Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 5

BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.

(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.)

BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach, eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't move.

TONY: I see no bright colors.

BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a buried house, you might say, off here on the outside sh.o.r.e--way across the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said, but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died, and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.'

Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always talkative.

(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.)

CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was.

BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea.

CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_) Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here.

BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now.

(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.)

MRS PATRICK: They've gone?

(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.)

MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_) Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself!

(_s.n.a.t.c.hes her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big door toward the dunes_.)

ALLIE MAYO: Wait.

(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.)

ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more.

(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start, as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_) Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard.

He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two years we'd been married.

(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._)

The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days after he was gone.

I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to write till on the way home. (_a wait_)

Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) n.o.body ever heard.

(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear _yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in telling this. That pa.s.ses. In a whisper_) The ice that caught Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead!

MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_.

ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh.

(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has fallen to the floor and steps outside._)

ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait.

MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you didn't say an unnecessary word!

ALLIE MAYO: I don't.

MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into things you know nothing about!

(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the door down on the half buried gra.s.s--though not as if knowing what she is doing._)

ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that.

(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will grow. Let it grow.

(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._)

ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!

(_Pointing to the closed door_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in there!

ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose.

MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of buried trees!

ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over the buried trees.

MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out farthest.

ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath, tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest!

MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!

ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood that guards a town.

MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the outside--these dunes where only beach gra.s.s grows, this outer sh.o.r.e where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die here have named it that.

ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here (_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him.

But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe.

MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's sh.o.r.e to a harbor.