it was in the spring of 1890 that i learo speak. the impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. i used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hahe movements of my lips. i leased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. i also liked to keep my hand on a sihroat, or on a piano when it was being played. before i lost my sight and hearing, i was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that i had ceased to speak because i could not hear. i used to sit in my mothers lap all day long and keep my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her lips; and i moved my lips, too, although i had fotten what talking was. my friends say that i laughed and cried naturally, and for awhile i made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means of unication, but because the need of exerg my vocal ans was imperative. there was, however, one word the meaning of which i still remembered, water. i pronou "wa-wa." even this became less and less intelligible until the time when miss sullivan began to teach me. i stopped using it only after i had learo spell the word on my fingers.
i had known for a long time that the people about me used a method of unication different from mine; and even before i khat a deaf child could be taught to speak, i was scious of dissatisfa with the means of unication i already possessed. one who is entirely depe upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of narrowness. this feeling began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reag sense of a lack that should be filled. my thoughts would often rise a up like birds against the wind, and i persisted in using my lips and voice. friends tried to disce this tendency, feari it would lead to disappoi. but i persisted, and an act soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of this great barrier--i heard the story nhild kaata.
in 1890 mrs. lamson, who had been one of laura bridgmans teachers, and who had just returned from a visit to norway and sweden, came to see me, and told me nhild kaata, a deaf and blind girl in norway who had actually been taught to speak. mrs. lamson had scarcely fielling me about this girls success before i was on fire with eagerness. i resolved that i, too, would learn to speak. i would not rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advid assistao miss sarah fuller, principal of the horace mann school.
this lovely,
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