Library Collections: Document: Full Text

My father was most loving and indulgent. He was devoted to his home, and seldom left us, except in the hunting season. He was a great hunter, I have been told, and a celebrated shot. Next to his family he loved his dogs and gun. He was hospitable almost to a fault, and seldom came home without bringing a guest. He was also proud of his garden, where, it was said, he raised the finest watermelons and strawberries in the county; and to me he brought the first ripe grapes and the choicest berries. I remember his caressing touch as he led me from tree to tree and vine to vine, and his eager delight in whatever pleased me.

My father was a famous story-teller, and 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 a happy summer, 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 of my mother? She is so near to me that it almost seems indelicate to speak of her. We never dream of comparing our mother to another; it is enough that she is our mother -- the being in whose beneficent tenderness is security and joy. To describe her would be like attempting to put into words the fragrance of a flower or the smile on a beloved face.

"In the Valley of Twofold Solitude"

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 I regarded as 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 outbursts of temper and of affection, so that she became much the worse for wear. I had dolls which talked, and cried, and opened and shut their eyes; but I never loved one of them as I loved poor Nancy. She had a cradle, and I 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. My anger at this presumption on the part of one to whom as yet no tie of love bound me can be better imagined than described. I rushed upon the cradle and overturned it, and the baby might have been killed had my mother not caught her as she fell. Thus it is that when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know nothing of the tender affections that grow out of endearing words and actions and companionship. Afterward, when I was restored to my human heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts, so that we were content to go hand-in-hand wherever caprice led us, although she could not understand my finger language, nor I her baby chatter.

Taking Steps Toward an Education

THE desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used became less and less adequate to convey these wants. My failures to make myself understood were invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and 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 near I crept into her arms, too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest. After a while the need of some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily and 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 any one would come to an out-of-the-way place like Tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind. Indeed, my parents sometimes doubted whether I could be taught. Their only ray of hope came from Dickens's "American Notes." My mother had read his account of Laura Bridgman, and remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet had been educated. But she also remembered with a hopeless pang that Doctor Howe, of Boston, who had brought Laura Bridgman back into the world, had been dead for many years. His methods had probably died with him; but even if they had not, how was a little girl in a far-off town in Alabama to receive the benefit of them?

Incidents of the First Long Journey

WHEN I was about six years old my father heard of an eminent oculist in Baltimore, who had been successful in many cases that had seemed quite hopeless. My parents at once determined to take me to Baltimore to see if anything could be done for my eyes.