Page 177 - The Story of My Lif

From your little friend,

HELEN KELLER.

TO DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

South Boston, May 27, 1891.

Dear, Gentle Poet:—I fear that you will think Helen a very troublesome little girl
if she writes to you too often; but how is she to help sending you loving and
grateful messages, when you do so much to make her glad? I cannot begin to tell
you how delighted I was when Mr. Anagnos told me that you had sent him some
money to help educate “Baby Tom.” Then I knew that you had not forgotten the
dear little child, for the gift brought with it the thought of tender sympathy. I am
very sorry to say that Tommy has not learned any words yet. He is the same
restless little creature he was when you saw him. But it is pleasant to think that
he is happy and playful in his bright new home, and by and by that strange,
wonderful thing teacher calls MIND, will begin to spread its beautiful wings and
fly away in search of knowledge-land. Words are the mind’s wings, are they not?

I have been to Andover since I saw you, and I was greatly interested in all that
my friends told me about Phillips Academy, because I knew you had been there,
and I felt it was a place dear to you. I tried to imagine my gentle poet when he
was a school-boy, and I wondered if it was in Andover he learned the songs of

the birds and the secrets of the shy little woodland children. I am sure his heart
was always full of music, and in God’s beautiful world he must have heard
love’s sweet replying.

When I came home teacher read to me “The School-boy,” for it is not in our
print.

Did you know that the blind children are going to have their commencement
exercises in Tremont Temple, next Tuesday afternoon?