Read-Aloud Plays Part 10

THE BOY

What I can't understand is how nowadays people seem more grown up and competent than those men were, in a way, and we do such wonderful things--skysc.r.a.pers and aeroplanes--and yet we aren't half so wonderful as they were in the Old Testament with their jugs and their wooden plows. I mean, we aren't near so big as the things we do, while those old fellows were so much bigger. We smile at them, but if some day one of our machines fell over on us what would we do about it?

THE MAN

I wonder.

THE BOY

I went through a big factory just last week. One of my friends' father is the manager, and all I could think of was what could a fellow do who didn't like it, who didn't fit in.... Nowadays most everybody seems competent about factories or business or something like that--you know--and they've got hold of everything, so a fellow's got to do the same thing or where is he?

THE MAN

That's the first question, certainly: where is he? But where is he if he does do the same thing?

THE BOY

Why, he's with the rest. And _they_ don't ask that question....

THE MAN

I'm afraid they don't. It would be interesting to be there if they should begin to ask it, wouldn't it?

THE BOY

Yes.... I'd like to be there when some _I_ know ask themselves! But they never will. Why should they?

THE MAN

Don't you mean how _can_ they?

THE BOY

Yes, of course. They don't ask the question because the big thing they are doing seems to be the answer beforehand. But it isn't! Not compared with the Old Testament. So we have to ask it for ourselves. And that's why I came here....

THE MAN

Oh. You want to know where _they_ are, with their power, or where _you_ will be without it?

THE BOY

Where I'll be. I hate it! But what else is there to-day?

THE MAN

Why, there's you.

THE BOY

But that's just it! What am I for if I can't join in? I came to you....

You don't mind my talking, do you?

THE MAN

On the contrary.

THE BOY

Well, everybody I know is a part of it, so how could they tell me what to do outside of it? I've been wondering about that for a year. Before then, when I was just a boy, the world seemed full of everything, but now it seems to have only one thing. That or nothing. Then one day I saw a photograph somebody had cut out of a Sunday paper, and I thought to myself there's a man who seems outside, entirely outside, and yet he has something. It wasn't all or nothing for him ... and I wondered who it was.

Then I found your book, with the same picture in it. You bet I read it right off! It was the first time in my life I had ever felt power as great as skysc.r.a.pers and railroads and yet apart from them. Outside of all they mean. Like the Old Testament. Those poems!

THE MAN

You liked them?

THE BOY

It was more than that. How can a fellow _like_ the ocean, or a snow storm?

THE MAN

Is that what you thought they were like?

THE BOY

Why, they went off like a fourteen inch gun! Not a whine about life in them--not a single regret for anything. They were wonderful! They seemed to pick up mountains and cities and toss them all about like toys. They made me feel that what I was looking for was able to conquer what I didn't like.... I said to myself I don't care if he does laugh at me, I'll go and ask him where all that power is! And so I came....

THE MAN

There's Rex now--over across the road. He's wondering who you are. He sees we are friends, and he's pretending to be jealous. Dogs are funny, aren't they? But you were speaking about my poems. It's odd that their first criticism should come from you like this. You must be about the same age I was when I began writing--when I wanted above anything to write a book like that, and when such a book seemed the most impossible thing I could do. Like trying to swim the Atlantic, or live forever.

THE BOY

It seemed impossible? I should think it would be the most natural thing in the world, for _you_--like eating dinner.

THE MAN

That's the wonderful thing--not the book, but that _I_ should have come to write it!

THE BOY

But who else could write it?

THE MAN

At your age I thought anybody could--anybody and everybody except myself.

THE BOY