The Water Pump at Ivy Green

For nearly seven years, Helen Keller lived in a world of fragments. After losing her sight and hearing at nineteen months old, she grasped at meaning through crude gestures — some sixty home signs she had invented with her family in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Each sign carried a sliver of understanding, like lantern light glimpsed through a keyhole. Her parents communicated what they could, piece by piece, but the full picture remained locked away.…