([ANNIE] 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 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.
Select the excerpt from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller that shows a different perspective of similar events.
A. The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll.
B. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
C. A bright idea, however, shot into my mind, and the problem was solved. I tumbled off the seat and searched under it until I found my aunt's cape, which was trimmed with large beads. I pulled two beads off and indicated to her that I wanted her to sew them on my doll. She raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way, and I nodded energetically. The beads were sewed in the right place and I could not contain myself for joy; but immediately I lost all interest in the doll.
D. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet...I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed.
