Hmmmm, it's honestly not what Helen does to Percy's finger
as much as what Percy does to Helen's finger. Let me show you the exchange here and you
can see for yourself. Martha and Percy are playing with paperdolls, and Percy is
pretending to give his paperdoll an "operation":
(But Helen is poking her fingers
inside his mouth, to feel his tongue; he bites at them, annoyed, and she jerks them
away. Helen now fingers her own lips, moving them in imitation, but
soundlessly.)
Martha: What you do, bite her
hand?
Percy: That's how I do, she keep pokin' her
fingers in my mouth, I just bite 'em
off.
Poor Helen, she remains
completely bewildered as to why people open and close their mouths intermittently. She
desires to find out if and when people are doing this strange thing. Because she can't
see or hear, the only way she can find out if people are moving their mouths is to feel
them with her fingers.
I'm sure this particular exchange
shows that she has recently realized that the tongue inside the mouth moves, too.
Although we are not given any indication in the text, perhaps she has also realized that
there is vibration coming from deep within the throat. One can understand Percy's
annoyance.
No adult is around to chastise Percy, so why not
get Helen's annoying fingers away? She can't tell anybody, so why not bite those
probing appendages? Therefore, this exchange also shows how Helen is a constant
annoyance, even to the servants.
Ironically, it's a fairly
important exchange because it's how we understand Percy's annoyance again later when
Annie tries to use Percy to help teach Helen.
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