt when I uttered my first connected
sentence, "It is warm." True, they were broken and stammering
syllables; but they were human speech. My soul, conscious of new
strength, came out of bondage, and was reaching through those
broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and all faith.
No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he
has never heard--to come out of the prison of silence, where no
tone of love, no song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces
the stillness--can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of
discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word.
Only such a one can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked
to my toys, to stones, trees, birds and dumb animals, or the
delight I felt when at my call Mildred ran to me or my dogs
obeyed my commands. It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to
speak in winged words that need no interpretation. As I talked,
happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps
have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.
But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this
short time. I had learned only the elements of speech. Miss
Fuller and Miss Sullivan could understand me, but most people
would not have understood one word in a hundred. Nor is it true
that, after I had learned these elements, I did the rest of the
work myself. But for Miss Sullivan's genius, untiring
perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed as far as
I have toward natural speech. In the first place, I laboured
night and day before I could be understood even by my most
intimate friends; in the second place, I needed Miss Sullivan's
assistance constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound
clearly and to combine all sounds in a thousand ways. Even now
she calls my attention every day to mispronounced words.
All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can
at all appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to
contend. In reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on
my fingers: I had to use the sense of touch in catching the
vibrations of the throat, the movements of the mouth and the
expression of the face; and often this sense was at fault. In
such cases I was forced to repeat the words or sentences,
sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own
voice. My work was practice, practice, practice. Discouragement
and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the
thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what
I had accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward
to their pleasure in my achievement.
"My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger
than all obstacles. I used to repeat ecstatically, "I am not dumb
now." I could not be despondent while I anticipated the delight
of talking to my mother and reading her responses from her lips.
It astonished me to find how much easier it is to talk than to
spell with the fingers, and I discarded the manual alphabet as a
medium of communication on my part; but Miss Sullivan and a few
friends still use it in speaking to me, for it is more convenient
and more rapid than lip-reading.
Just here, perhaps, I had better explain our use of the manual
alphabet, which seems to puzzle people who do not know us. One
who reads or talks to me spells with his hand, using the
single-hand manual alphabet generally employed by the deaf. I
place my hand on the hand of the speaker so lightly as not to
impede its movements. The position of the hand is as easy to feel
as it is to see. I do not feel each letter any more than you see
each letter separately when you read. Constant practice makes the
fingers very flexible, and some of my friends spell
rapidly--about as fast as an expert writes on a typewriter. The
mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act than it is
in writing.
When I had made speech my own, I could not wait to go home. At
last the happiest of happy moments arrived. I had made my
homeward journey, talking constantly to Miss Sullivan, not for
the sake of talking, but determined to improve to the last
minute. Almost before I knew it, the train stopped at the
Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood the whole
family. My eyes fill with tears now as I think how my mother
pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with delight,
taking in every syllable that I spoke, while little Mildred
seized my free hand and kissed it and danced, and my father
expressed his pride and affection in a big silence. It was as if
Isaiah's prophecy had been fulfilled in me, "The mountains and
the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the
trees of the field shall clap their hands!"
Chapter XIV
The winter of 1892 was darkened by the one cloud in my
childhood's bright sky. Joy deserted my heart, and for a long,
long time I lived in doubt, anxiety and fear. Books lost their
charm for me, and even now the thought of those dreadful days
chills my heart. A little story called "The Frost King," which I
wrote and sent to Mr. Anagnos, of the Perkins Institution for the
Blind, was at the root of the trouble. In order to make the
matter clear, I must set forth the facts connected with this
episode, which justice to my teacher and to myself compels me to
relate.
I wrote the story when I was at home, the autumn after I had
learned to speak. We had stayed up at Fern Quarry later than
usual. While we were there, Miss Sullivan had described to me the
beauties of the late foliage, and it seems that her descriptions
revived the memory of a story, which must have been read to me,
and which I must have unconsciously retained. I thought then that
I was "making up a story," as children say, and I eagerly sat
down to write it before the ideas should slip from me. My
thoughts flowed easily; I felt a sense of joy in the composition.
Words and images came tripping to my finger ends, and as I
thought out sentence after sentence, I wrote them on my braille
slate. Now, if words and images come to me without effort, it is
a pretty sure sign that they are not the offspring of my own
mind, but stray waifs that I regretfully dismiss. At that time I
eagerly absorbed everything I read without a thought of
authorship, and even now I cannot be quite sure of the boundary
line between my ideas and those I find in books. I suppose that
is because so many of my impressions come to me through the
medium of others' eyes and ears.
When the story was finished, I read it to my teacher, and I
recall now vividly the pleasure I felt in the more beautiful
passages, and my annoyance at being interrupted to have the
pronunciation of a word corrected. At dinner it was read to the
assembled family, who were surprised that I could write so well.
Some one asked me if I had read it in a book.
This question surprised me very much; for I had not the faintest
recollection of having had it read to me. I spoke up and said,
"Oh, no, it is my story, and I have written it for Mr. Anagnos."
Accordingly I copied the story and sent it to him for his
birthday. It was suggested that I should change the title from
"Autumn Leaves" to "The Frost King," which I did. I carried the
little story to the post-office myself, feeling as if I were
walking on air. I little dreamed how cruelly I should pay for
that birthday gift.
Mr. Anagnos was delighted with "The Frost King," and published it
in one of the Perkins Institution reports. This was the pinnacle
of my happiness, from which I was in a little while dashed to
earth. I had been in Boston only a short time when it was
discovered that a story similar to "The Frost King," called "The
Frost Fairies" by Miss Margaret T. Canby, had appeared before I
was born in a book called "Birdie and His Friends." The two
stories were so much alike in thought and language that it was
evident Miss Canby's story had been read to me, and that mine
was--a plagiarism. It was difficult to make me understand this;
but when I did understand I was astonished and grieved. No child
ever drank deeper of the cup of bitterness than I did. I had
disgraced myself; I had brought suspicion upon those I loved
best. And yet how could it possibly have happened? I racked my
brain until I was weary to recall anything about the frost that I
had read before I wrote "The Frost King"; but I could remember
nothing, except the common reference to Jack Frost, and a poem
for children, "The Freaks of the Frost," and I knew I had not
used that in my composition.
At first Mr. Anagnos, though deeply troubled, seemed to believe
me. He was unusually tender and kind to me, and for a brief space
the shadow lifted. To please him I tried not to be unhappy, and
to make myself as pretty as possible for the celebration of
Washington's birthday, which took place very soon after I
received the sad news.
I was to be Ceres in a kind of masque given by the blind girls.
How well I remember the graceful draperies that enfolded me, the
bright autumn leaves that wreathed my head, and the fruit and
grain at my feet and in my hands, and beneath all the piety of
the masque the oppressive sense of coming ill that made my heart
heavy.
The night before the celebration, one of the teachers of the
Institution had asked me a question connected with "The Frost
King," and I was telling her that Miss Sullivan had talked to me
about Jack Frost and his wonderful works. Something I said made
her think she detected in my words a confession that I did
remember Miss Canby's story of "The Frost Fairies," and she laid
her conclusions before Mr. Anagnos, although I had told her most
emphatically that she was mistaken.
Mr. Anagnos, who loved me tenderly, thinking that he had been
deceived, turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of love and
innocence. He believed, or at least suspected, that Miss Sullivan
and I had deliberately stolen the bright thoughts of another and
imposed them on him to win his admiration. I was brought before a
court of investigation composed of the teachers and officers of
the Institution, and Miss Sullivan was asked to leave me. Then I
was questioned and cross-questioned with what seemed to me a
determination on the part of my judges to force me to acknowledge
that I remembered having had "The Frost Fairies" read to me. I
felt in every question the doubt and suspicion that was in their
minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me
reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words.
The blood pressed about my thumping heart, and I could scarcely
speak, except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it
was only a dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when
at last I was allowed to leave the room, I was dazed and did not
notice my teacher's caresses, or the tender words of my friends,
who said I was a brave little girl and they were proud of me.
As I lay in my bed that night, I wept as I hope few children have
wept. I felt so cold, I imagined I should die before morning, and
the thought comforted me. I think if this sorrow had come to me
when I was older, it would have broken my spirit beyond
repairing. But the angel of forgetfulness has gathered up and
carried away much of the misery and all the bitterness of those
sad days.
Miss Sullivan had never heard of "The Frost Fairies" or of the
book in which it was published. With the assistance of Dr.
Alexander Graham Bell, she investigated the matter carefully, and
at last it came out that Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins had a copy of
Miss Canby's "Birdie and His Friends" in 1888, the year that we
spent the summer with her at Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to
find her copy; but she has told me that at that time, while Miss
Sullivan was away on a vacation, she tried to amuse me by reading
from various books, and although she could not remember reading
"The Frost Fairies" any more than I, yet she felt sure that
"Birdie and His Friends" was one of them. She explained the
disappearance of the book by the fact that she had a short time
before sold her house and disposed of many juvenile books, such
as old schoolbooks and fairy tales, and that "Birdie and His
Friends" was probably among them.
The stories had little or no meaning for me then; but the mere
spelling of the strange words was sufficient to amuse a little
child who could do almost nothing to amuse herself; and although
I do not recall a single circumstance connected with the reading
of the stories, yet I cannot help thinking that I made a great
effort to remember the words, with the intention of having my
teacher explain them when she returned. One thing is certain, the
language was ineffaceably stamped upon my brain, though for a
long time no one knew it, least of all myself.
When Miss Sullivan came back, I did not speak to her about "The
Frost Fairies," probably because she began at once to read
"Little Lord Fauntleroy," which filled my mind to the exclusion
of everything else. But the fact remains that Miss Canby's story
was read to me once, and that long after I had forgotten it, it
came back to me so naturally that I never suspected that it was
the child of another mind.
In my trouble I received many messages of love and sympathy. All
the friends I loved best, except one, have remained my own to the
present time.
Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, "Some day you will write a great
story out of your own head, that will be a comfort and help to
many." But this kind prophecy has never been fulfilled. I have
never played with words again for the mere pleasure of the game.
Indeed, I have ever since been tortured by the fear that what I
write is not my own. For a long time, when I wrote a letter, even
to my mother, I was seized with a sudden feeling of terror, and I
would spell the sentences over and over, to make sure that I had
not read them in a book. Had it not been for the persistent
encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up
trying to write altogether.
I have read "The Frost Fairies" since, also the letters I wrote
in which I used other ideas of Miss Canby's. I find in one of
them, a letter to Mr. Anagnos, dated September 29, 1891, words
and sentiments exactly like those of the book. At the time I was
writing "The Frost King," and this letter, like many others,
contains phrases which show that my mind was saturated with the
story. I represent my teacher as saying to me of the golden
autumn leaves, "Yes, they are beautiful enough to comfort us for
the flight of summer"--an idea direct from Miss Canby's story.
This habit of assimilating what pleased me and giving it out
again as my own appears in much of my early correspondence and my
first attempts at writing. In a composition which I wrote about
the old cities of Greece and Italy, I borrowed my glowing
descriptions, with variations, from sources I have forgotten. I
knew Mr. Anagnos's great love of antiquity and his enthusiastic
appreciation of all beautiful sentiments about Italy and Greece.
I therefore gathered from all the books I read every bit of
poetry or of history that I thought would give him pleasure. Mr.
Anagnos, in speaking of my composition on the cities, has said,
"These ideas are poetic in their essence." But I do not
understand how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven
could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that because I did
not originate the ideas, my little composition is therefore quite
devoid of interest. It shows me that I could express my
appreciation of beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated
language.
Those early compositions were mental gymnastics. I was learning,
as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and
imitation, to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books
that pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously or
unconsciously, and adapted it. The young writer, as Stevenson has
said, instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable,
and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is
only after years of this sort of practice that even great men
have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging
through every byway of the mind.
I am afraid I have not yet completed this process. It is certain
that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I
read, because what I read becomes the very substance and texture
of my mind. Consequently, in nearly all that I write, I produce
something which very much resembles the crazy patchwork I used to
make when I first learned to sew. This patchwork was made of all
sorts of odds and ends--pretty bits of silk and velvet; but the
coarse pieces that were not pleasant to touch always
predominated. Likewise my compositions are made up of crude
notions of my own, inlaid with the brighter thoughts and riper
opinions of the authors I have read. It seems to me that the
great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the
educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half
thoughts, when we are little more than bundles of instinctive
tendencies. Trying to write is very much like trying to put a
Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish
to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or,
if they do, they will not match the design. But we keep on trying
because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not
willing to acknowledge defeat.
"There is no way to become original, except to be born so," says
Stevenson, and although I may not be original, I hope sometime to
outgrow my artificial, periwigged compositions. Then, perhaps, my
own thoughts and experiences will come to the surface. Meanwhile
I trust and hope and persevere, and try not to let the bitter
memory of "The Frost King" trammel my efforts.
So this sad experience may have done me good and set me thinking
on some of the problems of composition. My only regret is that it
resulted in the loss of one of my dearest friends, Mr. Anagnos.
Since the publication of "The Story of My Life" in the Ladies'
Home Journal, Mr. Anagnos has made a statement, in a letter to
Mr. Macy, that at the time of the "Frost King" matter, he
believed I was innocent. He says, the court of investigation
before which I was brought consisted of eight people: four blind,
four seeing persons. Four of them, he says, thought I knew that
Miss Canby's story had been read to me, and the others did not
hold this view. Mr. Anagnos states that he cast his vote with
those who were favourable to me.
But, however the case may have been, with whichever side he may
have cast his vote, when I went into the room where Mr. Anagnos
had so often held me on his knee and, forgetting his many cares,
had shared in my frolics, and found there persons who seemed to
doubt me, I felt that there was something hostile and menacing in
the very atmosphere, and subsequent events have borne out this
impression. For two years he seems to have held the belief that
Miss Sullivan and I were innocent. Then he evidently retracted
his favourable judgment, why I do not know. Nor did I know the
details of the investigation. I never knew even the names of the
members of the "court" who did not speak to me. I was too excited
to notice anything, too frightened to ask questions. Indeed, I
could scarcely think what I was saying, or what was being said to
me.
I have given this account of the "Frost King" affair because it
was important in my life and education; and, in order that there
might be no misunderstanding, I have set forth all the facts as
they appear to me, without a thought of defending myself or of
laying blame on any one.
Chapter XV
The summer and winter following the "Frost King" incident I spent
with my family in Alabama. I recall with delight that home-going.
Everything had budded and blossomed. I was happy. "The Frost
King" was forgotten.
When the ground was strewn with the crimson and golden leaves of
autumn, and the musk-scented grapes that covered the arbour at
the end of the garden were turning golden brown in the sunshine,
I began to write a sketch of my life--a year after I had written
"The Frost King."
I was still excessively scrupulous about everything I wrote. The
thought that what I wrote might not be absolutely my own
tormented me. No one knew of these fears except my teacher. A
strange sensitiveness prevented me from referring to the "Frost
King"; and often when an idea flashed out in the course of
conversation I would spell softly to her, "I am not sure it is
mine." At other times, in the midst of a paragraph I was writing,
I said to myself, "Suppose it should be found that all this was
written by some one long ago!" An impish fear clutched my hand,
so that I could not write any more that day. And even now I
sometimes feel the same uneasiness and disquietude. Miss Sullivan
consoled and helped me in every way she could think of; but the
terrible experience I had passed through left a lasting
impression on my mind, the significance of which I am only just
beginning to understand. It was with the hope of restoring my
self-confidence that she persuaded me to write for the Youth's
Companion a brief account of my life. I was then twelve years
old. As I look back on my struggle to write that little story, it
seems to me that I must have had a prophetic vision of the good
that would come of the undertaking, or I should surely have
failed.
I wrote timidly, fearfully, but resolutely, urged on by my
teacher, who knew that if I persevered, I should find my mental
foothold again and get a grip on my faculties. Up to the time of
the "Frost King" episode, I had lived the unconscious life of a
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