I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word “ d- o- l- l.” I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it but I did not know this until afterward. The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me. I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. “Light! give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. I guessed vaguely from my mother’s signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. It then goes on to chronicle her days as a college student.(in PDF, epub, and Kindle ebook formats) Chapter 4 It includes how she came to meet her teacher Ann Sullivan, and learnt to communicate using the manual alphabet. The Story of My Life is a personal account of Helen Keller's life, from her early days to those as an adult. Download cover art Download CD case insert The Story of My Life
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