( 1 ) . Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Alabama . until she was nineteen months old she enjoyed a perfectly normal infancy . at the age of six months she amused people by greeting them with how d&apos; ye , and delighted her proud parents by shouting tea , tea , tea . her face wore smiles for everyone . in her cot she wriggled and squirmed and chuckled when anyone spoke to her , and the sight of birds , flowers , butterflies , or the sun glinting through overhanging trees in the summertime , sent her into shrieks of happiness . she loved bright objects and pleasant sounds , including that of her own voice . she began to walk at the age of twelve months when she unexpectedly slipped down from her mother &apos;s lap after she had been lifted out of the morning tub , and ran to catch patterns of sunlight dancing on the bathroom floor . she ran until she lost her balance , staggered and fell ; but , to her delight , she tumbled right into the focus of the sunbeam . at the age of nineteen months , this adorable , fascinating child had a mysterious illness , which they called acute congestion of the stomach and brain , which left her blind , deaf and dumb . without a moment &apos;s warning , her bright world was blotted out and she was plunged into a darkness as black and silent as the grave . only by a great and painful effort of the imagination can we begin to understand the next five years in Helen &apos;s life . although she says little about it , that terrible period will never be erased from her memory . she remembers the dry , hot painfulness of her eyes when she first lost her sight , the agony and bewilderment of waking and being unable to see , of tossing , half-asleep , in pain and fretfulness ; the tenderness of her mother &apos;s hand trying to soothe her , but the utter desolation of being unable to hear her mother &apos;s voice or see her face , and the terrible frustration of being unable to make her wants known . the reader should pause and try to enter into the plight of a child of nineteen months suddenly plunged into such a perplexing and frightening situation . during the next five years Helen tried times without number to establish some sort of contact with the outside world but all in vain . it was like being thrust into the dark , silent , innermost dungeon of a prison with no hope of visitors and no possibility of escape . she tried to free herself from the impenetrable silence and darkness which held her captive , but to no effect . her deep frustration often threw her into tempests of passion which , during those five years recurred more and more frequently , until they were convulsing her daily , sometimes hourly , driving her at times almost beside herself . and often after such tempests , she would feel her way around the garden to hide her hot face in the flowers she could not see , or creep into her mother &apos;s loving arms and sleep from sheer emotional and physical exhaustion . one day when she was six years and nine months old , Helen vaguely felt that something unusual was afoot in her home , as though some special visitor was expected . during recent weeks her moods had been nearly all anger and bitterness . the wordless cry of her soul for human communication , which she could make no one understand , reduced her to a feeling of utter misery and helplessness . of course she did not understand her own condition , or her fundamental frustrations ; she felt only her maddening inability to communicate with her parents , while they , on their side , were broken-hearted that they could find no way of talking to their child , no way of getting a single word into Helen &apos;s mind or heart . but this day , as Helen stood on the steps at the front entrance to their home , she felt the touch of a new hand , and a stranger embraced her . it was Anne Sullivan . the tremendous debt which Helen and blind people the world round owe to Anne Sullivan is beyond computation . for it was Anne who rescued Helen from her world of darkness and misery , and enabled her to bring deliverance to countless fellow sufferers . Anne was born in poverty , and her eyes were infected from birth . her mother died when Anne was eight years old , leaving three children who were placed in the workhouse . it was here that Anne spent the next four years of her life , being allowed no social contacts save that of fellow paupers . one of them told her that blindness entitled her to go to a special school , but no one was interested in the education of a blind pauper child until Anne literally threw herself at the feet of the chairman of the visiting committee and pleaded I want to go to school . the plea was heard . at fourteen she was sent to the Perkins institution for blind children in Boston . while there she had two surgical operations which partially restored her sight . she remained in the Perkins institution for six years , and was still there when the director received a letter from Helen &apos;s parents describing Helen &apos;s condition , and asking if he could supply a teacher for her . Anne , twenty years of age , was sent . Anne arrived at Helen &apos;s home with eyes red through overmuch crying on the journey . she did not want the job of teaching a girl who was blind , deaf and dumb . but she had no other job , and she was without money ; economic necessity compelled her to accept this unwanted post . but if Anne was despondent on arrival , she very soon forgot herself in her new work . from the moment she embraced Helen on the front porch , she devoted all the energy of her mind and body to the service of her stricken charge . in complete self-effacement , sweeping all self-pity aside , she gave herself to Helen , working tirelessly to open lines of communications between the imprisoned child and the world of people and nature about her . ( 2 ) . it was the day after Anne Sullivan &apos;s arrival that Helen learned the finger language for the word doll . Anne spelt it into her hand very slowly and deliberately , and got Helen to imitate . Helen did not know then that doll was the name of the gift Anne had brought her the day before from the blind children in the Perkins institution ; she thought she was learning some finger game , and played it repeatedly until she could do it correctly . then she felt her way downstairs to show her mother the game . other simple words were taught her in the same manner during the following days - such words as pin , hat , cup , sit , stand , walk - but as yet she had no idea what they meant ; no inkling that the finger work which spelt pin was the name of the object , or that fingering which meant sit or stand had any reference to those actions . the power of associating word with object or action had not yet awakened in her . a whole month passed in this way before Helen began to associate the letters spelt into her hand with objects . the association came at the end of a lesson in which Anne had tried to make Helen understand that the word mug meant the object which she held , and water meant that which the mug contained . but Helen simply could not understand , and as Anne persisted , she grew annoyed and gave expression to her annoyance by dashing her mug to the floor , smashing it to pieces . she felt the broken fragments with her feet , and experienced a measure of relief in doing so . the lesson was adjourned and they went out into the sunshine . as they passed the well-house someone was drawing water , and Anne placed Helen &apos;s hand into the stream pouring from the spout of the pump , and spelt into her other hand the word water , water , water . Anne continued to do this , at first slowly and then rapidly , until it suddenly dawned on Helen &apos;s mind that water meant the cool something flowing over her hand . that living word awakened my soul , said Helen many years after , gave it light , hope , joy , set it free . she now knew that things had names , and she wanted to learn them all at once . as we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life . that was because I saw everything with the strange new sight that had come to me . she learned many new words that same day , including mother , father , sister , teacher . she felt that she was at last in contact with the outside world . she went to bed that night but was too happy to sleep . during the following summer Anne took Helen on exploration walks , discovering plants , flowers , and trees ; Helen handling them , learning their names , inhaling their scent , feeling them against her hand and her face . sitting in a field on the warm grass Anne described through their sign language the countless things which Helen could not see . with the new freedom of that summer Helen took to tree climbing , and loved it . but one day Anne left her sitting aloft in the branches of a cherry tree , while she returned to the house to fetch lunch . while Anne was away the weather suddenly changed , breaking into a violent thunderstorm . Helen tells how she felt the warmth go out of the atmosphere , by which she knew clouds had come over the sun , how she smelt the strange earth odour that precedes thunderstorms . she was alone and she felt afraid . a sense of absolute isolation gripped her . she felt cut off from friends ; severed from the firm earth . her terror increased until she was in a state bordering on hysteria . there was a moment of sinister stillness , and then a multitudinous stirring of the leaves , she says . a shiver ran through the tree , and the wind sent forth a blast that would have knocked me off had I not clung to the branch with might and main . the tree swayed and strained . the small twigs snapped and fell about me in showers . a wild impulse to jump seized me , but terror held me fast . I crouched down in the fork of the tree . the branches lashed about me . I felt the intermittent jarring that came now and then , as if something heavy had fallen and the shock had travelled up till it reached the limb which I sat on . it worked my suspense up to the highest point , and just as I was thinking the tree and I should fall together , my teacher seized my hand and helped me down . I clung to her , trembling with joy to feel the earth under my feet once more . for some time after this the thought of climbing a tree alarmed her , and she did not fully overcome her fear until the next spring . then as she was sitting alone one morning in the summer house , she became aware of a beautiful fragrance filling the air . she recognised it as the scent of the mimosa tree . she knew where that mimosa tree stood - at the end of the garden near the fence at the turn of the path , and she felt her way to it . she found it , all quivering in the warm sunshine , its blossom-laden branches almost touching the long grass &amp;hellip; . I made my way through a shower of petals to the great trunk , and for one minute stood irresolute ; then , putting my foot in the broad space between the forked branches , I pulled myself up into the tree &amp;hellip; . I had a delicious sense that I was doing something unusual and wonderful , so I kept on climbing higher and higher , until I reached a little seat which somebody had built there so long ago that it had grown part of the tree itself . I sat there for a long time , feeling like a fairy on a rosy cloud . after that I spent many happy hours in my tree of paradise , thinking fair thoughts and dreaming bright dreams . 