The Maid’s Tale: How She Unlocked the Cage

Some people are “hard cases.” They get crabby. Germans describe them as “greiner/zanner, “whiner-grumbler.”

We avoid such people because they infect us with their negativity.

For example, teenagers stretch the bounds of their independence. Teenagers test the patience of their parents with bowed backs and stiff necks. So much so that Mark Twain advised, “When a child turns 13, nail them in a barrel and cut a hole so you can feed them. When they turn 16, nail up the hole.”

But don’t those people need someone to help them?

At the Tewksbury Institute, Dr. Frank Mayfield bumped into an older woman cleaning the floor. He felt terrible and decided to ask some questions.

“How long have you worked here?”

“I’ve worked here almost since the place opened,” the maid replied.

“What can you tell me about the history of this place?” he asked.

“I don’t think I can tell you anything, but I could show you something.”

She led him by the hand to the basement under the oldest section of the building. In it were what looked like small prison cells, their iron bars rusted with age. “That’s the cage where they used to keep Annie Sullivan,” said the maid.

“Who’s Annie?” the doctor asked.

Annie was incorrigible doctors confined her to a cage to prevent her from biting, screaming, and throwing food at others. The doctors gave up examining her due to the danger.

The maid continued, “I was only a few years younger than her myself and I used to think, ‘I sure would hate to be locked up in a cage like that.’ I wanted to help her, but I didn’t have any idea what I could do. I mean, if the doctors and nurses couldn’t help her, what could someone like me do?

“I didn’t know what else to do, so I just baked her some brownies one night after work. The next day I brought them in. I walked carefully to her cage and said, ‘Annie, I baked these brownies just for you. I’ll put them right here on the floor and you can come and get them if you want.’

“Then I got out of there just as fast as I could because I was afraid she might throw them at me. But she didn’t. She took the brownies and ate them. After that, she was just a little bit nicer to me when I was around. And sometimes I’d talk to her. Once, I even got her laughing.

A nurse who watched reported the amazement to a doctor. They asked if the maid to help them with Annie. She agreed if she could. So that’s how it came about that. Every time they wanted to see Annie or examine her, the maid went into the cage first. She calmed Annie down by explaining what would happen and held Annie’s hand.

This is how doctors discovered that Annie was almost blind.

After a hard year of working with Annie, the Perkins Institute for the Blind opened its doors. They were able to help Annie and she went on to study and she became a teacher herself.

Annie returned to the Tewksbury Institute to visit. She asked what she could do to help out. At first, the Director didn’t say anything and then he thought about a letter he’d received. A man had written to him about his daughter. She was unruly—almost like an animal. She was blind and deaf. The label “deranged” marked her.

The man was at his wit’s end, but he didn’t want to put her in an asylum. So he wrote the Institute to ask someone to come and help his daughter.

And that is how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller.

When Helen Keller received the Nobel Prize, the press asked who had the greatest impact on her life and she said, “Annie Sullivan.”

But Annie said, “No, Helen. The woman who had the greatest influence on both our lives was a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.”

James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us not to forget the hard cases of life.

“My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19–20, ESV)

Stick with someone the“incorrigibles.” Instead of controlling them or dismissing them, find a way to serve them. You never know the depth of their struggle and you may be the one to save their life and another.