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

for writing letters and putting her thoughts upon paper grows more intense. She now tells stories in which the imagination plays an important part. She is also beginning to realize that she is not like other children. The other day she asked, “What do my eyes do?” I told her that I could see things with my eyes, and that she could see them with her fingers. After thinking a moment she said, “My eyes are bad!” then she changed it into “My eyes are sick!”

Miss Sullivan’s first report, which was published in the official report of the Perkins Institution for the year 1887, is a short summary of what is fully recorded in the letters. Here follows the last part, beginning with the great day, April 5th, when Helen learned water.

In her reports Miss Sullivan speaks of “lessons” as if they came in regular order. This is the effect of putting it all in a summary. “Lesson” is too formal for the continuous daily work.

One day I took her to the cistern. As the water gushed from the pump I spelled “w-a-t-e-r.” Instantly she tapped my hand for a repetition, and then made the word herself with a radiant face. Just then the nurse came into the cistern-house bringing her little sister. I put Helen’s hand on the baby and formed the letters “b-a-b-y,” which she repeated without help and with the light of a new intelligence in her face.

On our way back to the house everything she touched had to be named for her, and repetition was seldom necessary. Neither the length of the word nor the combination of letters seems to make any difference to the child. Indeed, she remembers heliotrope and chrysanthemum more readily than she does shorter names. At the end of August she knew 625 words.

This lesson was followed by one on words indicative of place-relations. Her dress was put in a trunk, and then on it, and these prepositions were spelled for her. Very soon she learned the difference between on and in, though it was some time before she could use these words in sentences of her own. Whenever it was possible she was made the actor in the lesson, and was delighted to stand on the chair, and to be put into the wardrobe. In connection with this lesson she learned the names of the members of the family and the word is. “Helen is in wardrobe,” “Mildred is in crib,” “Box is on table,” “Papa is on bed,” are specimens of sentences constructed by her during the latter part of April.

Next came a lesson on words expressive of positive quality. For the first lesson I had two balls, one made of worsted, large and soft, the other a bullet. She perceived the difference in size at once. Taking the bullet she made her habitual sign for small⁠—that is, by pinching a little bit of the skin of one hand. Then she took the other ball and made her sign for large by spreading both hands over it. I substituted the adjectives large and small for those signs. Then her attention was called to the hardness of the one ball and the softness of the other, and she learned soft and hard. A few minutes afterward she felt of her little sister’s head and said to her mother, “Mildred’s head is small and hard.” Next I tried to teach her the meaning of fast and slow. She helped me wind some worsted one day, first rapidly and afterward slowly. I then said to her with the finger alphabet, “wind fast,” or “wind slow,” holding her hands and showing her how to do as I wished. The next day, while exercising, she spelled to me, “Helen wind fast,” and began to walk rapidly. Then she said, “Helen wind slow,” again suiting the action to the words.

I now thought it time to teach her to read printed words. A slip on which was printed, in raised letters, the word box was placed on the object, and the same experiment was tried with a great many articles, but she did not immediately comprehend that the label-name represented the thing. Then I took an alphabet sheet and put her finger on the letter A, at the same time making A with my fingers. She moved her finger from one printed character to another as I formed each letter on my fingers. She learned all the letters, both capital and small, in one day. Next I turned to the first page of the primer and made her touch the word cat, spelling it on my fingers at the same time. Instantly she caught the idea, and asked me to find dog and many other words. Indeed, she was much displeased because I could not find her name in the book. Just then I had no sentences in raised letters which she could understand; but she would sit for hours feeling each word in her book. When she touched one with which she was familiar, a 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