Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/296

HELEN KELLER By Evelyn M. Butleb IN tiie summer of 1894, at Chantauqua, New York, one day the writer noticed on the dock a group of people just ar- rived by boat In the party was a young girl, walking arm in arm with a distinguished looking gentleman. She was lean- ing forward with her face turned slightly toward him. Her whole appearance, face and attitude, was alive with attention and she was saying distinctly some such words as, ^ ^ Is it then possible that . . ." This young girl, distinguished from those around her at first glance only by a very special alertness, as if she were thrilled with interest, was Helen Keller at the age of fourteen. Seven years before this time she had been not only blind but deaf and dumb, giving expression to daily outbursts of rebel- lious passion that left her exhausted and sobbing. Now a young woman, easUy mistaken for sixteen instead of fourteen years of age, she walked the crowded dock with assurance, self-possession, and charm. Though still deaf and blind, she could speak ; her hand passed through the arm of her escort rested on his fingers so lightly that she could follow every movement without impeding them as he conmiunicated with her by means of the single-hand manual alphabet. Helen Adams Keller was bom June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was the editor of a paper. As a young man he had served in the Confederate army and had risen to the rank of captain. He was a man strongly attached to his family, of true Southern hospitality, a famous teller of anecdotes ; his garden and his trees were sources of constant delight to him. The mother of Helen Keller was his second wife and much younger than he. Through her Edward Everett Hale was distantly related to the family, and he was one of the many eminent men who were cordial, inspiring friends of Helen Keller. The Keller home in Alabama was named Ivy Green for the