Chapter II
Chapter preface. As a child, I couldn't see or hear, but like all other children, I was playful, mischievous, mischievous, and sometimes even mischievous.
I can't remember when I first realized that I was different from othersBut I'm sure it was before my teacher arrived. I've found that when my mother and other friends want something, they don't use their hands to draw like I do, but they talk with their mouths. Sometimes I stand in the middle of two people talking and touch their lips. But I didn't understand what they meant at all, and it made me very angry. So I moved my lips and gesticulated, but in vain. It made me feel surprisingly angry, and I yelled hysterically and kicked and fussed until I was hoarse.
I think when I was naughty, I actually had a number in my heart. For example, I know that kicking babysitter Ella, she will be sad. When the anger is gone, I will regret it a little. But when something doesn't go my way, I forget the regret I had last time, and I'll still be unreasonable.
In those days, I had two good friends who spent the day and night, one was the daughter of my cook, Martha Washington, a little black girl, and the other was a wonderful old Seth hound, Bailey. Martha Washington could understand my gestures and had no difficulty getting her to do what I wanted her to do. I take pleasure in bullying Martha, and she's always submissive to my coercion, never risking a confrontation with me. I am strong, agile, unscrupulous, fearless. I know my temper very well, and I always do whatever I want, and I can even fight to achieve my own goals. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, kneading dough, helping with ice cream, grinding coffee. We'd fight over a rolling pin, and we'd feed the hens and turkeys gathered on the kitchen steps. Some of the birds are very obedient, they will peck at my hands, let me touch them, feel them. Once, a large male turkey snatched a tomato from me and ran away with it. Perhaps inspired by the success of "Master Turkey", we snatched the chef's freshly baked cake and squatted down by the pyre to eat it. Then I got seriously ill, and I wondered if that turkey had suffered such bad retribution.
Guinea fowl love to nest in the middle of nowhere, and one of my pleasures is to find guinea fowl eggs in the deep grass. I can't tell Martha Washington with my mouth that I want to find the eggs, but I'll fold my hands together and put them on the ground, meaning there's something round in the grass, and Martha always understands. When we were lucky enough to find the guinea fowl's nest, I would never allow Martha to take the eggs home, but would tell her with a clear gesture that if she took the eggs home and accidentally fell on the way, the eggs would be broken.
For Masha and me, the storehouse where the grain was stored, the stable where the horses were tethered, and the stall where the cows were milked once in the morning and once in the evening, were all the most interesting playgrounds. When the worker is milking the cow, he will ask me to put my hand on the cow. And I often pay the price for my curiosity, and I am whipped by the tail of the ox.
Preparing for the Christmas celebrations has always been a great joy for me. Of course, I didn't fully know what Christmas was all about at the time, but I loved the cheerful atmosphere in the house and the small snacks that the adults handed out to us to keep Martha and me quiet. Even if adults feel that we are a stumbling block to their preparations, this dislike does not affect our happiness in the slightest. They agreed that we would grind the spices, pick the raisins, and lick the food debris from the stirred spoon. I'll hang up my stockings just like everyone else;But I don't remember being really amused by the Christmas ritual, or being driven by curiosity to get up in the wee hours of the morning to look at presents.
Like me, Martha Washington is a prankster. On a hot July afternoon, two little girls sat on the steps at the entrance of the hallway. A black, ebony, shazzy hair was tied up by a shoelace, like a screw cone growing on top of the head. The other ** is fair-skinned and has long blonde curls. One child is six years old and the other is ** years old. The younger one was a blind boy — it was me, and the other one was Martha Washington. We sat on the steps, busy cutting paper dolls. But soon we got tired of the game, so we cut our own laces and cut the honeysuckle leaves that were within reach. Suddenly, my attention was drawn to Martha's "screw cone". She initially refused, but eventually relented. Considering the fairness of the game, Martha grabbed the scissors and cut off a handful of my curly hair. If my mother hadn't discovered and stopped it in time, I might have lost all my blonde hair under her scissors.
Bailey—my other good companion, the old hound—was old and lazy, and liked to snooze by the fire rather than play with me. I tried my best to teach it my sign language, but it was not gifted and serious. Sometimes it jumps up and trembles with excitement, and looks energetic, as if it has seen its prey. I don't know what it's doing, but I'm sure it's not listening to me. This made me very unhappy, and the sign language lesson could not continue, so I had to give it a few punches to end it. After that, Bailey would get up and stretch, snort contemptuously, and go to the other side of the fireplace to lie down again. I, tired and disappointed, had to go and play with Martha.
Some fragments of my childhood are still deeply engraved in my mind, although fragmentary, but they are clearly recognizable, allowing me to perceive the world more strongly in a life without sound, without light, and without seeing the future.
One day, I accidentally splashed water on my apron, so I lifted it up and baked it on the flickering fire on the stove in my living room. I didn't think the skirt was drying fast enough, so I leaned over to the stove and spread it directly on the ashes of the stove. Suddenly, the fire broke out, and I was surrounded by flames, and my apron and clothes were all on fire. I screamed in horror, and the old nanny, Pooh, came and wrapped me in a blanket that almost suffocated me, but the fire was finally extinguished. Luckily, I didn't get burned badly except for my hands and hair.
It was around this time that I discovered the purpose of the key. One morning, I locked my mother in the pantry while the servants were working elsewhere, and she had to stay in that ghost place for three hours. She kept knocking the door inside, while I sat on the steps of the hallway, giggling happily at the vibration of the knock. It was one of the naughtiest pranks I ever played, and my parents decided to ask a teacher to discipline me as soon as possible. So my teacher, Miss Sullivan, came, but it wasn't long before I found an opportunity to lock her in my room as well. That day, my mother told me to go upstairs to deliver something to Miss Sullivan, but as soon as I handed it to her, I quickly locked the door and hid the key under the closet in the corner of the living room. I insisted on not telling me where the key was hidden, and no one could do anything about me. My father had to find a ladder to get Miss Sullivan out of the window, and I was so complacent. It wasn't until a few months later that I handed over the keys.
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When I was about five years old, we moved out of that little house crawling with vines and into a big brand new house. At that time, in addition to my father and mother, we also had two half-brothers who were my mother, and later, we added another person to the family, my little sister Mildred. One of my first vivid memories of my father is that on one occasion, I walked up to him with a large pile of newspapers and found him alone holding a large piece of paper with his face covered. I thought it strange to know what my father was doing. So I followed his example, held up a piece of paper, and even put on his glasses, thinking that in this way I would understand the mystery. But I didn't figure it out for years. Later, I learned that these papers were all newspapers, and my father was the editor of one of the newspapers.
My father was a kind-hearted man who loved his family. He rarely leaves us except during the hunting season. People told me that he was a good hunter and a famous sharpshooter. He loves his hounds and shotguns second only to his family. He was very hospitable, almost excessive, and it was rare to see him go home without guests. What he is most proud of is his large garden. It is said that the watermelons and strawberries in the garden are the best in the village, and he always brings me the first ripening grapes and the finest berries. I still remember when he took me for a walk in the fruit grove and melon fields, he caressed ** lovingly, and tried his best to make me happy.
He's also a master storyteller;After I learned to write, he would often struggle to write wonderful stories on my hands. And nothing pleased him more than to see me recount the anecdotes he had told.
In 1896, just as I was enjoying the good time of late summer in the north, the sad news of my father's death suddenly came. He was ill for a short time, and after a brief acute attack, he died soon after. It was the first time I had tasted extreme grief and the first time I had experienced the death of a loved one.
How would I describe my mother?She was so close to me that I didn't know where to start.
For a long time, I saw my little sister as an intruder. I know that I am no longer my mother's only baby. This thought filled my heart with jealousy. She snuggled up to her mother's lap, and she seemed to have taken away all of her care and time from me. An incident that happened later, in my opinion, was simply taking away my mother's love, plus a personal insult.
At that time, I had a doll that I couldn't put down, which I later named Nancy. She was the most helpless victim of my tantrums, played to pieces by me. I have many talking and blinking dolls, but my favorite is poor Nancy. She has a cradle, and I often play with her by the cradle for more than an hour. Nancy and her cradle are my most cherished treasures. One day, however, I found my little sister sleeping comfortably in that cradle. It is conceivable that a guy who is not likable should dare to be so presumptuous, and it makes me so angry that I rush to the cradle to overthrow it. Fortunately, my mother came in time to catch her, otherwise my little sister might have fallen to the ground and died. At that time, I was blind and deaf, in the trough of double loneliness, and I could hardly feel the affectionate language, the acts of affection, and the affection between my companions. But then, when I regained my inherent human nature, my little sister Mildred and I became sympathetic, holding hands and being inseparable whenever we went, even though she couldn't read my sign language, and I couldn't hear her babbling childlike words.
As I've gotten older, so has my desire for self-expression. The few gestures that were scarce were gradually insufficient, and the frustration of not being able to make others understand made me often lash out. I felt as if many invisible hands were clinging to me, and I struggled desperately to be free. I struggle—the kind of struggle that didn't help, just the strong desire to rebel in me;I used to wear myself out in hysteria. If my mother was right next to me, I would throw myself into her arms and be so heartbroken that I forgot why I was angry. Later, as my desire to communicate with people became stronger, I got angry every day, sometimes even every hour.
My parents were deeply distressed and yet overwhelmed. My home is far from any school for the deaf, and it seems that no one would want to go to a remote place like Tascombia to teach a blind and deaf child. In fact, my friends and family were skeptical that I would be able to get an education. Her mother found a glimmer of hope in Dickens's Notes on the Americans, who had read his report on Laura Bridgeman and vaguely remembered that she was also blind and deaf, but she was still educated. But she also remembers another desperate fact, which is that Dr. Howe, who invented the teaching method for the blind and deaf, has been dead for many years, and his method may have been lost long after his death;Even if it wasn't lost, how could a little girl in a remote town in Alabama receive such an education?
Thought Questions To sum up, what kind of personality traits did the "I" have in childhood?
Preset plot development
As I grow older, my desire for self-expression is also expanding, and I am in urgent need of professional education
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