Lately she has been much interested in colour. She found the word "brown" in her primer and wanted to know its meaning. I told her that her hair was brown, and she asked, "Is brown very pretty?" After we had been all over the house, and I had told her the colour of everything she touched, she suggested that we go to the hen-houses and barns; but I told her she must wait until another day because I was very tired. We sat in the hammock; but there was no rest for the weary there. Helen was eager to know "more colour." I wonder if she has any vague idea of colour—any reminiscent impression of light and sound. It seems as if a child who could see and hear until her nineteenth month must retain some of her first impressions, though ever so faintly. Helen talks a great deal about things that she cannot know of through the sense of touch. She asks many questions about the sky, day and night, the ocean and mountains. She likes to have me tell her what I see in pictures.
But I seem to have lost the thread of my discourse. "What colour is think?" was one of the restful questions she asked, as we swung to and fro in the hammock. I told her that when we are happy our thoughts are bright, and when we are naughty they are sad. Quick as a flash she said, "My think is white, Viney's think is black." You see, she had an idea that the colour of our thoughts matched that of our skin. I couldn't help laughing, for at that very moment Viney was shouting at the top of her voice:
"I long to sit on dem jasper walls And see dem sinners stumble and fall!"
October 3, 1887.
My account for the report is finished and sent off. I have two copies, and will send you one; but you mustn't show it to anybody. It's Mr. Anagnos's property until it is published.
I suppose the little girls enjoyed Helen's letter. She wrote it out of her own head, as the children say.
She talks a great deal about what she will do when she goes to Boston. She asked the other day, "Who made all things and Boston?" She says Mildred will not go there because "Baby does cry all days."
October 25, 1887.
Helen wrote another letter to the little girls yesterday, and her father sent it to Mr. Anagnos. Ask him to let you see it. She has begun to use the pronouns of her own accord. This morning I happened to say, "Helen will go upstairs." She laughed and said, "Teacher is wrong. You will go upstairs." This is another great forward step. Thus it always is. Yesterday's perplexities are strangely simple to-day, and to-day's difficulties become to-morrow's pastime.
The rapid development of Helen's mind is beautiful to watch. I doubt if any teacher ever had a work of such absorbing interest. There must have been one lucky star in the heavens at my birth, and I am just beginning to feel its beneficent influence.