The Story of My Life: Chapter 2  Summary & Analysis

Helen does not remember much of the first few months after her illness, but she knows that she mostly sat on her mother’s lap or clung to her dress as her mother went about her day. Helen felt every object in the house, and had some sense of what things were. She could also use “crude signs” to communicate her desires; she would shake her head for “no” and nod it for “yes,” pull someone towards her for “come” and push them for “go.” Helen’s mother was very attentive toward her, and helped her to understand a good deal of things. Her mother was “all that was bright and good in [Helen’s] long night.”

Though Helen was impaired, she still understood a lot of what was happening around her. She could fold and put away clean clothes, and knew by what her mother and aunt were wearing whether they were going out or staying in. She could hear vibrations in the floorboards and doorways, and would ready herself for guests by putting on her mother’s powder and oils. She had an awareness that other people were different from her, and did not use signs to communicate but rather talked with their mouths. When Helen achieved no results in verbal communication, she often became very angry, and would throw fits and tantrums.

Helen’s constant companions were her dog Belle and a girl named Martha Washington, the daughter of the Keller family’s cook. Martha understood all of Helen’s signs, and more than that often did whatever Helen told her to do. Helen enjoyed having dominion over another person, and loved getting her way. The two of them spent a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking and making ice-cream, and occasionally would hunt for bird’s eggs in the grass or help milk the cows in the mornings and evenings.

Helen found herself getting into mischief like any other child; she and Martha cut one another’s hair, much to their parents’ dismay, and once, trying to dry out one of her aprons by the hearth, Helen briefly caught fire and her nurse had to throw a blanket over her to put the fire out. Helen found out what keys were, and what they were for, and once locked her mother in the pantry for three hours. Later, when Helen’s teacher Miss Sullivan came to stay, she would repeat this clever trick, forcing Miss Sullivan to be lowered out her bedroom window on a ladder. 

When Helen was about five, their family moved from the little vine-covered house to a new, larger home, and Helen’s father would often sit reading newspapers. Helen was always very curious to understand what her father was doing, but it wasn’t until years later that she would discover that he was a newspaper editor. Her father was “loving and indulgent,” and deeply devoted to his family. He loved hunting, gardening, and storytelling, and after Helen acquired language her father would tell her wonderful, fanciful stories. Helen wishes to speak of her mother, but finds that her mother is so dear to her that it “seems indelicate to speak of her.”

As for Helen’s little sister, Mildred, who came into the world when Helen was a few years old, Helen regarded her sister at first as an “intruder.” She was jealous of her sister, and of how often the baby got to sit in her mother’s lap. At the time of Mildred’s birth, Helen had a “much-abused” doll named Nancy, whom Helen liked to place in a little cradle. One afternoon, Helen found Mildred sleeping in the cradle, and attempted to overturn it; her mother caught her just in time, and Mildred was unharmed. After Helen was “restored to [her] human heritage” through the acquisition of language, she and Mildred grew close, though often the two of them had trouble communicating with one another.