Page 334 - The Story of My Lif

words of the second sentence, I showed her that there really was a mouse in the

box. She then moved her finger to the next line with an expression of eager
interest. “The cat can see the mouse.” Here I made the cat look at the mouse, and
let Helen feel the cat. The expression of the little girl’s countenance showed that
she was perplexed. I called her attention to the following line, and, although she
knew only the three words, CAT, EAT and MOUSE, she caught the idea. She
pulled the cat away and put her on the floor, at the same time covering the box
with the frame. When she read, “Do not let the cat get the mouse!” she
recognized the negation in the sentence, and seemed to know that the cat must
not get the mouse. GET and LET were new words. She was familiar with the
words of the last sentence, and was delighted when allowed to act them out. By
signs she made me understand that she wished another story, and I gave her a
book containing very short stories, written in the most elementary style. She ran
her fingers along the lines, finding the words she knew and guessing at the
meaning of others, in a way that would convince the most conservative of
educators that a little deaf child, if given the opportunity, will learn to read as
easily and naturally as ordinary children.

I am convinced that Helen’s use of English is due largely to her familiarity with
books. She often reads for two or three hours in succession, and then lays aside
her book reluctantly. One day as we left the library I noticed that she appeared
more serious than usual, and I asked the cause. “I am thinking how much wiser
we always are when we leave here than we are when we come,” was her reply.

When asked why she loved books so much, she once replied: “Because they tell
me so much that is interesting about things I cannot see, and they are never tired
or troubled like people.

They tell me over and over what I want to know.”

While reading from Dickens’s “Child’s History of England,” we came to the
sentence, “Still the spirit of the Britons was not broken.” I asked what she
thought that meant. She replied, “I think it means that the brave Britons were not
discouraged because the Romans had won so many battles, and they wished all