The Miracle Worker by William Gibson Read Free Book Online

pitcherful of water. While the pitcher is brimming we hear conversation from the dark; the light grows to the family room of the house where all are either entering or already seated at breakfast, with KELLER and JAMES arguing the war. HELEN is wandering around the table to explore the contents of the other plates. When ANNIE is in her chair, she watches HELEN. VINEY re-enters, sets the pitcher on the table; KATE lifts the almost empty biscuit plate with an inquiring look, VINEY nods and bears it off back, neither of them interrupting the men. ANNIE meanwhile sits with fork quiet, watching HELEN, who at her mother’s plate pokes her hand among some scrambled eggs. KATE catches ANNIE’S eyes on her, smiles with a wry gesture, HELEN moves on to JAMES’S plate, the male talk continuing, JAMES deferential and KELLER overriding.)
    JAMES: —no, but shouldn’t we give the devil his due, father? The fact is we lost the South two years earlier when he outthought us behind Vicksburg.
    KELLER: Outthought is a peculiar word for a butcher.
    JAMES: Harness maker, wasn’t he?
    KELLER: I said butcher, his only virtue as a soldier was numbers and he led them to slaughter with no more regard than for so many sheep.
    JAMES: But even if in that sense he was a butcher, the fact is he—
    KELLER: And a drunken one, half the war.
    JAMES: Agreed, father. If his own people said he was I can’t argue he—
    KELLER: Well, what is it you find to admire in such a man, Jimmie, the butchery or the drunkenness?
    JAMES: Neither, father, only the fact that he beat us.
    KELLER: He didn’t.
    JAMES: Is it your contention we won the war, sir?
    KELLER: He didn’t beat us at Vicksburg. We lost Vicksburg because Pemberton gave Bragg five thousand of his cavalry and Loring, whom I knew personally for a nincompoop before you were born, marched away from Champion’s Hill with enough men to have held them, we lost Vicksburg by stupidity verging on treason.
    JAMES: I would have said we lost Vicksburg because Grant was one thing no Yankee general was before him—
    KELLER: Drunk? I doubt it.
    JAMES: Obstinate.
    KELLER: Obstinate. Could any of them compare even in that with old Stonewall? If he’d been there we would still have Vicksburg.
    JAMES: Well, the butcher simply wouldn’t give up, he tried four ways of getting around Vicksburg and on the fifth try he got around. Anyone else would have pulled north and—
    KELLER: He wouldn’t have got around if we’d had a Southerner in command, instead of a half-breed Yankee traitor like Pemberton—
    (While this background talk is in progress, HELEN is working around the table, ultimately toward ANNIE’S plate. She messes with her hands in JAMES’S plate, then in KELLER’S, both men taking it so for granted they hardly notice. Then HELEN comes groping with soiled hands past her own plate, to ANNIE’S; her hand goes to it, and ANNIE, who has been waiting, deliberately lifts and removes her hand. HELEN gropes again, ANNIE firmly pins her by the wrist, and removes her hand from the table. HELEN thrusts her hands again, ANNIE catches them, and HELEN begins to flail and make noises; the interruption brings KELLER’S gaze upon them.)
    What’s the matter there?
    KATE: Miss Annie. You see, she’s accustomed to helping herself from our plates to anything she—
    ANNIE [ EVENLY ]: Yes, but I’m not accustomed to it.
    KELLER: No, of course not. Viney!
    KATE: Give her something, Jimmie, to quiet her.
    JAMES [ BLANDLY ]: But her table manners are the best she has. Well.
    (He pokes across with a chunk of bacon at HELEN’S hand, which ANNIE releases; but HELEN knocks the bacon away and stubbornly thrusts at ANNIE’S plate, ANNIE grips her wrists again, the struggle mounts.)
    KELLER: Let her this time, Miss Sullivan, it’s the only way we get any adult conversation. If my son’s half merits that description.
    (He