If You Give Me Three Days of Light: The Best Collection of Helen Keller

Chapter 27 The Teacher's Story (4)
Teacher Mo said: "This child has too much self-esteem and is not easy to discipline, but I think what she needs is the care of others. We can all see that she is very smart, learns so fast, and is so good. If she gave up halfway, wouldn't it be a waste of the material that God gave us? Let me try it."

In this way, Annie escaped unharmed, and Teacher Mo set aside some time for Annie every week. She walked with Annie, and the two of them sat on the grass to read and chat.At first, Annie suspected that Mr. Mo had ulterior motives, and she tried her best to test Mr. Mo.She spat out a barrage of foul language she had heard, and waited for the teacher's reaction.However, her temptation had no effect, Teacher Mo ignored her at all, and faced her very calmly, as if nothing happened just now.No matter how Annie provoked her, Teacher Mo never took it to heart, which really discouraged Annie.

It didn't take long for Annie to lose the whole battle. She was bathed in the love of Teacher Mo with a keen sense. Her stubbornness and extremes were like remnants of winter ice, which could not withstand the warm spring and melted away.Annie opened her heart and accepted this caring new friend. She no longer had doubts about Teacher Mo, and no longer tried to test her. Annie was waiting for Teacher Mo's arrival every day.

Since then, she has made rapid progress in all aspects, especially spelling and appearance, which are even more impressive.Annie's performance pleased Teacher Mo.Annie observes, listens, and then imitates Teacher Mo's gentle voice, elegant manners, and kind care for others. Over time, these have become her own habits.Her aggressiveness gradually disappeared, and she learned to be silent and humble.What an improvement to be able to refrain from getting angry and talking back whenever the kids tease her!

Gradually, the children let go of their previous suspicions, filled with friendship, and accepted the reborn Annie again.One day, she was surprised to find that a new feeling emerged in her heart. She was eagerly looking forward to the rising sun to welcome a new day, to attend classes, have lunch and chat with her classmates.Annie tasted the taste of freedom and happiness for the first time.

The basic life and study problems were solved, but some other problems still bothered Anne, such as financial problems, because she was a poor student sent by the poor house, which brought her a lot of embarrassment.During the winter and summer vacations, the students all go home for the holidays, and the teachers have their own vacation plans, but Anne is homeless, and the economical poorhouse does not welcome visitors during the holidays.

So finding a job has become the only way to solve this problem.

Annie is old enough to do things.Although she has poor eyesight, her hands and feet are very flexible and she can do general housework.The school helped Anne get a job tidying up and cleaning a hotel on the south side of Boston, on a bustling Irish street in the city.

People who live here often talk to her while she tidies up the room.This allowed Anne to quickly make friends with them.A tenant noticed that Annie was clumsy due to blindness. He looked at the flying dust from the corner of the door, which made Annie's eyes red and full of sympathy.

One day he asked Annie, "Have you ever been to an eye doctor?"

"I've seen it thousands of times." Annie replied blankly, "I've ordered medicine, applied eye ointment, and had surgery 6 times..." Annie said unhappily.

"Doesn't work at all?

"No."

As it happened, the lodger had a friend named Doctor Bradford.He couldn't bear to look at a good girl suffering from eye diseases, so he decided to help her.

"Anne, Dr. Bradford is a very good doctor. Maybe he can cure you."

Unexpectedly, Annie rejected his kindness.Because Father Barbara was like this young man before, and his good friend was also a brilliant ophthalmologist.The past events left a great shadow in Annie's heart, she dared not have any hope anymore, she could no longer bear failure and blows.

The enthusiastic young people did not stop there.He encouraged her and persuaded her so repeatedly that Anne could no longer shake her head and say "no".Excitedly he took Anne out of Ireland Street to find his friend.

Dr. Bradford was waiting for them in the clinic, and the doctor went about his routine, like any ophthalmologist who had seen Annie: eyelid rolling, scraping, rubbing, umm talking to himself.Annie sat blankly, the past floating in her heart like smoke. "Am I dreaming? It seems that I have had the same dream before! Father Barbara took me to the Lowe Hospital, and the doctor personally checked..."

Then the doctor's confident voice interrupted her recollection. "Miss Sullivan, fortunately, it's not too late for treatment now, I can help you heal! I will send you to the operating room immediately for surgery. Your vision will not change after the first surgery, and you will need it after you go back to school. Come back regularly to check and apply medicine. At this time next summer, I will perform another operation on you. This is the key. If you succeed this time, you will be able to see things. May God bless us!"

Although Annie heard this, she felt mixed doubts and beliefs, but she still let Dr. Bradford perform an operation.

From winter to spring, Anne kept her promise and went back and forth in the south of Boston to apply medicine at Dr. Bradford's clinic.Finally summer came, and Annie went to the hospital to wait for Dr. Bradford to operate on her.The doctor asked her to lie in bed for a few days, and told her to "reconcile the peace of mind and body before the operation".Doctors have repeatedly emphasized that psychological factors will affect the success or failure of surgery.

"What's there to be afraid of? No matter how bad it is, it's nothing more than that." Annie's mind was calm, but it was the others who attached great importance to this operation.Doctors often come in to take her pulse, pat her, and comfort her.That enthusiastic young friend bought a pound of chocolate candy to see her, and last night the nurse brought two plates of her favorite dessert!
The day of surgery finally arrived, and Annie was wheeled into the operating room.

The nurse took a wet wipe and walked over to her.

Annie was shocked and asked Jie: "What to do?".

The nurse comforted her: "Don't be afraid, this is a new type of anesthetic. Put it on your nose, you can smell it, it's like a garden full of flowers, isn't it?"

The nurse gently covered Annie's face with the wet wipe. Is it the scent of flowers?No, it was a strange fume that made people dizzy and frightened. Before she could speak, she had already slumped on the bed, unconscious.

When she woke up, the operation was over. Her eyes were covered with layers of thick gauze. The doctor sat beside her and told her to move as little as possible, keep her body and mind peaceful, talk less, and let her eyes fully rest recovery.

Anne obeyed the doctor's orders obediently.A few days later, it was time to remove the gauze. The doctor stood by the bed and gently pulled off the bandage around it. Annie heard him say, "Cut it off." She felt the sharp tearing of the scissors until the end A layer of bandage came off...

A beam of light shone into Annie's eyes, and she cried out excitedly: "I see you." She almost rolled off the bed, and involuntarily circled the bed, screaming and jumping, and the bandages were scattered all over the floor. "I see the window, I see the other side of the window! There's a river, there's a tree, I see you, I can see..."

Annie stretched out her hand tremblingly, and said to herself in disbelief: "I can see my own hand."

She was ecstatic, this is not a dream, she asked herself!

make a big mistake
In fact, Annie's eyesight has not fully recovered, and the scenery she sees is still blurred like a layer of mist.Doctors said his vision was "semi-blind".However, this is much better than before, how wonderful and how happy it is!At this moment, no girl is happier and happier than 16-year-old Anne.

Although the Perkins Institute for the Blind is a school for the blind, Annie is no longer blind.But the teachers and students of the Perkins Institute for the Blind all tacitly agreed, and no one ever chatted about the crime. In this way, everyone kept this hard-working, homeless Irish girl.

Slowly, everyone discovered that Anne had the talent to inspire and lead children's wisdom.She is creative, very patient with the children, and takes the time to get to know them.She volunteered to take them on tours of Boston, and willingly sacrificed her time to put them to bed.Therefore, the teachers trust her very much, and let her lead two classes when there is something to do.

In addition, many of the teachers at the school were blind themselves and found that Anne had a lot to offer them.She could run errands for them, such as going to the store to buy yarn, cloth, and other supplies in a complete range of colors, and she was competent and made the best choices.

Love and happiness gradually conquered Annie's unrestrained wildness, and she was very busy every day.But she can't forget the blindness, poverty, panic and helplessness, and loneliness when she was young, so she cares about the lonely and helpless people especially.It was for this reason that she cared so much for Laura.Lola is now in her fifties and has lived at the Perkins Institute for the Blind for nearly 40 years.For Laura, Perkins Institute for the Blind is not her school, but her home, her whole life.

Laura is blind, deaf and dumb.She contracted epidemic scarlet fever when she was two years and two months old.Although she did not die of illness, the plague took away her vision, hearing, smell and taste.After recovering from the illness, she lived in a dark and silent world, and no one could communicate with her until the appearance of Dr. Sam Hao.

Dr. Hao is a great educator and the founder of Perkins Institute for the Blind.Since the blind people at that time could not receive education, most of them became beggars, vagabonds, or disabled people who dragged their families down. The society rejected them, and they also abandoned themselves.Dr. Hao made a vow to educate them so that they can participate in normal and healthy social life.So in 1832, Dr. Howe and his friends established the Perkins Institute for the Blind.

After hearing about Laura's situation, Dr. Hao thought, is this little girl really trapped in darkness from now on?Will the soul be unable to guide and communicate from now on?So he challenged the physical walls that blocked the mental level.

Dr. Hao brought 8-year-old Lola to the Perkins Institute for the Blind. The "sense of touch" is the only way for Lola to communicate with the outside world.Dr. Hao thought that touching her hands was the last way to open her mind.Because Lola is blind, she cannot see gestures, so she was taught deaf-mute sign language in the normal way. Deaf-mute sign language is a language specially created for deaf-mute people, which uses gestures to represent words.Each different gesture represents a different letter, and different letters are combined into one word in sequence.So Dr. Hao adopted another method to teach her.He took Laura's hand as he signed.Let her feel the changes in her fingers, and let her understand that different gestures represent different meanings through the sense of touch.Laura learned fast and well, and she always spelled it right back into Dr. Hao's palm.

But learning that wasn't enough, because to Laura the letters meant nothing but the rhythm of fingers in different positions.What Dr. Hao wants to teach her is the special meaning contained in these different finger shapes, which is the most important part of learning.He brought a specific object to Laura to stroke, and then spelled the name of the object in her hand.At first, Laura couldn't grasp the interrelationship between the words spelled in her hands and the objects.

One day, Dr. Hao took out a key and put it in her hand. Dr. Hao wrote the word "key" on her hand with sign language, as they had written countless times before.But Laura never understood Dr. Hao's meaning, but this time, Dr. Hao felt Laura's fingers froze in his hand, and he saw the joy of comprehension flashing on Laura's face.Finally, she understood!She unraveled the connection between objects and sign language.

Next, Laura gradually learned many words, but only words.She couldn't string these words into sentences correctly to express the complete meaning, and she couldn't understand some verbs or abstract nouns expressing emotions, and Dr. Hao didn't force these abstract words on Laura, after all, Laura's fingers It is very rare to be able to recognize some commonly used characters smoothly, and Dr. Hao is quite satisfied.So she stopped there and didn't teach Laura any deeper things.

Although Dr. Hao opened the dark and silent shackles that locked Laura's life, he did not expect her to use both mind and body to create a better life like a normal person.But Laura's performance aroused the amazement and sympathy of people in the society at that time.It also became a miracle that everyone praised, and many people traveled thousands of miles to visit Laura at the Perkins Institute for the Blind.But now time has passed, Dr. Hao has passed away, and Laura is approaching her twilight years, and people have long forgotten her sensational achievements.

Although Braille sign language is a compulsory course at Perkins Institute for the Blind, every student can communicate with Laura, but the students are already very busy with the course, and it is rare for them to have time to chat with her.So Laura had to sit alone in her small but neat room all day long, reading or doing needlework to pass the silent years.

Annie couldn't bear to let this elderly woman sit by the window all the year round and spend her days as a womanizer, so she couldn't help slipping into Laura's room every day and talking to her for a while with her hands.Even when Annie didn't quite understand what Laura meant, she was kind enough to show that she understood.In the silent conversation, their friendship gradually grew, and Annie's sign language skills for the blind also reached a state of proficiency.

Anne likes to go to the city of Boston. Although Perkins Institute for the Blind is her current "home", the world of Perkins Institute for the Blind is too small for her. Mr Nanos can send her out on errands.If Mr. Ananos couldn't find a business trip for her, she would go to Boston under the pretext of visiting a doctor or treating her eyes. The principal always nodded and let her go, and never stopped her.Annie likes to wander aimlessly on the streets of Boston, watching the bustling passers-by, colorful street scenes, and occasionally chatting with strangers she doesn't know.Anne savored the taste of life and was satisfied.

But once, Annie went to a very special place.A newspaper column had intrigued her at the time, and a Boston courthouse was about to hold a public hearing—a public hearing on another Desburg investigation.Of course you want to go?you still need to ask?Anne didn't stop, heading straight for the Boston courthouse.She is full of hope that the court is crowded with people, and everyone cares about Desper and is willing to help Desper who is in distress.But she was wrong, the courthouse was empty, and she was sitting alone in the front row.She had mixed feelings, and the shadows of her past life reappeared in her heart.

Witnesses spoke of the lack of meat and moldy bread; of the fat and large rat colony, still defiant, coming out of their holes during the day to feed; of the devastation suffered by the fire last year.Annie nodded alone, remembering the fire she had suffered in Desborough.The public hearing ended hastily, and the witnesses mentioned so many things but no one expressed real concern. Only Anne sadly recalled the poor and miserable days in Desburgh and the disabled elderly who cared for her.Anne thought that she could hear about Maggie Caro and other blind mothers-in-law here. Many things were mentioned in the hearing, but they did not talk about those who had treated Anne well, told her stories, and taught her how to behave. Kind elders.Annie left the court disheartened.

In Boston, the Perkins Institute for the Blind is well-known and well-known, and everyone knows it.Anne's appearance at the courthouse in her school uniform sparked speculation and whispers.Her visit to the court soon spread to the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and everyone knew that she had been to the court.

Everyone discussed, "Do you know about Anne's absurd thing?"

When the incident reached Mr. Ananos' ears, he was shocked and annoyed.How can a pure girl from Perkins Institute for the Blind visit a court full of filth and sin? That is definitely not the behavior of a good girl.

"Annie, you can't insult the school's reputation and lose the school's face. I have tolerated you enough, why did you cause such a big disaster again? Since you are a member of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, you shouldn't go to that kind of school. place to go."

Anne stood there silently, listening attentively to the principal's scolding.She thought that after he finished scolding, maybe he would calm down, and the rain would clear up as usual.However, things are not what Annie thought.

Mr. Ananos said: "Annie, I will arrange to send you back to Desborough. You are 17 years old and will be 18 next year. You can support yourself. I think the Perkins Institute for the Blind can't let you continue now. If you stayed, you caused too much trouble. As for whether you want to stay in Desburg next year, you can choose by yourself then!"

Hearing "Desburgh", Anne couldn't say a word, she was at a loss.Go back to Desburgh for a year!Even one day, she will collapse.When she left, the old people sincerely warned: "Don't come back here!" She walked through the corridor in a trance, returned to the dormitory, and slumped on the bed.Worry and trouble made her so exhausted that she curled up on the bed and soon passed out.

Anne was woken the next day by Mrs. Hopkins, her new foster mother.As soon as she opened her eyes, she remembered everything that happened yesterday, she was immediately listless, and retreated to the bed sadly.

This woman full of motherly love comforted Anne who was worried and frightened: "Don't worry, I have already discussed with Mr. Ananos, and he promised me that you can stay, and now you are your guardian. I promise him that from now on I will be in charge of everything for you in the future, and I promise that nothing like this will ever happen again."

happy youth

(End of this chapter)