GEORGE. By jingo, I'm beginning to think he is!
(They stand gazing at one another.)
MINNIE (remembering her grievance: passionately). Now you've gone and done it—telling your mother we were friends.
GEORGE. But we are—aren't we? You couldn't expect me to keep quiet, under the circumstances.
MINNIE. She thinks I'm not fit to talk to you. Not that I care, except that I was fond of her, she's been good to me in her way, and I felt real bad when I went off to Newcastle with the letter to the minister I never laid eyes on. She'll believe—you know what she'll believe,—it'll trouble her. She's your mother, and you're going away. You might have kept still.
GEORGE. I couldn't keep still. What would you have thought of me?
MINNIE. It don't make any difference what I'd have thought of you.
GEORGE. It makes a difference to me, and it makes some difference what I think of myself. I seem to be learning a good many things this morning.
MINNIE. From him?
GEORGE: You mean Dr. Jonathan?
MINNIE. Yes.
GEORGE (reflecting). I don't know. I'm learning them from you, from everybody.
MINNIE. Maybe he put you wise.
GEORGE. Well, I don't feel wise. And seeing you again this morning brought it all back to me.
MINNIE. You were only fooling.
GEORGE. I began that way,—I'll own up. But I told you I'd never met a girl like you, you're full of pep—courage—something I can't describe. I was crazy about you,—that's straight,—but I didn't realize it until you ran off, and then I went after you,—but it was no good! I don't claim to have been square with you, and I've been thinking—well, that I'm responsible.
MINNIE. Responsible for what?
GEORGE. Well-for your throwing yourself away down there at Newcastle.You're too good.
MINNIE (with heat). Throwing myself away?
GEORGE. Didn't you? Didn't you break loose?—have a good time?
MINNIE. Why wouldn't I have a good time? That's what you were having, —a good time with me,—wasn't it? And say, did you ever stop to think what one day of a working girl's life was like?
GEORGE. One day?
MINNIE. With an alarm clock scaring you out of sweet dreams in the winter, while it's dark, and you get up and dress in the cold and heat a little coffee over a lamp and beat it for the factory,—and stand on your feet all morning, in a noise that would deafen you, feeding a thing you ain't got no interest in? It don't never need no rest! By eleven o'clock you think you're all in, that the morning'll never end, but at noon you get a twenty five cent feed that lasts you until about five in the afternoon,—and then you don't know which way the machine's headed. I've often thought of one of them cutters at Shale's as a sort of monster, watching you all day, waiting to get you when you're too tired to care. (Dreamily.) When it looks all blurred, and you want to put your hand in it.
GEORGE. Good God, Minnie!
MINNIE. And when the whistle blows at night all you have is your little hall bedroom in a rooming house that smells of stale smoke and cabbage. There's no place to go except the streets—but you've just got to go somewhere, to break loose and have a little fun,—even though you're so tired you want to throw yourself on the bed and cry.
(A pause.)
Maybe it's because you're tired. When you're tired that way is when you want a good time most. It's funny, but it's so.
(A pause.)
You ain't got no friends except a few girls with hall bedrooms like yourself, and if a chance comes along for a little excitement, you don't turn it down, I guess.
GEORGE (after a pause). I never knew what your life was like.
MINNIE. Why would you?—with friends, and everything you want, only to buy it? But since the war come on, I tell you, I ain't kicking, I can go to a movie or the theatre once in a while, and buy nice clothes, and I don't get so tired as I used to. I don't want nothing from anybody, I can take care of myself. It's money that makes you free.
GEORGE. Money!
MINNIE. When I looked into this room this morning and saw you standing here in your uniform, I says to myself, "He's changed." Not that you wasn't kind and good natured and generous, George, but you didn't know. How could you? You'd never had a chance to learn anything!
GEORGE (bitterly, yet smiling in spite of himself). That's so!
MINNIE. I remember that first night I ran into you,—I was coming home from your shops, and you made love to me right off the bat! And after that we used to meet by the watering trough on the Lindon road. We were kids then. And it didn't make no difference how tired I was, I'd get over it as soon as I saw you. You were the live wire!
GEORGE. Minnie, tell me, what made you come back to Foxon Falls today?
(He seizes her hand.)
MINNIE (struggling). Don't, George,—don't go and be foolish again!
(The shop whistle blows. She pulls away from him and backs toward the doorway, upper right.)
There's the noon whistle! Goodbye, I'll be thinking of you, over there.
GEORGE. I'll write to you. Will you write to me, Minnie?
MINNIE (shaking her head). Don't lose any sleep about me. Good luck,George!
(She goes to the doorway, upper right, turns, kisses her hand to GEORGE and disappears. He goes to the doorway and gazes after her; presently he raises his hand and waves in answer to another signal, and smiles. He remains there until MINNIE is out of sight, and then is about to come back into the room when a man appears on the sidewalk, seen through the windows. The man is PRAG. He is a gaunt workman, with high cheek bones and a rather fanatical light in his blue eyes. He stands motionless, gazing at the house.)
GEORGE (calling). Do you want anything, Prag?
PRAG. I joost come to look at your house, where you live. It is no harm, is it?
GEORGE. None at all.
(PRAG continues to stare at the house, and GEORGE obeys a sudden impulse.)
Won't you come in, Prag?
PRAG (looking fixedly at the house). No, I stay here.
GEORGE. Come in a while,—don't be unsociable.
(PRAG crosses the lawn and enters, upper right. He surveys the room curiously, defiantly, and then GEORGE in uniform, as he cones down the stage.)
You're not working today?
PRAG (with bitter gloom). I lose my job, you don't hear? No, it is nothings to you, and you go away to fight for liberty,—ain't it?
GEORGE. How did you lose your job?
PRAG. The foreman come to me last night and says, "Prag I hear you belong to the union. You gets out."
GEORGE (after a moment's hesitation). But—there are plenty of other jobs these days. You can go down to the coast and get more than five dollars a day at a shipyard.
PRAG. It is easy, yes, when you have a little home bought already, and mortgaged, and childrens who go to school here, and a wife a long time sick.
GEORGE. I'm sorry. But weren't you getting along all right here, except your wife's illness? I don't want to be impertinent,—I recognize that it's your affair, but I'd like to know why you joined the union.
PRAG. Why is it you join the army? To fight for somethings you would give your life for—not so? Und you are a soldier,—would you run away from your comrades to live safe and happy? No! That is like me. I lose my job, I go away from my wife and childrens, but it is not for me, it is for all, to get better things for all,—freedoms for all.
GEORGE. Then—you think this isn't a free country.
PRAG. When. I sail up the harbour at New York twenty years ago and see that Liberty shining in the sun, I think so, yes. But now I know, for the workmens, she is like the Iron Woman of Nuremberg, with her spikes when she holds you in her arms. You call me a traitor, yes, when I say that.
GEORGE. No—I want to understand.
PRAG. I am born in Bavaria, but I am as good an American as any,—better than you, because I know what I fight for, what I suffer for. I am not afraid of the Junkers here,—I have spirits,—but the Germans at home have no spirits. You think you fight for freedoms, for democracy, but you fight for this! (He waves his hand to indicate the room.) If I had a million dollars, maybe I fight for it, too,—I don't know.
GEORGE. So you think I'm going to fight for this—for money?
PRAG. Are you going to fight for me, for the workmens and their childrens? No, you want to keep your money, to make more of it from your war contracts. It is for the capitalist system you fight.
GEORGE. Come, now, capital has some rights.
PRAG. I know this, that capital is power. What is the workmen's vote against it? against your newspapers and your system? America, she will not be free until your money power is broken. You don't like kings and emperors, no,—you say to us workmens, you are not patriots, you are traitors if you do not work and fight to win this war for democracy against kings. Are we fools that we should worry about kings? Kings will fall of themselves. Now you can put me in jail.
GEORGE. I don't want to put you in jail, God knows! How would you manage it?
PRAG. Why does not the employer say to his workmens, "This is our war, yours and mines. Here is my contract, here is my profits, we will have no secrets, we will work together and talk together and win the war together to make the world brighter for our childrens." Und then we workmens say, "Yes, we will work night and day so hard as we can, because we are free mens."
(A fanatical gleams comes into his eyes.)
But your employer, he don't say that,—no. He says, "This is my contract, this is my shop, and if you join the unions to get your freedoms you cannot work with me, you are traitors!"
(He rises to a frenzy of exaltation.)
After this there will be another war, and the capitalists will be swept away like the kings!
(He pauses; GEORGE is silent.)
Und now I go away, and maybe my wife she die before I get to the shipyard at Newcastle.
(He goes slowly out, upper right, and GEORGE does not attempt tostay him. Enter ASHER, lower right.)
ASHER. I've just called up the Department in Washington and given them a piece of my mind—told 'em they'd have to conscript labour. Damn these unions, making all this trouble, and especially today, when you're going off. I haven't had a chance to talk to you. Well, you know that I'm proud of you, my boy. Your grandfather went off to the Civil War when he was just about your age.
GEORGE. And he knew what he was going to fight for.
ASHER. What?
GEORGE. I thought I knew, this morning. Now I'm not so sure.
ASHER. You say that, when Germany intended to come over here and crush us, when she got through with the Allies.
GEORGE. No, it's not so simple as that, dad, it's bigger than that.
ASHER. Who's been talking to you? Jonathan Pindar? I wish to God he'd never come to Foxon Falls! I might have known what his opinions would be, with his inheritance. (Reproachfully.) I didn't suppose you could be so easily influenced by sentimentalism, George, I'd hoped you'd got over that.
GEORGE. Are you sure it's sentimentalism, dad? Dr. Jonathan didn't say much, but I'll admit he started me thinking. I've begun to realize a few things—
ASHER. What things?
GEORGE (glancing at the clock on the mantel). I haven't got time to tell you,—I'm afraid I couldn't make it clear, anyway,—it isn't clear in my own mind yet. But,—go slow with this labour business, dad, there's dynamite in it.
ASHER. Dynamite?
GEORGE. Human dynamite. They're full of it,—we're full of it, too, I guess. They're not so different from you and me, though I'll admit that many of them are ignorant, prejudiced and bitter. But this row isn't just the result of restlessness and discontent,—that's the smoke, but the fire's there, too. I've heard enough this morning to be convinced that they're struggling for something fundamental, that has to do with human progress,—the issue behind the war. It's obscured now, in the smoke. Now if that's so you can't ignore it, dad, you can't suppress it, the only thing to do is to sit down with them and try to understand it. If they've got a case, if the union has come to stay, recognize it and deal with it.
ASHER. You—you, my son, are not advising me to recognize the union!To give our employees a voice in our private affairs!
GEORGE (courageously). But is the war our private affair, dad? Hasn't it changed things already?
(ASHER makes a gesture of pain, of repudiation. GEORGE approacheshim appealingly.)
Dad, you know how much we've always been to each other, I'd hate to have any misunderstanding between us,—especially today. I've always accepted your judgment. But I'm over twenty one, I'm going to fight this war, I've got to make up my own mind about it.
ASHER (extending his arms and putting his hands on GEORGE'S shoulders).Something's upset you today, my boy,—you don't know what you're saying.When you get over there and take command of your men you'll see things ina truer proportion.
GEORGE. No, I can't leave it this way, dad. I've come to feel this thing, it's got hold of me now, I shan't change. And I'll be thinking of it over there, all the time, if we don't talk it out.
ASHER. For God's sake, George, don't speak of it again,—don't think of it! There's no sacrifice I wouldn't make for you, in reason, but you're asking me to go against my life-long convictions. As your father, I forbid you to entertain such ideas—(he breaks off, choking). Don't speak of them, don't think of them!
(TIMOTHY FARRELL Steps inside the doorway, upper right, followed byBERT, and after a few moments by DR. JONATHAN.)
TIMOTHY. Excuse me sir, but you asked me to be letting you know if I heard anything. There's a meeting called for tonight, and they'll strike on Monday morning. It's certain I am, from the way the men are talking, —unless ye'd agree to meet the committee this afternoon and come to an understanding like.
ASHER. Let them strike. If they burned down the shops this afternoon,I wouldn't stop them! (He waves TIMOTHY Off.) My boy is leaving forFrance, and I'm going to New York with him.
TIMOTHY (with a sudden flaring up of sympathy). It's meself has a boy going, too, Mr. Pindar. And maybe it's almost the last I'll be seeing of him, this noon hour. Just a word with ye, before it's too late, sir.
ASHER (suppressing him). No, let them strike!
(He turns to hide his emotion and then rushes out of the door, lower right. GEORGE and BERT come forward and stand with TIMOTHY, silent after ASHER's dramatic exit; when TIMOTHY perceives DR. JONATHAN.)
TIMOTHY. Did you see my Minnie, doctor? She went to your house.
DR. JONATHAN. I met her on the street just now, and left her with Mrs.Prag.
GEORGE. Prag's wife! You've been to see her?
DR. JONATHAN. Yes. Her condition is serious. She needs a nurse, andMinnie volunteered.
TIMOTHY. My Minnie, is it? Then she won't be going back to Newcastle.
DR. JONATHAN (looking at GEORGE). She won't be going back to Newcastle.
TIMOTHY. That's Minnie! (he turns to GEORGE). Well, goodbye, Mr.George,—I'll say God bless you again. (He looks at BERT.) You'll befighting over there, the pair of you, for freedom. Have an eye on him,Sir, if you can,—give him some good advice.
GEORGE (his hand on BERT'S shoulder). Bert can take care of himself, I guess. I'll be needing the advice!
(He shakes hands with TIMOTHY.)
TIME: A July morning, 1918.
MINNIE FARRELL, in the white costume worn by nurses and laboratory workers, is at the bench, pouring liquid into a test tube and holding its up to the light, when DR. JONATHAN enters from the right.
DR. JONATHAN. Has anyone been in, Minnie?
MINNIE (turning, with the test tube in her hand). Now, what a question to ask, Dr. Jonathan! Was there ever a morning or afternoon that somebody didn't stray in here with their troubles? (Fiercely.) They don't think a scientist has a real job,—they don't understand, if you put this across—(she holds up the test tube)—you'll save the lives of thousands of soldiers, and a few ordinary folks, too, I guess. But you won't let me tell anyone.
DR. JONATHAN. It will be time enough to tell them when we do put it across.
MINNIE. But we're going to,—that is, you're going to.
DR. JONATHAN. You're too modest, Minnie.
MINNIE. Me modest! But what makes me sore is that they don't give you a chance to put this thing across. Dr. Senn's a back number, and if they're sick they come here and expect you to cure 'em for nothing.
DR. JONATHAN. But they can't complain if I don't cure them.
MINNIE. And half the time they ain't sick at all,—they only imagine it.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, that's interesting too,—part of a doctor's business. It's pretty hard to tell in these days where the body ends and the soul begins.
MINNIE. It looks like you're cutting out the minister, too. You'd ought to be getting his salary.
DR. JONATHAN. Then I'd have to do his job.
MINNIE. I get you—you'd be paid to give 'em all the same brand of dope.You wouldn't be free.
DR. JONATHAN. To experiment.
MINNIE. You couldn't be a scientist. Say, every time I meet the minister I want to cry, he says to himself, "She ran away from Jesus and went to the bad. What right has she got to be happy?" And Mrs. Pindar's just the same. If you leave the straight and narrow path you can't never get back—they keep pushing you off.
DR. JONATHAN (who has started to work at the bench). I've always had my doubts about your sins, Minnie.
MINNIE. Oh, I was a sinner, all right, they'll never get that out of their craniums. But being a sinner isn't a patch on being a scientist! It's nearly a year now since you took me in. The time's flown! When I was in the Pindar Shops, and in the Wire Works at Newcastle I could always beat the other girls to the Main Street when the whistle blew, but now I'm sorry when night comes. I can't hardly wait to get back here —honest to God! Say, Dr. Jonathan, I've found out one thing,—it's being in the right place that keeps a man or a woman straight. If you're in the wrong place, all the religion in the world won't help you. If you're doing work you like, that you've got an interest in, and that's some use, you don't need religion (she pauses). Why, that's religion,—it ain't preaching and praying and reciting creeds, it's doing—it's fun. There's no reason why religion oughtn't to be fun, is there?
DR. JONATHAN. None at all!
MINNIE. Now, if we could get everybody in the right job, we wouldn't have any more wars, I guess.
DR. JONATHAN. The millennium always keeps a lap ahead—we never catch up with it.
MINNIE. Well, I don't want to catch up with it. We wouldn't have anything more to do. Say, it's nearly eleven o'clock—would you believe it?—and I've been expecting Mr. Pindar to walk in here with the newspaper. I forgot he was in Washington.
DR. JONATHAN. He was expected home this morning.
MINNIE. What gets me is the way he hangs around here, too, like everybody else, and yet I've heard him call you a Socialist, and swear he hasn't any use for Socialists.
DR. JONATHAN. Perhaps he's trying to find out what a Socialist is.Nobody seems to know.
MINNIE. He don't know, anyway. If it hadn't been for you, his shops would have been closed down last winter.
DR. JONATHAN. It looks as if they'd be closed down now, anyway.
MINNIE (concerned, looking up). Is that so? Well, he won't recognize the union—he doesn't know what century he's living in. But he's human, all the same, and he's good to the people he's fond of, like my father, —and he sure loves George. He's got George's letters all wore out, reading them, to people. (A pause.) He don't know where George is, does he, Dr. Jonathan?
DR. JONATHAN. Somewhere in France.
MINNIE. We spotted Bert because he's with the Marines, at that place where they put a crimp in the Huns the other day when they were going to walk into Paris.
DR. JONATHAN. Chateau-Thierry.
MINNIE. I'll leave it to you. But say, Dr. Jonathan, things don't look good to me,—I'm scared we won't get enough of our boys over there before the deal's closed up. I've got so I don't want to look at a paper.
(A brief silence.)
I never told you George wrote me a couple of letters, did I?
DR. JONATHAN. No, I'm quite sure you didn't.
MINNIE. I never told nobody. His father and mother would be wild if they knew it. I didn't answer them—I just sent him two post cards with no writing on except the address—just pictures.
DR. JONATHAN. Pictures?
MINNIE. One of the Pindar Church and the Other of the Pindar Shops. I guess he'll understand they were from me, all right. You see, when I ran away from the Pindar Shops and the Pindar Church—I always connect them together—I was stuck on George. That's why I ran away.
DR. JONATHAN. I see.
MINNIE. Oh, I never let him know. I don't know why I told you—I had to tell somebody,—and you won't give me away.
DR. JONATHAN. You may count on me.
MINNIE. He didn't care nothing about me, really. But you can't help liking George. He's human, all right! If he was boss of the Pindar Shops there wouldn't be any strike.
(A knock at the door, right.)
I wonder who's butting in now!
(She goes to the door and jerks it open.)
(A man's voice, without.) Good morning, Miss Farrell. Is the doctor in?
MINNIE. This is his busy day.
DR. JONATHAN (going toward the door). Oh, it's you, Hillman. Come in.
MINNIE. I guess I'll go for the mail.
(With a resigned expression she goes oust right as HILLMAN comes in, followed by RENCH and FERSEN. They are the strike committee. HILLMAN is a little man, with red hair and a stiff, bristling red moustache. He holds himself erect, and walks on the balls of his feet, quietly. RENCH is tall and thin, with a black moustache, like a seal's. He has a loud, nasal voice, and an assertive manner. FERSEN is a blond Swede.)
(DR. JONATHAN puts one or two objects in place on the bench. His manner is casual but cordial, despite the portentous air of the Committee.)
(The men, their hats in their hands, go toward the bench and inspect the test tubes and apparatus.)
RENCH (New England twang). Always manage to have something on hand when you ain't busy with the folks, doctor. It must be interestin' to fool with these here chemicals.
DR. JONATHAN. It keeps me out of mischief.
HILLMAN. I guess you haven't much time to get into mischief.
FERSEN. We don't like to bother you.
DR. JONATHAN. No bother, Fersen,—sit down. (He draws forward some chairs, and they sit down.) How is the baby?
FERSEN. Oh, she is fine, now, since we keep her outside in the baby carriage, like you tell us.
(FERSEN grins, and immediately becomes serious again. A briefsilence.)
HILLMAN (clearing his throat). The fact is, Dr. Jonathan, the boys have struck,—voted last night to walk out at noon today.
FERSEN. We thought we tell you now. You been such a good friend to us and our families.
DR. JONATHAN. But isn't this rather sudden, with Mr. Pindar inWashington?
RENCH. We couldn't wait no longer,—he's been standing us off for more than a year. When he comes back from Washington there'll be nothing doing. He's got to recognize the union or lose his contract.
DR. JONATHAN. He may prefer to lose his contract.
RENCH. Well, he can afford to. Then he can go to hell.
HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam, that ain't no way to talk to the doctor!
RENCH. I didn't mean no disrespect to him. He don't go 'round preachin', like some fellers I could mention, but actions is louder than words. Ain't that the reason we're here, because he sympathizes with us and thinks we're entitled to a little more of this freedom that's bein' handed 'round? We want you to help us, doctor.
DR. JONATHAN. It seems to me you've come a little late, Rench,—after the event.
HILLMAN. Maybe if you'd said a word, they'd never have voted to strike.
FERSEN. But you never said nothing, Doctor.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, when you get around to admitting doctors to your labour unions, perhaps they'll talk.
HILLMAN. If all the doctors was like you!
DR. JONATHAN. Give 'em a chance, Hillman.
HILLMAN. We don't have to explain to you why we want the union,—it's the only way we'll ever get a say about the conditions in which we work and live, now that the day of individual bargaining is gone by. You understand. Mr. Pindar raised our wages when we threatened to strike last fall, but he calculates to drop 'em again when the soldiers come home.
FERSEN (nodding). Sure thing!
HILLMAN. It's this way, doctor. We notice Mr. Pindar comin' in here to see you every day or so,—like the rest of Foxon Falls. And we thought you could make him see this thing straight, if any man could.
DR. JONATHAN. So the shops will be idle.
RENCH. Not a shaft'll turn over till he recognizes the union.
HILLMAN. We don't want to do nothin' to obstruct the war, but we've got to have our rights.
DR. JONATHAN. Can you get your rights now, without obstructing the war?
RENCH (aggressively). I get what you're driving at, doctor. You're going to say that we've just reached quantity production on these here machines, and if labour gets from under now, the Huns win. But tell me this,—where'll labour be if America wins and our Junkers (he pronounces the J) come out on top?—as they callate to.
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). When a building with dry rot catches fire,Rench, can you put limit to how much of it will burn?
RENCH (after a pause). Maybe not. I get you—but—
DR. JONATHAN. No nation, no set of men in any nation can quench that fire or make the world that is coming out of this war. They may think they can, but they can't.
HILLMAN. That's so!
DR. JONATHAN. Germany will be beaten, because it is the temper of the nation, the temper of the times—your temper. You don't want Germany to win, Rench?
RENCH. No, I guess not.
DR. JONATHAN. And if you don't work here, you'll go off to work somewhere else.
RENCH. Where they recognize the union.
DR. JONATHAN. A good many of your friends have enlisted, haven't they?(RENCH nods.) And what do you suppose they are fighting for?
RENCH. For the same thing as we want, a square deal.
DR. JONATHAN. And what do you think George Pindar is fighting for?
RENCH. I ain't got nothing to say against him.
DR. JONATHAN. If you close down the Pindar Shops, won't it mean that a few more of your friends will lose their lives? These men are fighting for something they don't yet understand, but when they come back they'll know more about it. Why not wait until George Pindar comes back?
RENCH. He mayn't never come back.
DR. JONATHAN. Give him the opportunity.
RENCH. I like George,—he's always been friendly—what we call a common man up here in New England—naturally democratic. But at bottom employers is all alike. What makes you think he won't take his ideas about labour from the old man?
DR. JONATHAN. Because he belongs to the generation that fights this war.
HILLMAN (shuffling). It ain't no use, doctor. Unless you can bring Mr.Pindar 'round, the shops'll close down.
DR. JONATHAN. I can't, but something else can.
HILLMAN. What?
DR. JONATHAN. Circumstances. No man can swim up stream very long in these days, Hillman. Wait a while, and see.
RENCH (rising). We've voted to put this strike through, and by God, we'll do it.
FERSEN (rising and shaking hands with DR. JONATHAN). It's fine weather, doctor.
RENCH (bursting into a laugh). He's like the man who said, when Congress declared war, "It's a fine day for it!" It's a fine day for a strike!
HILLMAN (who has risen, shaking hands with DR. JONATHAN). But you'll talk to Mr. Pindar, anyway?
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). Yes, I'll talk with him.
(Enter TIMOTHY FARRELL, right, in working clothes.)
TIMOTHY. Good morning, doctor. (Surveying the committee.) So it's here ye are, after voting to walk out of the shops just when we're beginning to turn out the machines for the soldiers!
RENCH. If we'd done right we'd have called the strike a year ago.
TIMOTHY. Fine patriots ye are—as I'm sure the doctor is after telling you—to let the boys that's gone over there be murdered because ye must have your union!
HILLMAN. If Mr. Pindar recognizes the union, Timothy, we'll go to work tomorrow.
TIMOTHY. He recognize the union! He'll recognize the devil first! EvenDr. Jonathan, with all the persuasion he has, couldn't get Mr. Pindar torecognize the union. He'll close down the shops, and it's hunting a jobI'll be, and I here going on thirty years.
RENCH. If he closes the shops—what then? The blood of the soldiers'll be on his head, not ours. If there were fewer scabs in the country—
HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam.
TIMOTHY. A scab, is it? If I was the government do you know what I'd do with the likes of you—striking in war time? I'd send ye over there to fight the Huns with your bare fists. I'm a workman meself, but I don't hold with traitors.
RENCH. Who's a traitor? It's you who are a traitor to your class. If a union card makes a man a traitor, your own son had one in his pocket the day he enlisted.
TIMOTHY. A traitor, and he fighting for his country, while you'd be skulking here to make trouble for it!
(MINNIE appears on the threshold of the door, right. DR. JONATHAN, who is the first to perceive from her expression that there is something wrong, takes a step toward her. After a moment's silence she comes up to TIMOTHY and lays a hand on his arm.)
TIMOTHY (bewildered). What is it, Minnie?
MINNIE. Come home, father.
TIMOTHY. What is it? It's not a message ye have—it's not a message about Bert?
(MINNIE continues to gaze at him.)
The one I'd be looking for these many days! (He seizes her.) Can't ye speak, girl? Is the boy dead?
MINNIE. Yes, father.
TIMOTHY (puts his hand to his forehead and lets fall his hat.DR. JONATHAN picks it up). Me boy! The dirty devils have killed him!
MINNIE. Come, father, we'll go home.
TIMOTHY. Home, is it? It's back to the shops I'm going. (To the committee) Damn ye—we'll run the shops in spite of ye! Where's me hat?
(DR. JONATHAN hands it to him as the committee file out in silence.)
Come with me as far as the shops, Minnie. Thank you, doctor—(as DR. JONATHAN gives him the hat)—it's you I'll be wanting to see when I get me mind again.
(DR. JONATHAN goes with TIMOTHY and MINNIE as far as the door, right, and then comes back thoughtfully to the bench, takes up a test tube and holds it to the, light. Presently ASHER PINDAR appears in the doorway, right.)
ASHER. Good morning, Jonathan.
DR. JONATHAN. Good morning, Asher. I didn't know you'd got back fromWashington.
ASHER. I came in on the mail train.
DR. JONATHAN. Have you been to the office?
ASHER. No. I stopped at the house to speak to Augusta, and then—(he speaks a trifle apologetically)—well, I went for a little walk.
DR. JONATHAN. A walk.
ASHER. I've been turning something over in my mind. And the country looked so fine and fresh I crossed the covered bridge to the other side of the river. When George was a child I used to go over there with him on summer afternoons. He was such a companionable little shaver—he'd drop his toys when he'd see me coming home from the office. I can see him now, running along that road over there, stopping to pick funny little bouquets—the kind a child makes, you know—ox-eyed daisies and red clover and buttercups all mixed up together, and he'd carry them home and put them in a glass on the desk in my study.
(A pause.)
It seems like yesterday! It's hard to realize that he's a grown man, fighting over there in the trenches, and that any moment I may get a telegram, or be called to the telephone—Have you seen today's paper?
DR. JONATHAN. No.
ASHER. It looks like more bad news,—the Germans have started another one of those offensives. I was afraid they were getting ready for it. West of Verdun this time. And George may be in that sector, for all I know. How is this thing going to end, Jonathan? That damned military machine of theirs seems invincible—it keeps grinding on. Are we going to be able to stem the tide, or to help stem it with a lot of raw youths. They've only had a year's training.
DR. JONATHAN. Germany can't win, Asher.
ASHER. What makes you say that? We started several years too late.
Dr. JONATHAN. And Germany started several centuries too late.
ASHER. My God, I hope you're right. I don't know.
(He walks once or twice up and down the room..)
I've had another letter.
DR. JONATHAN. This morning?
ASHER. No—I got it before I left for Washington. But I didn't bring it in to you I wanted to think about it.
(He draws the letter, together with a folded paper, from his pocket, and lays the paper down on the bench. Then he adjusts his glasses and begins to read.)
"Dear dad,
"The sky is the colour of smeared charcoal. We haven't been in the trenches long enough to evolve web feet, so mine are resting on a duck board spread over a quagmire of pea soup. The Heinies are right here, soaking in another ditch beyond a barbed wire fence, about the distance of second base from the home plate. Such is modern war!
"But these aren't the things that trouble me. Last night, when I was wet to the skin and listening to the shells—each singing its own song in the darkness—I was able to think with astonishing ease better than if I were sitting at a mahogany desk in a sound proof room! I was thinking over the talk we had the day I left home,—do you remember it?—about the real issue of this war. I've thought of it time and again, but I've never written you about it. Since I have been in France I have had a liberal education gathered from all sorts and conditions of men. Right here in the trench near me are a street car conductor, a haberdasher, a Swedish farm hand, a grocery clerk, a college professor, a Pole from the Chicago Stock Yards, an Irish American janitor of a New York apartment house, and Grierson from Cleveland, whose father has an income of something like a million a year. We have all decided that this is a war for the under dog, whether he comes from Belgium or Armenia or that so-called land of Democracy, the United States of America. The hope that spurs us on and makes us willing to endure these swinish surroundings and die here in the mud, if need be, is that the world will now be reorganized on some intelligent basis; that Grierson and I, if we get back, won't have to rot on a large income and petrified ideas, but will have some interesting and creative work to do. Economic inequalities must be reduced, and those who toil must be given a chance to live, not merely to exist. Their lives must include a little leisure, comfortable homes, art and beauty and above all an education that none of us, especially those of us who went to universities, never got,—but which now should be available for all.
"The issue of this war is industrial democracy, without which political democracy is a farce. That sentence is Dr. Jonathan's. But when I was learning how to use the bayonet from a British sergeant in Picardy I met an English manufacturer from Northumberland. He is temporarily an officer. I know your opinion of theorists, but this man is working out the experiment with human chemicals. After all, the Constitution of the United States, now antiquated and revered, once existed only in the brains of French theorists! In the beginning was the Word, but the deed must follow. This Englishman, whose name is Wray, has given me the little pamphlet he wrote from his experience, and I shall send it to you.
"Though I am writing this letter in what to me is a solemn and undoubtedly exalted hour, I am sure that my mind was never clearer or saner. Dad, I have set my heart on inaugurating an experiment in industrial democracy in Foxon Falls! I'd like to be able to think—if anything happened to me—that the Pindar shops were among the first in America to recognize that we are living in a new era and a changed world."
(ASHER walks over to the bench and lays down the open letter on it.)
If anything should happen to that boy, Jonathan, there wouldn't be anything in life left for me! Industrial democracy! So you put that into his head! Socialism, I suppose.
DR. JONATHAN. No, experimental science.
ASHER. Call it what you like. What surprises me is, when I look back over the months you've been here, how well we've got along in spite of your views.
DR. JONATHAN. Why not say in spite of yours, Asher?
ASHER (smiling involuntarily). Well, it's been a comfort to drop in here and talk to you, in spite of what you believe. You've got the gift of sympathy, Jonathan. But I don't approve of you're spending your time in this sort of work—(he waves a hand toward the bench)—which may never come to anything, and in doctoring people for nothing and patching up their troubles. I daresay you enjoy it, but what worries me is how you are going to live?
DR. JONATHAN. By practising your cardinal virtue, thrift.
ASHER. I've got a proposal to make to you part of a scheme I've been turning over in my mind for the last six months—and when George's letter came I decided to put it through. I went to New York and had Sterry, a corporation lawyer, draw it up. I'm going to prove I'm not a mossback. It will reorganize the Pindar Shops.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, that's good news.
ASHER. First, with reference to your part in it, I shall establish a free hospital for my employees, and put you in charge of it, at a salary of five thousand a year. After all, you're the only Pindar left except George, and I'm satisfied that as a doctor you're up to the job, since you've driven Dr. Senn out of business.
DR. JONATHAN. Practical proof, Asher. Fortunately Dr. Senn has enough to live on.
ASHER. In offering you this position I have only one stipulation to make—(he clears his throat)—it's about Minnie Farrell. I think the world of Timothy, I wouldn't willingly hurt his feelings, but I can't have Minnie with you in the hospital, Jonathan. You deserve a great deal of credit for what you've done for the girl, you've kept her out of mischief, but considering her past, her life at Newcastle—well, even if I approved of having her in the hospital Augusta would never hear of it. And then she had some sort of an affair with George—I daresay there was nothing wrong—
DR. JONATHAN. Wrong is a question of code, Asher. We've all had pasts—What interests me is Minnie's future.
ASHER. Of course you wouldn't decline my offer on Minnie's account.
DR. JONATHAN. On my own account, Asher. We'll say no more about Minnie.
ASHER. You refuse to help me, when I'm starting out on a liberal scheme which I thought you would be the first to endorse?
DR. JONATHAN. I have not refused to help you,—but you have not told me the scheme?
ASHER. Well. (He' taps the paper in his hand.) For those employees who serve me faithfully I have arranged pensions.
DR. JONATHAN. For those, in other words, who refrain from taking their destinies in their own hands, and who do as you wish.
ASHER. For those who are industrious and make no trouble. And I have met the objection that they have no share in the enterprise by allowing them, on favourable terms, to acquire stock in the company.
DR. JONATHAN. I see. You will let them acquire half of the stock, in order that they may have an equal voice.
ASHER. Equal? It's my company, isn't it?
DR. JONATHAN. At present.
ASHER. I supply the capital. Furthermore, I have arranged for a system of workmen's committees, which I recognize, and with which I will continually consult. That's democratic enough—isn't it? If the men have any grievances, these will be presented in an orderly manner through the committees.
DR. JONATHAN. And if you find the demands—reasonable, you grant them.
ASHER. Certainly. But one thing I set my face against as a matter of principle, I won't recognize the unions.
DR. JONATHAN. But—who is to enforce the men's side of this contract?
ASHER. What do you mean?
DR. JONATHAN. What guarantee have they, other than a union organization, that you will keep faith?
ASHER. My word.
DR. JONATHAN. Oh!
ASHER. Never in my life have I regarded my possessions as my own. I am a trustee.
DR. JONATHAN. The sole trustee.
ASHER. Under God.
DR. JONATHAN. And you have God's proxy. Well, it seems to me that that is a very delightful arrangement, Asher—William appears to approve of it, too.
ASHER. William? William who?
DR. JONATHAN. William Hohenzollern.
ASHER. You compare me to the Kaiser!
DR. JONATHAN. Only in so far as you have in common a certain benevolence, Asher. Wouldn't your little plan, if your workmen accepted it, keep you in as a benevolent autocrat?
ASHER. Me? an autocrat?
DR. JONATHAN. You are preparing to give your men more privileges, and perhaps more money on the condition that they will renounce rights to which they are entitled as free men. You are ready to grant anything but a constitution. So is William.
ASHER. Do you seriously suggest that I give labour a voice in my business?
DR. JONATHAN. Doesn't George suggest it, when he pleads for industrial democracy? He seems to think that he is ready to give his life for it. And Bert Farrell has already given his life for it.
ASHER (agitatedly). What? Timothy's boy, Bert? Is he dead? Why didn't you tell me?
DR. JONATHAN (gently). I've had no chance. Minnie and Timothy were here just before you came in.
ASHER. Oh God, I'm sorry—I'm sorry for Timothy. It might have been—I'll go and see Timothy. Where is he?—at his house.
DR. JONATHAN. No, at the shops. He wanted to keep working until they close down.
ASHER (who has started for the door, right, turns). What do you mean?
(There is a knock at the door.)
DR. JONATHAN. I mean that the moment has come, Asher, to rememberGeorge. That your opportunity is here—heed it.
ASHER. I can't, I won't desert my principles
(The knock is repeated. DR. JONATHAN goes to the door and opens it.Enter, in the order named, HILLMAN, RENCH and FERSEN.)
HILLMAN. Beg your pardon, Mr. Pindar, we've been waiting for you at the office, and we heard you was here.
ASHER ( facing them with a defiance almost leonine). Well, what is it?
HILLMAN (glancing at DR. JONATHAN). There's a matter we'd like to talk over with you, Mr. Pindar, as soon as convenient.
ASHER. This is as convenient as any time, right now.
HILLMAN. The men voted to strike, last night. Maybe Dr. Jonathan has told you.
ASHER. Voted to strike behind my back while I was in Washington attending to the nation's business!
RENCH. It ain't as if this was anything new, Mr. Pindar, as if we hadn't been discussing this here difference for near a year. You've had your warning right along.
ASHER. Didn't I raise your wages last January?
HILLMAN. Wait a minute, Mr. Pindar. (He looks at DR. JONATHAN.) It oughtn't to be only what you say—what capital says. Collective bargaining is only right and fair, now that individual bargaining has gone by. We want to be able to talk to you as man to man,—that's only self-respecting on our part. All you've got to do is to say one word, that you'll recognize the union, and I'll guarantee there won't be any trouble.
RENCH. If you don't, we walk out at noon.
HILLMAN (with an attempt at conciliation). I know if we could sit down and talk this thing out with you, Mr. Pindar, you'd see it reasonable.
ASHER. Reasonable? Treasonable, you mean,—to strike when the lives of hundreds of thousands of your fellow countrymen depend on your labour.
RENCH. We ain't striking—you're striking!
FERSEN (nodding). That's right!
RENCH. We're ready to go back to work this afternoon if you treat us like Americans. (FERSEN nods.) You say we're obstructing the war by not giving in,—what's the matter with you giving in? Ain't the employers just as much traitors as we?
HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam,—we won't get nowhere by calling names. Let's discuss it cool!
ASHER. I refuse to discuss it.
(He takes the paper out of his docket and holds it up.)
Do you see this paper? It's a plan I had made, of my own free will, for the betterment and advancement of the working class. It was inspired by the suggestion of my son, who is now fighting in France. I came back to Foxon Falls this morning happy in the hope that I was to do something to encourage what was good in labour—and how have I been met? With a demand, with a threat. I was a fool to think you could stand decent treatment!
(He seizes the paper, and tears it in two.)
HILLMAN. Wait a minute, Mr. Pindar. If you won't listen to us, maybeDr. Jonathan would say a word for us. He understands how we feel.
ASHER (savagely tearing the paper in two, and then again in four). That's my answer! I won't have Dr. Pindar or anyone else interfering in my private affairs.
RENCH. All right—I guess we're wasting time here, boys. We walk out and stay out. (Threateningly.) Not a shaft'll turn over in them shops until you recognize the union. And if that's treason, go back to Washington and tell 'em so. Come on boys!
(He walks out, followed by FERSEN, nodding, and lastly by HILLMAN, who glances at DR. JONATHAN. ASHER stares hard at them as they leave. Then an expression of something like agony crosses his face.)
ASHER. My God, it's come! My shops shut down, for the first time in my life, and when the government relies on me!
(DR. JONATHAN stoops down and picks up the fragments of the documentfrom the floor.)
What are you doing?
DR. JONATHAN. Trying to save the pieces, Asher.
ASHER. I've got no use for them now.
DR. JONATHAN. But history may have.
ASHER. History. History will brand these men with shame for all time. I'll fix 'em! I'll go back to Washington, and if the government has any backbone, if it's still American, they'll go to work or fight! (Pointedly.) This is what comes of your Utopian dreams, of your socialism!
(A POLAK WOMAN is seen standing in the doorway, right.)
WOMAN. Doctor!
DR. JONATHAN. Yes.
WOMAN. My baby is seek—I think maybe you come and see him. Mrs. Ladislaw she tell me you cure her little boy, and that maybe you come, if I ask you.
DR. JONATHAN. Yes, I'll come. What is your name?
WOMAN. Sasenoshky.
DR. JONATHAN. Your husband is in the shops?
WOMAN. He was, doctor. Now he is in the American army.
DR. JONATHAN. Sasenoshky—in the American army.
WOMAN (proudly). Yes, he is good American now,—he fight to make them free in the old country, too.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, we'll have a look at the baby. He may be in theWhite House some day—President Sasenoshky! I'll be back, Asher.
(The noon whistle blows.)
ASHER. That's the signal! I'll get along, too.
DR. JONATHAN. Where are you going?
ASHER. I guess it doesn't make much difference where I go.
(He walks out, followed by DR. JONATHAN and the WOMAN. The room is empty for a moment, and then MINNIE FARRELL enters through the opposite door, left, from DR. JONATHAN'S office. She gazes around the room, and then goes resolutely to the bench and takes up several test tubes in turn, holding theme to the light. Suddenly her eye falls on GEORGE'S letter, which ASHER has left open on the bench with the envelope beside it. MINNIE Slowly reaches out and picks it up, and then holds it to her lips . . . She still has the letter in her hand, gazing at it, when AUGUSTA PINDAR enters, right.)
AUGUSTA. Oh, I thought Mr. Pindar was here!
MINNIE. Perhaps he's been here—I don't know. I just came in. (She hesitates a second, then goes to the bench and lays the letter down.)
AUGUSTA. He must have been here,—he told me he was coming to talk withDr. Pindar.
(She approaches the bench and glances at the letter.)
Isn't that a letter from my son?
MINNIE (a little defiantly, yet almost in tears). I guess it is.
AUGUSTA. It was written to you?
MINNIE. No.
AUGUSTA. Then what were you doing with it?
MINNIE. I just—picked it up. You think I was reading it? Well, I wouldn't.
AUGUSTA. Then how did you know it was written by my son?
(MINNIE is silent.)
You must be familiar with his handwriting. I think I'd better take it.(She folds it up and puts it in the envelope.) Does George write to you?
MINNIE. I've had letters from him.
AUGUSTA. Since he went to France?
MINNIE. Yes.
AUGUSTA (after a pause). I've never approved of Dr. Findar employing you here. I warned him against you—I told him that you would betray his kindness as you betrayed mine, but he wouldn't listen to me. I told him that a girl who was capable of drawing my son into an intrigue while she was a member of the church and of my Bible class, a girl who had the career you had in Newcastle, couldn't become a decent and trustworthy woman. The very fact that you had the audacity to come back to Foxon Falls and impose on Dr. Pindar's simplicity, proves it.
MINNIE. You know all about me, Mrs. Pindar.
AUGUSTA. I wasn't born yesterday.
MINNIE. Oh, ladies like you, Christian ladies, are hard! They won't believe nothing good of anybody—only the bad. You've always been sheltered, you've always had everything you'd want, and you come and judge us working girls. You'd drive me out of the only real happiness I ever had, being here with a man like Dr. Jonathan, doing work it's a pleasure to do—a pleasure every minute!—work that may do good to thousands of people, to the soldiers over there—maybe to George, for all you know! (She burst into tears.) You can't understand—how could you? After all, you're his mother. I oughtn't to forget it.
AUGUSTA. Yes, I'm his mother. And you? You haven't given up the idea that he may marry you some day, if you stay here and pretend to have reformed. You write to him. George may have been foolish, but he isn't as foolish as that!
MINNIE. He doesn't care about me.
AUGUSTA. I'm glad you realize it. But you mean to stay here in Foxon Falls, nevertheless. You take advantage of Dr. Pindar, who is easily imposed upon, as his father was before him. But if I told you that you might harm Dr. Pindar by staying here, interfere with his career, would you be willing to leave?
MINNIE. Me? Me doing Dr. Jonathan harm?
AUGUSTA, Yes. I happen to know that he has very little money. He makes none, he never asks anyone for a bill. He spends what he has on this kind of thing—research, for the benefit of humanity, as he thinks,—but very little research work succeeds, and even then it doesn't pay.
MINNIE. He doesn't care about money.
AUGUSTA. Perhaps not. He is one of those impractical persons who have to be looked out for, if they are fortunate enough to have anyone to look out for them. Since he is a cousin of my husband, Mr. Pindar considers him as one of his many responsibilities. Mr. Pindar has always had, in a practical way, the welfare of his working people at heart, and now he proposes to establish a free hospital for them and to put Dr. Pindar in charge of it. This will give him a good living as well as a definite standing in the community, which he needs also.
MINNIE. He's the biggest man in Foxon Falls today!
AUGUSTA. That is as one thinks. At any rate, he has this opportunity.Are you going to stand in the way of it?
MINNIE. Me stand in the way of it?
AUGUSTA. If Dr. Pindar accepts the place, you can't go with him,—you will have to find some other position. Mr. Pindar is firm about that, and rightly so. But I believe Dr. Pindar would be quite capable of refusing rather than inconvenience anyone with whom he is connected.
MINNIE. You're right there!
AUGUSTA. He's quixotic.
MINNIE. If that's a compliment, you're right again.
AUGUSTA. It isn't exactly a compliment.
MINNIE. I guess you mean he's queer—but you're wrong—you're wrong! He's the only man in Foxon Falls who knows what kind of a world we're going to live in from now on. Why? Because he's a scientist, because he's trained himself to think straight, because he understands people like you and people like me. He don't blame us for what we do—he knows why we do it.
(A pause.)
That's the reason I try not to blame you for being hard—you can't understand a girl like me. You can't understand George.
AUGUSTA (white). We'll leave my son out of the conversation, if you please. We were talking of Dr. Pindar. You seem to have some consideration for him, at least.
MINNIE. I'd go to the electric chair for him!
AUGUSTA. I'm not asking you to do that.
MINNIE. You want me to go away and get another place. I remember a lesson you gave us one day in Bible class, "Judge not, that you be not judged,"—that was what you talked about. But you're judging me on what you think is my record,—and you'd warn people against hiring me. If everybody was a Christian like that these days, I'd starve or go on the street.
AUGUSTA. We have to pay for what we do.
MINNIE. And you make it your business to see that we pay.
(A pause.)
Well, I'll go. I didn't know how poor Dr. Jonathan was,—he never said anything about it to me. I'll disappear.
AUGUSTA. You have some good in you.
MINNIE. Don't begin talking to me about good!
(TIMOTHY FARRELL enters, right.)
TIMOTHY. Good morning, ma'am. (Looking at MINNIE and AUGUSTA). I came to fetch Minnie to pass an hour with me.
AUGUSTA (agitated and taken aback). Were—were having a little talk.(She goes up to TIMOTHY.) I'm distressed to hear about Bert!
TIMOTHY. Thank you for your sympathy, ma'am.
(A brief silence. Enter ASHER, right.)
ASHER (surveying the group). You here, Augusta? (He goes up to TIMOTHY and presses his hand.) I wanted to see you, Timothy,—I understand how you feel. We both gave our sons in this war. You've lost yours, and I expect to lose mine.
AUGUSTA. Asher!
TIMOTHY. Don't say that, Mr. Pindar
ASHER. Why not? What right have I to believe, after what has happened in my shops today, that he'll come back?
TIMOTHY. God forbid that he should be lost, too! There's trouble enough—sorrow enough—
ASHER. Sorrow enough! But if a man has one friend left, Timothy, it's something.
TIMOTHY (surprised). Sure, I hope it's a friend I am, sir,—a friend this thirty years.
ASHER. We're both old fashioned, Timothy,—we can't help that.
TIMOTHY. I'm old fashioned enough to want to be working. And now that the strike's on, whatever will I do? Well, Bert is after giving his life for human liberty,—the only thing a great-hearted country like America would be fighting for. There's some comfort in that! I think of him as a little boy, like when he'd be carrying me dinner pail to the shops at noon, runnin' and leppin' and callin' out to me, and he only that high!
ASHER. As a little boy!
TIMOTHY. Yes, sir, it's when I like to think of him best. There's a great comfort in childher, and when they grow up we lose them anyway. But it's fair beset I'll be now, with nothing to do but think of him.
ASHER. You can thank these scoundrels who are making this labour trouble for that.
TIMOTHY. Scoundrels, is it? Scoundrels is a hard word, Mr. Pindar.