The Story of My Life: With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert MacyKeller, Helen
General
The Story of My Life: With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy
Keller, Helen
Deafblind women -- United States -- Biography; Keller, Helen, 1880-1968
Mr. Anagnos, who loved me tenderly, thinking that he had been deceived,
turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of love and innocence. He believed,
or at least suspected, that Miss Sullivan and I had deliberately stolen
the bright thoughts of another and imposed them on him to win his
admiration. I was brought before a court of investigation composed of
the teachers and officers of the Institution, and Miss Sullivan was
asked to leave me. Then I was questioned and cross-questioned with what
seemed to me a determination on the part of my judges to force me to
acknowledge that I remembered having had "The Frost Fairies" read to
me. I felt in every question the doubt and suspicion that was in
their minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me
reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words. The
blood pressed about my thumping heart, and I could scarcely speak,
except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it was only a
dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when at last I was
allowed to leave the room, I was dazed and did not notice my teacher's
caresses, or the tender words of my friends, who said I was a brave
little girl and they were proud of me.
As I lay in my bed that night, I wept as I hope few children have wept.
I felt so cold, I imagined I should die before morning, and the thought
comforted me. I think if this sorrow had come to me when I was older,
it would have broken my spirit beyond repairing. But the angel of
forgetfulness has gathered up and carried away much of the misery and
all the bitterness of those sad days.
Miss Sullivan had never heard of "The Frost Fairies" or of the book
in which it was published. With the assistance of Dr. Alexander Graham
Bell, she investigated the matter carefully, and at last it came out
that Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins had a copy of Miss Canby's "Birdie and
His Friends" in 1888, the year that we spent the summer with her at
Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to find her copy; but she has told me
that at that time, while Miss Sullivan was away on a vacation, she tried
to amuse me by reading from various books, and although she could not
remember reading "The Frost Fairies" any more than I, yet she felt
sure that "Birdie and His Friends" was one of them. She explained the
disappearance of the book by the fact that she had a short time
before sold her house and disposed of many juvenile books, such as
old schoolbooks and fairy tales, and that "Birdie and His Friends" was
probably among them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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