The Story of My Life, Helen Keller [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

more eloquent than words. My heart, too, was full of gratitude and solemn joy.

The other day Helen came across the word grandfather in a little story and asked her mother, “Where is grandfather?” meaning her grandfather. Mrs. Keller replied, “He is dead.” “Did father shoot him?” Helen asked, and added, “I will eat grandfather for dinner.” So far, her only knowledge of death is in connection with things to eat. She knows that her father shoots partridges and deer and other game.

This morning she asked me the meaning of “carpenter,” and the question furnished the text for the day’s lesson. After talking about the various things that carpenters make, she asked me, “Did carpenter make me?” and before I could answer, she spelled quickly, “No, no, photographer made me in Sheffield.”

One of the greatest iron furnaces has been started in Sheffield, and we went over the other evening to see them make a “run.” Helen felt the heat and asked, “Did the sun fall?”

January 9, 1888.

The report came last night. I appreciate the kind things Mr. Anagnos has said about Helen and me; but his extravagant way of saying them rubs me the wrong way. The simple facts would be so much more convincing! Why, for instance, does he take the trouble to ascribe motives to me that I never dreamed of? You know, and he knows, and I know, that my motive in coming here was not in any sense philanthropic. How ridiculous it is to say I had drunk so copiously of the noble spirit of Dr. Howe that I was fired with the desire to rescue from darkness and obscurity the little Alabamian! I came here simply because circumstances made it necessary for me to earn my living, and I seized upon the first opportunity that offered itself, although I did not suspect nor did he, that I had any special fitness for the work.

January 26, 1888.

I suppose you got Helen’s letter. The little rascal has taken it into her head not to write with a pencil. I wanted her to write to her Uncle Frank this morning, but she objected. She said: “Pencil is very tired in head. I will write Uncle Frank braille letter.” I said, “But Uncle Frank cannot read braille.” “I will teach him,” she said. I explained that Uncle Frank was old, and couldn’t learn braille easily. In a flash she answered, “I think Uncle Frank is much (too) old to read very small letters.” Finally I persuaded her to write a few lines; but she broke her pencil six times before she finished it. I said to her, “You are a naughty girl.” “No,” she replied, “pencil is very weak.” I think her objection to pencil-writing is readily accounted for by the fact that she has been asked to write so many specimens for friends and strangers. You know how the children at the Institution detest it. It is irksome because the process is so slow, and they cannot read what they have written or correct their mistakes.

Helen is more and more interested in colour. When I told her that Mildred’s eyes were blue, she asked, “Are they like wee skies?” A little while after I had told her that a carnation that had been given her was red, she puckered up her mouth and said, “Lips are like one pink.” I told her they were tulips; but of course she didn’t understand the wordplay. I can’t believe that the colour-impressions she received during the year and a half she could see and hear are entirely lost. Everything we have seen and heard is in the mind somewhere. It may be too vague and confused to be recognizable, but it is there all the same, like the landscape we lose in the deepening twilight.

February 10, 1888.

We got home last night. We had a splendid time in Memphis, but I didn’t rest much. It was nothing but excitement from first to last⁠—drives, luncheons, receptions, and all that they involve when you have an eager, tireless child like Helen on your hands. She talked incessantly. I don’t know what I should have done, had some of the young people not learned to talk with her. They relieved me as much as possible. But even then I can never have a quiet half hour to myself. It is always: “Oh, Miss Sullivan, please come and tell us what Helen means,” or “Miss Sullivan, won’t you please explain this to Helen? We can’t make her understand.” I believe half the white population of Memphis called on us. Helen was petted and caressed enough to spoil an angel; but I do not think it is possible to spoil her, she is too unconscious of herself, and too loving.

The stores in Memphis are very good, and I managed to spend all the money that I had with me. One day Helen said, “I must buy Nancy a very pretty hat.” I said, “Very well, we will go shopping this afternoon.” She had a silver dollar and a dime. When we reached the shop, I asked her how much she would pay for Nancy’s hat. She answered promptly, “I will pay ten cents.” “What will you do with the dollar?” I asked. “I will buy some good candy to take to Tuscumbia,” was her reply.

We visited the Stock Exchange and a steamboat. Helen was greatly interested in the boat, and insisted on being shown every inch of it from the engine to the flag on the flagstaff. I was gratified to read what the Nation had to say about Helen last week.

Captain Keller has had two interesting letters since the publication of the “Report,” one from Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, and the other from Dr. Edward Everett Hale. Dr. Hale claims kinship with Helen, and seems very proud of his little cousin. Dr. Bell writes that Helen’s progress is without a parallel in the education of the deaf, or something like that and he says