Meanwhile the desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used became less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself uood were invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic efforts to free myself. I struggled--not that struggling helped matters, but the spirit of resistance was strong within me; I generally broke down in tears and physical exhaustion. If my mother happeo be near I crept into her arms, too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest. After awhile the need of some means of unication became sent that these outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.
My parents were deeply grieved and perplexed. We lived a long way from any school for the blind or the deaf, and it seemed uhat any one would e to su out-of-the-lace as Tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind. Indeed, my friends aives sometimes doubted whether I could be taught. My mothers only ray of hope came from Diss "Ameriotes." She had read his at of Laura Bridgman, and remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet had been educated. But she also remembered with a hopeless pang that Dr. Howe, who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind, had been dead many years. His methods had probably died with him; and if they had not, how was a little girl in a far-off town in Alabama to receive the be of them?
When I was about six years old, my father heard of an emi oculist in Baltimore, who had been successful in many cases that had seemed hopeless. My parents at oermio take me to Baltimore to see if anything could be done for my eyes.
The journey, which I remember well was very pleasant. I made friends with many people orain. One lady gave me a box of shells. My father made holes in these so that I could string them, and for a long time they kept me happy and tehe ductor, too, was kind. Often when he went his rounds I g to his coat tails while he collected and puhe tickets. His punch, with which he let me play, was a delightful toy. Curled up in a er of the seat I amused myself for hours making funny little holes in bits of cardboard.
My aunt made me a big doll out of towels. It was the most ical shapeless thing, this improvised doll, with no nose, mouth, ears or eyes--nothing that even the imagination of a child could vert into a face. Curiously enough, the absence of eyes struck me more than all the other defects put together. I poihis out to everybody with provoking persistency, but no one seemed equal to the task of providing the doll with eyes. A bright idea, however, shot into my mind, and the problem was solved. I tumbled off the seat and searched u until I found my aunts cape, which was trimmed with large beads. I pulled two beads off and indicated to her that I wanted her to sew them on my doll. She raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way, and I nodded eically. The beads were sewed in the right plad I could not tain myself for joy; but immediately I lost all i in the doll. During the whole trip I did not have o of temper, there were so many things to keep my mind and fingers busy.
When we arrived in Baltimore, Dr. Chisholm received us kindly: but he could do nothing. He said, however, that I could be educated, and advised my father to sult Dr. Alexander Graham Bell of Washington, who would be able to give him information about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children. Ag on the doctors advice, we went immediatel