Laura’s progress was so rapid that she became a world wonder and took Howe in her wake into a new province of fame. It must not be thought that Laura Bridgman was Howe’s only preoccupation. In 1841 Laura formed a strong friendship with Oliver Caswell, a blind deaf-mute of eight who was brought to the Asylum. “Another important friendship of her childhood,” says Mrs. Richards, “was that which she formed with Oliver Caswell, a blind deaf-mute boy whom my father discovered and brought to the Institution in 1841. He was then eight years old, a comely and healthy child, blind and deaf from early infancy, and had received no special instruction.”... “Laura herself,” says Dr. Howe, “took great interest and pleasure in assisting those who undertook the tedious task of instructing him. She loved to take his brawny hand with her slender fingers, and show him how to shape the mysterious signs which were to become to him keys of knowledge and methods of expressing his wants, his feelings, and his thoughts.... Patiently, trustingly, without knowing why or wherefore, he willingly submitted to the strange process. Curiosity, sometimes amounting to wonder, was depicted on his countenance, over which smiles would spread ever and anon; and he would laugh heartily as he comprehended some new fact, or got hold of a new idea. “No scene in a long life has left more vivid and pleasant impressions upon my mind than did that of these two young children of nature helping each other to work their way through the thick wall which cut them off from intelligible and sympathetic relations with all their fellow-creatures. They must have felt as if immured in a dark and silent cell, through chinks in the wall of which they got a few vague and incomprehensible signs of the existence of persons like themselves in form and nature. Would that the picture could be drawn vividly enough to impress the minds of others as strongly and pleasantly as it did my own! I seem now to see the two, sitting side by side at a school desk, with a piece of pasteboard, embossed with tangible signs representing letters, before them and under their hands. I see Laura grasping one of Oliver’s stout hands with her long graceful fingers, and guiding his forefinger along the outline while, with her other hand, she feels the changes in the features of his face, to find whether, by any motion of the lips or expanding smile, he shows any sign of understanding the lesson: while her own handsome and expressive face is turned eagerly toward his, every feature of her countenance absolutely radiant with intense emotions, among which curiosity and hope shine most brightly. Oliver, with his head thrown a little back, shows curiosity amounting to wonder; and his parted lips and relaxing facial muscles express keen pleasure, until they beam with that fun and drollery which always characterize him.”...