Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 32

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.

SILAS: We've got the same kind of minds--the beasts and me.

GRANDMOTHER: Silas, I wish you wouldn't talk like that--and with Felix just home from Harvard College.

SILAS: Same kind of minds--except that mine goes on a little farther.

GRANDMOTHER: Well I'm glad to hear you say that.

SILAS: Well, there we sat--you an' me--middle of a starry night, out beside your barn. And I guess it came over you kind of funny you should be there with me--way off the Mississippi, tryin' to save a sick horse.

Seemed to--bring your life to life again. You told me what you studied in that fine old university you loved--the Vienna,--and why you became a revolutionist. The old dreams took hold o' you and you talked--way you used to, I suppose. The years, o' course, had rubbed some of it off.

Your face as you went on about the vision--you called it, vision of what life could be. I knew that night there was things I never got wind of.

When I went away--knew I ought to go home to bed--hayin' at daybreak.

'Go to bed?' I said to myself. 'Strike this dead when you've never had it before, may never have it again?' I climbed the hill. Blackhawk was there.

GRANDMOTHER: Why, he was _dead_.

SILAS: He was there--on his own old hill, with me and the stars. And I said to him--

GRANDMOTHER: Silas!

SILAS: Says I to him, 'Yes--that's true; it's more yours than mine, you had it first and loved it best. But it's neither yours nor mine,--though both yours and mine. Not my hill, not your hill, but--hill of vision', said I to him. 'Here shall come visions of a better world than was ever seen by you or me, old Indian chief.' Oh, I was drunk, plum drunk.

GRANDMOTHER: I should think you was. And what about the next day's hay?

SILAS: A day in the hayfield is a day's hayin'--but a night on the hill--

FELIX: We don't have them often, do we, Uncle Silas?

SILAS: I wouldn't 'a' had that one but for your father, Felix. Thank G.o.d they drove you out o' Hungary! And it's all so dog-gone _queer_. Ain't it queer how things blow from mind to mind--like seeds. Lord A'mighty--you don't know where they'll take hold.

(_Children's voices off_.)

GRANDMOTHER: There come those children up from the creek--soppin' wet, I warrant. Well, I don't know how children ever get raised. But we raise more of 'em than we used to. I buried three--first ten years I was here.

Needn't 'a' happened--if we'd known what we know now, and if we hadn't been alone. (_With all her strength_.) I don't know what you mean--the hill's not yours!

SILAS: It's the future's, mother--so's we can know more than we know now.

GRANDMOTHER: We know it now. 'Twas then we didn't know it. I worked for that hill! And I tell you to leave it to your own children.

SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all the children.

GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you?

SILAS: (_derisively_) Oh, mother--what a thing for you to say! You who were never too tired to give up your own bed so the stranger could have a better bed.

GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their way.

FEJEVARY: So are we.

(SILAS _turns to him with quick appreciation_.)

GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of other old settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want yours to.

SILAS: I want other things more. I want to pay my debts 'fore I'm too old to know they're debts.

GRANDMOTHER: (_momentarily startled_) Debts? Huh! More talk. You don't owe any man.

SILAS: I owe him (_nodding to_ FEJEVARY). And the red boys here before me.

GRANDMOTHER: Fiddlesticks.