Page 318 - The Story of My Lif

On one occasion, while walking on the Common with her, I saw a police officer

taking a man to the station-house. The agitation which I felt evidently produced
a perceptible physical change; for Helen asked, excitedly, “What do you see?”

A striking illustration of this strange power was recently shown while her ears
were being examined by the aurists in Cincinnati.

Several experiments were tried, to determine positively whether or not she had
any perception of sound. All present were astonished when she appeared not
only to hear a whistle, but also an ordinary tone of voice. She would turn her
head, smile, and act as though she had heard what was said. I was then standing

beside her, holding her hand. Thinking that she was receiving impressions from
me, I put her hands upon the table, and withdrew to the opposite side of the
room. The aurists then tried their experiments with quite different results. Helen
remained motionless through them all, not once showing the least sign that she
realized what was going on. At my suggestion, one of the gentlemen took her
hand, and the tests were repeated. This time her countenance changed whenever
she was spoken to, but there was not such a decided lighting up of the features as
when I had held her hand.

In the account of Helen last year it was stated that she knew nothing about death,
or the burial of the body; yet on entering a cemetery for the first time in her life,
she showed signs of emotion—her eyes actually filling with tears.

A circumstance equally remarkable occurred last summer; but, before relating it,
I will mention what she now knows with regard to death. Even before I knew
her, she had handled a dead chicken, or bird, or some other small animal. Some
time after the visit to the cemetery before referred to, Helen became interested in
a horse that had met with an accident by which one of his legs had been badly
injured, and she went daily with me to visit him. The wounded leg soon became
so much worse that the horse was suspended from a beam. The animal groaned
with pain, and Helen, perceiving his groans, was filled with pity. At last it
became necessary to kill him, and, when Helen next asked to go and see him, I
told her that he was DEAD. This was the first time that she had heard the word. I