The Miracle Worker Read Online Free PDF Page A

they expect one blind child to teach another? Has she experience at least, how long did she teach there?
    KATE: She was a pupil.
    KELLER [ HEAVILY ]: Katie, Katie. This is her first position?
    KATE [ BRIGHT VOICE ]: She was valedictorian—
    KELLER: Here’s a houseful of grownups can’t cope with the child, how can an inexperienced half-blind Yankee schoolgirl manage her?
    ( JAMES moves in with the trunk on his shoulder.)
    JAMES [ EASILY ]: Great improvement. Now we have two of them to look after.
    KELLER: You look after those strawberry plants!
    ( JAMES stops with the trunk. KELLER turns from him without another word, and marches off.)
    JAMES: Nothing I say is right.
    KATE: Why say anything?
    (She calls.)
    Don’t be long, Captain, we’ll have supper right away—
    (She goes into the house, and through the rear door of the family room. JAMES trudges in with the trunk, takes it up the steps to ANNIE’S room, and sets it down outside the door. The lights elsewhere dim somewhat.
    Meanwhile, inside, ANNIE has given HELEN a key; while ANNIE removes her bonnet, HELEN unlocks and opens the suitcase. The firstthing she pulls out is a voluminous shawl. She fingers it until she perceives what it is; then she wraps it around her, and acquiring ANNIE’S bonnet and smoked glasses as well, dons the lot: the shawl swamps her, and the bonnet settles down upon the glasses, but she stands before a mirror cocking her head to one side, then to the other, in a mockery of adult action. ANNIE is amused, and talks to her as one might to a kitten, with no trace of company manners.)
    ANNIE: All the trouble I went to and that’s how I look?
    ( HELEN then comes back to the suitcase, gropes for more, lifts out a pair of female drawers.)
    Oh, no. Not the drawers!
    (But HELEN discarding them comes to the elegant doll. Her fingers explore its features, and when she raises it and finds its eyes open and close, she is at first startled, then delighted. She picks it up, taps its head vigorously, taps her own chest, and nods questioningly. ANNIE takes her finger, points it to the doll, points it to HELEN , and touching it to her own face, also nods. HELEN sits back on her heels, clasps the doll to herself, and rocks it. ANNIE studies her, still in bonnet and smoked glasses like a caricature of herself, and addresses her humorously.)
    All right, Miss O’Sullivan. Let’s begin with doll.
    (She takes HELEN’S hand; in her palm ANNIE’S forefinger points, thumb holding her other fingers clenched.)
    D.
    (Her thumb next holds all her fingers clenched, touching HELEN’S palm.)
    O.
    (Her thumb and forefinger extend.)
    L.
    (Same contact repeated.)
    L.
    (She puts HELEN’S hand to the doll.)
    Doll.
    JAMES: You spell pretty well.
    ( ANNIE in one hurried move gets the drawers swiftly back into the suitcase, the lid banged shut, and her head turned, to see JAMES leaning in the doorway.)
    Finding out if she’s ticklish? She is.
    ( ANNIE regards him stonily, but HELEN after a scowling moment tugs at her hand again, imperious. ANNIE repeats the letters, and HELEN interrupts her fingers in the middle, feeling each of them, puzzled. ANNIE touches HELEN’S hand to the doll, and begins spelling into it again.)
    JAMES: What is it, a game?
    ANNIE [ CURTLY ]: An alphabet.
    JAMES: Alphabet?
    ANNIE: For the deaf.
    ( HELEN now repeats the finger movements in air, exactly, her head cocked to her own hand, and ANNIE’S eyes suddenly gleam.)
    Ho. How bright she is!
    JAMES: You think she knows what she’s doing?
    (He takes HELEN’S hand, to throw a meaningless gesture into it; she repeats this one too.)
    She imitates everything, she’s a monkey.
    ANNIE [ VERY PLEASED ]: Yes, she’s a bright little monkey, all right.
    (She takes the doll from HELEN, and reaches for her hand; HELEN instantly grabs the doll back. ANNIE takes it again, and HELEN’S hand next, but HELEN is incensed now; when ANNIE draws her