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
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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
My Dear Miss Marrett--I am thinking about a dear little girl, who
wept very hard. She wept because her brother teased her very
much. I will tell you what he did, and I think you will feel very
sorry for the little child. She had a most beautiful doll given
her. Oh, it was a lovely and delicate doll! but the little girl's
brother, a tall lad, had taken the doll, and set it up in a high
tree in the garden, and had run away. The little girl could not
reach the doll, and could not help it down, and therefore she
cried. The doll cried, too, and stretched out its arms from among
the green branches, and looked distressed. Soon the dismal night
would come--and was the doll to sit up in the tree all night, and
by herself? The little girl could not endure that thought. "I
will stay with you," said she to the doll, although she was not
at all courageous. Already she began to see quite plainly the
little elves in their tall pointed hats, dancing down the dusky
alleys, and peeping from between the bushes, and they seemed to
come nearer and nearer; and she stretched her hands up towards
the tree in which the doll sat and they laughed, and pointed
their fingers at her. How terrified was the little girl; but if
one has not done anything wrong, these strange little elves
cannot harm one. "Have I done anything wrong? Ah, yes!" said the
little girl. "I have laughed at the poor duck, with the red rag
tied round its leg. It hobbled, and that made me laugh; but it is
wrong to laugh at the poor animals!"
Is it not a pitiful story? I hope the father punished the naughty
little boy. Shall you be very glad to see my teacher next
Thursday? She is going home to rest, but she will come back to me
next autumn.
Lovingly, your little friend,
HELEN ADAMS KELLER.
TO MISS MARY E. RILEY
Tuscumbia, Ala., May 27, 1889.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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