Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 45

FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself?

MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (_a whistle_) Isn't that a policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging around here to--(_pulling away from her uncle as he turns to look, she jumps up in the deep sill and throws open the window. Calling down_) Here--Officer--_You_--Let that boy alone!

FEJEVARY: (_going left, calling sharply_) Holden. Professor Holden--here--quick!

VOICE: (_coming up from below, outside_) Who says so?

MADELINE: I say so!

VOICE: And who are you talking for?

MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College!

FEJEVARY: (_returning--followed, reluctantly, by_ HOLDEN) Indeed you are not. Close that window or you'll be expelled from Morton College.

(_Sounds of a growing crowd outside_.)

VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station?

MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me there again, if you come bullying around here. You're not what this place is for!

(_her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to close the window--she holds it out_) My grandfather gave this hill to Morton College--a place where anybody--from any land--can come and say what he believes to be true! Why, you poor simp--this is America! Beat it from here! Atna!

Don't let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to--Oh, let me _down_ there!

(_Springs down, would go off right, her uncle spreads out his arms to block that pa.s.sage. She turns to go the other way_.)

FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN _has not moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the doorway_) Don't let her pa.s.s.

(_Shouts of derision outside_.)

MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here--with that going on out there? (_Moves nearer_ HOLDEN, _stands there before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pa.s.s. Sound of her running footsteps. The two men's eyes meet. A door slams_.)

CURTAIN

ACT IV

SCENE: _At the_ MORTON _place, the same room in which_ SILAS MORTON _told his friend_ FELIX FEJEVARY _of his plan for the hill. The room has not altogether changed since that day in 1879. The table around which they dreamed for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is there, the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in which_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON _sat. This is early afternoon, a week after the events of Act II_.

MADELINE _is sitting at the table, in her hand a torn, wrinkled piece of brown paper-peering at writing almost too fine to read. After a moment her hand goes out to a beautiful dish on the table--an old dish of coloured Hungarian gla.s.s. She is about to take something from this, but instead lets her hand rest an instant on the dish itself Then turns and through the open door looks out at the hill, sitting where her_ GRANDFATHER MORTON _sat when he looked out at the hill._

_Her father_, IRA MORTON, _appears outside, walking past the window, left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, partly filled. He seems hardly aware of_ MADELINE, _but taking a chair near the door, turned from her, opens the sack and takes out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent over them, examining in a shrewd, greedy way_, MADELINE _looks at that lean, tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper_.

MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our Fred--and of mine?

IRA: (_not wanting to take his mind from the corn_) No. I don't remember him. (_his voice has that timbre of one not related to others_)

MADELINE: He's in prison now.

IRA: Well I can't help that. (_after taking out another ear_) This is the best corn I ever had. (_he says it gloatingly to himself_)

MADELINE: He got this letter out to me--written on this sc.r.a.p of paper.

They don't give him paper. (_peering_) Written so fine I can hardly read it. He's in what they call 'the hold', father--a punishment cell. (_with difficulty reading it_) It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet at the other, and six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote this. He gets two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he gets. This because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another prisoner up by the wrists.

IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better mind yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (_with excitement_) I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since the day my father's father got it from the government--and it stays clear--till I'm gone. It grows the best corn in the state--best corn in the Mississippi Valley.

Not for _anything_--you hear me?--would I mortgage this farm my father handed down to me.

MADELINE: (_hurt_) Well, father, I'm not asking you to.

IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help you--if you say you're sorry.

MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix.

IRA: Who will you go to then? (_pause_) Who will help you then? (_again he waits_) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends.

You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all that away.

MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times.

(_smooths the wrinkled paper_) I don't know anybody--unless it is myself--loves to be out, as he does. (_she tries to look out, but cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to that corner closet, the same one from which_ SILAS MORTON _took the deed to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of chalk. On the floor she marks off_ FRED JORDAN'S _cell. Slowly, at the end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts, looks up_.) And one window--too high up to see out.

(_In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the people who are in those cells_. EMIL JOHNSON _appears from outside; he is the young man brought up on a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede_.)

MADELINE: (_stepping out of the cell door, and around it_) h.e.l.lo, Emil.

EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA _barely nods and does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up the corn he has taken from the sack_. EMIL _turns back to_ MADELINE) Well, I'm just from the courthouse. Looks like you and I might take a ride together, Madeline. You come before the Commissioner at four.

IRA: What have you got to do with it?

MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part of the law.

IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody else--not Emil Johnson!

MADELINE: (_astonished--and gently, to make up for his rudeness_) Why--father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I think it's nice to go in with someone I know--with a neighbour like Emil.

IRA: If _this_ is what he lived for! If this is why--

(_He twists the ear of corn until some of the kernels drip off_.

MADELINE _and_ EMIL _look at one another in bewilderment_.)

EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should think your uncle could fix it up. (_low_) And with your father taking it like this--(_to help_ IRA) That's fine corn, Mr Morton. My corn's getting better all the time, but I'd like to get some of this for seed.

IRA: (_rising and turning on him_) You get my corn? I raise this corn for you? (_not to them--his mind now going where it is shut off from any other mind_) If I could make the _wind_ stand still! I want to _turn the wind around_.

MADELINE: (_going to him_) Why--father. I don't understand at all.

IRA: Don't understand. n.o.body understands. (_a curse with a sob in it_) G.o.d d.a.m.n the wind!