Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Donkeys are the most provokingly slow of all animals, and Helen's idea of riding was to go at a sharp trot, -- the faster the better; but, had she known that this involved the application of a stick to her Neddy, not a step faster than a walk would she have had him go; so the plan was adopted of procuring a heavy club, and whacking every resounding article we came near; and once this club was put in Helen's hand with the suggestion that she should use it "to make Neddy go." An expression of horrified disgust came over her face. "Oh, no; this is better!" she replied; this being a twig that might have tickled one of the donkey's ears, but certainly would not have stimulated him out of the slowest of walks.

From her summer home in the mountains of Alabama she writes that she has Neddy, and "he carries me very carefully up the steep hills, and when he is tired I dismount and let him eat the sweet grass."

The saddle did not fit the donkey very well. A slight abrasion of the skin resulted, and great was Helen's grief to think that she had made a sore on her Neddy, and she wrote me that she would not ride him any more until it was well; though the sore probably annoyed the donkey less than would a fly alighting on one of his ears.

A donkey foal only a few weeks old was caught and held for her to examine; but, on learning that its mother was crowding in to where the colt was, she said: "Oh, let it go. Its mother will be worried about it."

Three great mastiffs were kept at her entertainer's place, and they soon seemed to understand that Helen was fond of them, even though she did not call them; and these dogs would lick her hands and rub against her without her manifesting anything but the greatest delight.

Of course special effort was made to add to her enjoyment in every way. She was taken out to drive, allowed to ride on horseback and donkeyback, encouraged to play with the dogs and donkeys. Her heart was fixed on returning home; but, with a rare loveliness of spirit, she allowed no expression of this feeling to escape her. She devoted herself with all her heart to the amusements provided for her; and it was only when she had finally taken the train to start for Alabama, that the intensity of her longing for home was made manifest by her constant inquiries at each stoppage of the train: "Where are we? How long shall we stop?"

Playing at hide and seek, she accidentally caught a moth in her fingers, and with shouts of delight she ran to exhibit it. She couldn't let it go. "One of Mother Nature's darlings has got lost!" she said, "yet it must not be hurt;" and so, after careful inspection of it, a glass was prepared to put it in, over which a paper was drawn, in which she punched air-holes to give it air until but little of the paper was left intact.

A seedling oak, with the acorn attached, was given her to show how it grew; and she was told that this particular one had been cut off by the mowing machine, and had sprouted. "Poor thing! Mother Nature wants it to grow after so much hardship!" so it had to be planted, and is now marked "Helen's Oak."

Even the worms destructive to vegetation were not naughty in her estimation. "They are baby worms! They do not know better! They must eat something!"

A clergyman much interested in the teaching of the blind, asked what her religious knowledge was, and her teacher, after explaining that it was but rudimentary, asked her: "Baby, do you pray?" Low, in those exquisitely muffled tones of hers, came the answer: --

"I pray the prayer of Plato old, --
God make me beautiful within,
And may mine eyes the good behold
In everything save sin."

A cry of delight burst from the auditors, followed by the comment from one of them: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, oh Lord!" How entirely this was her own thought was shown by Miss Sullivan's question, "why, baby, where did you learn that?" and her reply that it was from Mr. Whittier; and then she added: "I like it." Many must have been the triumphs of Mr. Whittier, yet I am sure that none can have given him the pleasure that it will give him to learn of this quotation from his poems. What nobler shrine could the poet's work have than the lovely, innocent heart of this little child?

A dog to whom she was much attached, -- and who was so attached to her that Lioness mourned, refusing to be comforted, for days after Helen left home, -- was brutally killed. Helen was intensely grieved; but amidst her tears she found the loving, forgiving spirit to say: "They could not have known what a good dog Lioness was, or they would not have done it and to a child friend she wrote: "It must have terrified Lioness so much to have any one unkind to her, we all loved her so."

How exquisite her interest in the little blind deaf-mute boy, Tommy Stringer, and her earnest devotion to securing the money needed for his education, -- a devotion rewarded at this time by the donation of over $1,600 to her "beautiful plan." How tender the pathos of her expression of thanks to contributors to her fund: "I know what it is to be in darkness. I was not happy then. I do not think I often smiled before teacher came to me, and taught me how many wonderful and beautiful things there were in the world; and my heart has been full to the brim with love and happiness ever since!" or her remark in her letter of thanks to those who contributed to her fund, through the journal called Forest and Stream: "It seems lovely that the death of my brave, loving Lioness should be the means of helping dear little Tommy!" the touching incident of the death of her dog having interested lovers of dogs in her proposed fund, which she started by giving the money designed to purchase her a new dog. As showing the interest she awakened in this fund of hers, it may be noted that from dog-lovers in England she received something over sixty dollars.