Plays Part 30

SILAS: I love land-this land. I suppose that's why I never have the feeling that I own it.

GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it-I want to know! What do you think we come here for-your father and me? What do you think we left our folks for-left the world of white folks-schools and stores and doctors, and set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. Lost our way-weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what that's like-without your own roof-or fire-without-

(She turns her face away.)

SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now-now isn't this too bad? I don't say things right. It's because I never went to school.

GRANDMOTHER: (her face shielded) You went to school two winters.

SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did.

GRANDMOTHER: (with the determination of one who will not have her own pain looked at) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well this summer?

FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with the new purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to see them.

GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it was pretty fine-sounding speeches they had in town?

FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war.

SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never mentioned war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (hearing a step, looking out) Mother, here's Felix.

(FELIX, a well-dressed young man, comes in.)

GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix?

FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton?

GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here.

FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you weren't.

GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em out, so you wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on the cookie jar.

FELIX: Where is John?

SILAS: (who is pouring a gla.s.s of wine for FELIX) You've not seen John yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those young devils ran off to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' round. But everybody'll be home some time. Mary and the girls-don't ask me where they are. They'll drive old Bess all over the country before they drive her to the bam. Your father and I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him.

FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it all over again?

SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want to talk about what's to come, about-what 'twas all for. Great things are to come, Felix. And before you are through.

FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself-walking around the town to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that means more growing-that big glucose plant going up down the river, the new lumber mill-all that means many more people.

FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works.

SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields-a big rich place-that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the land and the way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard College, Felix. Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix coming home from that wonderful place!

FELIX: You make it seem wonderful.

SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful-know it so well you don't have to say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's wonderful the way the stars are wonderful-this place where all that the world has learned is to be drawn from me-like a spring.

FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says-a distinguished new English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world'.

SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' (slowly rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to his feet) That's what that hill is for! (pointing) Don't you see it? End of our trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. Plant a college, so's after we are gone that college says for us, says in people learning has made more: 'That is why we took this land.'

GRANDMOTHER: (incredulous) You mean, Silas, you're going to give the hill away?

SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail-how could we keep that?

GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level-land's land and not a thing you give away.

SILAS: Well, don't scold me. I'm not giving it away. It's giving itself away, get down to it.

GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded.

SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (to FEJEVARY, humorously) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave it to me.

FEJEVARY: Ah, no-I didn't give it to you.

SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that woke things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that made me know there had to be a college there-wake things in minds-so ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, Felix?

FELIX: It-it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you put it. It's only that I'm wondering-

SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it can't. And it needn't be (stubbornly) It's a college in the cornfields-where the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the boys of the cornfields-and the girls. There's few can go to Harvard College-but more can climb that hill, (turn of the head from the hill to FELIX) Harvard on a hill? (As FELIX smiles no, SILAS turns back to the hill) A college should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. See it as they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when they're shutting up at night. 'Twill make a difference-even to them that never go.

GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas-don't be hasty.

SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one night-must 'a' been ten years ago-middle of a starry night as I was comin' home from your place (to FEJEVARY) I'd gone over to lend a hand with a sick horse an'-

FEJEVARY: (with a grateful smile) That was nothing new.

SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to the meanest man unhung. But-there were stars that night had never been there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the hill-Felix, in all your travels east, did you ever see anything more beautiful than that hill?

FELIX: It's like sculpture.

SILAS: Hm. (the wistfulness with which he speaks of that outside his knowledge) I s'pose 'tis. It's the way it rises-somehow-as if it knew it rose from wide and fertile lands. I climbed the hill that night, (to FEJEVARY) You'd been talkin'. As we waited between medicines you told me about your life as a young man. All you'd lived through seemed to-open up to you that night-way things do at times. Guess it was 'cause you thought you was goin' to lose your horse. See, that was Colonel, the sorrel, wasn't it?

FEJEVARY: Yes. Good old Colonel.

SILAS: You'd had a long run o' off luck. Hadn't got things back in shape since the war. But say, you didn't lose him, did you?

FEJEVARY: Thanks to you.

SILAS: Thanks to the medicine I keep in the back kitchen.

FEJEVARY: You encouraged him.

GRANDMOTHER: Silas has a way with all the beasts.