South Boston, mass., March 1, 1890.

Dear kind poet,—­I have thought of you many times since that bright Sunday when I bade you goodbye, and I am going to write you a letter because I love you.  I am sorry that you have no little children to play with sometimes, but I think you are very happy with your books, and your many, many friends.  On Washington’s Birthday a great many people came here to see the little blind children, and I read for them from your poems, and showed them some beautiful shells which came from a little island near Palos.  I am reading a very sad story called “Little Jakey.”  Jakey was the sweetest little fellow you can imagine, but he was poor and blind.  I used to think, when I was small and before I could read, that everybody was always happy, and at first it made me very sad to know about pain and great sorrow; but now I know that we could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.  I am studying about insects in Zoology, and I have learned many things about butterflies.  They do not make honey for us, like the bees, but many of them are as beautiful as the flowers they light upon, and they always delight the hearts of little children.  They live a gay life, flitting from flower to flower, sipping the drops of honey-dew, without a thought for the morrow.  They are just like little boys and girls when they forget books and studies, and run away to the woods and the fields to gather wild-flowers, or wade in the ponds for fragrant lilies, happy in the bright sunshine.  If my little sister comes to Boston next June, will you let me bring her to see you?  She is a lovely baby and I am sure you will love [her].  Now I must tell my gentle poet good-bye, for I have a letter to write home before I go to bed.  From your loving little friend, Helen A. Keller.

The reading of this letter made many eyes glisten, and a dead silence hushed the whole circle.  All at once Delilah, our pretty table-maid, forgot her place,—­what business had she to be listening to our conversation and reading?—­and began sobbing, just as if she had been a lady.  She could n’t help it, she explained afterwards,—­she had a little blind sister at the asylum, who had told her about Helen’s reading to the children.

It was very awkward, this breaking-down of our pretty Delilah, for one girl crying will sometimes set off a whole row of others,—­it is as hazardous as lighting one cracker in a bunch.  The two Annexes hurried out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and I almost expected a semi-hysteric cataclysm.  At this critical moment Number Five called Delilah to her, looked into her face with those calm eyes of hers, and spoke a few soft words.  Was Number Five forgetful, too?  Did she not remember the difference of their position?  I suppose so.  But she quieted the poor handmaiden as simply and easily as a nursing mother quiets her unweaned baby.  Why are we not all in love with Number Five?  Perhaps we are.  At any rate, I suspect the Professor.  When we all get quiet, I will touch him up about that visit she promised to make to his laboratory.