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

sound. All present were astonished when she appeared not only to hear a whistle, but also an ordinary tone of voice. She would turn her head, smile, and act as though she had heard what was said. I was then standing beside her, holding her hand. Thinking that she was receiving impressions from me, I put her hands upon the table, and withdrew to the opposite side of the room. The aurists then tried their experiments with quite different results. Helen remained motionless through them all, not once showing the least sign that she realized what was going on. At my suggestion, one of the gentlemen took her hand, and the tests were repeated. This time her countenance changed whenever she was spoken to, but there was not such a decided lighting up of the features as when I had held her hand.

In the account of Helen last year it was stated that she knew nothing about death, or the burial of the body; yet on entering a cemetery for the first time in her life, she showed signs of emotion⁠—her eyes actually filling with tears.

A circumstance equally remarkable occurred last summer; but, before relating it, I will mention what she now knows with regard to death. Even before I knew her, she had handled a dead chicken, or bird, or some other small animal. Some time after the visit to the cemetery before referred to, Helen became interested in a horse that had met with an accident by which one of his legs had been badly injured, and she went daily with me to visit him. The wounded leg soon became so much worse that the horse was suspended from a beam. The animal groaned with pain, and Helen, perceiving his groans, was filled with pity. At last it became necessary to kill him, and, when Helen next asked to go and see him, I told her that he was dead. This was the first time that she had heard the word. I then explained that he had been shot to relieve him from suffering, and that he was now buried⁠—put into the ground. I am inclined to believe that the idea of his having been intentionally shot did not make much impression upon her; but I think she did realize the fact that life was extinct in the horse as in the dead birds she had touched, and also that he had been put into the ground. Since this occurrence, I have used the word dead whenever occasion required, but with no further explanation of its meaning.

While making a visit at Brewster, Massachusetts, she one day accompanied my friend and me through the graveyard. She examined one stone after another, and seemed pleased when she could decipher a name. She smelt of the flowers, but showed no desire to pluck them; and, when I gathered a few for her, she refused to have them pinned on her dress. When her attention was drawn to a marble slab inscribed with the name Florence in relief, she dropped upon the ground as though looking for something, then turned to me with a face full of trouble, and asked, “Where is poor little Florence?” I evaded the question, but she persisted. Turning to my friend, she asked, “Did you cry loud for poor little Florence?” Then she added: “I think she is very dead. Who put her in big hole?” As she continued to ask these distressing questions, we left the cemetery. Florence was the daughter of my friend, and was a young lady at the time of her death; but Helen had been told nothing about her, nor did she even know that my friend had had a daughter. Helen had been given a bed and carriage for her dolls, which she had received and used like any other gift. On her return to the house after her visit to the cemetery, she ran to the closet where these toys were kept, and carried them to my friend, saying, “They are poor little Florence’s.” This was true, although we were at a loss to understand how she guessed it. A letter written to her mother in the course of the following week gave an account of her impression in her own words:

“I put my little babies to sleep in Florence’s little bed, and I take them to ride in her carriage. Poor little Florence is dead. She was very sick and died. Mrs. H. did cry loud for her dear little child. She got in the ground, and she is very dirty, and she is cold. Florence was very lovely like Sadie, and Mrs. H. kissed her and hugged her much. Florence is very sad in big hole. Doctor gave her medicine to make her well, but poor Florence did not get well. When she was very sick she tossed and moaned in bed. Mrs. H. will go to see her soon.”

Notwithstanding the activity of Helen’s mind, she is a very natural child. She is fond of fun and frolic, and loves dearly to be with other children. She is never fretful or irritable, and I have never seen her impatient with her playmates because they failed to understand her. She will play for hours together with children who cannot understand a single word she spells, and it is pathetic to watch the eager gestures and excited pantomime through which her ideas and emotions find expression. Occasionally some little boy or girl will try to learn the manual alphabet. Then it is beautiful to observe with what patience, sweetness, and perseverance Helen endeavours to bring the unruly fingers of her little friend into proper position.

One day, while Helen was wearing a little jacket of which she was very proud, her mother said: “There is a poor little girl who has no cloak to keep her warm. Will you give her yours?” Helen began to pull off the jacket, saying, “I must give it to a poor little strange girl.”

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