There, too, after a fit of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass.
Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell would find the first violets and lilies. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of my childhood. It was called "Ivy Green" because the house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered with beautiful English ivy. The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps from our little rose-bower. It was the favourite haunt of humming-birds and bees. The little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and Southern smilax. From the garden it looked like an arbour. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and honeysuckles. Such a house my father built after the Civil War, and when he married my mother they went to live in it. It is a custom in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an annex to be used on occasion.
I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my sight and hearing, in a tiny house consisting of a large square room and a small one, in which the servant slept. After the war was over the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. He married Lucy Helen Everett, who belonged to the same family of Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. When the Civil War broke out, he fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general. Their son, Charles Adams, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and moved to Helena, Arkansas. Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for many years. Her grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna E. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many years younger. My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette's aides, Alexander Moore, and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, an early Colonial Governor of Virginia. I have been told that once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback to purchase supplies for the plantation, and my aunt has in her possession many of the letters to his family, which give charming and vivid accounts of these trips. My grandfather, Caspar Keller's son, "entered" large tracts of land in Alabama and finally settled there. One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education-rather a singular coincidence though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his. The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama.
#Hasten down the wind ebook series#
In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest." Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present.
The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The Story of My Life Chapter I It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. This ebook and more available at This ebook was prepared using etext produced by Project Gutenberg, from the original etext kelle10.txt. Story of My Life by Helen Keller This ebook was produced by C.
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