The Miracle Worker

by William Gibson

  KELLER [AT THE DOOR]: Viney, bring Miss Sullivan another plate—

  ANNIE [STONILY]: I have a plate, nothing’s wrong with the plate, I intend to keep it.

  (Silence for a moment, except for HELEN’S noises as she struggles to get loose; the KELLERS are a bit nonplussed, and ANNIE is too darkly intent on HELEN’S manners to have any thoughts now of her own.)

  JAMES: Ha. You see why they took Vicksburg?

  KELLER [UNCERTAINLY]: Miss Sullivan. One plate or another is hardly a matter to struggle with a deprived child about.

  ANNIE: Oh, I’d sooner have a more—

  (HELEN begins to kick, ANNIE moves her ankles to the opposite side of the chair.)

  —heroic issue myself, I—

  KELLER: No, I really must insist you—

  (HELEN bangs her toe on the chair and sinks to the floor, crying with rage and feigned injury; ANNIE keeps hold of her wrists, gazing down, while KATE rises.)

  Now she’s hurt herself.

  ANNIE [GRIMLY]: No, she hasn’t.

  KELLER: Will you please let her hands go?

  KATE: Miss Annie, you don’t know the child well enough yet, she’ll keep—

  ANNIE: I know an ordinary tantrum well enough, when I see one, and a badly spoiled child—

  JAMES: Hear, hear.

  KELLER [VERY ANNOYED]: Miss Sullivan! You would have more understanding of your pupil if you had some pity in you. Now kindly do as I—

  ANNIE: Pity?

  (She releases HELEN to turn equally annoyed on KELLER across the table; instantly HELEN scrambles up and dives at ANNIE’S plate. This time ANNIE intercepts her by pouncing on her wrists like a hawk, and her temper boils.)

  For this tyrant? The whole house turns on her whims, is there anything she wants she doesn’t get? I’ll tell you what I pity, that the sun won’t rise and set for her all her life, and every day you’re telling her it will, what good will your pity do her when you’re under the strawberries, Captain Keller?

  KELLER [OUTRAGED]: Kate, for the love of heaven will you—

  KATE: Miss Annie, please, I don’t think it serves to lose our—

  ANNIE: It does you good, that’s all. It’s less trouble to feel sorry for her than to teach her anything better, isn’t it?

  KELLER: I fail to see where you have taught her anything yet, Miss Sullivan!

  ANNIE: I’ll begin this minute, if you’ll leave the room, Captain Keller!

  KELLER [ASTONISHED]: Leave the—

  ANNIE: Everyone, please.

  (She struggles with HELEN, while KELLER endeavors to control his voice.)

  KELLER: Miss Sullivan, you are here only as a paid teacher. Nothing more, and not to lecture—

  ANNIE: I can’t unteach her six years of pity if you can’t stand up to one tantrum! Old Stonewall, indeed. Mrs. Keller, you promised me help.

  KATE: Indeed I did, we truly want to—

  ANNIE: Then leave me alone with her. Now!

  KELLER [IN A WRATH]: Katie, will you come outside with me? At once, please.

  (He marches to the front door. KATE and JAMES follow him. Simultaneously ANNIE releases HELEN’S wrists, and the child again sinks to the floor, kicking and crying her weird noises; ANNIE steps over her to meet VINEY coming in the rear doorway with biscuits and a clean plate, surprised at the general commotion.)

  VINEY: Heaven sakes—

  ANNIE: Out, please.

  (She backs VINEY out with one hand, closes the door on her astonished mouth, locks it, and removes the key. KELLER meanwhile snatches his hat from a rack, and KATE follows him down the porch steps. JAMES lingers in the doorway to address ANNIE across the room with a bow.)

  JAMES: If it takes all summer, general.

  (ANNIE comes over to his door in turn, removing her glasses grimly; as KELLER outside begins speaking, ANNIE closes the door on JAMES, locks it, removes the key, and turns with her back against the door to stare ominously at HELEN, kicking on the floor.

  JAMES takes his hat from the rack, and going down the porch steps joins KATE and KELLER talking in the yard, KELLER in a sputter of ire.)

  KELLER: This girl, this—cub of a girl—presumes! I tell you, I’m of half a mind to ship her back to Boston before the week is out. You can inform her so from me!

  KATE [EYEBROWS UP]: I, Captain?

  KELLER: She’s a hireling! Now I want it clear, unless there’s an apology and complete change of manner she goes back on the next train! Will you make that quite clear?

  KATE: Where will you be, Captain, while I am making it quite—

  KELLER: At the office!

  (He begins off left, finds his napkin still in his irate hand, is uncertain with it, dabs his lips with dignity, gets rid of it in a toss to JAMES, and marches off. JAMES turns to eye KATE.)

  JAMES: Will you?

  (KATE’S mouth is set, and JAMES studies it lightly.)

  I thought what she said was exceptionally intelligent. I’ve been saying it for years.

  KATE [NOT WITHOUT SCORN]: To his face?

  (She comes to relieve him of the white napkin, but reverts again with it.)

  Or will you take it, Jimmie? As a flag?

  (JAMES stalks out, much offended, and KATE turning stares across the yard at the house; the lights narrowing down to the following pantomime in the family room leave her motionless in the dark.

  ANNIE meanwhile has begun by slapping both keys down on a shelf out of HELEN’S reach; she returns to the table, upstage. HELEN’S kicking has subsided, and when from the floor her hand finds ANNIE’S chair empty she pauses. ANNIE clears the table of KATE’S, JAMES’S, and KELLER’S plates; she gets back to her own across the table just in time to slide it deftly away from HELEN’S pouncing hand. She lifts the hand and moves it to HELEN’S plate, and after an instant’s exploration, HELEN sits again on the floor and drums her heels. ANNIE comes around the table and resumes her chair. When HELEN feels her skirt again, she ceases kicking, waits for whatever is to come, renews some kicking, waits again. ANNIE retrieving her plate takes up a forkful of food, stops it halfway to her mouth, gazes at it devoid of appetite, and half-lowers it; but after a look at HELEN she sighs, dips the forkful toward HELEN in a for-your-sake toast, and puts it in her own mouth to chew, not without an effort.

  HELEN now gets holds of the chair leg, and half-succeeds in pulling the chair out from under her. ANNIE bangs it down with her rear, heavily, and sits with all her weight. HELEN’S next attempt to topple it is unavailing, so her fingers dive in a pinch at ANNIE’S flank. ANNIE in the middle of her mouthful almost loses it with startle, and she slaps down her fork to round on HELEN. The child comes up with curiosity to feel what ANNIE is doing, so ANNIE resumes eating, letting HELEN’S hand follow the movement of her fork to her mouth; whereupon HELEN at once reaches into ANNIE’S plate. ANNIE firmly removes her hand to her own plate. HELEN in reply pinches ANNIE’S thigh, a good mean pinchful that makes ANNIE jump. ANNIE sets the fork down, and sits with her mouth tight. HELEN digs another pinch into her thigh, and this time ANNIE slaps her hand smartly away; HELEN retaliates with a roundhouse fist that catches ANNIE on the ear, and ANNIE’S hand leaps at once in a forceful slap across HELEN’S cheek; HELEN is the startled one now. ANNIE’S hand in compunction falters to her own face, but when HELEN hits at her again, ANNIE deliberately slaps her again. HELEN lifts her fist irresolute for another roundhouse, ANNIE lifts her hand resolute for another slap, and they freeze in this posture, while HELEN mulls it over. She thinks better of it, drops her fist, and giving ANNIE a wide berth, gropes around to her MOTHER’S chair, to find it empty; she blunders her way along the table upstage, and encountering the empty chairs and missing plates, she looks bewildered; she gropes back to her MOTHER’S chair, again touches her cheek and indicates the chair, and waits for the world to answer.

  ANNIE now reaches over to spell into her hand, but HELEN yanks it away; she gropes to the front door, tries the knob, and finds the door locked, with no key. She gropes to the rear door, and f
inds it locked, with no key. She commences to bang on it. ANNIE rises, crosses, takes her wrists, draws her resisting back to the table, seats her, and releases her hands upon her plate; as ANNIE herself begins to sit, HELEN writhes out of her chair, runs to the front door, and tugs and kicks at it. ANNIE rises again, crosses, draws her by one wrist back to the table, seats her, and sits; HELEN escapes back to the door, knocking over her MOTHER’S chair en route. ANNIE rises again in pursuit, and this time lifts HELEN bodily from behind and bears her kicking to her chair. She deposits her, and once more turns to sit. HELEN scrambles out, but as she passes ANNIE catches her up again from behind and deposits her in the chair; HELEN scrambles out on the other side, for the rear door, but ANNIE at her heels catches her up and deposits her again in the chair. She stands behind it. HELEN scrambles out to her right, and the instant her feet hit the floor ANNIE lifts and deposits her back; she scrambles out to her left, and is at once lifted and deposited back. She tries right again and is deposited back, and tries left again and is deposited back, and now feints ANNIE to the right but is off to her left, and is promptly deposited back. She sits a moment, and then starts straight over the tabletop, dishware notwithstanding; ANNIE hauls her in and deposits her back, with her plate spilling in her lap, and she melts to the floor and crawls under the table, laborious among its legs and chairs; but ANNIE is swift around the table and waiting on the other side when she surfaces, immediately bearing her aloft; HELEN clutches at JAMES’S chair for anchorage, but it comes with her, and halfway back she abandons it to the floor. ANNIE deposits her in her chair, and waits. HELEN sits tensed motionless. Then she tentatively puts out her left foot and hand, ANNIE interposes her own hand, and at the contact HELEN jerks hers in. She tries her right foot, ANNIE blocks it with her own, and HELEN jerks hers in. Finally, leaning back, she slumps down in her chair, in a sullen biding.

  ANNIE backs off a step, and watches; HELEN offers no move. ANNIE takes a deep breath. Both of them and the room are in considerable disorder, two chairs down and the table a mess, but ANNIE makes no effort to tidy it; she only sits on her own chair, and lets her energy refill. Then she takes up knife and fork, and resolutely addresses her food. HELEN’S hand comes out to explore, and seeing it ANNIE sits without moving, the child’s hand goes over her hand and fork, pauses— ANNIE still does not move—and withdraws. Presently it moves for her own plate, slaps about for it, and stops, thwarted. At this, ANNIE again rises, recovers HELEN’S plate from the floor and a handful of scattered food from the deranged tablecloth, drops it on the plate, and pushes the plate into contact with HELEN’S fist. Neither of them now moves for a pregnant moment—until HELEN suddenly takes a grab of food and wolfs it down. ANNIE permit herself the humor of a minor bow and warming of her hands together; she wanders off a step or two, watching. HELEN cleans up the plate.

  After a glower of indecision, she holds the empty plate out for more. ANNIE accepts it, and crossing to the removed plates, spoons food from them onto it; she stands debating the spoon, tapping it a few times on HELEN’S plate; and when she returns with the plate she brings the spoon, too. She puts the spoon first into HELEN’S hand, then sets the plate down. HELEN discarding the spoon reaches with her hand, and ANNIE stops it by the wrist; she replaces the spoon in it. HELEN impatiently discards it again, and again ANNIE stops her hand, to replace the spoon in it. This time HELEN throws the spoon on the floor. ANNIE after considering it lifts HELEN bodily out of the chair, and in a wrestling match on the floor closes her fingers upon the spoon, and returns her with it to the chair. HELEN again throws the spoon on the floor. ANNIE lifts her out of the chair again; but in the struggle over the spoon HELEN with ANNIE on her back sends her sliding over her head; HELEN flees back to her chair and scrambles into it. When ANNIE comes after her she clutches it for dear life; ANNIE pries one hand loose, then the other, then the first again, then the other again, and then lifts HELEN by the waist, chair and all, and shakes the chair loose. HELEN wrestles to get free, but ANNIE pins her to the floor, closes her fingers upon the spoon, and lifts her kicking under one arm; with her other hand she gets the chair in place again, and plunks HELEN back on it. When she releases her hand, HELEN throws the spoon at her.

  ANNIE now removes the plate of food. HELEN grabbing finds it missing, and commences to bang with her fists on the table. ANNIE collects a fistful of spoons and descends with them and the plate on HELEN; she lets her smell the plate, at which HELEN ceases banging, and ANNIE puts the plate down and a spoon in HELEN’S hand. HELEN throws it on the floor. ANNIE puts another spoon in her hand. HELEN throws it on the floor. ANNIE puts another spoon in her hand. HELEN throws it on the floor. When ANNIE comes to her last spoon she sits next to HELEN, and gripping the spoon in HELEN’S hand compels her to take food in it up to her mouth. HELEN sits with lips shut. ANNIE waits a stolid moment, then lowers HELEN’S hand. She tries again; HELEN’S lips remain shut. ANNIE waits, lowers HELEN’S hand. She tries again; this time HELEN suddenly opens her mouth and accepts the food. ANNIE lowers the spoon with a sigh of relief, and HELEN spews the mouthful out at her face. ANNIE sits a moment with eyes closed, then takes the pitcher and dashes its water into HELEN’S face, who gasps astonished. ANNIE with HELEN’S hand takes up another spoonful, and shoves it into her open mouth. HELEN swallows involuntarily, and while she is catching her breath ANNIE forces her palm open, throws four swift letters into it, then another four, and bows toward her with devastating pleasantness.)

  ANNIE: Good girl.

  (ANNIE lifts HELEN’S hand to feel her face nodding; HELEN grabs a fistful of her hair, and yanks. The pain brings ANNIE to her knees, and HELEN pummels her; they roll under the table, and the lights commence to dim out on them.

  Simultaneously the light at left has been rising, slowly, so slowly that it seems at first we only imagine what is intimated in the yard: a few ghostlike figures, in silence, motionless, waiting. Now the distant belfry chimes commence to toll the hour, also very slowly, almost—it is twelve—interminably; the sense is that of a long time passing. We can identify the figures before the twelfth stroke, all facing the house in a kind of watch: KATE is standing exactly as before, but now with the baby MILDRED sleeping in her arms, and placed here and there, unmoving, are AUNT EV in her hat with a hanky to her nose, and the two Negro children, PERCY and MARTHA, with necks outstretched eagerly, and VINEY with a knotted kerchief on her head and a feather duster in her hand.

  The chimes cease, and there is silence. For a long moment none of the group moves.)

  VINEY [PRESENTLY]: What am I gone do, Miss Kate? It’s noontime, dinner’s comin’, I didn’t get them breakfast dishes out of there yet.

  (KATE says nothing, stares at the house. MARTHA shifts HELEN’S doll in her clutch, and it plaintively says momma.)

  KATE [PRESENTLY]: You run along, Martha.

  (AUNT EV blows her nose.)

  AUNT EV [WRETCHEDLY]: I can’t wait out here a minute longer, Kate, why, this could go on all afternoon, too.

  KATE: I’ll tell the captain you called.

  VINEY [TO THE CHILDREN]: You hear what Miss Kate say? Never you mind what’s going on here.

  (Still no one moves.)

  You run along tend your own bizness.

  (Finally VINEY turns on the children with the feather duster.)

  Shoo!

  (The two children divide before her. She chases them off. AUNT EV comes to KATE, on her dignity.)

  AUNT EV: Say what you like, Kate, but that child is a Keller.

  (She opens her parasol, preparatory to leaving.)

  I needn’t remind you that all the Kellers are cousins to General Robert E. Lee. I don’t know who that girl is.

  (She waits; but KATE staring at the house is without response.)

  The only Sullivan I’ve heard of—from Boston too, and I’d think twice before locking her up with that kind—is that man John L.

  (And AUNT EV departs, with head high. Presently VINEY comes to KATE, her arms out for the baby.)


  VINEY: You give me her, Miss Kate, I’ll sneak her in back, to her crib.

  (But KATE is moveless, until VINEY starts to take the baby; KATE looks down at her before relinquishing her.)

  KATE [SLOWLY]: This child never gives me a minute’s worry.

  VINEY: Oh yes, this one’s the angel of the family, no question bout that.

  (She begins off rear with the baby, heading around the house; and KATE now turns her back on it, her hand to her eyes. At this moment there is the slamming of a door, and when KATE wheels HELEN is blundering down the porch steps into the light, like a ruined bat out of hell. VINEY halts, and KATE runs in; HELEN collides with her mother’s knees, and reels off and back to clutch them as her savior. ANNIE with smoked glasses in hand stands on the porch, also much undone, looking as though she had indeed just taken Vicksburg. KATE taking in HELEN’S ravaged state becomes steely in her gaze up at ANNIE.)

  KATE: What happened?

  (ANNIE meets KATE’S gaze, and gives a factual report, too exhausted for anything but a flat voice.)

  ANNIE: She ate from her own plate.

  (She thinks a moment.)

  She ate with a spoon. Herself.

  (KATE frowns, uncertain with thought, and glances down at HELEN.)

  And she folded her napkin.

  (KATE’S gaze now wavers, from HELEN to ANNIE, and back.)

  KATE [SOFTLY]: Folded—her napkin?

  ANNIE: The room’s a wreck, but her napkin is folded.

  (She pauses, then:)

  I’ll be in my room, Mrs. Keller.

  (She moves to re-enter the house; but she stops at VINEY’S voice.)

  VINEY [CHEERY]: Don’t be long, Miss Annie. Dinner be ready right away!

  (VINEY carries MILDRED around the back of the house. ANNIE stands unmoving, takes a deep breath, stares over her shoulder at KATE and HELEN, then inclines her head graciously, and goes with a slight stagger into the house. The lights in her room above steal up in readiness for her.

  KATE remains alone with HELEN in the yard, standing protectively over her, in a kind of wonder.)