"I spelled 'w-a-t-e-r' into her free hand. The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled 'water' several times. Then she dropped to the ground and asked its name. She pointed to the pump and the trellis, and then suddenly turning around she asked my name. I spelled "Teacher." And so it began—the story of Helen Keller, a little girl of seven imprisoned in a world without sights or sounds, and Annie Sullivan, a young teacher from Boston who believed that one day her bright, energetic student would be able to read and write and perhaps speak.
Today Helen Keller is a world-famous personality who can read, write and speak. But she fought, against great odds, a battle that could not have been won without the continuing support of Teacher. Together they achieved things that most of us take for granted and together they did things that make many of us envious. Among the people who knew them were Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie and the mighty and the meek of many lands. Today Anne Sullivan Macy, the beloved Teacher, is gone but her memory is cherished by many particularly by the great lady of Arcan Ridge, for they were valiant companions.
To tell this story of human courage and hope, Helen Elmira Waite has done a great deal of meticulous research and she was rewarded by the discovery of some letters to and from Helen Keller in the files of the Perkins School in Watertown, Mass., that had gone unnoticed for many years.
—from the dust jacket
About the Jacket
The jacket of this book, designed by Albert Michini, has a background of modern Braille that repeats the title of the book and the author's name. The hands are symbolic of the first means of communi- cation that Helen Keller used. Inset on the back of the jacket is a reproduction of Helen Keller's first letter to her mother.
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