Page 404 - The Story of My Lif

From the top of the hill where I stood I saw my army surging over a sunlit plain

like angry breakers, and as they moved, I saw the green of fields, like the cool
hollows between billows. Trumpet answered trumpet above the steady beat of
drums and the rhythm of marching feet. I spurred my panting steed and waving
my sword on high and shouting, “I come! Behold me, warriors—Europe!” I
plunged into the oncoming billows, as a strong swimmer dives into breakers, and
struck, alas, ‘tis true, the bedpost!

Now I rarely sleep without dreaming; but before Miss Sullivan came to me, my
dreams were few and far between, devoid of thought or coherency, except those
of a purely physical nature. In my dreams something was always falling
suddenly and heavily, and at times my nurse seemed to punish me for my unkind
treatment of her in the daytime and return at an usurer’s rate of interest my
kickings and pinchings. I would wake with a start or struggle frantically to
escape from my tormentor. I was very fond of bananas, and one night I dreamed
that I found a long string of them in the dining-room, near the cupboard, all
peeled and deliciously ripe, and all I had to do was to stand under the string and
eat as long as I could eat.

After Miss Sullivan came to me, the more I learned, the oftener I dreamed; but
with the waking of my mind there came many dreary fancies and vague terrors
which troubled my sleep for a long time. I dreaded the darkness and loved the
woodfire. Its warm touch seemed so like a human caress, I really thought it was
a sentient being, capable of loving and protecting me. One cold winter night I
was alone in my room. Miss Sullivan had put out the light and gone away,
thinking I was sound asleep. Suddenly I felt my bed shake, and a wolf seemed to
spring on me and snarl in my face. It was only a dream, but I thought it real, and
my heart sank within me. I dared not scream, and I dared not stay in bed.

Perhaps this was a confused recollection of the story I had heard not long before
about Red Riding Hood. At all events, I slipped down from the bed and nestled
close to the fire which had not flickered out. The instant I felt its warmth I was
reassured, and I sat a long time watching it climb higher and higher in shining

waves. At last sleep surprised me, and when Miss Sullivan returned she found
me wrapped in a blanket by the hearth.