The Miracle Worker - Act 2

But he has to learn some respect!

Do you like the child? How empty the house is tonight.

A: The room is a wreck, but her napkin is folded. I'll be in my room, Mrs. Keller. V: Don't be long, Miss Annie. Dinner will be ready right away.

Folded her napkin. My Helen folded her napkin.

A: She ate from her own plate. She ate with a spoon. Herself. And she folded her napkin.

Folded her napkin?

A: I didn't come here for love. I came for money. (Gives letter "a")

Hm?

A: Maybe after a million and one words.

I should like to learn those letters, Miss Annie.

A: What kind of asylum? K: For mental defectives.

I visited there. I can't tell you what I saw - people like animals, and rats in the halls. What else are we to do if you give up?

K: 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.

I, Captain?

A: Mrs. Keller, you promised me help.

Indeed I did, we truly want to -

A: Does he, now?

Is it?

A: Furnish it, bring Helen here after a long ride so she won't recognize it, and you can see her every day if she doesn't know. Well?

Is that all?

A: I'll teach you tomorrow morning. That makes only half a million each.

It's her bedtime. (Helen stabs Annie) I'm sorry, Miss Annie.

K: Katie, I will not have it! Now you did not see her when that girl after supper tonight went to look for Helen in her room.

No.

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

This child never gives me a minute's worry.

J: I thought what she said was exceptionally intelligent. I've been saying it for years.

To his face? Or will you take it, Jimmie? As a flag?

K: I'll give you two weeks in this place and it will be a miracle if you get the child to tolerate you.

Two weeks? Miss Annie, can you accomplish anything in two weeks?

K: I'll get you another plate. A: I have a plate, thank you.

Viney! I'm afraid what Captain Keller says is only too true. She'll persist in this until she gets her own way.

A: I'll have enough work without looking after a servant. But that gold Percy could sleep here, run errands -

We can let Percy sleep here, I think, Captain?

J: You will be. Why trouble? Or will you teach me? A: Does she know where she is?

We rode her out in the country for two hours.

K: What in heaven's name is so extraordinary about folding a napkin?

Well, it's more than you did, Captain.

A: Why does she get a reward? For stabbing me?

Well... 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.

(Pitcher falls to floor)

What are you saying to her?

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

What did she spell?

K: The fact is, today she scuttled any chance she ever had of getting along with the child. If you can see any point to her staying on here longer, it's more than -

What do you wish me to do?

V: Oh yes, this one's the angel of the family, no question about that. (Helen runs out)

What happened?

K: And the second is that you persuade me there's the slightest hope of your teaching a child who flees from you now like the plague, to anyone else she can find in this house. A: There isn't.

What, Miss Annie?

K: 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?

Where will you be, Captain, while I am making it quite -

A: Yes?

Where would you take Helen?

A: No. No, she won't know what spelling is til she knows what a word is.

Yet you keep spelling to her. Why?

A: Two weeks for one miracle? I'll get her to tolerate me.

You can't think as little of love as you said, or you wouldn't stay.

K: Miss Sullivan, do you like the child? A: Do you?

You could have a servant here.

V: What am I gone do, Miss Kate? It's noontime, dinner's comin', I didn't get them breakfast dishes out of there yet.

You run along, Martha and Percy.

A: Give up?

You said it was hopeless.

K: Us?!

Please? Like the lost lamb in the parable, I love her all the more.

A: I spelt card. She spelt cake. No, it's only a finger game to her, Mrs. Keller. What she has to learn first is that things have names.

And when will she learn?

A: Oh, there's nothing impaired in that head. It works like a mousetrap.

But after a child hears how many words, Miss Annie? A million?

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

But does that mean that to her?

A: The one who lets her have it should be her teacher, not anyone who loves her. You have so many feelings they fall over each other like feet. You won't use your chances and you won't let me.

But if she runs from you - to us -

K: She does not get anything she - J: Don't - don't -

Captain

K: What?! One thing that girls secret is not, she doesn't fire one shot and disappear. Katie, don't mind what he -

Captain, I am proud of you.

K: Yes, I... Well, come in. Katie.

Captain.

A: And some old furniture, all our own.

Captain? Do you think that bedstead in the barn would be too -

A: That's all.

Captain? With your permission...

A: Yes, that's the point. I'll have to live with her somewhere else. K: What?! A: Til she learns to depend on and listen to me.

For how long?

K: For what?

For letting this girl have what she needs.

A: No, I mean day and night. She has to be dependent on me.

For what?

A: Yes, but I'm not accustomed to it. K: No, of course not. Viney!

Give her something, Jimmie, to quiet her.

K: I want you to give her notice.

I can't.

K: Katie, I did not bring you all the way out here to the garden house to be frivolous. Now how does Miss Sullivan propose to teach a deaf-blind child who won't even let her touch her?

I don't know.

E: I can't wait out here a minute longer, Kate, why, this could go on all afternoon, too.

I'll tell the Captain you called.

A: No. It's how I watch you talk to Mildred.

Mildred.

A: Well, if we all agree that it's hopeless, the next question is what -

Miss Annie, I am not agreed. I think perhaps you underestimate Helen.

I know. In two weeks.

Miss Annie, I... Please be good to her. These two weeks, try to be very good to her -

A: It's useless to try to teach her language or anything else here. I might as well -

Miss Annie, before you came we spoke of putting her in an asylum.

A: What good will your pity do her when you're under the strawberries, Captain Keller? K: Kate, for the love of heaven will you -

Miss Annie, please, I don't think it serves to lose our -

A: She's changed.

Miss Annie, put up with it. And with us.

K: Now she's hurt herself. A: No, she hasn't. K: Will you please let her hands go?

Miss Annie, you don't know the child well enough yet, she'll keep -

K: He wouldn't have got around if we'd had a southerner in command, instead of a halfbreed Yankee trader like Pemberton... What's the matter there?

Miss Annie. You see, she's accustomed to helping herself from our plates to anything she -

A: - the graves. No, it made me strong. But I don't think you need send Helen there. She's strong enough. No, I have no conditions, Captain Keller.

Miss Annie?

K: What?

Not ineffectual. Helen did fold her napkin.

A: The room Jimmie and I played in was the deadhouse, where they kept the bodies until they could dig -

Oh, my dear -

A: 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.

Other children are not impaired.

K: Why can't my son be? He can't bear me. You'd think I treat him as hard as this girl does Helen -

Perhaps you do.

A: I think everyone else here does.

She did fold her napkin. She learns, she learns. Do you know she began talking when she was just six months old? She could say "water". Not really... "wahwah". "Wahwah" but she meant water, she knew what it meant, and only six months old, I never saw a child so bright or outgoing. It's still in her, somewhere, isn't it? You should have seen her before the illness, such a good tempered child.

K: From the moment she stepped off the train she's been nothing but a burden, incompetent, impertinent, ineffectual, immodest -

She folded her napkin, Captain.

(Helen signs for mother)

That's her sign for me.

A: I like to hear myself talk!

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