The Miracle Worker (7 page)

ANNIE:
You devil.

(Her tone is one of great respect, humor, and acceptance of challenge.)

You think I'm so easily gotten rid of? You have a thing or two to learn, first. I have nothing else to do.

(She goes up the steps to the porch, but turns for a final word, almost of warning.)

And nowhere to go.

(And presently she moves into the house to the others, as the lights dim down and out, except for the small circle upon
HELEN
solitary at the pump, which ends the act.)

IT IS EVENING.

The only room visible in the
KELLER
house is
ANNIE'S,
where by lamplight
ANNIE
in a shawl is at a desk writing a letter; at her bureau
HELEN
in her customary unkempt state is tucking her doll in the bottom drawer as a cradle, the contents of which she has dumped out, creating as usual a fine disorder.

ANNIE
mutters each word as she writes her letter, slowly, her eyes close to and almost touching the page, to follow with difficulty her pen-work.

ANNIE:
“ . . . and, nobody, here, has, attempted, to, control, her. The, greatest, problem, I, have, is, how, to, discipline, her, without, breaking, her, spirit.”

(Resolute voice)

“But, I, shall, insist, on, reasonable, obedience, from, the, start—”

(At which point
HELEN,
groping about on the desk, knocks over the inkwell.
ANNIE
jumps up, rescues her letter, rights the inkwell, grabs a towel to stem the spillage, and then wipes at
HELEN'S
hands;
HELEN
as always pulls free, but not until
ANNIE
first gets three letters into her palm.)

Ink.

(
HELEN
is enough interested in and puzzled by this spelling that she proffers her hand again; so
ANNIE
spells and impassively dunks it back in the spillage.)

Ink. It has a name.

(She wipes the hand clean, and leads
HELEN
to her bureau, where she looks for something to engage her. She finds a sewing card, with needle and thread, and going to her knees, shows
HELEN'S
hand how to connect one row of holes.)

Down. Under. Up. And be careful of the needle—

(
HELEN
gets it, and
ANNIE
rises.)

Fine. You keep out of the ink and perhaps I can keep out of—the soup.

(She returns to the desk, tidies it, and resumes writing her letter, bent close to the page.)

“These, blots, are, her, handiwork. I—”

(She is interrupted by a gasp;
HELEN
has stuck her finger, and sits sucking at it, darkly. Then with vengeful resolve she seizes her doll, and is about to dash its brains out on the floor when
ANNIE
diving catches it in one hand, which she at once shakes with hopping pain but otherwise ignores, patiently.)

All right, let's try temperance.

(Taking the doll, she kneels, goes through the motion of knocking its head on the floor, spells into
HELEN'S
hand:)

Bad, girl.

(She lets
HELEN
feel the grieved expression on her face.
HELEN
imitates it. Next she makes
HELEN
caress the doll and kiss the hurt spot and hold it gently in her arms, then spells into her hand:)

Good, girl.

(She lets
HELEN
feel the smile on her face.
HELEN
sits with a scowl, which suddenly clears; she pats the doll, kisses it, wreathes her face in a large artificial smile, and bears the doll to the washstand, where she carefully sits it.
ANNIE
watches, pleased.)

Very good girl—

(Whereupon
HELEN
elevates the pitcher and dashes it on the floor instead.
ANNIE
leaps to her feet, and stands inarticulate;
HELEN
calmly gropes back to sit to the sewing card and needle.

ANNIE
manages to achieve self-control. She picks up a fragment or two of the pitcher, sees
HELEN
is puzzling over the card, and resolutely kneels to demonstrate it again. She spells into
HELEN'S
hand.

KATE
meanwhile coming around the corner with folded sheets on her arms, halts at the doorway and watches them for a moment in silence; she is moved, but level.)

KATE
[
PRESENTLY
]: What are you saying to her?

(
ANNIE
glancing up is a bit embarrassed, and rises from the spelling, to find her company manners.)

ANNIE:
Oh, I was just making conversation. Saying it was a sewing card.

KATE:
But does that—

(She imitates with her fingers)

—mean that to her?

ANNIE:
No. No, she won't know what spelling is till she knows what a word is.

KATE:
Yet you keep spelling to her. Why?

ANNIE
[
CHEERILY
]: I like to hear myself talk!

KATE:
The Captain says it's like spelling to the fence post.

ANNIE
[
A PAUSE
]: Does he, now.

KATE:
Is it?

ANNIE:
No, it's how I watch you talk to Mildred.

KATE:
Mildred.

ANNIE:
Any baby. Gibberish, grown-up gibberish, baby-talk gibberish, do they understand one word of it to start? Somehow they begin to. If they hear it, I'm letting Helen hear it.

KATE:
Other children are not—impaired.

ANNIE:
Ho, there's nothing impaired in that head, it works like a mousetrap!

KATE
[
SMILES
]: But after a child hears how many words, Miss Annie, a million?

ANNIE:
I guess no mother's ever minded enough to count.

(She drops her eyes to spell into
HELEN'S
hand, again indicating the card;
HELEN
spells back, and
ANNIE
is amused.)

KATE
[
TOO QUICKLY
]: What did she spell?

ANNIE:
I spelt card. She spelt cake!

(She takes in
KATE'S
quickness, and shakes her head, gently.)

No, it's only a finger-game to her, Mrs. Keller. What she has to learn first is that things have names.

KATE:
And when will she learn?

ANNIE:
Maybe after a million and one words.

(They hold each other's gaze;
KATE
then speaks quietly.)

KATE:
I should like to learn those letters, Miss Annie.

ANNIE
[
PLEASED
]: I'll teach you tomorrow morning. That makes only half a million each!

KATE
[
THEN
]: It's her bedtime.

(
ANNIE
reaches for the sewing card,
HELEN
objects,
ANNIE
insists, and
HELEN
gets rid of
ANNIE'S
hand by jabbing it with the needle.
ANNIE
gasps, and moves to grip
HELEN'S
wrist; but
KATE
intervenes with a proffered sweet, and
HELEN
drops the card, crams the sweet into her mouth, and scrambles up to search her mother's hands for more.
ANNIE
nurses her wound, staring after the sweet.)

I'm sorry, Miss Annie.

ANNIE
[
INDIGNANTLY
]: Why does she get a reward? For stabbing me?

KATE:
Well—

(Then, tiredly)

We catch our flies with honey, I'm afraid. We haven't the heart for much else, and so many times she simply cannot be compelled.

ANNIE
[
OMINOUS
]: Yes. I'm the same way myself.

(
KATE
smiles, and leads
HELEN
off around the corner.
ANNIE
alone in her room picks up things and in the act of removing
HELEN'S
doll gives way to unmannerly temptation: she throttles it. She drops it on her bed, and stands pondering. Then she turns back, sits decisively, and writes again, as the lights dim on her.)

(Grimly)

“The, more, I, think, the, more, certain, I, am, that, obedience, is, the, gateway, through, which, knowledge, enters, the, mind, of, the, child—”

(On the word “obedience” a shaft of sunlight hits the water pump outside, while
ANNIE'S
voice ends in the dark, followed by a distant cockcrow; daylight comes up over another corner of the sky, with
VINEY'S
voice heard at once.)

VINEY:
Breakfast ready!

(
VINEY
comes down into the sunlight beam, and pumps a pitcherful of water. While the pitcher is brimming we hear conversation from the dark; the light grows to the family room of the house where all are either entering or already seated at breakfast, with
KELLER
and
JAMES
arguing the war.
HELEN
is wandering around the table to explore the contents of the other plates. When
ANNIE
is in her chair, she watches
HELEN.
VINEY
re-enters, sets the pitcher on the table;
KATE
lifts the almost empty biscuit plate with an inquiring look,
VINEY
nods and bears it off back, neither of them interrupting the men.
ANNIE
meanwhile sits with fork quiet, watching
HELEN,
who at her mother's plate pokes her hand among some scrambled eggs.
KATE
catches
ANNIE'S
eyes on her, smiles with a wry gesture,
HELEN
moves on to
JAMES'S
plate, the male talk continuing,
JAMES
deferential and
KELLER
overriding.)

JAMES:
—no, but shouldn't we give the devil his due, father? The fact is we lost the South two years earlier when he outthought us behind Vicksburg.

KELLER:
Outthought is a peculiar word for a butcher.

JAMES:
Harness maker, wasn't he?

KELLER:
I said butcher, his only virtue as a soldier was numbers and he led them to slaughter with no more regard than for so many sheep.

JAMES:
But even if in that sense he was a butcher, the fact is he—

KELLER:
And a drunken one, half the war.

JAMES:
Agreed, father. If his own people said he was I can't argue he—

KELLER:
Well, what is it you find to admire in such a man, Jimmie, the butchery or the drunkenness?

JAMES:
Neither, father, only the fact that he beat us.

KELLER:
He didn't.

JAMES:
Is it your contention we won the war, sir?

KELLER:
He didn't beat us at Vicksburg. We lost Vicksburg because Pemberton gave Bragg five thousand of his cavalry and Loring, whom I knew personally for a nincompoop before you were born, marched away from Champion's Hill with enough men to have held them, we lost Vicksburg by stupidity verging on treason.

JAMES:
I would have said we lost Vicksburg because Grant was one thing no Yankee general was before him—

KELLER:
Drunk? I doubt it.

JAMES:
Obstinate.

KELLER:
Obstinate. Could any of them compare even in that with old Stonewall? If he'd been there we would still have Vicksburg.

JAMES:
Well, the butcher simply wouldn't give up, he tried four ways of getting around Vicksburg and on the fifth try he got around. Anyone else would have pulled north and—

KELLER:
He wouldn't have got around if we'd had a Southerner in command, instead of a half-breed Yankee traitor like Pemberton—

(While this background talk is in progress,
HELEN
is working around the table, ultimately toward
ANNIE'S
plate. She messes with her hands in
JAMES'S
plate, then in
KELLER'S,
both men taking it so for granted they hardly notice. Then
HELEN
comes groping with soiled hands past her own plate, to
ANNIE'S;
her hand goes to it, and
ANNIE,
who has been waiting, deliberately lifts and removes her hand.
HELEN
gropes again,
ANNIE
firmly pins her by the wrist, and removes her hand from the table.
HELEN
thrusts her hands again,
ANNIE
catches them, and
HELEN
begins to flail and make noises; the interruption brings
KELLER'S
gaze upon them.)