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

Chapter 31 The Teacher's Story (8)
Outdoors, Anne let Helen touch the rhythm of life.A butterfly flutters its wings crazily in Helen's palm; a chick pecks through the egg shell and opens the delicate door of life; 5 puppies rush and play on the corridor floor; , an annoying odd frequency; the intermittent twitching of a fish nibbling at the bait while fishing, the taut line of the line when pulling in and out of the rod...

After breakfast every day, the two of them walked out of the house and went to Keller Pier on the Tennessee River.But it is now completely obsolete.The beautiful rivers and mountains are full of vitality at every step. Helen is full of curiosity and asks all kinds of questions. Annie also answers all questions.So although the pier is only two miles away from home, it often takes them a long time to go back and forth.No one could tell if they would make it to lunch time.

Annie often bent down and reached out to grab the jumping frogs under the cabbage and hand them to Helen to pet.Catch the cricket hidden in the grass, and let Helen feel the sound of the cricket's hind legs vibrating.

Cotton was once a staple crop in the American South and was one of the main causes of the American Civil War.Annie plucked slender and soft cotton balls and let Helen stroke them.She also let Helen memorize the shape of wild flowers, as for the colorful colors of flowers and plants, she had to listen to Annie's detailed description.They pick the wild grass grapes that are ripe in the sun, smell their fragrance, and taste the sweet and sour moisture on their tongues.They share the scent of haystacks dried by the sun; they share the soft and boneless touch of fireflies.

One morning Helen studied "geography" for the first time.The teacher squatted in the mud, hollowed out here, and piled up there, creating several strangely shaped flat lands, large deep pits, and some high hills.Annie stooped to scoop up the river to fill the low places.

Helen kept asking, "Teacher, what is this?"

Annie only answered her: "Helen, wait a minute." Helen could only observe Annie's every movement with her hands, waiting patiently for an explanation.

Annie finally finished. It turned out that she made a reduced world map with sand.Annie explained that glaciers used to move slowly, covering the surface of the earth and freezing all living things; erupting volcanoes, mountain tops that spewed flames, and towns buried in flowing lava; huge monsters in the ancient geological age, they had pointed and small Heads, huge bodies, fighting each other in the swamp... Helen was both in love and scared when she heard it.In her view, the earth is a strange, magnificent and magnificent planet with many sinister and incredible planets.The teacher inspired the wonderful world of her wisdom with clay sculptures from the Tennessee River.In Anne's education to Helen, the greatest discovery Helen made was not in the fluttering of butterflies, the singing of birds, or the vastness of the earth. Her greatest discovery was to find "self".

One day, Annie first laughed, and then took Helen's hand, letting her touch her trembling throat, smiling mouth shape and shaking body.Helen felt very strange and showed surprise on her face.Annie wrote the word "laugh" on her hand, and then without Helen asking questions, she pressed Helen on the bed to tickle.Helen smiled, first all over the face, giggling, and finally laughing.Mrs. Keller could hardly believe what was happening at the sight of a scene of joyous farce--heard laughter.She heard Helen laughing!Tears filled her eyes with joy, and she leaned happily on her husband's broad shoulders. "Arthur, Arthur, I can't believe it, we can hear Helen's laughter again!"

In the past, Helen lived in a dark and muddled world, knowing nothing about herself.In fact, since she got sick, she has never laughed heartily, but now everything is different. It turns out that "smile" is by her side and never goes far.

Of course not all courses are smooth and pleasant.In fact, the learning process is full of thorns and painful.For Helen, mathematics is very difficult to understand, because that kind of concept is not the actual length scale or shape size, it cannot be explored with fingers.So in many of Helen's memoirs, the moment when she first grasped the concept of mathematics is etched in her heart.

The problem started when Anne asked Helen a simple addition and subtraction number. "Helen, if you have one dollar, I'll give you two and three dollars, how much do you have in total?"

"Ten...seven." Helen answered indiscriminately, absent-mindedly.

Annie immediately spelled in Helen's hand: "No, don't guess wildly, come on! Think about it with your heart, one plus two three, it's that simple."

Helen frowned, concentrating on the answer.

At this time, Annie leaned forward and wrote the word "think" on her palm in due course.Helen suddenly realized that the nameless thought that was going back and forth in her mind at this moment was "thinking".She hoarded this newly acquired word and meaning, and the field of her thoughts expanded day by day.

One day Anne heard terrible screams from the kitchen on the ground floor and thought, "My God, what happened?" She knew Helen must have been the cause.

She hurried downstairs.In the kitchen passage, she met Mrs. Keller oncoming.

Helen was angry, and was burning with anger, and raged at the cook, Winnie.how terrible!She had become tame and kind in the past few months, and now she was going back to her old ways, as if to tear her to pieces and eat her, grabbing and kicking Vinnie frantically,

Annie pulled Helen away forcefully.Annie wanted to hug her to soothe her emotions.But Helen was too excited to be of any use.So Annie took her hand and spelled: "Why is Helen angry? Tell the teacher quickly."

Helen began to cry, and her trembling fingers wrote intermittently: "Winnie...bad...Winnie...bad."

Annie yelled into the noisy kitchen, "Winnie, what's going on?"

The cook, Winnie, shook her head at Helen who was rolling on the ground, and replied, "I don't know either!" She took the small round stones she used to play with and piled them all over the glass. I'm afraid she might break the glass. When I hurt her, I went to get the glass, she grabbed me and wouldn't let me take it away, I took it hard, and then she got angry"

Annie sighed helplessly, and she comforted Helen back into the room, thinking about it.Suddenly, some fragments came to Annie's mind.A little girl deliberately destroyed everything around her, threw bread on the ground, deliberately broke the mirror her father used to shave, and even tore up the most beautiful doll in the world one Christmas...

Annie thought, I did something wrong at the time, if someone cared about me and told me it was wrong, things should change.If someone truly cares, sticks to principles, and earnestly guides me, then my life will be different.

At this moment, Helen came over quietly, and she crawled close to the teacher and pressed her cheek to kiss the teacher.Annie gently held her down, and wrote on her hand: "No, the teacher doesn't want naughty girls to kiss."

Helen retorted: "Helen is a good girl, Winnie is bad."

"But Helen hurt Vinnie, hit her, kicked her,"

Helen's face was flushed, and she stood motionless. Annie saw through the contradictions and struggles in her heart.Helen grabbed Anne's hand angrily and wrote: "Helen doesn't like the teacher, Helen likes mom, and mom beats Winnie."

Anne calmly took Helen to sit next to the chair, gave her a doll, and told her: "Helen, think about it carefully, there is no need to say anything now. Sit down for a while and think about it, how did it happen?"

The two spent an annoyed morning apart.At lunch, Annie couldn't eat anything.Helen touched it with her hands and found that Annie didn't eat it, she kept asking worriedly, "Why didn't you eat it?"

"I'm not hungry, I have no appetite"

"I asked the cook to make tea for the teacher." Helen jumped off the chair after spelling heartily.

Annie stopped her "No, I'm sad, I'm too sad to drink."

After seeing this sign language, Helen wept, sad and heartbroken, and Anne was deeply moved, but although she felt sorry for Helen, she still had to be hard-hearted and continue to act angry until Helen admitted that she would avoid the same thing next time to happen again.

Annie blamed herself loudly in her heart: "Poor Helen, please forgive me! I've been pushing and urging you, just to be kind." She took the teary-eyed little girl to her side.

She wrote on Helen's hand: "Come on, Helen! Don't think about this morning, let's go upstairs and see a very strange insect called a 'twig bug', I put it in a bottle, let's go Study it."

The two went upstairs hand in hand, but Anne found that Helen was full of thoughts and didn't care about insects at all.

Helen asked: "Do insects know who is a naughty girl?" She hugged Anne's neck with both hands and choked, and she promised: "I will be a good girl tomorrow, and Helen will be a good girl in the future."

Annie thought, well, this is the end of the lesson, she said; "But Helen is going to apologize to Vinnie."

Helen smiled: "Vini can't spell." Indeed!Winnie hadn't learned sign language, and they couldn't communicate directly, but Annie didn't let her make excuses and get away easily.

Annie wrote: "Come with me to Vinnie and I will tell Vinnie that you apologize to her."

Helen nodded in agreement, and they walked up to Winnie hand in hand.When Anne spelled the apology in Helen's hand, Helen kept nodding to express her apology and accepted that Winnie kissed her on the cheek, so everything calmed down.Helen breathed a sigh of relief, ran upstairs to the bedroom, climbed into bed, and soon fell asleep.

Mrs. Keller and Annie looked at Helen who was sleeping soundly. Mrs. Keller said, "She looks so peaceful and happy! You don't need to wake her up at lunch, and it's enough to give her a sandwich and a glass of milk later."

Annie nodded in agreement, "This little soldier, you fought so hard today! It's time to rest for a while."

(End of this chapter)