Page 172 - The Story of My Lif

too poor to take care of him. For a while he was kept in the general hospital at

Allegheny. From here he was to be sent to an almshouse, for at that time there
was no other place for him in Pennsylvania. Helen heard of him through Mr. J.
G. Brown of Pittsburgh, who wrote her that he had failed to secure a tutor for
Tommy. She wanted him brought to Boston, and when she was told that money
would be needed to get him a teacher, she answered, “We will raise it.” She
began to solicit contributions from her friends, and saved her pennies.

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell advised Tommy’s friends to send him to Boston, and
the trustees of the Perkins Institution agreed to admit him to the kindergarten for
the blind.

Meanwhile opportunity came to Helen to make a considerable contribution to

Tommy’s education. The winter before, her dog Lioness had been killed, and
friends set to work to raise money to buy Helen another dog. Helen asked that
the contributions, which people were sending from all over America and
England, be devoted to Tommy’s education. Turned to this new use, the fund
grew fast, and Tommy was provided for. He was admitted to the kindergarten on
the sixth of April.

Miss Keller wrote lately, “I shall never forget the pennies sent by many a poor
child who could ill spare them, ‘for little Tommy,’ or the swift sympathy with
which people from far and near, whom I had never seen, responded to the dumb
cry of a little captive soul for aid.”

TO MR. GEORGE R. KREHL

Institution for the Blind,

South Boston, Mass., March 20, 1891.