Meanwhile the desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used became
less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself understood were
invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if invisible
hands were holding me, and I made frantic efforts to free myself.
I struggled--not that struggling helped matters, but the spirit of
resistance was strong within me; I generally broke down in tears and
physical exhaustion. If my mother happened to be near I crept into her
arms, too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest. After
awhile the need of some means of communication became so urgent that
these outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.
My parents were deeply grieved and perplexed. We lived a long way from
any school for the blind or the deaf, and it seemed unlikely that any
one would come to such an out-of-the-way place as Tuscumbia to teach
a child who was both deaf and blind. Indeed, my friends and relatives
sometimes doubted whether I could be taught. My mother's only ray of
hope came from Dickens's "American Notes." She had read his account of
Laura Bridgman, and remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet
had been educated. But she also remembered with a hopeless pang that Dr.
Howe, who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind, had been
dead many years. His methods had probably died with him; and if they had
not, how was a little girl in a far-off town in Alabama to receive the
benefit of them?
When I was about six years old, my father heard of an eminent oculist
in Baltimore, who had been successful in many cases that had seemed
hopeless. My parents at once determined to take me to Baltimore to see
if anything could be done for my eyes.
The journey, which I remember well, was very pleasant. I made friends
with many people on the train. One lady gave me a box of shells. My
father made holes in these so that I could string them, and for a long
time they kept me happy and contented. The conductor, too, was kind.
Often when he went his rounds I clung to his coat tails while he
collected and punched the tickets. His punch, with which he let me play,
was a delightful toy. Curled up in a corner of the seat I amused myself
for hours making funny little holes in bits of cardboard.
My aunt made me a big doll out of towels. It was the most comical
shapeless thing, this improvised doll, with no nose, mouth, ears or
eyes--nothing that even the imagination of a child could convert into a
face. Curiously enough, the absence of eyes struck me more than all
the other defects put together. I pointed this out to everybody with
provoking persistency, but no one seemed equal to the task of providing
the doll with eyes. A bright idea, however, shot into my mind, and the
problem was solved. I tumbled off the seat and searched under it until
I found my aunt's cape, which was trimmed with large beads. I pulled two
beads off and indicated to her that I wanted her to sew them on my
doll. She raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way, and I nodded
energetically. The beads were sewed in the right place and I could not
contain myself for joy; but immediately I lost all interest in the doll.
During the whole trip I did not have one fit of temper, there were so
many things to keep my mind and fingers busy.
When we arrived in Baltimore, Dr. Chisholm received us kindly: but
he could do nothing. He said, however, that I could be educated, and
advised my father to consult Dr. Alexander Graham Bell of Washington,
who would be able to give him information about schools and teachers
of deaf or blind children. Acting on the doctor's advice, we went
immediately to Washington to see Dr. Bell, my father with a sad heart
and many misgivings, I wholly unconscious of his anguish, finding
pleasure in the excitement of moving from place to place. Child as I
was, I at once felt the tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr.
Bell to so many hearts, as his wonderful achievements enlist their
admiration. He held me on his knee while I examined his watch, and he
made it strike for me. He understood my signs, and I knew it and loved
him at once. But I did not dream that that interview would be the door
through which I should pass from darkness into light, from isolation to
friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.
Dr. Bell advised my father to write to Mr. Anagnos, director of the
Perkins Institution in Boston, the scene of Dr. Howe's great labours
for the blind, and ask him if he had a teacher competent to begin my
education. This my father did at once, and in a few weeks there came
a kind letter from Mr. Anagnos with the comforting assurance that
a teacher had been found. This was in the summer of 1886. But Miss
Sullivan did not arrive until the following March.
Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power divine
touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders. And
from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said, "Knowledge is love
and light and vision."