The Most Important Day In My Life G3p06

 The Most Important Day In My Life

The most important day in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Sullivan, came to me. It was the Third of March,1887,three months before I was seven years old.

That afternoon, I went to the door and waited on the steps, for I guessed from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen. I did not know what the future would be for me. "Light! Give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

I felt the coming footsteps. I stretched out my hand to the person who I thought was my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in her arms. It was my teacher.

Then my teacher led me into her room and gave me a doll. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l". I was at once interested in this word play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the word correctly, I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother, I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed, I learned to spell in this way a great many words, among them, "pin, hat, cup" and a few verbs like "sit, stand, and walk." But I did not understand what they meant. It was not until my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything had a name.

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. And when she tried to teach me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, I became impatient. Then she brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought made me hop and skip with pleasure.

We walked down the path to the well-house. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream flowed over one hand she spelled into the other the word "water", first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the movements of her fingers. Suddenly I became conscious of something forgotten, and I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, and set it free!

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house, everything which I touched seemed to be full of life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.

I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that "mother, father, sister, teacher" were among them — words that were to make the world blossom for me.

I felt very happy that day, and it was the first time that I longed for a new day to come.