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The story of my life by Helen Keller (chp#5)

 Story of my life by Helen Keller Chapter Five 

       I recall many incidents of the summer of 1887 that followed my soul's sudden awakening I did nothing but explore with my hands and learn the name of every object that I touched and the more I handled things and learned their names and uses the more joyous

and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the world when the time of daisies and buttercups came miss sullivan took me by the hand across the fields where men were preparing the earth for the seed to the banks of the river tennessee and there sitting on the warm grass I had my first lessons in the beneficence of nature Ilearned how the sun and the rain make to grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food how birds build their nests and live and thrive from land to land how the squirrel the deer the lion and every other creature finds food and shelter as my knowledge of things grew I felt more and more the delight of the world I was in long before I learned to do a summer in arithmetic or describe the shape of the earth ms sullivan had taught me to find beauty in the fragrant woods in every blade of grass and in the curves and dimples of my baby sister's hand she linked my earliest thoughts with nature and made me feel that birds and flowers and I were happy peers but about this time I had an experience which taught me that nature is not always kind one day my teacher and I were returning from a long ramble the morning had been fine but it was growing warm and sultry when at last we turned our faces home wood two or three times we stopped to rest under a tree by the wayside our last halt was under a wild cherry tree a short distance from the house the shade was grateful and the tree was so easy to climb that with my teacher's assistance I was able to scramble to a seat in the branches it was so cool up in the tree that Miss Sullivan proposed that we have our lunch in there I promised to keep still while she went to the house to fetch it suddenly a change passed over the tree all the sun's warmth left the air I knew the sky was black because all the heat which meant light to me had died out of the atmosphere a strange odor came up from the earth I knew it it was the odor that always precedes a thunderstorm and a nameless fear clutched at my heart I felt absolutely alone cut off from my friends and the firm earth the immense the unknown enfolded me I remained still an expectant a chilling terror crept over me I longed for my teacher's return but above all things I wanted to get down from that tree there was a moment of sinister silence then a multitudinous stirring of the leaves a shiver ran through the tree and the wind set forth the blast that would have knocked me off had I not clung to the brunch with might and mane the tree swayed and strained the small twigs snapped and fell about me in showers a wild impulse to jump seize me.

 But terra held me fast I crouched down in the fork of the tree the branches lashed about me I felt the intermittent jarring that came now and then as if something heavy had fallen and the shock had travelled up till it reached the limb I sat on it worked up my suspense up to the highest point and just as I was thinking that the tree and I should fall together my teacher seized my hand and helped me down i clung to her trembling with joy to feel the earth under my feet once more I had learnt a new lesson that nature wages open war against her children and under the softest touch hides treacherous claws after this experience it was a long time before I climbed another tree the mere thought filled me with terror it was the sweet allurement of the mimosa tree in full bloom that finally overcame my fears one beautiful spring morning when I was alone in the summer house reading I became aware of a wonderful subtle fragrance in the air I started up and instinctively stretched out my hands it seemed as if the spirit of spring had passed through the summer house what is it I asked and the next minute I recognized the odor of the mimosa blossoms I felt my way to the end of the garden knowing that the mimosa tree was near the fence at the turn of the path yes there it was all quivering in the warm sunshine its blossom-laden branches almost touching the long grass was there ever anything so inquisitively beautiful in the world before its delicate blossoms shrank from the slightest earthly touch it seemed as if a tree of paradise had been transplanted to earth I made my way through a shower of petals to the great trunk and for one minute stood irresolute then putting my foot in the broad space between the forked branches I pulled myself up into the tree I had some difficulty in holding on for the branches were very large and the bark hurt my hands but I had a delicious sense that I was doing something unusual and wonderful so I kept on climbing higher and higher until I had reached a little seat which somebody had built there so long ago that it had grown a part of the tree itself I sat there for a long long time feeling like a fairy on a rosy cloud after that, I spent many happy hours in my tree of paradise thinking fair thoughts and dreaming bright dreams,

                                                            (End of Chapter.)

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The story of my life by Helen Keller (chp#4)

 Story of my life by Helen Keller chapter four                                   

                 The most important day I remember in all my life is the one in which my teacher and Mansfield Sullivan came to me I am filled with wonder when I consider the

immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it connects it was the third of march 1887 three months before I was seven years old on the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch dumb expectant i guessed vaguely from my mother's sides and from her hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen so I went to the door and waited on the steps the afternoon sun penetrated the massive honeysuckle that covered the porch and fell on my upturned face my fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring did not know that the future held on marble or surprise for me anger and bitterness had preyed on me continually for weeks and a deep language had succeeded this passionate struggle have you ever been at sea in a dense fog when it seemed as if tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship tense and anxious wrote away toward the shore with plummet and sounding mind and you waited with beating heart for something to happen i was like that ship before my education began only I was without compass or sounding light and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was light gives me light as a wordless cry of my soul and the light of love shone on me in that very hour i felt approaching the steps i stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother someone took it and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me and more than all things else to love me the morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll the little blind children at the perkins institution had sent it and laura bridgeman had dressed it but I did not know this until afterward when I had played with it a little while Miss Sullivan slowly spelt into my hand the word d-o-l-l (doll) i was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it when I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll i did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed i was simply making my fingers go in a monkey-like imitation in the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words among them pin hat cup and a few verbs like sit stand and walk but my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name one day while I was playing with my new doll Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also spelled d-o-l-l (doll) and tried to make me understand that doll applied to both earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words mug and water Miss Sullivan had tried to impress upon me that m-u-g is a (mug) and that w-a-t-e-r is (water) but I persisted in confounding the two in despair, she dropped the subject for at the time only to renew it at the first opportunity i became impatient at her repeated attempts and seizing the new doll I dashed it upon the floor I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst I had not loved the doll in the still dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness i felt my teachers sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed she brought me my hat and I knew I was going outside into the warm sunshine.

 this thought if a wordless sensation may be called a thought made me hop and skip with pleasure walked down the path to the good house attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout as the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water first slowly then rapidly i stood still my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten a thrill of returning thought and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me i knew then that w a t e r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand that living world awakened my soul gave it light hope joy set it free there were barriers still it is true but barriers could in time be swept away i left the good house eager to learn everything had a name and each name gave birth to a new thought as we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life that was because I saw everything with the strange new sight that had come to me on entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken i felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces i tried vainly to put them together then my eyes filled with tears for I realized what I had done and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow i learned to grate many new words that day I do not remember what they all were but I do know that mother father sister teacher was among them words that were to make the world blossom for me like aaron's rod with flowers it would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys.

                                                         ( End of Chapter )

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The story of my life by Helen Keller (Chp#3)

 Story of my life by Helen Keller Chapter 3   

                     Meanwhile, the desire to express myself grew the few signs I used became less and less adequate and my failures to make myself understood were invariably

followed by outbursts of passion I felt as if invisible hands were holding me and I made frantic efforts to free myself i struggled not that struggling helped matters but the spirit of resistance was strong within me i generally broke down in tears and physical exhaustion if my mother happened to be in here I crept into her arms too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest after a while the need for some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily sometimes hourly my parents were deeply grieved and perplexed we lived a long way from any school for the blind or the deaf and it seemed unlikely that anyone would come to such an out-of-the-way place as tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind indeed my friends and relatives sometimes doubted as to whether I could be taught my mother's only rare hope came from dickens's american notes she had read his account at laura bridgeman and remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind and yet had been educated but she also remembered with a hopeless pain that dr howell who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind had been dead for many years his methods had probably died with him and if they had not I was a little girl in a flower of town in alabama to receive the benefit of them when I was about six years old my father heard of an eminent oculus in Baltimore who had been successful in many cases that it seemed hopeless my parents at once determined to take me to baltimore to see if anything could be done for my eyes the journey which I remember well was very pleasant i made friends with many people on the train one lady gave me a box of shells my father made holes in these so that I could string them and for a long time they kept me happy and contented the conductor too was kind of when he went his rounds i clung to his coattails while he collected and punched the tickets his punch which he let me play was a delightful toy curled up in a corner of the seat I amused me for hours making funny little holes in bits of cardboard my aunt made me a big doll out of towels it was the most comical shapeless thing this improvised doll with no nose mouth ears or eyes nothing that even the imagination of a child could convert into a face curiously enough the absence of ice struck me more than all the other defects put together i pointed this out to everybody with provoking persistency but no one seemed equal to the task of providing the doll with eyes a bright idea however shot into my mind and the problem was solved I tumbled off the seat and searched under it.

 Until I found my aunt's cape which was trimmed with large beads i pulled two beads off and indicated to her that I wanted to sew them on my doll she raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way and I nodded nodded energetically the beads were sewed in the right place and I could not contain myself for joy but immediately I lost all interest in the doll during the trip I did not have one fit of temper there were so many things to keep my mind and fingers busy when we arrived in baltimore dr chisholm received us kindly but he could do nothing he said however that I could be educated and advised my father to consult dr alexander graham bell of Washington who would be able to give him some information about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children acting on the doctor's advice we went immediately to washington to see dr bill my father with a sad heart and many misgivings i wholly unconscious of his anguish finding pleasure in the excitement of moving from place to place child as I was i at once felt the tenderness and sympathy endeavored dr bell to so many hearts as his wonderful achievements enlist their admiration he held me on his knee while I examined his watch and he made it strike for me he understood my signs and I knew it and loved him at once but I did not dream that that interview would be the door through which I would pass from darkness into the light from isolation to friendship companionship knowledge and Dr Bill advised my father to write to Mr Anagnos director of the Perkins institution in Boston the scene of doctor howe's great labors for the blind and asked him if he had a teacher competent to begin my education this, my father, did it once and in a few weeks there came to a kind letter from Mr ronagnos with comforting assurance that a teacher had been found this was in the summer of 1886 but miss sullivan did not arrive until the following march thus I came out of egypt and stood before sinai and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight so that I beheld many wonders and from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said knowledge is love and light and vision.

                                                        (End of Chapter.)

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The Story Of My Life By Helen Keller (Chp#2)

 Story of my life by Helen Keller Chapter Two

  I cannot recall what happened during the first month after my illness I only know that I sat

in my mother's lap or clung to her dress as she went about her household duties my hands felt every object and observed every emotion and in this way, I learned to know many things soon I felt the need for some communication with others and began to make crude signs a shake of the head meant no and a nod yes a pool meant come and a push go was it bread that I wanted then I would imitate the acts of cutting the slices and buttering them if I wanted my mother to make ice cream for dinner, I made the sign for working the freezer and shivered to indicate cold my mother moreover succeeded in making me understand a good deal I always knew when she wished me to bring her something and I would run upstairs or anywhere else she indicated indeed I owe to her loving wisdom all that was bright and good in my long night i understood a great deal of what was going on about me at five I learned to fold and put away the clean clothes when they were brought in from the laundry and I distinguished my own from the rest i knew by the way my mother aren't dressed when they were going out and I invariably begged to go with them i was always sent for when there was company and when guests took their leave i waved my hand to them I think in vague remembrance of the meaning of the gesture one day some gentleman called on my mother and I felt the shutting of the front door and other sounds that indicated their arrival on a sudden thought, I ran upstairs before anyone could stop me to put on my idea of a company dress standing before the mirror as I had seen others do i anointed my head with oil covered my face thickly with powder then I pinned a veil over my head so that it covered my face and fell in the falls down to my shoulders and tied an enormous bustle around my waist so that it dangled behind almost meeting the hem in my skirt thus the tired I went down to help entertain the company i do not remember when I first realized that I was different from other people but I knew it before my teacher came to me i noticed that my mother and my friends did not use signs as I did when they wanted anything done but talked with their mouths sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and touched their lips i could not understand and was vexed i moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result this made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was exhausted i think I knew when I was naughty for I knew that it hurt ella my nurse to kick her and when a fit of timber was over I had a feeling akin to regret but I cannot remember any instance in which this feeling prevented me from repeating the naughtiness when I failed to get what I wanted in those days a little colored girl martha Washington.

 The child of ourcook and belle an old setter and a great hunter in her day were my constant companions martha washington understood my signs and I seldom had any difficulty in making her do just as I wished it pleased me to domineer over her and she generally submitted to my tyranny rather than risk a hand-to-hand encounter i was strong active indifferent to the i knew my own mind well enough and always had my own way even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it we spent a great deal of time in the kitchen kneading dough balls helping make ice cream grinding coffee quarreling over the cake bowl and feeding hens and turkeys that swarmed about the kitchen steps many of them were so tamed that they would eat from my hand and let me feel them one big gobbler snatched a tomato for me one day and ran away with it inspired perhaps by master goblin's success we carried off to the wood pile a cake which the cook had just frosted and ate every bit of it i was quite ill afterward and I wonder if retribution also overtook the turkey the guinea fowl likes to hide her nest in out of the way places and it was one of my greatest delights to hunt for the eggs in the long grass i could not tell martha washington when i wanted to go egg hunting but I would double my hands and put them on the ground which meant something round in the grass and martha always understood when we were fortunate enough to find a nest I never allowed her to carry the eggs home making her understand by emphatic signs that she might fall and break them the sheds where the corn was stored the stable where the horses were kept and the yard where the cows were milked morning and evening were unfailing sources of interest to martha and me the milkers would let me keep my hands on the cows while they milked and I often got well switched by the cows for my curiosity the making ready for christmas was always a delight to me of course I did not know what it was all about but I enjoyed the pleasant odors that fill the house and the tidbits that were given to martha washington and me to keep us quiet we were sadly in the way but that did not interfere with our pleasure in the least they allowed us to grind the spices pick over the raisins and lick the stirring spoons i hung my stockings because the others did I cannot remember however that the ceremony interested me especially nor did my curiosity cause me to wake before daylight to look for my gifts martha washington had a greater love of mischief as I two little children were seated on the

veranda steps one hot july afternoon one was black as ebony with little bunches of fuzzy hair tied with shoestrings sticking out all over her head like a corkscrew the other was white with long golden curls one child was six years old the other two or three years older the younger child was blind that was I and the other was martha Washington we were busy cutting out paper dolls but we soon grew weary of this amusement and after cutting up our shoe strings and clipping all the leaves of this honeysuckle within reach I turned my attention to martha's corkscrews she objected at first but finally submitted thinking that turn and turnabout is fair play she sees the scissors and cut off one of my curls and would have cut them all off but for my mother's timely interference belle our dog my other companion was old and lazy and like to sleep by the open fire rather than to romp with me i tried hard to teach her my sign language but she was dull and inattentive she sometimes started and quivered with excitement then she became perfectly rigid as dogs do when they point a bird i did not then know why belle acted in this way but I knew she was not doing as i wished this begs me and the lesson always ended in a one-sided boxing match bell would get up stretch yourself lazily give one or two contemptuous sniffs go to the opposite side of the hearth and lie down and I wearied and disappointed went off in search of Martha many incidents of those early years are fixed in my memory isolated but clear and distinct making the sense of that silent aimless dayless life all the more intense one day I happened to spill water on my apron and I spread it out to dry before the fire which was flickering in the sitting room half the apron did not dry quickly enough to suit me so I drew nearer and threw it right over the hot ashes the fire lipped into life the flames encircled me so that in a moment my clothes were blazing I made a terrified noise that brought vinnie my old nurse to the rescue throwing a blanket over me she almost suffocated me but she put out the fire except for my hands and hair, I was not badly burnt about this time I found out the use of a key one morning I locked my mother up in a pantry where she was obliged to remain three hours as the servants were in the detached part of the house she kept pounding on the door while I sat outside the porch steps and laughed with a glare as I felt the jar of pounding this most naughty prank of mine convinced my parents that I must be taught as soon as possible after my teacher miss sullivan came to me I sought an early opportunity to lock her in her room i went upstairs with something which my mother made me understand I was to give to miss sullivan but no sooner had I given it to her then i slammed the door locked it and hid the key under the wardrobe in the hall i could not be induced to tell where the key was my father was obliged to get a ladder and take miss sullivan out through the window much to my delight months after I produced the ghee when I was about five years old we moved from the little vine-covered house to a large new one the family consisted of my father and mother two older half-brothers and afterward little sister Mildred my earliest distinct recollection of my father is making my way through great drifts of newspaper to his side and finding him alone holding a sheet of paper before his face i was greatly puzzled to know what he was doing I imitated this action even wearing his spectacles thinking they might help solve the mystery but I did not find out the secret for several years then I learned what those papers were and that my father edited one of them my father was most loving and indulgent devoted to his home seldom leaving us except in the hunting season he was a great hunter I have been told in a celebrated shot next to his family he loved his dogs and gun his hospitality was great almost to a fault and he seldom came home without bringing a guest his special pride was the big garden.

 where it was said he raised the finest watermelons and strawberries in the country and to me, he bought the first ripe grapes and choices berries i remember his caressing touch as he led me from tree to tree from vine to vine and his eager delight in whatever pleased me he was a famous storyteller after I had acquired language he used to spell clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes and nothing pleased him more than to have me repeat them at an opportune moment i was in the north enjoying the last beautiful days of summer in 1896 when I heard the news of my father's death he had had a short illness there had been a brief time of acute suffering then all was over this was my first great sorrow my first personal experience with death how shall I write in my mother she's so near to me that it almost seems indelicate to speak of her for a long time, I regarded my little sister as an intruder i knew that I had ceased to be my mother's only darling and the thought filled me with jealousy she sat in my mother's lap constantly where I used to sit and seemed to take up all her care and time one day something happened which seemed to me to be adding insult to injury at that time I had a much petted much abused doll which I afterward named nancy she was alas the helpless victim of my outburst of temper and of affection so that she became much the worse for wear i had dolls that talked and cried and opened and shut their eyes yet often spent an hour or more rocking her i guarded both doll and cradle with the most jealous care but once I discovered my little sister sleeping peacefully in the cradle at this presumption on the part of one to whom as yet no tie of love bound me I grew angry i rushed upon the cradle and overturned it and the baby might have been killed as my mother not catch her as she fell thus it is when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the tender affections that grow out of enduring words and actions and companionship but afterwards when I was restored to my human heritage mildred and I grew into each other's hearts so that we would content to go hand in hand wherever caprice led us although she could not understand my finger language Nora her childish battle. 

End of the chapter.

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