Miss Spitfire Read online

  Chapter 3

  Certainly this is a good time and a pleasant place to begin my life-work.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  It’s six thirty by the time I reach Tuscumbia. Sweltering in the southern heat, I watch the people come and go in their breezy spring clothes, and realize all at once how dowdy I must look. I step from the train and squint through the harsh sunlight at the faces about me. No one shows any interest in my arrival.

  Finally a young man in a light suit catches my eye. As he looks me up and down, from my frumpy gray-and-red bonnet and burning eyes to my bedraggled dress and the felt bedroom slippers on my aching feet, the old shame of poverty darkens my cheeks. He looks almost as amused as the girls at Perkins did when I arrived from Tewksbury with neither nightgown nor toothbrush, unable to write my own name.

  “Anne Sullivan?” He says no more, but I know from his tone that we shall never be friends.

  “Annie,” I tell him. My mild Irish lilt, so easy to hide in Boston, stands out like a gunshot among the soft-edged southern voices. The young man’s eyebrow rises as though he fancies I’ve stepped off a boat straight from county Limerick.

  He leans forward and takes my bag. “Mrs. Keller is in the carriage.”

  I follow him to the carriage, where a woman, not so much older than myself, waits. There’s no sign of Helen. My anxiousness blooms into disappointment. How much longer until I see what’s in store for me?

  “Kate Keller,” the young man announces with a careless sweep of his arm in my direction, “Annie Sullivan.”

  Mrs. Keller is tall and blond, with the kind of smooth skin I’ve seen only in the fashion plates Jimmie and I used to cut from the Godey’s Lady’s Book to paste on the walls of the dead house. She smiles—a warm smile, but a desperate one too.

  “Oh, Miss Annie, it’s so good to see you at last. Thank you so much for coming.”

  At the sound of her voice a great weight rolls from my heart. She speaks with such sweetness and refinement—as though her words come from the throat of a lily. I don’t hesitate a moment when she extends her hand to help me into the carriage.

  “Do you have any luggage?” she asks.

  “I do. One trunk.”

  “James, go and see about Miss Sullivan’s trunk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His courtesy toward her seems to pain him. I watch him go, curious about Mrs. Keller’s authority over him, for this James looks nearly twenty years old.

  “Well, you can’t accuse him of being too forward,” I remark.

  “James is my stepson, Miss Annie,” she explains.

  Leave it to Miss Spitfire, I think. It’ll take a shoehorn to pry my foot from my mouth. I steal a glance at her face. It shows no trace of anything but kindness.

  “Captain Keller’s first wife died some years ago,” Mrs. Keller continues.

  Captain Keller. Holy Mother, I’d forgotten Helen’s father fought with the rebels in the War Between the States. Dr. Howe would turn over in his grave if he knew a Perkins girl was working for someone who once owned slaves. I’d turn over in my own grave, if I had one.

  I nod and try to smile through this newfound worry, but she takes no notice. “It’s just wonderful to have you here.” Again that hopeful smile. “We’ve met every train for two days.”

  Her friendly grace warms me like an arm round my shoulders. Before I know what I’m saying, I confess, “I think I’ve been on every train in creation in the last two days.”

  She laughs. “You’ll feel better after a hot meal and a good night’s sleep.”

  I hope to feel much better once I’ve met Helen, I want to say. But I’d rather sever my tongue than risk being rude to this woman. Mr. Anagnos would marvel at my restraint if he could see me now—the girl who once threatened to scratch his eyes out.

  James returns. “They’ll deliver Miss Sullivan’s trunk tomorrow,” he announces, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  The words stumble out of my mouth before I have a chance to catch them. “Are we that close to—to home?”

  “Only a mile, Miss Annie,” Mrs. Keller tells me.

  Excitement and anxiety roll in my stomach quicker than the turning of the carriage wheels as James drives us through the little town. The bright southern sun makes my eyes water, but the landscape helps quiet my restless thoughts. Tuscumbia looks more like a New England village than a town. Blossoming fruit trees line the roads and lanes—there are no streets—and the good, earthly smell of the ploughed fields floats on the air.

  For a little while I can almost forget about Helen as the sights and smells of springtime melt away my memory of the gray Boston winter I left behind. Blooms lie draped over every bough like dainty shawls, and the green lawns glow in the early evening light. Modest redbuds and slender dogwoods texture the breeze itself with sweetness.

  It shall not be hard to live in a place like this.

  A nudge from Mrs. Keller interrupts my reverie. Pointing down a long, narrow lane ahead of the carriage, she says, “Our house is at the end of there. We call it Ivy Green.”

  As the horse ambles round the corner, I can scarcely sit still in my seat. Finally the house comes into view, and it’s all I can do to keep from jumping out of the carriage and pushing the slothful creature faster.

  Chapter 4

  Somehow I had expected to see a pale, delicate child—I suppose I got the idea from Dr. Howe’s description of Laura Bridgman when she came to the Institution. But there’s nothing pale or delicate about Helen.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  Captain Keller waits in the yard for us. As the carriage pulls up alongside him, I see in an instant how James Keller will look twenty years from now, for they share the same strong face and smooth, even features. The captain’s brown hair is quite thin on top, though, and his beard looks like a fistful of fine copper wires bristling down over his necktie. He fairly boils over with exuberance as he helps me from the carriage and pumps my whole arm up and down with his hearty handshake.

  “Welcome to Ivy Green, Miss Sullivan,” he booms.

  I have to catch my breath to answer him. All that comes out is, “Where is Helen?”

  He chuckles and takes my arm, leading me toward the house. I’m so eager to meet my little pupil I can hardly walk.

  Stately magnolia and live oak trees anchor the lawn, curtaining the yard with their shade. Beyond them stands the house, plain and chaste as a cottage-not at all the grand plantation manor I’d expected. The walls are a crisp white, and the tall front windows have green shutters. An abundance of English ivy creeps all along the foundation and up the trunks of the trees.

  Ten yards or so from the porch Captain Keller stops and pats my hand. “There she is,” he says, nodding toward the doorway. “She’s known all day that someone was expected, and she’s been wild ever since her mother went to the station for you.”

  Helen stands on the porch, her cheek pressed against the railing’s drapery of honeysuckle. Her chestnut hair is tangled, her pinafore soiled, and her black shoes tied with white strings. Her face is hard to describe. It’s intelligent, but lacks mobility, or soul, or something. I see at a glance that she’s blind. One eye is larger than the other, and protrudes noticeably. The familiar words ring in my ears before I can stop them: She’d be pretty if it weren’t for those eyes.

  But none of that matters. Something in me stirs when I see her, something that has lain still and cold since the day my brother died. She seems so utterly alone, her look so familiar, for a moment I imagine I’m seeing the shadow of my own child-soul. My arms ache to touch her, the desire so strong it startles me.

  My foot is scarcely on the first step when Helen races toward me with such force that I’m thrown backward against the captain. I right myself and try to take her into my arms, but she squirms from my caresses and writhes against my attempt to kiss her cheek, dissolving my sympathy into hurt.

  Her hands roam everywhere at once-my face, my
dress, my bag. Like a swift little pickpocket, she yanks the bag away from me and tries to open it. She struggles for a moment, then feels every inch of it. Finding the keyhole, she turns to me and twists one hand in the air like a key, pointing to the bag with the other. I’m delighted by her intelligence, in spite of this dismaying audacity.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Annie,” Mrs. Keller interrupts, her face pink. “Helen is used to our friends bringing sweets for her in their bags.” She takes Helen’s free hand and puts it against her cheek, shaking her head no so the child can feel it. Flushing to the roots of her hair, Helen purses her lips and jerks the bag closer to her side with a grunt. Short sounds, the same sort of noises that leaked from the throats of Tewksbury’s insane, accompany Helen’s every move. Mrs. Keller takes the bag by the handles and wrestles it away from her daughter-no meager feat, for Helen is large, strong, and ruddy, and as unrestrained in her movements as a young colt.

  When the bag disappears from her reach, Helen’s face contorts into such a theatrical pout that for an instant I want to laugh, but her outrage is so intense it’s almost frightening. The Kellers, too, brace themselves for a storm.

  Suddenly I realize what troubled me about Helen’s appearance at first glance. Her features show none of the subtle ripples of thought and emotion that pass over normal faces. Only blunt reactions to pleasure or physical pain penetrate her vacant expression.

  Desperate for a distraction, I dig in my pocket, wishing for the peppermints I ate on the train from Chattanooga. Instead I find my watch and put it in Helen’s hand, wondering if I shall ever see it in one piece again. I show her how to open it, and instantly the tempest subsides. Helen takes me by the arm, and we go into the house and straight up the stairs together.

  “Dr. Bell let her play with his watch in Washington, DC,” Captain Keller muses from behind me. I wonder if he means Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. Either way, I take it as a compliment.

  Upstairs I open my bag, and Helen rifles through it. Now and again she turns to me, bringing her hands to her mouth as though she’s eating. She expects to find a treat, but I have no such thing; the doll from Perkins won’t arrive until tomorrow. Reaching the bottom of the bag, frustration reddens her face.

  Somehow I have to tell her that my trunk is on the way and there are good things for her inside. Such a simple thought. But how do I say it without words? How do I show her with no trunk and no treats?

  Seized with an idea, I take Helen’s hand and pull her into the slope-ceilinged sewing room off the hallway. With my hands over hers, touch the large trunk standing in the corner, then point to myself and nod. She puzzles over this until I repeat her gesture for eating and nod again. Like a flash she dashes from the room.

  I follow Helen halfway down the stairs and watch her make emphatic gestures to her mother. She seems to be showing Mrs. Keller that there is candy in my trunk for her. My chest begins to unknot. Helen’s attempts to communicate are crude, but they make me hopeful that she can learn. Nodding, her mother shoos Helen back toward the steps.

  With Helen’s help I put my few things away. Her hands explore everything that comes from my bag. Nothing reaches its drawer without being touched and smelled, then modeled or paraded round the room. I can’t help but laugh at the sight of her standing before the dresser mirror wearing my bonnet, cocking her head from side to side just as if she could see.

  “Where did you ever learn that? You must be quite the little mimic.”

  While Helen amuses herself with my things, I look about our room. It’s a large, comfortable room, with little in the way of knickknacks or decorations—probably more to do with Helen’s roving hands than anything else. My bed stands behind the door, facing the window. On one side of the window is a fireplace with a narrow painted shelf boasting a handsome mantel clock and a pair of painted china vases. On the other is the dresser and the only other breakable objects in the room-a large washbowl and pitcher. Helen’s little sleigh bed sits in front of the dresser, facing the door. Her playthings lay piled in a heap between the foot of her bed and the doorway. A school desk also has its place in that corner. A writing table with two rocking chairs sits before the window.

  So this is what a child’s room is supposed to look like, I think. What would Jimmie and I have done in a room like this, up to our knees in toys? Jimmie, who sneaked the scissors from the doctors’ bags so we could make paper dolls out of the Police Gazette, and never complained when I snipped off their heads by mistake. When one of the doctors caught us, he shouted, “If either of you so much as looks at my instruments again, I’ll slice off your ears!” But Jimmie only laughed and told me, “You’re a better slicer with those scissors than any doctor, Annie.”

  Stooping down, I pull a small book from the pile Helen has cast aside. It’s the little red dictionary Mrs. Hopkins gave me as a going-away gift. My spelling has always been atrocious. I would have liked a book of poems or Shakespeare better, to remind me of what I loved best at Perkins; the fastest friendships I made were within the lines of Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest. Though their words twine constantly through my thoughts, I’d relish the look of them on the page.

  Still, the stoutness of this dictionary, its size and shape, please me. I run my fingers along the spine, savoring the feel of the leather. I lay it on the nightstand with a satisfying thump.

  It almost looks like it belongs there.

  I wish I felt the same.

  Chapter 5

  She is very quick-tempered and wilful, and nobody, except her brother James, has attempted to control her.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  Next morning it takes me a moment to remember where I am. It seems I’ve overslept. Helen’s bed lies empty, and there’s not a sound in all the house. I wash and dress quickly, then go downstairs in search of company.

  Alone, I explore the house. Mrs. Keller gave me a quick tour last night, but I was too tired to notice much more than my held-over supper plate and my bed. On the first floor are four square rooms, divided into pairs by a wide hall. The parlor and dining room lie to the left of the stairway, and two bedrooms to the right. The captain, Mrs. Keller, and baby Mildred sleep at the front of the house; the captain’s spinster sister, Eveline, has the room at the back. Last night I discovered that James and his teenage brother, Simpson, share the upstairs room across from mine.

  There’s no sign of anyone about—not a breakfast dish or an unmade bed to be seen, so I wander out the back door into the sunshine.

  Outside it’s much more lively. Genial voices holler to one another in the carriage house, and chickens scuffle about the yard. Nearby, an old setter laps at a puddle under the pump. The light reflecting on the water needles my vision. More buildings are scattered about the property; the one next to the pump looks like a child-size Ivy Green. As I stand squinting with my hand shading my eyes, a boisterous racket claims my attention. Following the sound, I enter the small, barn-shaped kitchen.

  The place is in an uproar. Through the yeasty dimness I spot Mrs. Keller, hunched over Helen, who sits at a flour-covered table pounding her fists and kicking her feet. A mound of bread dough trembles under the assault, and two patty pans bounce and jangle with every blow to the tabletop. A young Negro woman I assume is the cook has pressed herself into a far corner, her floury arms wrapped round a cowering colored child of about eight. The little girl clutches a limp piece of dough in one hand.

  “What happened, Martha Washington?” Mrs. Keller cries over the clamor.

  Wide eyed, the little girl answers, “We were just making our bread. She tried to tell me something with her hands, but I couldn’t understand her quick enough.”

  In desperation Mrs. Keller’s eyes sweep the room. When she sees me in the doorway, her face cascades through myriad emotions: surprise, embarrassment, then relief. “Miss Annie,” she says, trying to sound calm and hospitable despite Helen’s lashing fists, “would you please bring the butter churn to me?”

  Confus
ed, I look about. The churn stands beside me, its dash lolling out of the lid at a cockeyed angle. With a grunt I haul the full churn round the table to Mrs. Keller’s side. In one darting move Mrs. Keller snatches one of Helen’s hands and places the churn dash in it, moving the dash up and down, up and down, in a regular rhythm.

  Quick as a summer storm, Helen’s tantrum ends. She slides from her stool and takes up churning as though the devil himself were driving her. Gingerly little Martha and the cook resume their places at the table and begin working their dough.

  Mrs. Keller gives me a weary look.

  “I shouldn’t have slept so late,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nonsense,” she says, straightening her dress and smoothing her hair into place. “You needed a good rest. Anyone could see that.”

  “That child’s gonna make cheese outta that butter,” the cook says to no one in particular.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Keller cries, and whirls round. She tries to slow the rhythm of her daughter’s churning, but Helen gives her a fierce shove and continues at her own wild pace. Sighing, Mrs. Keller wipes her hands on her apron, twisting the cloth round her fingers. “Are you hungry, Miss Annie? I had Viny save you a plate.” Before I can sputter an answer, the cook has the plate in her hands, ready to whisk me off to the dining room.

  “Oh, no, I can eat right here.”

  Viny freezes and glances at Mrs. Keller with raised eyebrows. I have a feeling no one has volunteered to eat in the kitchen before. “I don’t want to be any trouble,” I rush on. “I’d much rather sit with you and Helen.” Viny looks unsure, but Mrs. Keller nods, and Viny makes a place for me between the coffee grinder and the apple corer. I take Helen’s empty stool and plant it before my plate of biscuits, gravy, and eggs.

  No sooner have the legs of the stool hit the floor than Helen appears at my side. I try to give her a goodmorning hug, but she throws my arm from her shoulders. Instead she grabs a leg of the stool and pats her chest with her free hand. Her meaning—Mine!—is clear. When I don’t budge, Helen bunches up her lips and thumps harder on her chest. Even in the dim kitchen light I can see Mrs. Keller’s face turning pink again.