The Story of My Life | Page 5

dew, they felt so soft, so pure, I could not help
wondering if they did not resemble the asphodels of God's garden.
The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little
life. I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the family always
does. There was the usual amount of discussion as to a name for me.
The first baby in the family was not to be lightly named, every one was
emphatic about that. My father suggested the name of Mildred
Campbell, an ancestor whom he highly esteemed, and he declined to
take any further part in the discussion. My mother solved the problem
by giving it as her wish that I should be called after her mother, whose
maiden name was Helen Everett. But in the excitement of carrying me
to church my father lost the name on the way, very naturally, since it
was one in which he had declined to have a part. When the minister
asked him for it, he just remembered that it had been decided to call me
after my grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen Adams.
I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of
an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I saw other people
do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I could pipe out "How
d'ye," and one day I attracted every one's attention by saying "Tea, tea,
tea" quite plainly. Even after my illness I remembered one of the words
I had learned in these early months. It was the word "water," and I
continued to make some sound for that word after all other speech was
lost. I ceased making the sound "wah-wah" only when I learned to spell
the word.
They tell me I walked the day I was a year old. My mother had just
taken me out of the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap, when I was
suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that danced in
the sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from my mother's lap and
almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I fell down and cried for
her to take me up in her arms.

These happy days did not last long. One brief spring, musical with the
song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses,
one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet
of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the dreary month of February,
came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into
the unconsciousness of a new-born baby. They called it acute
congestion of the stomach and brain. The doctor thought I could not
live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and
mysteriously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in the family
that morning, but no one, not even the doctor, knew that I should never
see or hear again.
I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I especially
remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in
my waling hours of fret and pain, and the agony and bewilderment with
which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and turned my eyes, so dry
and hot, to the wall away from the once-loved light, which came to me
dim and yet more dim each day. But, except for these fleeting
memories, if, indeed, they be memories, it all seems very unreal, like a
nightmare. Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that
surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she
came--my teacher--who was to set my spirit free. But during the first
nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields,
a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed
could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, "the day is ours, and
what the day has shown."
Chapter II
I cannot recall what happened during the first months after my illness. I
only know that I sat in my mother's lap or clung to her dress as she
went about her household duties. My hands felt every object and
observed every motion, and in this way I learned to know many things.
Soon I felt the need of some communication with others and began to
make crude signs. A shake of the head meant "No" and a nod, "Yes," a
pull meant "Come" and a push, "Go." Was it bread that I wanted? Then
I would imitate the acts of cutting the slices and buttering them. If I

wanted my mother to make ice-cream for dinner I made the sign for
working the freezer