I said, "Mildred doesn't understand your fingers, and we must be
very gentle with her."

She shook her head.

"Baby--not think. Helen will give baby pretty letter," and with
that she ran upstairs and brought down a neatly folded sheet of
braille, on which she had written some words, and gave it to
Mildred, saying, "Baby can eat all words."


September 18, 1887.

I do not wonder you were surprised to hear that I was going to
write something for the report. I do not know myself how it
happened, except that I got tired of saying "no," and Captain
Keller urged me to do it. He agreed with Mr. Anagnos that it was
my duty to give others the benefit of my experience. Besides,
they said Helen's wonderful deliverance might be a boon to other
afflicted children.

When I sit down to write, my thoughts freeze, and when I get them
on paper they look like wooden soldiers all in a row, and if a
live one happens along, I put him in a strait-jacket. It's easy
enough, however, to say Helen is wonderful, because she really
is. I kept a record of everything she said last week, and I found
that she knows six hundred words. This does not mean, however,
that she always uses them correctly. Sometimes her sentences are
like Chinese puzzles; but they are the kind of puzzles children