Miss Spitfire

by Sarah Miller

  “She did. With a spoon. And she folded her napkin.”

  A broad smile lights up her face, the first smile I’ve seen untinged by shame or melancholy. “Oh, Miss Annie,” she breathes, taking my hands in hers, “Miss Annie.” She presses the back of one of her hands to her mouth to hold in her tears as she looks at me. Her eyes glow blue as the sea.

  Pride swells like another heartbeat within me, so large it threatens to leak from my eyes. I could stand like this forever, in the light of those shining blue eyes.

  “How did you ever manage it?” she wonders, shaking her head.

  I think of Helen’s small feet kicking at nothing as I held the napkin over her face, and my pride shrivels into a black lump. My hand finds its way to my forehead. Dizzy, I shake my head. “I can’t. I …”

  “You poor thing,” Mrs. Keller laughs, hugging me to her side, “you’re exhausted.” She leads me like a child into the house and up the stairs. At my door she says, “You rest now. I’ll look after Helen so she doesn’t bother you.” Closing the door, she pauses, turning those glowing eyes upon me once more.

  I hold myself in place until the door clicks shut behind her. Relief melts me from the inside out. I throw myself onto the bed and let the tears come.

  Chapter 15

  I very soon made up my mind that I could do nothing with Helen in the midst of the family.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  All my work is for nothing. Within a single day what little Helen’s learned unravels more quickly than a frayed stocking. What with all the starts and stops and doubling back, trying to teach Helen anything is as infuriating as reading with Tilly Delaney in the almshouse.

  Crazy little Tilly may have been prone to fits and wild with thoughts of escape, but she knew her letters, and if I promised to help her run away from time to time, she’d read to me. Trouble was she’d turn half a dozen pages at a time and never remembered from one day to the next where we’d left off—unless a jailbreak figured into the story. Sometimes Tilly’s voice would halt, her body would stiffen, and she’d squeak and gasp. The first time I put my ear down close to hear what she was trying to say, I felt foam at her lips and was terrified. But I soon learned to sit and wait until the fit passed, and by and by she’d sit up, wipe her mouth, and go on with the reading—but like Helen, she never began where we’d stopped.

  When we sit down to the next meal, Helen eats from her own plate only long enough to make a fool of me. As soon as the family applauds my accomplishment, she resumes her wandering. She’s wily enough to take refuge from my fury in the captain’s lap. Even my temper isn’t strong enough to make me rip the child from her doting father’s arms.

  If I try to brush Helen’s hair, she yelps, and Mrs. Keller swoops in to save her. When I refuse her a sweet, she screams, and the captain demands peace. If I correct her table manners, the entire family cringes. When she runs from my lessons, Mrs. Keller shields her.

  Each time she kicks up a fuss, her parents rush to her side, though I’ve yet to see Helen cry from anything but anger or frustration. It doesn’t matter how reasonable my demands are, or how unreasonable Helen’s desires—tears are a crime. I think the captain in particular would let her run wild, naked, and filthy, feasting on nothing but cake and jam if it would keep her from crying.

  And what about me? I have no shelter from Helen’s abuse, no encouragement, cheer, or any sign at all that the Kellers understand my struggles. My heart is pitted with their indifference. Only a crumb of praise would be nourishment enough.

  Oh, they’re polite to me, of course. Hospitable, even kind. But after so many days with no progress, I feel more and more like an extended houseguest, another of many small inconveniences life with Helen forces them to bear.

  When Helen cries, though, I become an ogre in their eyes. I can’t help it—it’s useless for me to try to teach her language or anything else until she learns to obey me. Every lesson is an endurance trial, though all it takes to subdue her is a bit of backbone. But how can I discipline her under the family’s nose? This place is stifling me, and Helen, too, though she doesn’t know it. If only I could help her realize, as I did, how much more she could be.

  • • •

  From the moment I hear tell of places where the blind are taught to read and write, my mind is set. “I’m going to school when I grow up,” I proclaim. Some of the inmates laugh at my grand notions, scoffing at the idea that a blind child could learn anything at all. “She’ll be walking out of here someday on the arm of the emperor of Penzance,” they jeer. Even Jimmie says, “You ain’t either. You’re going to stay here with me.” But when their backs are turned, others tell me, “Sanborn, Frank B. Sanborn is the man you want to see about going to school.” Time passes, and my conviction never wavers. I nurse my dream in secret, imagining a day when I can read for myself, without begging Tilly to lend me her eyes.

  When Jimmie dies, the hope of school is all I have left for comfort, but no one cares. One solemn old woman scolds, “Education doesn’t make any difference if the Lord wills otherwise.”

  “I don’t see what the Lord has to do with it,” I flare back at her. “And all the same, I’m going to school when I grow up!” After that they mutter at my insolence but leave me be.

  • • •

  How I wish the Kellers would do the same. No matter where I go, I never fit. Too wild, too willful, even for my own family. At Tewksbury my eyes made me a nuisance, and my notions were too grand. At Perkins, too, I was all wrong. Poor and ignorant, a Catholic among Protestants, I could have told them things about the world outside their fine homes that would have stripped the giggles from their throats. And what am I here? The contrary, outspoken northerner.

  Next morning I’m only brushing Helen’s hair, but she bawls like a bloodhound on the trail. When Mrs. Keller bursts into the room, she finds me sitting on the edge of the bed with Helen in front of me. My knees clutch Helen’s sides, keeping her arms at bay, and my booted feet are crossed round her middle. I’m wielding the brush with considerable force, one hand grasping Helen’s throat and chin to stop her jerking about.

  “Miss Annie,” she begins, clasping her hands, “is this really necessary?”

  “It’s this or shave her head,” I rumble, tightening my grip on Helen.

  “But Miss Annie—”

  “You do it, then,” I cry, thrusting the brush at her. I turn Helen loose, and as she blunders toward the feel of her mother’s footsteps, I see a shiver of terror pass over Mrs. Keller’s face. She takes a step back and Helen crashes into her.

  “I can’t control her, Miss Annie,” she cries. “You know that.”

  The look on her face siphons away all my fury. Fine lines lie etched all along the edges of her delicate mouth, and her eyes swim with hurt. I slink from the bed, pulling the Perkins doll with me, and put it into Helen’s thrashing arms. The tide of her anger turns, and Helen retreats to the corner with her plaything. “Oh, Mrs. Keller,” I sigh. “Don’t you see? The problem isn’t Helen, it’s you.”

  “Me?” She looks stung.

  “All of you. You and the captain and Miss Eveline. You’ve given Helen nothing but pity, and it’s turned her into a tyrant.”

  “We’ve been through this more than once,” she says, shaking her head. “How can I expect her to behave any other way?”

  “You expect better behavior from the captain’s hounds than from your own daughter. She needs discipline, not coddling.”

  “How can I discipline her? She doesn’t understand.”

  “She understands plenty—even a dog understands when his master scolds him, and Helen’s smarter than any dog I know. She knows all she has to do is throw a fit or dampen her cheeks, and the world is hers. She understands what you don’t—that when you or the captain are here, I have no power over her.”

  “What would you have us do? We’re her parents.”

  At last I can speak the words that have been brewing in my head: �
�Let me take her away somewhere.”

  Her head jerks up. “Away? Why?”

  I understand her fear. The idea frightens me a little.

  “I’ve tried everything I know. I can’t win her love—she won’t have any caressing from me. I can’t win her confidence because she accepts everything I do for her as a matter of course. There’s no coaxing or compromising with her. She will or she won’t, and that’s the end of it. Sympathy, affection, and fairness mean nothing to her. I’ve studied, planned, and prepared, but nothing I’ve learned fits. All I know is that I can’t accomplish anything in this house. As long as Helen can run to you for protection, she won’t learn a thing.”

  “Does she need protection, Miss Annie?”

  The word strikes me like a barb. “What do you think, Mrs. Keller?” I blurt, displaying all my wounds at once: a broken tooth, bruised and battered shins, arms decorated with scratches and bite marks. “And if you ever scrub those filthy hands of hers, you’ll find most of my skin under her nails!” Mrs. Keller’s eyes flutter across my injuries. She reaches for me, then draws back to rub at a sore spot above her own elbow.

  “I won’t say I’m not harsh with Helen,” I tell her, my tone softer, “but you’ve never found a mark on her, have you, now?”

  She shakes her head, then asks, after a moment, “How long would you keep her?”

  “Until she learns to obey and depend on me. A few weeks at least.”

  For a long time she says nothing. I feel my hand moving in and out of the silence like a needle through cloth. I look down. P-l-e-a-s-e, I’m spelling to myself. Please, Mrs. Keller, please.

  She doesn’t speak for so long my knees begin to ache, but the quiet hangs too heavy to disturb.

  Finally she looks up and says, “I’ll talk it over with the captain.”

  The captain. Oh, all is lost now.

  I nod at Mrs. Keller, my head reeling. She goes out of the room. My feet carry me to my trunk and I open it. Back and forth across the room I wander, packing. One way or the other I’m sure to be leaving this house. Wherever I’m going, I may as well be ready.

  The trunk fills quickly, but there’s one thing more. I go to Helen’s corner and scoop up one of her old dolls from the pile. Dropping it into her arms, I snatch the Perkins doll away and escape to the rocking chair by the window.

  There I curl round myself like a wounded animal and rock. Hugging the doll to my chest, I close my eyes and wait for the fear and frustration to drain out of me.

  Chapter 16

  We had a terrific tussle, I can tell you.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  “Miss Sullivan” Captain Keller booms, “you and Helen will move into the little house next door just as soon as we can get it ready.” I don’t know which of us is more relieved. He seems almost giddy.

  He’s thought of most everything already: “We’ll rearrange the furniture, air the place out to change the scent of it, then bring Helen there after a long ride so she won’t know where she is. You’ll have to share the old bedstead, but you’ll have all the comforts.” I even agree to let her parents look in on her every day, so long as Helen doesn’t realize they’re there.

  So now I sit in my own little bower, waiting for Helen to arrive. They’ve been gone for almost an hour already. I can’t help pacing the large front room. Everything is ready. All our clothes are put away, and Helen’s toys are waiting for her. The fire is built up so the place feels cozy. I even have my own servant, young Percy, to tend the fireplace and bring our meals from the kitchen.

  I haven’t felt this hopeful since the day my sight was restored, breaking the world open like an egg before me. There were still ridges and bumps under my eyelids, but it didn’t matter one whit. I could see the Charles River, the windows in the school buildings along its shore, even count the very bricks in their walls. When I threaded a needle without using my tongue, I nearly melted with joy. Best of all, I could make out words on a page. Dizzy with independence, I snatched up every bit of writing I could find—books in print and raised type, discarded newspapers and magazines—and devoured them all, from the crime columns to Shakespeare. During dull classes I sat in the back and squinted at the books and papers in my lap for headlines about the Tewksbury investigations, turning the pages so quietly my blind teachers and classmates couldn’t hear them rustle. On days when my eyes throbbed and the tiny letters swam before me, I saved the scraps of newsprint until I could beg someone to read them for me between classes.

  At last I hear the clop-clopping of horses’ hooves on the lane. I run out onto the little piazza, parting the honeysuckle vines to watch them approach. As always, Helen refuses to be led, so her parents herd her up onto the porch and inside. She reaches out as she goes, looking for something to lay her hands on, and her nose waggles like a rat’s as she searches for her bearings.

  Mrs. Keller walks her to the seat of the bay window and unfastens Helen’s coat and bonnet. For a moment Helen sits quietly, feeling the seat and window ledge. Mrs. Keller waits, watching, her hands pressed together before her mouth as though she’s praying.

  While Helen absently fingers her surroundings, Captain Keller takes his wife gently by the shoulders and tries to guide her away. Mrs. Keller is reluctant. She cranes her neck to look back at Helen, and her feet move slowly, as if she’s coaxing them with each step. Anxiousness creases the captain’s face—he looks as if he’s trying to escape a deathbed scene.

  “Go,” I tell them as Helen begins groping the air where she expects to find her mother. I’ll never be able to tear them apart if Helen gets her hands on them.

  Finding no one, Helen’s eyes widen and she grunts, slapping at the empty air with both hands. I nod at the captain. “Please, go now!” Captain Keller spins his wife about and propels her out the door. I slam it behind them and lean my back against it.

  Frantic now, Helen stumbles and lurches toward me. Her terror is contagious. I cross myself and brace against the door. When she touches me, it takes her only an instant to recognize me. Horror-struck, she scrambles away. In the middle of the room she stands quite still, rubbing her cheek—the gesture for her mother. When no one comes, she rubs harder and harder, her face turning red to the roots of her hair. Finally she throws back her head and howls.

  I don’t dare touch her. She screams until she quivers, the sound so ragged I wonder if it won’t tear her lungs apart. When her breath fails her, she slumps to the floor, lashing and squalling like an alley cat.

  “Whisht, now. Whisht,” I whisper, my lips trembling. The soft sound brings no comfort. I only remember my father, how he’d try to hush my screams first with the whiskey-dampened word, then with his fists.

  Eventually Helen kicks and screams herself into a sort of stupor. She lies on the floor, her breath sharp but regular, her eyes glazed and blanker than usual.

  She’s alone, and she knows it.

  The sight of her like this makes my chest constrict. I know how it feels to be alone, yet I took Helen’s fear for granted. Now it shames me. I ache to gather her into my arms and press kisses into her hair, to tell her that nothing here will harm her. But I know I can’t comfort her. Nothing can. If I try to touch her, she’ll only lash out at me, just as I did when the nurses tried to wrench me from Jimmie’s deathbed. I kicked and scratched and bit them until they dropped me on the floor and left me, a heap of pain beyond words.

  Beyond words. The description is so apt for Helen, I’d laugh at the thought if I could squeeze a breath past the ache in my chest.

  We’re so alike, Helen and I. If I could only reach her, her whole life would change. And perhaps mine, too. What would it be like, I wonder, to have someone love me again? I look at her, abandoned on the floor like a pile of rags. How could she love me after all I’ve done to her? I’m not even done with her yet. I suppose I’ll have many more battles with the little woman before she learns the two essential things I must teach her: obedience and love. And then, perhaps, language.


  When supper comes, she stirs at the scent. We don’t have a table, so I leave Helen’s plate on the floor beside her. Abandonment is no match for her appetite—she eats heartily with her fingers. I don’t protest as long as she stays out of my plate.

  After supper she seems brighter and devotes herself to her dolls. It’s an amusing and pathetic scene. I don’t think she has any special tenderness for them—the rough way she handles her cloth-and-china brood makes me wince. My fingers itch to scoop them up one by one and shelter them from Helen’s mechanical rocking, dressing, and feeding. But if I go near her, she coils her muscles and swings a fist at me. Instead I perch on the edge of the window seat and feast on the sultry evening air as the round moon rises.

  At last Helen yawns and digs at her eyes with her fists. Leaving my roost, I dangle her nightgown over her like a morsel on a string. To my surprise, she takes the bait and undresses quietly, then crawls into bed. I stand over her, marveling, as she burrows into the quilts.

  Her curls glow like honey and molasses in the moonlight. The look of her makes me recall the sympathetic way the priest, Father Barbara, would rub my own hair when he made his rounds through the almshouse. I wonder how Helen’s curls would feel between my fingers. I kneel beside the bed, scarcely daring to breathe. My hand floats over her head, stroking the thin layer of air that tingles with life above her.

  “Ah, you’re my girl now, aren’t you?” I whisper.

  My girl. A smile warms my face; I like the sound of it. Humming to myself, I rise and tidy the room, stacking our supper dishes and arranging Helen’s dolls in a row along the bay window. I offer a word of comfort to each of them as I smooth their dresses and straighten their limbs, keeping my voice low so Percy won’t hear as he tends the fire. Well satisfied with our quarters, I undress and slip under the covers beside Helen’s warm little body.