Modern Americans: A Biographical School Reader for the Upper GradesSanford, Chester Milton
General
Modern Americans: A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades
Sanford, Chester Milton
Biography -- Juvenile literature; United States -- Biography
Suddenly she jumped down and ran over to where her mother's cape had
been placed. This cape was trimmed with large beads. The little girl
pulled off two beads and turning to her mother pointed once more to
the doll's face. Then her mother understood that her daughter wanted
the doll to have eyes; so she sewed the beads firmly to the towel and
the little girl was happy.
[Illustration: HELEN KELLER
"Hearing" Caruso Sing]
Are you wondering why the little girl did not talk and tell what she
wanted? She could not. Just think, she was six years old and could not
speak a word! All she could do was to make a few queer sounds.
Perhaps, too, you wonder why she was so anxious for the towel doll to
have eyes. I think it was because although she herself was blind, she
liked to fancy her doll had eyes that could see the beauties of the
world. To be blind and speechless seems hard indeed, but besides
lacking these two great gifts, this little girl was deaf. Think of it!
She could not hear, she could not see, and she could not talk.
Yet this same little girl learned to talk. She learned to read, with
her fingers, books printed for the blind in raised letters. She
studied the same lessons that other children had in school, and she
worked so hard that she was able to go to college.
Should you not like to hear Helen Keller, for that is the name of the
little girl, tell about herself?
She says: "I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of
Northern Alabama. I am told that while I was still in long dresses I
showed many signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. They say I
walked the day I was a year old. My mother had just taken me out of
the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap, when I was suddenly
attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that danced in the
sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from my mother's lap and
almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I fell down, and cried for
her to take me in her arms.
"These happy days did not last long, for an illness came which closed
my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new born
baby. The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however,
the fever left me, but I was never to see or hear again."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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