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A LITTLE child lived in black silence. There never was midnight so dense as the darkness that enveloped his mind. Sight and hearing were gone utterly and forever. The child knew absolutely nothing, except that sometimes from somewhere Something put food into his mouth, and moved him about when necessary. His world was limited by as much of his little crib as he could feel with his hands, and by the touch of this Something that cared for his wants.

The merest babe knows the sunlight and in mother's voice and face. Five years had passed over this little boy as he lay on his hospital cot, but he knew less than a month-old infant -- less, indeed, than the least of the beasts of the field. He was completely shut up in a living tomb of flesh, with no communication between himself and the great world about him. Yet within that prison was a healthy brain, open to all the possibilities of life.

Since the terrible sickness that had come to him in infancy, little Tommy Stringer had lain thus among strangers. His mother was dead; his father could not help him. From his birth-place in Washington, Pennsylvania, the helpless sufferer had been removed to a hospital in Allegheny. But no institution wanted this troublesome charge, who would require the constant attention of a teacher. So the almshouse seemed the only haven for Tommy. There at least he could find a shelter.

But it was not to be so. Light was ahead -- the glorious light of knowledge. One who had been similarly shut in by the walls of a triple affliction was to lead Tommy Stringer out into the bright light that she herself enjoyed. It was during the summer of 1890 that the news of Tommy's sad plight came to Helen Keller. The sensitive soul of this ten-year-old girl was deeply affected. She, if no one else, would save the poor boy.

Thenceforth Tommy became the burden of Helen's thought and conversation. She talked about him to her friends; she wrote letter upon letter asking aid for him. At this time occurred a pathetic incident that was the means of turning toward the little blind boy the kindly interest and generous gifts that accomplished his rescue.

The pet and playmate of Helen when she was at home was a beautiful Newfoundland dog. Through a foolish blunder, this animal was shot by a policeman. When the news came to Helen, she had no word of reproach, but simply said, with beautiful charity, "I am sure they never could have done it if they had only known what a dear, good dog 'Lioness' was."

The story of her loss was published widely, and from far and near -- even from across the ocean -- came to Helen offers of money or another dog. The little girl had only one answer to all these kind expressions; she was grateful, but she did not care for another dog to take the place of Lioness. Nevertheless, the gift would be accepted, if the donor so desired, on behalf of a little deaf, dumb, and blind boy for whom she was trying to raise money enough to bring him to Boston to be educated.

In every direction Helen sent this message, always in a specially written personal letter that was marked by the sweet simplicity and remarkable ability of the author. For a long time these letters averaged eight a day, and a marvelously versatile and eloquent little pleader Helen showed herself. She also wrote for newspapers articles addressed to children, as well as general appeals -- ever any two precisely alike. Helen instituted for herself a rigorous course of self-denial (abstinence from soda-water and other prized luxuries), that she might save money for her one great object. The result of all this effort was the securing of sufficient funds to insure Tommy at least two years of education at the Kindergarten for the Blind, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Thither, on April 10, 1891, came "Baby Tom," as Helen called this five-year-old child. It was a pitiful spectacle that greeted his Boston friends when the boy was brought to the kindergarten. His life had been spent mostly in bed (it was the easiest place to care for him), and he could not walk at all, nor even stand with confidence. Of signs for indicating his wants he had none. He was as a little beast, tearing and destroying his own clothes and all else destructible that was within his reach. His temper and stubbornness were fearful.

To the appalling task of giving the first rays of light to this child, Helen and her teacher set themselves until a permanent instructor could be secured. With almost inconceivable patience and love, kind friends began the education of this untutored mind. The lessons of discipline, regular habits, and obedience had to precede and accompany the teaching of manual speech.

How could this child, who had not the remotest conception of any sort of language, be taught to talk?

The method, simply stated, was this: Every time that bread was given to him the letters "b-r-e-a-d" were formed in the manual alphabet on the boy's own fingers, and also in his hand, by the fingers of his teacher. Again and again this was repeated, thousands of times. It was slow work. The mind had lain too long without knowledge to receive easily the idea of speech. Even after the teachers were sure that Tom understood the definite connection between the word "bread," and those finger-motions, he refused to use his knowledge, because of his strange perversity. At last, after nine months of teaching and waiting, the little fingers voluntarily spelled "b-r-e-a-d," and the beginning had been made.

Other words soon followed, and ere long the mystery of speech was comprehended. Tom took his place in the kindergarten classes and learned all that was taught the other boys. Reading, writing, arithmetic, sloid, gymnastics, and other studies were undertaken; and to-day, in almost all respects save such as are entirely dependent upon eye and ear, he is as well educated as the average boy of his years.

Helen remained only a short time at the kindergarten, assisting in the teaching of her charge. Before very long she removed to another city, and while her interest in him continued unabated, she was unable to be with him or to meet him.

Now, after a separation of some years, Helen has again met her little protégé; but it was not the Tommy Stringer whom she rescued from a black and living tomb five years ago. That was a fearsome, weak, and untrained child --

An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.

Physically and mentally he was as pitiful a spectacle as one's eyes would care to behold. Scarcely able to walk, knowing no word or sign, he was less than an animal, save for his soul and the possibilities within him.

The Tom Stringer who now sat by Helen Keller's side, his fingers nimbly speaking to hers, his face lighted up by a smile of happy intelligence, was a new boy -- a ransomed soul. The trembling limbs and attitude of fear had been supplanted by a confident, manly carriage and a sturdy, robust physique. Once the boy's mind was an utter blank; but now fingers and tongue could not move rapidly enough to ask all the questions of his inquiring brain, or to convey the messages that his full soul longed to speak. Then all was ignorance; now few other boys of ten can surpass in many lines the knowledge of Tom Stringer.

But it is of the meeting of these two wonderful children that I would here write. Helen had been for weeks longing to see her little friend, and to many verbal messages had added her own written invitation to Tom and his teachers to visit her at her Cambridge home. Tom himself, although recalling little or nothing of his past acquaintance with Helen, and altogether ignorant of the debt he owed her, had begun to look forward with pleasure to the visit.

I fear that Helen's greetings to her old friends, Tom's teachers, were not so protracted as they otherwise would have been; for all the while that she was welcoming them in feminine fashion, her hand was quietly moving about to discover, if possible, her long-desired visitor. When she did touch his head, her fingers ran over it lightly for an instant, and then her arms were about his neck. The expressive features of the blind girl lighted up with a rare joy, and throughout the visit her countenance was shining.

"What a fine big boy he is! The dear little fellow!" was her contradictory exclamation of delight when at last she found her voice. Then her swift-moving fingers began to spell messages of affection into Tom's chubby fist. All this time she was running her other hand over his face, or lifting up his hands to her own face and curls. Tom's comment of pleasure on touching her soft hair delighted her.

It was many moments before Miss Sullivan, Helen's devoted friend and teacher, could persuade her pupil, with the small company of friends, to be seated. The two blind and deaf children, by some subtle instinct, seemed to know at once their community of interest, and together they sat in a wide window-seat, talking with eagerness and ease, and absorbed in each other.

This is not the place to report fully the merry chatter and eager words of these two souls, that so marvelously dwell apart from the world in their realm of innocence.

Tom's originality is a keen delight to his friends; and one of his latest fancies is the building of a mythical "pleasure house" for himself. It is to contain ninety-four rooms, which he has peopled with imaginary characters. This he needs must describe at length to Helen, to her amusement and enjoyment. As one fancy after another was revealed to her, she broke out into exclamations of wonderment and pleasure. "What a romantic name!" she commented, when Tom told her that "New Garden" was to be the site of his great abode. Of course, New Garden, like the names of many of the people who are to share Tom's mansion, is entirely a fiction of his own brain. Helen's interest in this story was unabated from beginning to end, and she interrupted the narrative several times to remark on it or to ask questions. Throughout, it was punctuated by the spontaneous laughter that is one of Helen's most beautiful characteristics.

The strangeness of their meeting impressed her deeply. She stopped her conversation with Tom long enough to speak of this. She had been reading Tom's hand, following the movements of his fingers, as he spelled out the words with a rapidity that would make an inexperienced onlooker dizzy, by keeping her own hand partly closed over his. "I suppose Tom is not used to having people read his hand in this way," she suggested.

When Tom's teacher mentioned to Helen that perhaps he would give her a nickname, as is his custom with other intimate friends, Helen was delighted, and asked many questions about this fancy of his. Tom long ago became possessed of the strange notion of applying the names of animals to his teachers and other companions, and he has adhered to it consistently ever since, never misplacing a name. One teacher he calls "Fly," another "Toad," another "Cow," another "Horse," etc. He himself is "Rabbit." So when Helen spoke into his hand her request, he promptly named her "Blackbird." At this she was filled with wonderment. "Do you suppose he thinks I have on a black dress?" she asked me. Tom's reasons are not to be found out, and I could not answer, being as much in the dark as to the connection between Helen Keller and a blackbird as the rest of the company. It was Helen herself who suggested the likeliest reason -- if there was any particular reason. "Don't you think this is it?" raising her hand to her throat, where a golden bird was fastened as a brooch. "He felt this, and must have connected a bird with me because of it." None the less, she was highly flattered to be honored with a special name of her own by the little fellow.

The progress that Tom had made since Helen last met him amazed and charmed her. In answer to an inquiry concerning Tom's education in articulation, his teacher asked him to speak to her with his lips. The strange picture that was then presented I shall never forget. The children sat together, facing each other, each countenance illumined with an animation that the possession of every faculty could not have increased. The older one's accomplishments are remarkable, so that in all things save the senses of sight and hearing she is not one whit behind the most cultured and favored of young women. The other child is following close after her, along the same pathway that she has pursued, knowing not his deficiencies even as much as his companion knows hers, and withal richly encompassed by her tender sympathy.

There they sit, neither having seen since babyhood a ray of light, or having heard the slightest sound, and yet speaking together in articulate, audible words that all present could understand, yet which were not heard by either of the speakers!

One finger of Helen's delicate hand touched Tom's lips, and her thumb rested lightly upon his throat near the chin. He spoke to her sentence after sentence, and she repeated aloud after him the words that he uttered, answering them with her fingers. The significance, the marvelousness of it all, was overwhelming. I doubt if the world has ever seen a greater triumph of education.

Helen's teacher here brought to her two small tokens, and told her that she might give them to Tom as keepsakes, whereat the girl manifested a fresh enthusiasm and eagerness. The first was a tiny and delicate Swiss chalet, carved in wood, which she handed to him with a few words, explaining that it was her gift to him, and in her zeal touching his hand upon her own breast and then upon his to reinforce her meaning. She expressed doubt as to his ability to discover the nature of the ornament -- so slight and elaborate was it. When Tom promptly pronounced it a "house," adding further information about the barn and stairs and fence, her delight knew no bounds, and she fairly trembled with pleasure.

While Tom proceeded with a minute examination of his new possession, Helen sat impatiently waiting to offer the other gift -- a small glass mug incased in silver. She asked me if Tom liked flowers, and suggested that he might keep some in this vessel. Then, laughing softly, she said that she would give the object to him upside down, so as to puzzle him as to its nature; but Tom instantly righted it, and told what it was, adding that it was like a soda-water glass from which he had drunk that afternoon. Helen was mightily pleased, and laughed over Tom's fondness for soda-water, confessing to the same taste herself.

Just before farewells were spoken, Helen turned to the friend seated beside her, and remarked, "What a wonderful boy Tom is! I am very proud of him. I love him dearly, and I hope he will learn to love me." Who can doubt his gratitude to her? It will be a worthy study to watch the developing friendship of these two children, who even now have been drawn together so strangely.