Page 149 - The Story of My Lif

France and the Lamarque are the most fragrant; but the Marechal Neil,

Solfaterre, Jacqueminot, Nipheots, Etoile de Lyon, Papa Gontier, Gabrielle
Drevet and the Perle des Jardines are all lovely roses.

Please give the little boys and girls my love. I think of them every day and I love
them dearly in my heart. When you come home from Europe I hope you will be
all well and very happy to get home again. Do not forget to give my love to Miss

Calliope Kehayia and Mr. Francis Demetrios Kalopothakes.

Lovingly, your little friend,

HELEN ADAMS KELLER.

Like a good many of Helen Keller’s early letters, this to her French teacher is her
re-phrasing of a story. It shows how much the gift of writing is, in the early
stages of its development, the gift of mimicry.

TO MISS FANNIE S. MARRETT

Tuscumbia, Ala., May 17, 1889.

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