Chapter IV
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The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I sider the immeasubbr></abbr>rable trasts betweewo lives which it ects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.Oernoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expet. I guessed vaguely from my mothers 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 oeps. The afternoon surated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just e forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed up<samp>?99ｌib.</samp>on me tinually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passioruggle.
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 beati for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without pass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how he harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless y soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
I felt approag footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Some oook it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had e to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.
The m after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. 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.
When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I w<q>9９ｌｉb.</q>as at oerested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I elling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learo spell in this unprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk.
But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I uood that everything has a name.
One day, while I laying with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me uand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the <mark>?</mark>words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upohat "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in founding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to re at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. her sorrow nret followed my passioburst. I had not loved the doll. Iill, dark world in which I lived there was n se or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfa that the cause of my disfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshihis thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
We walked dowh to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand uhe spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upoions<u>9９lib?</u> of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty sciousness as of something fotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I khen that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word
awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and eaame gave birth to a hought. As we returo the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had e to me. Oering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentand sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me, "like Aarons rod, with flowers." It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to e.
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