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

Helen is almost as eager to read as she is to talk. I find she grasps the import of whole sentences, catching from the context the meaning of words she doesn’t know; and her eager questions indicate the outward reaching of her mind and its unusual powers.

The other night when I went to bed, I found Helen sound asleep with a big book clasped tightly in her arms. She had evidently been reading, and fallen asleep. When I asked her about it in the morning, she said, “Book⁠—cry,” and completed her meaning by shaking and other signs of fear. I taught her the word afraid, and she said: “Helen is not afraid. Book is afraid. Book will sleep with girl.” I told her that the book wasn’t afraid, and must sleep in its case, and that “girl” mustn’t read in bed. She looked very roguish, and apparently understood that I saw through her ruse.

I am glad Mr. Anagnos thinks so highly of me as a teacher. But “genius” and “originality” are words we should not use lightly. If, indeed, they apply to me even remotely, I do not see that I deserve any laudation on that account.

And right here I want to say something which is for your ears alone. Something within me tells me that I shall succeed beyond my dreams. Were it not for some circumstances that make such an idea highly improbable, even absurd, I should think Helen’s education would surpass in interest and wonder Dr. Howe’s achievement. I know that she has remarkable powers, and I believe that I shall be able to develop and mould them. I cannot tell how I know these things. I had no idea a short time ago how to go to work; I was feeling about in the dark; but somehow I know now, and I know that I know. I cannot explain it; but when difficulties arise, I am not perplexed or doubtful. I know how to meet them; I seem to divine Helen’s peculiar needs. It is wonderful.

Already people are taking a deep interest in Helen. No one can see her without being impressed. She is no ordinary child, and people’s interest in her education will be no ordinary interest. Therefore let us be exceedingly careful what we say and write about her. I shall write freely to you and tell you everything, on one condition: It is this: you must promise never to show my letters to anyone. My beautiful Helen shall not be transformed into a prodigy if I can help it.

June 5, 1887.

The heat makes Helen languid and quiet. Indeed, the Tophetic weather has reduced us all to a semiliquid state. Yesterday Helen took off her clothes and sat in her skin all the afternoon. When the sun got round to the window where she was sitting with her book, she got up impatiently and shut the window. But when the sun came in just the same, she came over to me with a grieved look and spelled emphatically: “Sun is bad boy. Sun must go to bed.”

She is the dearest, cutest little thing now, and so loving! One day, when I wanted her to bring me some water, she said: “Legs very tired. Legs cry much.”

She is much interested in some little chickens that are pecking their way into the world this morning. I let her hold a shell in her hand, and feel the chicken “chip, chip.” Her astonishment, when she felt the tiny creature inside, cannot be put in a letter. The hen was very gentle, and made no objection to our investigations. Besides the chickens, we have several other additions to the family⁠—two calves, a colt, and a penful of funny little pigs. You would be amused to see me hold a squealing pig in my arms, while Helen feels it all over, and asks countless questions⁠—questions not easy to answer either. After seeing the chicken come out of the egg, she asked: “Did baby pig grow in egg? Where are many shells?”

Helen’s head measures twenty and one-half inches, and mine measures twenty-one and one-half inches. You see, I’m only one inch ahead!

June 12, 1887.

The weather continues hot. Helen is about the same⁠—pale and thin; but you mustn’t think she is really ill. I am sure the heat, and not the natural, beautiful activity of her mind, is responsible for her condition. Of course, I shall not overtax her brain. We are bothered a good deal by people who assume the responsibility of the world when God is neglectful. They tell us that Helen is “overdoing,” that her mind is too active (these very people thought she had no mind at all a few months ago!) and suggest many absurd and impossible remedies. But so far nobody seems to have thought of chloroforming her, which is, I think, the only effective way of stopping the natural exercise of her faculties. It’s queer how ready people always are with advice in any real or imaginary emergency, and no matter how many times experience has shown them to be wrong, they continue to set forth their opinions, as if they had received them from the Almighty!

I am teaching Helen the square-hand letters as a sort of diversion. It gives her something to do, and keeps her quiet, which I think is desirable while this enervating weather lasts. She has a perfect mania for counting. She has counted everything in the house, and is now busy counting the words in her primer. I hope it will not occur to her to count the hairs of her head. If she could see and hear, I suppose she would get rid of her superfluous energy in ways which would not, perhaps, tax her brain so much, although I suspect that the ordinary child takes his play pretty seriously. The little fellow who whirls his “New York Flyer” round the nursery, making “horseshoe curves” undreamed of by less imaginative engineers, is