  Scene: Sitting room of the Jordan homestead some two months later. This room also shows some traces of a family’s daily life, and to that extent is less desolate than the “parlor” of the first act, although the stern faith of the Puritan makes no concession to the thing we have learned to call “good taste.” The old-fashioned simplicity seen in such a room as this has resulted from poverty, both of mind and of purse, and has nothing akin to the simplicity of the artist; as a matter of fact, your true descendant of the settlers of 1605 would be the first to resent such an implication; to them the arts are directly connected with heathen practices, and any incense burned before the altars of the Graces still smells to them of brimstone. At back center folding doors, now partly open, lead to dining room. In this room may be seen the dining table, back of the table a window looking out on to the farm yard, now deep in midwinter snow. At right is an open fireplace with a log fire. Below fireplace a door to hall. Up left door to small vestibule in which is the outside door. Down left a window overlooking a snowbound countryside. The clock above the fireplace is set for quarter past four. Several straight-backed chairs and a woodbox by fireplaces. A sewing table and lamp at center. A sewing machine near window Discovered: Ella sits right at sewing machine, hemming some rough towels. Orin and Nettie are by fireplace. Sadie sits right of center. Sadie and Orin are dressed for outdoors. Nettie’s coat, hat and overshoes are on a hat-rack by door at left. Orin, as the curtain goes up, is putting a log on the fire. SADIE (acidly to Ella) Why shouldn’t he put wood on the fire if he wants to? ELLA (at sewing machine) Because it ain’t your wood. SADIE No, it’s hers! Everything is hers! ELLA And maybe she just don’t know it. NETTIE (at fireplace) Ah! (She bends closer to the fire as the log blazes up) I do love a good fire! Oh it’s nice to be warm! SADIE There’s somethin’ sensual about it. NETTIE Mother told me that the next time you started talkin’ indecent I was to leave the room. SADIE Tell your mother I don’t wonder she’s sort of worried about you. I’d be if you was my daughter. I don’t see why you can’t let Nettie alone! NETTIE She’s always picking on me, Aunt Ella! To hear her talk anybody would think I was terrible. SADIE I know more about what’s going on than some folks think I do. NETTIE Then you know a lot. I heard Horace Bevins say a week ago that he didn’t know as it was any use tryin’ to have a Masonic Lodge in the same town as you. SADIE They never was a Bevins yet didn’t have his tongue hung from the middle; the day his mother was married she answered both the responses. ORIN Mum! Mum! Shall I take my coat off; are we going to stay, Mum? SADIE No, we ain’t going to stay. I just want to see Cousin Jane for a minute. ELLA She’s in the kitchen with Hannah. SADIE Watchin’ her, I bet! I wonder Hannah puts up with it. ELLA If you was to live with Jane for a spell, I guess you’d find you had a plenty to put up with. SADIE It’s enough to make the Jordans turn in their graves, all of ’em at once. I guess all she’d say would be, “Let ’em if it seemed to make ’em any more comfortable.” [Jane enters. She has apron on and some towels over her arm. JANE Are those towels finished? ELLA Some is! Maybe I’d done all of ’em if I’d been a centipede. JANE Oh! I didn’t see you, Sadie. SADIE Oh! Ha, ha! Well, I ain’t surprised. JANE (with Ella, selecting finished towels) Well, Orin, does the tooth still hurt you? ORIN Naw, it don’t hurt me none now. I got it in a bottle. [He takes small bottle from pocket. NETTIE Oh you nasty thing. You get away! SADIE (angrily) What did I tell you about showin’ that tooth to folks! JANE Never mind, Orin, just run out to the barn and tell your Uncle Ben we’ve got to have a path cleared under the clothes-lines. ORIN All right. [He crosses toward door. Hannah’s going to wash to-morrow, tell him. I’ll expect a good wide path. ORIN I’ll tell him. [He exits. SADIE I must say you keep Ben right at it, don’t you? JANE Yes. (She takes the last finished towel and speaks to Ella) I’ll come back for more. SADIE (as Jane crosses) First I thought he’d go to jail before he’d work, but he didn’t, did he? JANE No. [She exits right. SADIE Yes. No! Yes. No! Folks that ain’t got no more gift of gab ain’t got much gift of intellect. I s’pose Hannah’s out there. ELLA Yes, she keeps all of us just everlastingly at it. SADIE When Jane comes back, I wish you and Nettie would leave me alone with her, just for a minute. ELLA (as she works over sewing machine) It won’t do you much good; she won’t lend any more money. SADIE Mother always helped me. I’ve got a right to expect it. Expectin’ ain’t gettin’. SADIE I don’t know what I’ll do. ELLA You had money out of her; so has Henry. SADIE (shocked, to Nettie) You don’t mean to say your father’s been borrowin’ from her. [This to Nettie. NETTIE He’s always borrowin’. Didn’t he borrow the hundred dollars grandma left me? I’m not going to stand it much longer. ELLA Henry’s havin’ trouble with his business. SADIE We’re fools to put up with it. Everybody says so. We ought to contest the will. ELLA Everybody says so but the lawyers; they won’t none of ’em touch the case without they get money in advance. SADIE How much money? Didn’t your father find out, Nettie? NETTIE The least was five hundred dollars. ELLA Can you see us raisin’ that? SADIE If we was short, we might borrow it from Jane. We’d have to be smarter’n I see any signs of; she’s through lendin’. SADIE How do you know? ELLA I tried it myself. SADIE What do you want money for. Ain’t she takin’ you in to live with her? ELLA I don’t call myself beholden for that. She had to have some one, with Ben here, and her unmarried, and next to no relation to him. NETTIE Everybody’s callin’ you the chaperon! (She laughs) Not but what they ought to be one with him around; he’s awful good lookin’. SADIE You keep away from him. He’s no blood kin of yours, and he’s a bad man, if he is a Jordan. Always makes up to everything he sees in petticoats, and always did. NETTIE Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not looking for any jailbirds. ELLA It will be awful, Ben in State’s Prison,—and I guess he’ll have to go, soon as he stands his trial. SADIE He got drunk and had a fight with the two Kimbal boys, and they licked him, and that night he burned down their barn; everybody knows it. He’s bad, all through, Ben is. NETTIE He’ll get about five years, father says. I guess that will take some of the spunk out of him. [A sound in the hall at right. ELLA Hush! I think he’s coming. [Ben enters at right with a big armful of firewood and crosses and drops it heavily into woodbox, then turns and looks at them in silence. SADIE Seems kind of funny, your luggin’ in the wood. BEN (bitterly) Does it? SADIE Did you see Orin out there? BEN Yes, he went along home. SADIE How do you like workin’? BEN How do you think I like it? Workin’ a big farm in winter, tendin’ the stock and milking ten cows. How do I like it? [As he stands by fire Nettie looks up at him. NETTIE I think it’s just a shame! SADIE (turns to Ella) Are you going to make towels all the afternoon? ELLA I am ’til they’re done, then I expect she’ll find somethin’ else for me to do. Do you know I’m sorry for you, awful sorry. [She speaks low. Ella and Sadie are at the other side of room. BEN Then you’re the only one. NETTIE Maybe I am, but I’m like that. BEN Another month of it, then State’s Prison, I guess. I don’t know as I’ll be sorry when the time comes. NETTIE Oh, Uncle Ben! No, I’m not goin’ to call you that. After all, you’re not really any relation, are you? I mean to me? BEN No. NETTIE (softly) I’m just going to call you Ben! BEN You’re a good kid, Nettie. NETTIE Oh, it isn’t that, Ben, but it does just seem too awful. [As she looks up at him, the outside door opens and Henry and Emma enter. They see Nettie and Ben together by the fire. EMMA (sternly) Nettie! NETTIE (sweetly) Yes, mother? EMMA You come away from him. What do you mean by that? EMMA You tell him, Henry. HENRY I don’t know as it’s any use to—— EMMA (sternly) Tell him what I mean. HENRY (to Ben) Emma thinks, considerin’ everything, that it’s best Nettie shouldn’t talk to you. BEN Why don’t you keep her at home then? You don’t suppose I want to talk to her. EMMA Oh, we ain’t wanted here, I guess. We know that, not by you, or by her;—and Henry’s the oldest of the Jordans. All this would be his, if there was any justice in the world. NETTIE Father wouldn’t have taken that hundred dollars grandma left me if there had been any justice in the world. That’s what I came here for, not to talk to him. To tell Cousin Jane what father did, and to tell her about Nellie Namlin’s Christmas party, and that I’ve got to have a new dress. I’ve just got to! SADIE A new dress, and my rent ain’t paid. She’s got to pay it. My Orin’s got to have a roof over his head. I don’t know as you’ve got any call to be pestering Jane all the time. ELLA She’s always wantin’ something. SADIE What about you? Didn’t you tell me yourself you tried to borrow from her? ELLA I got a chance to set up in business, so as I can be independent. I can go in with Mary Stanton, dressmakin’. I can do it for two hundred dollars, and she’s got to give it to me. HENRY You ought to be ashamed, all three of you, worryin’ Jane all day long. It’s more’n flesh and blood can stand! NETTIE (to him) Didn’t you say at breakfast you was coming here to-day to make Cousin Jane endorse a note for you? Didn’t you? EMMA (fiercely) You hush! BEN (at back by window) Ha! Ha! Ha! Crow buzzards. HENRY Endorsing a note ain’t lending money, is it? It’s a matter of business. I guess my note’s good. BEN Take it to the bank without her name on it and see how good it is. You don’t think we want to ask her favors, but Henry’s in bad trouble and she’ll just have to help us this time. BEN There’s one way out of your troubles. One thing you could all do, for a change, instead of making Jane pay all your bills. I wonder you haven’t any of you thought of it. HENRY What could we do? BEN Go to work and earn something for yourselves. SADIE Like you do, I suppose. EMMA The laughing-stock of all Veazie! ELLA Everybody’s talkin’ about it, anywhere you go. NETTIE Jane Crosby’s White Slave, that’s what they call you. Jane Crosby’s White Slave. BEN (fiercely) They call me that, do they? ELLA (to Nettie) Why can’t you ever hold your tongue? BEN (in cold anger) I’ve been a damned fool. I’m through. [Hannah enters. HANNAH She wants you. BEN Jane? Yes. BEN I won’t come. HANNAH There’ll be another row. BEN Tell her I said I wouldn’t come. [He sits. HANNAH She’s awful set, you know, when she wants anything. BEN You tell her I won’t come. HANNAH Well, I don’t say I hanker none to tell her, but I’d rather be in my shoes than your’n. [She exits. SADIE Well, I must say I don’t blame you a mite. EMMA If the Jordans is a lot of slaves, I guess it’s pretty near time we knew it. HENRY (worried) She’ll turn you over to Judge Bradford, Ben; he’ll lock you up. It ain’t goin’ to help me none with the bank, a brother of mine bein’ in jail. BEN So they’re laughing at me, are they, damn them. NETTIE (at door right) She’s coming! [There is a moment’s pause and Jane enters door right. Hannah follows to door and looks on eagerly. I sent for you, Ben. BEN I won’t budge. JANE (wearily) Must we go through all this again? BEN I ain’t going to move out of this chair to-day. You do what you damned please. JANE I am sorry, but you must. BEN Send for Jim Jay, have me locked up, do as you please. Oh, I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it. JANE And you won’t come? BEN No. JANE Then I’ll do the best I can alone. [She crosses up to wall closet and opens it and selects a large bottle, and turns. Ben rises quickly. BEN What do you want of that? JANE It’s one of the horses. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She’s down in her stall, just breathing. She won’t pay any attention to me. BEN Old Nellie? JANE Yes. What you got? (He steps to her and takes the bottle from her and looks at it) That stuff’s no good. Here! (He steps to cabinet and selects another bottle) If you hadn’t spent five minutes stalling around, I might have had a better chance. [He exits quickly at left. HANNAH I allers said ’twas easier to catch flies with honey than ’twas with vinegar. HENRY What’s Ben know about horses? JANE A lot. HENRY I didn’t know that. JANE Neither did Ben, six weeks ago. [She exits. HENRY Mother was like that, about animals. I guess Ben sort of takes after her. EMMA (shocked) Ben! Like your mother! HANNAH Of course he is. He’s the “spit and image of her.” [She exits. NETTIE She made him go! It wouldn’t surprise me a mite if she’d pushed that old horse over herself. [Jane enters. He wouldn’t let me in the barn. (For the first time in the play, she laughs lightly) Well—(She looks about at them) we have quite a family gathering here this afternoon. I am wondering if there is any—special reason for it? HENRY I wanted to talk with yer for just a minute, Jane. SADIE So do I. JANE Anybody else? [She looks about. ELLA I do. NETTIE So do I. JANE I’ve a lot to do; suppose I answer you all at once. I’m sorry, but I won’t lend you any money. HENRY Of course, I didn’t think they’d call that note of mine; it’s only five hundred, and you could just endorse it. JANE No! SADIE I was going to ask you—— JANE No! I got a chance to be independent, Jane, and——No. I haven’t any money. I won’t have before the first of the month. EMMA No money! HENRY I bet you’re worth as much to-day as you was the day mother died. JANE To a penny. I’ve lived, and run this house, and half supported all of you on what I’ve made the place earn. Yesterday I spent the first dollar that I didn’t have to spend. I mean, on myself. But that’s no business of yours. I am worth just as much as the day I took the property, and I’m not going to run behind, so you see, after all, I’m a real Jordan. EMMA Seems so. I never knew one of ’em yet who didn’t seem to think he could take it with him. HENRY Well, Jane, I don’t know as it’s any use tryin’ to get you to change your mind? JANE I’m sorry. EMMA You can leave that for us to be. I guess it’s about the only thing we’ve got a right to. Get your things on, Nettie! NETTIE I’m going to stay a while with Aunt Ella; I won’t be late. I don’t know what I’m goin’ to do about that note. I s’pose I’ll find some way out of it. JANE I hope so. EMMA Thank yer. Of course we know there’s always the poorhouse. Come, Henry. [She exits at left, leaving the outside door open. HENRY Emma is a little upset. I hope you won’t mind her talk. I guess her part of it ain’t any too easy. [He exits, shutting the door. ELLA (to Jane) Poor Henry! Of course I s’pose you’re right not to lend it to him. But I don’t know as I could do it, but I’m sensitive. JANE Perhaps it’s harder to say no than you think. [Hannah enters. HANNAH I got everything ready for to-morrow’s wash, but the sheets off your bed, Miss Ella. ELLA Good Land! I forgot ’em. Nettie will bring ’em right down. NETTIE (to Jane) After that, I’m going to stay and help Aunt Ella. I was wondering if you’d be here all the afternoon. JANE Yes. Nothing special, you know. I’d just like to have a little visit with you. [She exits at left with Ella. HANNAH (looks after her) Every time I listen to that girl I get fur on my tongue. JANE Fur? HANNAH Like when my dyspepsia’s coming. There’s two things I can’t abide, her and cucumbers. [She crosses to door left. JANE Hannah! HANNAH (stops) Well? JANE (rather shyly) We are going to have rather a special supper to-night. HANNAH (doubtfully) We are? JANE Yes. That’s why I had you roast that turkey yesterday. HANNAH (firmly) That’s for Sunday! JANE No, it’s for to-night. HANNAH (angrily) Why is it? JANE It’s my birthday. I didn’t know that. JANE No, it isn’t exactly a national holiday, but we’ll have the turkey, and I’ll get some preserves up, and I want you to bake a cake, a round one. We’ll have candles on it. I got some at the store this morning. HANNAH (shocked) Candles? JANE Yes. HANNAH Who’s going to be to this party? JANE (a little self-conscious) Why—just—just ourselves. HANNAH Just you and Mr. Ben and Miss Ella? JANE Yes. HANNAH You don’t want candles on that cake, you want crape on it. [She exits door left. [Jane crosses up and starts to clear the dining-room table of its red table cover, as Ben enters door left. BEN (cheerfully) Well, I fixed Old Nellie up. (He puts his bottle back in its place in the wall cabinet) Just got her in time. Thought she was gone for a minute, but she’s going to be all right. JANE That’s good. [She folds the tablecloth up and puts it away. She knew what I was doin’ for her too; you could tell by the way she looked at me! She’ll be all right, poor old critter. I remember her when she was a colt, year before I went to high school. [Jane crosses into room, shutting the dining-room door after her. JANE You like animals, don’t you, Ben? BEN (surprised) I don’t know. I don’t like to see ’em suffer. JANE Why? BEN I guess it’s mostly because they ain’t to blame for it. I mean what comes to ’em ain’t their fault. If a woman thinks she’s sick, ’til she gets sick, that’s her business. If a man gets drunk, or eats like a hog, he’s got to pay for it, and he ought to. Animals live cleaner than we do anyhow—and when you do anything for ’em they’ve got gratitude. Folks haven’t. JANE Hand me that sewing basket, Ben. [She has seated herself at left center by table. Ben at left of table, hands her the basket as she picks up some sewing. BEN It’s funny, but except for a dog or two, I don’t remember carin’ nothin’ for any of the live things, when I lived here I mean. JANE I guess that’s because you didn’t do much for them. I guess so—Sometimes I kind of think I’d like to be here when spring comes—and see all the young critters coming into the world—I should think there’d be a lot a feller could do, to make it easier for ’em. JANE Yes. BEN Everybody’s always makin’ a fuss over women and their babies. I guess animals have got some feelings, too. JANE (sewing) Yes. BEN I know it—Yes, sometimes I sort of wish I could be here, in the spring. JANE You’ll be a big help. BEN I’ll be in prison. (He looks at her. She drops her head and goes on sewing) You forgot that, didn’t yer? JANE Yes. BEN What’s the difference? A prison ain’t just a place; it’s bein’ somewheres you don’t want to be, and that’s where I’ve always been. JANE You liked the army? BEN I s’pose so. Why? BEN I don’t know, there was things to do, and you did ’em. JANE And some one to tell you what to do? BEN Maybe that’s it, somebody that knew better’n I did. It galled me at first, but pretty soon we got over in France, an’ I saw we was really doin’ something, then I didn’t mind. I just got to doin’ what I was told, and it worked out all right. JANE You liked France, too? BEN Yes. JANE I’d like to hear you tell about it. BEN Maybe I’ll go back there some time. I don’t know as I’d mind farming a place over there. Most of their farms are awful little, but I don’t know but what I’d like it. JANE Farming is farming. Why not try it here? BEN Look out there! (He points out of the window at the drifted snow) It’s like that half the year, froze up, everything, most of all the people. Just a family by itself, maybe. Just a few folks, good an’ bad, month after month, with nothin’ to think about but just the mean little things, that really don’t JANE (sewing) Somebody must do the farming, Ben. BEN Somebody like the Jordans, that’s been doin’ it generation after generation. Well, look at us. I heard a feller, in a Y.M.C.A. hut, tellin’ how nature brought animals into the world, able to face what they had to face—— JANE Yes, Ben? BEN That’s what nature’s done for us Jordans,—brought us into the world half froze before we was born. Brought us into the world mean, and hard, so’s we could live the hard, mean life we have to live. JANE I don’t know, Ben, but what you could live it different. BEN They laugh over there, and sing, and God knows when I was there they didn’t have much to sing about. I was at a rest camp, near Nancy, after I got wounded. I told you about the French lady with all those children that I got billeted with. JANE Yes. BEN They used to sing, right at the table, and laugh! God! It brought a lump into my throat mor’n once, lookin’ at them, and rememberin’ the Jordans! I guess there wasn’t much laughing at your family table. BEN Summers nobody had much time for it, and winters,—well, I guess you know. JANE Yes. BEN Just a few folks together, day after day, and every little thing you don’t like about the other raspin’ on your nerves ’til it almost drives you crazy! Most folks quiet, because they’ve said all the things they’ve got to say a hundred times; other folks talkin’, talkin’, talkin’ about nothing. Sometimes somebody sort of laughs, and it scares you; seems like laughter needs the sun, same as flowers do. Icebound, that’s what we are all of us, inside and out. [He stands looking grimly out window. JANE Not all. I laughed a lot before I came here to live. BEN (turns and looks at her) I remember, you were just a little girl. JANE I was fourteen. See if there’s a spool of black sewing cotton in that drawer. BEN (looking in drawer) You mean thread? JANE Yes. This it? [He holds up a spool of white thread. JANE Would you call that black? BEN (looks it over) No—it ain’t black. (He searches and finds black thread) Maybe this is it! JANE Maybe it is! (She takes it) You were with that French family quite a while, weren’t you? BEN Most a month; they was well off, you know; I mean, they was, before the war. It was a nice house. JANE (sewing) How nice? BEN (hesitates) I don’t know, things—well—useful, you know, but nice, not like this. [He looks about. JANE (looks around with a sigh) It’s not very pretty, but it could be. I could make it. BEN If you did, folks would be sayin’ you wasn’t respectable. JANE Tell me about the dinner they gave you the night before you went back to your company. BEN I told you. JANE Tell me again. They was all dressed up, the whole family, and there I was with just my dirty old uniform. JANE Yes. BEN (lost in his recollections) It was a fine dinner, but it wasn’t that. It was their doin’ so much for me, folks like that—I’ve sort of pictured ’em lots of times since then. JANE Go on. BEN All of the young ones laughing and happy, and the mother too, laughing and tryin’ to talk to me, and neither one of us knowing much about what the other one was sayin’. [He and Jane both laugh. JANE And the oldest daughter? The one that was most grown up? BEN She was scared of me somehow, but I don’t know as ever I’ve seen a girl like her, before or since. JANE Maybe ’twas that dress you told me about; seems to me you don’t remember much else about her; not so much as what color her hair was, only just that that dress was blue. BEN (thoughtfully) Yes. JANE (sewing) Sometimes you say dark blue! [She is watching him closely through half-shut eyes. I guess so. JANE And then I say, dark as something I point out to you, that isn’t dark at all, and you say, “No, lighter than that!” BEN (absently) Just—sort of blue. JANE Yes, sort of blue. It had lace on it, too, didn’t it? BEN Lace? Maybe—yes, lace. JANE There’s more than one blue dress in the world. BEN Like enough. Maybe there’s mor’n one family like that lady’s, but I’ll be damned if they live in Veazie. (He crosses and opens cupboard and selects a bottle) I might as well run out and see how the old mare is getting on. [He selects bottle from shelf. JANE And you’ve got to shovel those paths for the clothes lines yet. BEN I know. JANE Well, don’t forget. BEN It ain’t likely you’ll let me. [He exits at door right. Jane laughs softly to herself, and runs to closet and takes out a large cardboard box and putting it on the table, she cuts the Judge Bradford enters. JANE Oh, it’s you, Judge! Come in. JUDGE I thought I’d stop on my way home and see how you were getting on, Jane. JANE I’ll take your coat. JUDGE I’ll just put it here. (He puts coat on chair) Have you time to sit down a minute? JANE Of course. [They sit. JUDGE (looks at her) That isn’t a smile on your lips, is it, Jane? JANE Maybe—— JUDGE (laughingly) I’m glad I came! JANE It’s my birthday. Why, Jane! (He crosses to her and holds out his hand. She takes it) Many happy returns! JANE (thoughtfully) Many—happy returns—that’s a lot to ask for. JUDGE You’re about twenty-two, or twenty-three, aren’t you? JANE Twenty-three. JUDGE Time enough ahead of you. (His eye falls on the box, imperfectly hidden under the sofa; out of it a bit of the blue dress is sticking) Hello! What’s all that? JANE My birthday present. JUDGE Who gave it to you? JANE I did. JUDGE Good! It’s about time you started to blossom out. JANE I ordered a lot of things from Boston; they’ll be here to-morrow. JUDGE I suppose that one’s a dress? JANE Yes. JUDGE (bends over to look) Light blue, isn’t it? Just sort of blue—with lace on it. JUDGE Oh, you’re going to wear it, I suppose, in honor of your birthday? JANE (startled) To-night—oh, no—soon maybe, but not to-night. JUDGE (smiles) How soon? JANE Soon as I dare to; not just yet. JUDGE You have plenty of money; you ought to have every comfort in the world, and some of the luxuries. JANE (gravely) Judge! I want you to do something for me. JUDGE And of course I’ll do it. JANE I want you to get Ben off. I want you to fix it so he won’t go to State’s Prison. JUDGE But if he’s guilty, Jane? JANE I want you to go to old Mr. Kimbal for me and offer to pay him for that barn of his that Ben burned down. Then I want you to fix it so he won’t push the case, so’s Ben gets off. JUDGE Do you know what you are asking of me? JANE To get Ben off. To compound a felony. JANE Those are just words, Judge, and words don’t matter much to me. I might say I wasn’t asking you to compound a felony. I was askin’ you to save a sinner, but those would be just words too. There’s nobody else; you’ve got to help me. JUDGE (thoughtfully) I’ve always thought a lot could be done for Ben, by a good lawyer. JANE It doesn’t matter how, so long as it’s done. JUDGE He was drinking, with a crowd of young men; the two Kimbal boys jumped on him and beat him up rather badly. That’s about all we know, aside from the fact that Ben was drunk, and that that night the Kimbals’ barn was set on fire. JANE Just so long as you can get him off, Judge. JUDGE I think a case of assault could be made against the Kimbal boys, and I think it would stand. JANE What of it? JUDGE It is quite possible that the old man, if he knew that action was to be taken against his sons, and if he could be tactfully assured of payment for his barn, say by Ben, in a year’s time, might be persuaded to petition to have the indictment against Ben withdrawn. JANE I don’t care what names you call it, so long as it’s done. Will you fix it? JUDGE Well, it’s not exactly a proper proceeding for a Judge of the Circuit Court. JANE I knew you’d do it. JUDGE Yes, and I think you knew why, didn’t you? JANE Ever since she’s died, you’ve helped me about everything. Before she died you were just as good to me, and nobody else was. JUDGE I am glad you said that, because it clears me from the charge of being what poor Ben calls “one of the crow buzzards,” and I don’t want you to think me that. JANE No, you’re not that. JUDGE I love you, Jane. JANE No! JUDGE Yes—I’ve done that for a long while. Don’t you think you could get used to the thought of being my wife? JANE (gently) No. I think I could make you happy. JANE No. JUDGE I am afraid being happy is something you don’t know very much about. JANE No. JUDGE It isn’t a thing that I am going to hurry you over, my dear, but neither is it a thing that I am going to give up hoping for. JANE When you told me, that day, that Mrs. Jordan had left me all her money, I couldn’t understand; then, afterwards, you gave me the letter she left for me. I want you to read it. JUDGE What has her letter to do with us? JANE Maybe, reading it, you’ll get to know something you’ve got a right to know, better than I could tell it to you. JUDGE Very well. JANE It’s here. (She opens drawer, and selects a letter in a woman’s old-fashioned handwriting, from a large envelope of papers) She was a cold woman, Judge. She never let me get close to her, although I tried. She didn’t love me. I was as sure of it then as I am now. (She holds out the letter) Read it. If it’s about the thing I’ve been speaking of, I’d rather hear it in your voice. JANE (reads) “My dear Jane, the doctor tells me I haven’t long to live, and so I’m doing this, the meanest thing I think I’ve ever done to you. I’m leaving you the Jordan money. Since my husband died, there has been just one person I could get to care about; that’s Ben, who was my baby so long after all the others had forgotten how to love me. And Ben’s a bad son, and a bad man. I can’t leave him the money; he’d squander it, and the Jordans’ money came hard.” JUDGE Poor woman! It was a bitter thing for her to have to write like that. JANE (reads on) “If squandering the money would bring him happiness, I’d face all the Jordans in the other world and laugh at them, but I know there’s only just one chance to save my boy,—through a woman who will hold out her heart to him and let him trample on it, as he has on mine.” JUDGE (in sudden fear) Jane! JANE (reads on) “Who’d work, and pray, and live for him, until as age comes on, and maybe he gets a little tired, he’ll turn to her. And you’re that woman, Jane; you’ve loved him ever since you came to us. Although he doesn’t even know it. The Jordan name is his, the money’s yours, and maybe there’ll be another life for you to guard. God knows it isn’t much I’m JUDGE Is the damnable thing she says there true? JANE Yes, Judge. JUDGE And you’re going to do this thing for her? JANE No, for him. JUDGE (bitterly) He isn’t worth it. JANE I guess you don’t understand. JUDGE No. [He crosses and picks up his coat. JANE You can’t go like that, angry. You have to pay a price for being a good man, Judge—I need your help. JUDGE You mean he needs my help? JANE Yes, and you’ll have to give it to him, if what you said a little while ago was true. It was true, Jane. I’ll help him. [He picks up his hat. JANE I’ve an errand at the store. I’ll go with you. [She takes hat and coat from rack and puts them on. JUDGE Is it anything I could have sent up for you? JANE (putting on coat) I guess not. You see, I’ve got to match a color. JUDGE Another new dress? JANE (they start toward door) Just a ribbon, for my hair. JUDGE I didn’t know women still wore ribbons in their hair. JANE It seems they do—in France. [They exit together at left to the outside door and off. Nettie and Ella enter quickly, after a slight pause, Nettie running in from right, followed more sedately by Ella. NETTIE You see! I was right! She went with him. [She has run to window left and is looking out. ELLA That’s what money does. If mother hadn’t left her everything, he wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole. NETTIE Well, if she’s fool enough to stay in this place, I guess he’s about the best there is. Then trust her for gettin’ him; by the time she gets through in Veazie, this town will be barer than Mother Hubbard’s cupboard by the time the dog got there. (Her eye falls on Jane’s box, partly under sofa.) What’s that? [She bends over, looking at it. NETTIE What? ELLA I never saw it before. (She draws it out) Looks like a dress. See! Blue silk! NETTIE Open it. ELLA (hesitates) Must be hers! Maybe she wouldn’t like it. NETTIE Maybe she wouldn’t know it. ELLA A cat can look at a king! [She opens the box and holds up the blue dress. NETTIE Oh! Oh! ELLA (really moved) Some folks would say a dress like that wasn’t decent, but I wouldn’t care, not if it was mine, and it might have been mine—but for her. NETTIE Yours! Grandma wouldn’t have left her money to you. She hated old people. Everybody does. She’d have left it to me, but for Jane Crosby! I always wanted a dress like this; when I was young, I used to dream about one, but mother only laughed. For years I counted on gettin’ me what I wanted, when she died; now I never will. NETTIE (fiercely) I will—somehow! ELLA Maybe but not me. Oh, if I could have the feelin’ of a dress like that on me, if I could wear it once, where folks could see me—Just once! Oh, I know how they’d laugh—I wouldn’t care—— NETTIE (almost in tears) I can’t stand it if she’s going to wear things like that. ELLA I’ll put it back. [She starts to do so. NETTIE (catches her hand) Not yet. ELLA I guess the less we look at it, the better off we’ll be. [There is a ring at the front door. NETTIE Who’s that? ELLA Here! (She hands the box to Nettie) Shove it back under the sofa. I’ll go and see. (She turns and crosses to door left and out to the vestibule. Nettie, with the box in her arms, hesitates for a moment then turns and exits at right, taking the box with her. ORIN Mum says for me not to act like I belonged here. ELLA Well, I’m goin’ to shut the door. Git in or git out! ORIN I got a note. (He enters room as Ella shuts door) It’s for her. ELLA (holds out hand) Let me see it. ORIN Mum said not to let on I had nothin’ if you came nosin’ around. [Jane enters from left. JANE I just ran across to the store. I haven’t been five minutes. [She takes coat off. ELLA He’s got a note for you, from Sadie. JANE Oh, let me see it, Orin. ORIN (gives her note) She said, if you said is they an answer, I was to say yes, they is. JANE Just a minute. [She opens note and reads it. ELLA I must say she didn’t lose much time. Poor Sadie! Wait, Orin! (She sits at table and takes checkbook from the drawer and writes) Just take this to your mother. ELLA You don’t mean you’re goin’ to—— JANE Be quiet, Ella. Here, Orin. (She hands him check) Don’t lose it, and run along. ORIN All right. Mum said we was goin’ to have dinner early, and go to a movie! Good night. JANE (again writing in checkbook) Good night. [Orin exits. ELLA So you sent her her rent money, after all? JANE Here! [She rises and hands a check to Ella. ELLA What’s that? JANE Two hundred dollars. You can try that dressmaking business if you want to, Ella. ELLA [Looks at check. Two hundred dollars! JANE You needn’t thank me. ELLA That ain’t it. I was just wonderin’ what’s come over you all of a sudden. [Ben enters. It’s my birthday, that’s all. Did you know it was my birthday, Ben? BEN (carelessly) Is it? I shoveled them damned paths! [He crosses and sits by fire. JANE Ella’s going into the dressmaking business, Ben. BEN (moodily) What of it? ELLA That’s what I say. It ain’t much of a business. [She exits at right; outside it grows to dusk. JANE Are you tired? BEN Maybe. [He stretches his feet out toward fire. JANE You’ve done a lot of work to-day. BEN And every day. JANE I don’t suppose you know how much good it’s done you, how well you look! BEN Beauty’s only skin deep. JANE Folks change, even in a few weeks, outside and in. Hard work don’t hurt anybody. BEN I got chilblains on my feet. The damned shoes are stiffer than they ever was. Icebound, you said. Maybe it don’t have to be like that. Sometimes, just lately, it’s seemed to me that if folks would try, things needn’t be so bad. All of ’em try, I mean, for themselves, and for everybody else. BEN If I was you, I’d go out somewheres and hire a hall. JANE If you’d put some pork fat on those shoes to-night, your feet wouldn’t hurt so bad. BEN Maybe. [He sits looking moodily into the fire. After a moment’s hesitation, Jane crosses and sits in the chair beside his, the evening shadows deepen around them but the glow from the fire lights their faces. JANE I’m lonesome to-night. We always made a lot of birthdays when I was a girl. BEN Some do. JANE Your mother didn’t. She found me once trying, the day I was fifteen. I remember how she laughed at me. BEN All the Jordans have got a sense of humor. JANE She wasn’t a Jordan, not until she married your father. When a woman marries into a family, she mostly shuts her eyes and jumps in all over. JANE Your mother was the best of the whole lot of you. Anyway, I think so. BEN I know it. I always thought a lot of her, in spite of our being relations. JANE She loved you, Ben. BEN She left me without a dollar, knowin’ I was going to State’s Prison, and what I’d be by the time I get out. JANE Maybe some day you’ll understand why she did it. BEN Because she thought you’d take better care of the money than any of the rest of us. JANE And you hate me because of that, the way all the rest of the Jordans do? BEN Sometimes. JANE (sadly) I suppose it’s natural. BEN But I ain’t such a fool as Henry, and the women folks. They think you took advantage and fooled her into what she did. I thought so at first, now I don’t. JANE What do you think now, Ben? She’d watched you; she knew you were worth mor’n all of us in a lump. I know it, too, but some way it riles me worse than if you wasn’t. JANE That’s silly! BEN (with growing resentment) Don’t you suppose I know what you’ve been doin’ to me. Tryin’ to make a man of me. Tryin’ to help me. Standing up to me and fightin’ me every day, tryin’ to teach me to be decent. Workin’ over me like I was a baby, or somethin’, and you was tryin’ to teach me how to walk. Gettin’ me so upset that every time I don’t do what I ought to do, I get all het up inside; I never was so damned uncomfortable in all my life. JANE And I never was so happy. BEN I s’pose God knew what he was about when he made women. JANE Of course he did. BEN Anyhow, he gave ’em the best of it, all right. JANE You don’t mean that! You can’t! BEN I do. Let a man get miserable, and he is miserable. A woman ain’t really happy no other way. JANE Maybe you think I’m having an easier time right now than you are. I know it. JANE They all hate me, and they all want something, all the time. I can’t say yes, and it’s hard to always say no. Then there’s the farm, big, and poor, and all worked out. The Jordans have been taking their living out of this soil for more than a hundred years, and never putting anything back. BEN Just themselves, that’s all. JANE Worked right, like they do out West, this place could be what it ought to be. How can I do that; it needs a man. BEN I been thinkin’ lately things could be done a whole lot different. JANE By a man, if he loved the old place— You Jordans robbed this soil always. Suppose one of you tried to pay it back—it would mean work and money, for a couple of years maybe, then I guess you’d see what gratitude meant. BEN It could be done; it ought to be. JANE By you, Ben! BEN No—I guess I ain’t got the judgment. JANE You’ve got it, if you’d learn to use it. Anyhow, I’ve got just a month, that’s all. JANE Maybe you’ll have more. BEN I’m as good as convicted as I sit here. I’ve only got a month. JANE Then help me for that month. We could plan how to start out in the spring. I’ve got books that will help us, and I can get more. We could do a lot! BEN I don’t know but what we could! JANE (bends toward him) Will you shake hands on it? [She offers her hand. BEN (surprised) What for? JANE Oh, just because we never have. BEN We ain’t goin’ to change everything, are we? JANE One thing. We’re going to be friends. BEN (takes her hand awkwardly) You’re a good sport, game as a man, gamer maybe. JANE And now for the surprise. BEN The what! You’ll see. I want you to sit right here, until I open those doors. [She points to doors to dining room. BEN I wasn’t thinkin’ of movin’. JANE Just sit right there. BEN And do what? JANE Think. BEN What of? JANE Oh, anything—so long as it’s pleasant—of the spring that’s coming—— BEN In the prison down at Thomaston. JANE Of France then, of the family that was so good to you—of the beautiful lady—of the daughter, if you want to, the one that was most grown up—and of the wonderful blue dress. Just shut your eyes and think, ’til I come back! [She exits through doors to dining room and closes the doors after her. Ben sits in glow from the fire, his eyes closed. In a moment the door at right is thrown open and Nettie stands in the doorway, the light from the hall falling on her. She has on Jane’s blue dress and is radiant with youth and excitement. NETTIE Ben! Look at me! Look, Ben! What? NETTIE Look Ben! [He looks at her and for a moment sits in stupid wonder, then rises slowly to his feet. BEN It’s—It’s Nettie! NETTIE Did you ever see anything so lovely, did you? BEN You’re—you’re a woman, Nettie! NETTIE Of course I am, you stupid! BEN (crosses down to her) God! How I’ve starved for somethin’ pretty to look at! God! How I’ve starved for it! NETTIE That’s why I came down, I wanted you to see! I waited there in the hall till she went out. BEN And you’ve been here all the time, and I haven’t so much as looked at you! NETTIE (softly) You’ve been in trouble, Ben! BEN I’ll get out of that somehow! I’m going to make a fight. I ain’t goin’ to let ’em take me now. NETTIE Honest, Ben? Not now. Oh, you pretty kid! You pretty little thing! [He catches her fiercely in his arms. NETTIE You mustn’t, Ben! BEN (triumphant) Mustn’t! You don’t know me! NETTIE Just one then! (She holds up her lips, and as he kisses her ardently, the dining-room doors back of them open and Jane stands in the doorway, looking at them. She has removed her apron and has made some poor attempt at dressing up. Back of her we see the table bravely spread for the festive birthday party. There is a large turkey and other special dishes, and a round cake on which blaze twenty-two tiny candles. They turn their heads, startled, as Jane looks at them, and Ben tightens his arms defiantly about Nettie) Let me go! BEN (holding her and looking past her to Jane) No! (Then to Jane) Why are you looking at me like that? NETTIE Let me go. BEN (to Jane) To hell with your dream of grubbing in the dirt. Now I know what I want, and I’m going to get it. NETTIE Let go, dear. (She draws away) I’m ashamed about wearin’ your dress, Cousin Jane. I’ll take it right off. You needn’t. I guess I don’t want it any more. (For the first time her eyes leave Ben’s face. She turns and steps past them to the door at right and calls) Supper’s ready, Ella! [Hannah enters at back in dining room with a plate of hot biscuits. CURTAIN |
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