Page 261 - The Story of My Lif

…It was 6.30 when I reached Tuscumbia. I found Mrs. Keller and Mr. James
Keller waiting for me. They said somebody had met every train for two days.
The drive from the station to the house, a distance of one mile, was very lovely

and restful. I was surprised to find Mrs. Keller a very young-looking woman, not
much older than myself, I should think. Captain Keller met us in the yard and
gave me a cheery welcome and a hearty handshake. My first question was,
“Where is Helen?” I tried with all my might to control the eagerness that made
me tremble so that I could hardly walk. As we approached the house I saw a
child standing in the doorway, and Captain Keller said, “There she is. She has
known all day that some one was expected, and she has been wild ever since her
mother went to the station for you.” I had scarcely put my foot on the steps,
when she rushed toward me with such force that she would have thrown me
backward if Captain Keller had not been behind me. She felt my face and dress
and my bag, which she took out of my hand and tried to open. It did not open
easily, and she felt carefully to see if there was a keyhole. Finding that there was,
she turned to me, making the sign of turning a key and pointing to the bag. Her
mother interfered at this point and showed Helen by signs that she must not
touch the bag. Her face flushed, and when her mother attempted to take the bag
from her, she grew very angry. I attracted her attention by showing her my watch

and letting her hold it in her hand. Instantly the tempest subsided, and we went
upstairs together. Here I opened the bag, and she went through it eagerly,
probably expecting to find something to eat. Friends had probably brought her
candy in their bags, and she expected to find some in mine. I made her
understand, by pointing to a trunk in the hall and to myself and nodding my
head, that I had a trunk, and then made the sign that she had used for eating, and
nodded again. She understood in a flash and ran downstairs to tell her mother, by
means of emphatic signs, that there was some candy in a trunk for her. She
returned in a few minutes and helped me put away my things. It was too comical
to see her put on my bonnet and cock her head first on one side, then on the
other, and look in the mirror, just as if she could see. Somehow I had expected to
see a pale, delicate child—I suppose I got the idea from Dr. Howe’s description
of Laura Bridgman when she came to the Institution. But there’s nothing pale or

delicate about Helen. She is large, strong, and ruddy, and as unrestrained in her
movements as a young colt. She has none of those nervous habits that are so
noticeable and so distressing in blind children. Her body is well formed and
vigorous, and Mrs. Keller says she has not been ill a day since the illness that
deprived her of her sight and hearing. She has a fine head, and it is set on her