Library Collections: Document: Full Text

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, and often when he went his rounds I would cling to his coat-tails while he collected and punched the tickets. His punch, with which he let me play, was a great delight. Curled up in a corner of the seat I amused myself for hours making funny little holes in bits of cardboard. Some one else 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 eyes 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. However, a bright idea came to my mind, and the problem was solved. I tumbled off my 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 my aunt that I wanted her to sew them on my doll. She raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way, and I nodded energetically. The beads were sewed in the right place and I could not contain myself for joy; but immediately the doll lost all interest for me. During the whole trip I did not have one fit of temper, there were so many things to keep my mind and fingers busy.

A Meeting with Dr. A. Graham Bell

DOCTOR CHISHOLM received us kindly, but 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 information about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children. Therefore, in accordance with the doctor's suggestion, we went to Washington to see Doctor Bell, my father with a sad heart and many misgivings, and 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 which endeared Doctor Bell to so many hearts, as his wonderful achievements enlist their enthusiastic 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 should pass from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.

Doctor Bell advised my father to write to the principal of the Perkins Institution, in Boston, the scene of Doctor Howe's great labors for the blind, and ask him if he had a teacher competent to begin my education. This my father did immediately, and in a few weeks there came a kind letter from Mr. Anagnos with the 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.

Then I came up 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."