The Story of My Life, Helen Keller [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

peculiarly sweet expression lighted her face, and we saw her countenance growing sweeter and more earnest every day. About this time I sent a list of the words she knew to Mr. Anagnos, and he very kindly had them printed for her. Her mother and I cut up several sheets of printed words so that she could arrange them into sentences. This delighted her more than anything she had yet done; and the practice thus obtained prepared the way for the writing lessons. There was no difficulty in making her understand how to write the same sentences with pencil and paper which she made every day with the slips, and she very soon perceived that she need not confine herself to phrases already learned, but could communicate any thought that was passing through her mind.

I put one of the writing boards used by the blind between the folds of the paper on the table, and allowed her to examine an alphabet of the square letters, such as she was to make. I then guided her hand to form the sentence, “Cat does drink milk.” When she finished it she was overjoyed. She carried it to her mother, who spelled it to her.

 

Day after day she moved her pencil in the same tracks along the grooved paper, never for a moment expressing the least impatience or sense of fatigue.

 

As she had now learned to express her ideas on paper, I next taught her the braille system. She learned it gladly when she discovered that she could herself read what she had written; and this still affords her constant pleasure. For a whole evening she will sit at the table writing whatever comes into her busy brain; and I seldom find any difficulty in reading what she has written.

 

Her progress in arithmetic has been equally remarkable. She can add and subtract with great rapidity up to the sum of one hundred; and she knows the multiplication tables as far as the FIVES. She was working recently with the number forty, when I said to her, “Make twos.” She replied immediately, “Twenty twos make forty.” Later I said, “Make fifteen threes and count.” I wished her to make the groups of threes and supposed she would then have to count them in order to know what number fifteen threes would make. But instantly she spelled the answer: “Fifteen threes make forty-five.”

 

On being told that she was white and that one of the servants was black, she concluded that all who occupied a similar menial position were of the same hue; and whenever I asked her the colour of a servant she would say “black.” When asked the colour of some one whose occupation she did not know she seemed bewildered, and finally said “blue.”

 

She has never been told anything about death or the burial of the body, and yet on entering the cemetery for the first time in her life, with her mother and me, to look at some flowers, she laid her hand on our eyes and repeatedly spelled “cry—cry.” Her eyes actually filled with tears. The flowers did not seem to give her pleasure, and she was very quiet while we stayed there.

 

On another occasion while walking with me she seemed conscious of the presence of her brother, although we were distant from him.

She spelled his name repeatedly and started in the direction in which he was coming.

 

When walking or riding she often gives the names of the people we meet almost as soon as we recognize them.

 

The letters take up the account again.

 

November 13, 1887.

 

We took Helen to the circus, and had “the time of our lives”! The circus people were much interested in Helen, and did everything they could to make her first circus a memorable event. They let her feel the animals whenever it was safe. She fed the elephants, and was allowed to climb up on the back of the largest, and sit in the lap of the “Oriental Princess,” while the elephant marched majestically around the ring. She felt some young lions. They were as gentle as kittens; but I told her they would get wild and fierce as they grew older. She said to the keeper, “I will take the baby lions home and teach them to be mild.” The keeper of the bears made one big black fellow stand on his hind legs and hold out his great paw to us, which Helen shook politely. She was greatly delighted with the monkeys and kept her hand on the star performer while he went through his tricks, and laughed heartily when he took off his hat to the audience. One cute little fellow stole her hair-ribbon, and another tried to snatch the flowers out of her hat. I don’t know who had the best time, the monkeys, Helen or the spectators. One of the leopards licked her hands, and the man in charge of the giraffes lifted her up in his arms so that she could feel their ears and see how tall they were. She also felt a Greek chariot, and the charioteer would have liked to take her round the ring; but she was afraid of “many swift horses.” The riders and clowns and rope-walkers were all glad to let the little blind girl feel their costumes and follow their motions whenever it was possible, and she kissed them all, to show her gratitude. Some of them cried, and the wild man of Borneo shrank from her sweet little face in terror. She has talked about nothing but the circus ever since. In order to answer her questions, I have been obliged to read a great deal about animals. At present I feel like a jungle on wheels!

 

December 12, 1887.

 

I find it hard to realize that Christmas is almost here, in spite of the fact that Helen talks about nothing else. Do you remember what a happy time we had last Christmas?

 

Helen has learned to tell the time at last, and her father is going to give her a watch for Christmas.

 

Helen is as eager to have stories told her as any hearing child I ever knew. She has made me repeat the story of little Red Riding Hood so often that I believe I could say it backward. She likes stories that make her cry—I think we all do, it’s so nice to feel sad when you’ve nothing particular to be sad about. I am teaching her little rhymes and verses, too. They fix beautiful thoughts in her memory. I think, too, that they quicken all the child’s faculties, because they stimulate the imagination. Of course I don’t try to explain everything. If I did, there would be no opportunity for the play of fancy. TOO MUCH EXPLANATION

DIRECTS THE CHILD’S ATTENTION TO WORDS AND SENTENCES, SO THAT HE

FAILS TO GET THE THOUGHT AS A WHOLE. I do not think anyone can read, or talk for that matter, until he forgets words and sentences in the technical sense.

 

January 1, 1888.

 

It is a great thing to feel that you are of some use in the world, that you are necessary to somebody. Helen’s dependence on me for almost everything makes me strong and glad.

 

Christmas week was a very busy one here, too. Helen is invited to all the children’s entertainments, and I take her to as many as I can. I want her to know children and to be with them as much as possible. Several little girls have learned to spell on their fingers and are very proud of the accomplishment. One little chap, about seven, was persuaded to learn the letters, and he spelled his name for Helen. She was delighted, and showed her joy, by hugging and kissing him, much to his embarrassment.

 

Saturday the schoolchildren had their tree, and I took Helen. It was the first Christmas tree she had ever seen, and she was puzzled, and asked many questions. “Who made tree grow in house?

Why? Who put many things on tree?” She objected to its miscellaneous fruits and began to remove them, evidently thinking they were all meant for her. It was not difficult, however, to make her understand that there was a present for each child, and to her great delight she was permitted to hand the gifts to the children. There were several presents for herself. She placed them in a chair, resisting all temptation to look at them until every child had received his gifts. One little girl had fewer presents than the rest, and Helen insisted on sharing her gifts with her. It was very sweet to see the children’s eager interest in Helen, and their readiness to give her pleasure. The exercises began at nine, and it was one o’clock before we could leave. My fingers and head ached; but Helen was as fresh and full of spirit as when we left home.

 

After dinner it began to snow, and we had a good frolic and an interesting lesson about the snow. Sunday morning the ground was covered, and Helen and the cook’s children and I played snowball.

By noon the snow was all gone. It was the first snow I had seen here, and it made me a little homesick. The Christmas season has furnished many lessons, and added scores of new words to Helen’s vocabulary.

 

For weeks we did nothing but talk and read and tell each other stories about Christmas. Of course I do not try to explain all the new words, nor does Helen fully understand the little stories I tell her; but constant repetition fixes the words and phrases in the mind, and little by little the meaning will come to her. I SEE NO SENSE IN “FAKING” CONVERSATION FOR THE SAKE OF TEACHING

LANGUAGE. IT’S STUPID AND DEADENING TO PUPIL AND TEACHER. TALK

SHOULD BE NATURAL AND HAVE FOR ITS OBJECT AN EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.

If there is nothing in the child’s mind to communicate, it hardly seems worth while to require him to write on the blackboard, or spell on his fingers, cut and dried sentences about “the cat,”

“the bird,” “a dog.” I HAVE TRIED FROM THE BEGINNING TO TALK

NATURALLY TO HELEN AND TO TEACH HER TO TELL ME ONLY THINGS THAT

INTEREST HER AND ASK QUESTIONS ONLY FOR THE SAKE OF FINDING OUT

WHAT SHE WANTS TO KNOW. When I see that she is eager to tell me something, but is hampered because she does not know the words, I supply them and the necessary idioms, and we get along finely.

The child’s eagerness and interest carry her over many obstacles that would be our undoing if we stopped to define and explain everything. What would happen, do you think, if some one should try to measure our intelligence by our ability to define the commonest words we use? I fear me, if I were put to such a test, I should be consigned to the primary class in a school for the feeble-minded.

 

It was touching and beautiful to see Helen enjoy her first Christmas. Of course, she hung her stocking—two of them lest Santa Claus should forget one, and she lay awake for a long time and got up two or three times to see if anything had happened.

When I told her that Santa Claus would not come until she was asleep, she shut her eyes and said, “He will think girl is asleep.” She was awake the first thing in the morning, and ran to the fireplace for her stocking; and when she found that Santa Claus had filled both stockings, she danced about for a minute, then grew very quiet, and came to ask me if I thought Santa Claus had made a mistake, and thought