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 consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which
it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was
seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb,
expectant. 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. The afternoon sun
penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell
on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the
familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come 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 upon me continually for
weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
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.
"Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light
of love shone on me in that very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I supposed to
my mother. Some one 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.
The morning 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 was at once interested
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 was spelling a word or even
that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like
imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this
uncomprehending 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 understood that everything has a name.
One day, while I was playing 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
understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had
a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried
to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water,
but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped
the subject for the time, only to renew it 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. Neither sorrow nor regret
followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still,
dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness.
I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I
had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was
removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm
sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought,
made me hop and skip with pleasure.
We walked down the path 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 under the 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 upon the motions
of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something
forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of
language was revealed to me. I knew then 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 each
name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to 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 come to me. On
entering 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 repentance and 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 Aaron's
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 come.