IT was Virginia's wish, and was therefore sacred. As for Stephen, he little cared whither they went. And so they found themselves on that bright afternoon in mid-April under the great trees that arch the unpaved streets of old Annapolis.
They stopped by direction at a gate, and behind it was a green cluster of lilac bushes, which lined the walk to the big plum-colored house which Lionel Carvel had built. Virginia remembered that down this walk on a certain day in June, a hundred years agone, Richard Carvel had led Dorothy Manners.
They climbed the steps, tottering now with age and disuse, and Virginia playfully raised the big brass knocker, brown now, that Scipio had been wont to polish until it shone. Stephen took from his pocket the clumsy key that General Carvel had given him, and turned it in the rusty lock. The door swung open, and Virginia stood in the hall of her ancestors.
It was musty and damp this day as the day when Richard had come back from England and found it vacant and his grandfather dead. But there, at the parting of the stairs, was the triple-arched window which he had described. Through it the yellow afternoon light was flooding now, even as then, checkered by the branches in their first fringe of green. But the tall clock which Lionel Carvel used to wind was at Calvert House, with many another treasure.
They went up the stairs, and reverently they walked over the bare floors, their footfalls echoing through the silent house. A score of scenes in her great-grandfather's life came to Virginia. Here was the room—the cornet one at the back of the main building, which looked out over the deserted garden—that had been Richard's mother's. She recalled how he had stolen into it on that summer's day after his return, and had flung open the shutters. They were open now, for their locks were off. The prie-dieu was gone, and the dresser. But the high bed was there, stripped of its poppy counterpane and white curtains; and the steps by which she had entered it.
And next they went into the great square room that had been Lionel Carvel's, and there, too, was the roomy bed on which the old gentleman had lain with the gout, while Richard read to him from the Spectator. One side of it looked out on the trees in Freshwater Lane; and the other across the roof of the low house opposite to where the sun danced on the blue and white waters of the Chesapeake.
"Honey," said Virginia, as they stood in the deep recess of the window, "wouldn't it be nice if we could live here always, away from the world? Just we two! But you would never be content to do that," she said, smiling reproachfully. "You are the kind of man who must be in the midst of things. In a little while you will have far more besides me to think about."
He was quick to catch the note of sadness in her voice. And he drew her to him.
"We all have our duty to perform in the world, dear," he answered. "It cannot be all pleasure."
"You—you Puritan!" she cried. "To think that I should have married a Puritan! What would my great-great-great-great-grandfather say, who was such a stanch Royalist? Why, I think I can see him frowning at me now, from the door, in his blue velvet goat and silverlaced waistcoat."
"He was well punished," retorted Stephen, "his own grandson was a Whig, and seems to have married a woman of spirit."
"She had spirit," said Virginia. "I am sure that she did not allow my great-grandfather to kiss her—unless she wanted to."
And she looked up at him, half smiling, half pouting; altogether bewitching.
"From what I hear of him, he was something of a man," said Stephen."Perhaps he did it anyway."
"I am glad that Marlborough Street isn't a crowded thoroughfare," saidVirginia.
When they had seen the dining room, with its carved mantel and silver door-knobs, and the ballroom in the wing, they came out, and Stephen locked the door again. They walked around the house, and stood looking down the terraces,—once stately, but crumbled now,—where Dorothy had danced on the green on Richard's birthday. Beyond and below was the spring-house, and there was the place where the brook dived under the ruined wall,—where Dorothy had wound into her hair the lilies of the valley before she sailed for London.
The remains of a wall that had once held a balustrade marked the outlines of the formal garden. The trim hedges, for seventy years neglected, had grown incontinent. The garden itself was full of wild green things coming up through the brown of last season's growth. But in the grass the blue violets nestled, and Virginia picked some of these and put them in Stephen's coat.
"You must keep them always," she said, "because we got them here."
They spied a seat beside a hoary trunk. There on many a spring day Lionel Carvel had sat reading his Gazette. And there they rested now. The sun hung low over the old-world gables in the street beyond the wall, and in the level rays was an apple tree dazzling white, like a bride. The sweet fragrance which the day draws from the earth lingered in the air.
It was Virginia who broke the silence.
"Stephen, do you remember that fearful afternoon of the panic, when you came over from Anne Brinsmade's to reassure me?"
"Yes, dear," he said. "But what made you think of it now?"
She did not answer him directly.
"I believed what you said, Stephen. But you were so strong, so calm, so sure of yourself. I think that made me angry when I thought how ridiculous I must have been."
He pressed her hand.
"You were not ridiculous, Jinny." She laughed.
"I was not as ridiculous as Mr. Cluyme with his bronze clock. But do you know what I had under my arm—what I was saving of all the things I owned?"
"No," he answered; "but I have often wondered." She blushed.
"This house—this place made me think of it. It was Dorothy Manners's gown, and her necklace. I could not leave them. They were all the remembrance I had of that night at Mr. Brinsmade's gate, when we came so near to each other."
"Virginia," he said, "some force that we cannot understand has brought us together, some force that we could not hinder. It is foolish for me to say so, but on that day of the slave auction, when I first saw you, I had a premonition about you that I have never admitted until now, even to myself."
She started.
"Why, Stephen," she cried, "I felt the same way!"
"And then," he continued quickly, "it was strange that I should have gone to Judge Whipple, who was an intimate of your father's—such a singular intimate. And then came your party, and Glencoe, and that curious incident at the Fair."
"When I was talking to the Prince, and looked up and saw you among all those people."
He laughed.
"That was the most uncomfortable of all, for me."
"Stephen," she said, stirring the leaves at her feet, "you might have taken me in your arms the night Judge Whipple died—if you had wanted to. But you were strong enough to resist. I love you all the more for that."
Again she said:— "It was through your mother, dearest, that we were most strongly drawn together. I worshipped her from the day I saw her in the hospital. I believe that was the beginning of my charity toward the North."
"My mother would have chosen you above all women, Virginia," he answered.
In the morning came to them the news of Abraham Lincoln's death. And the same thought was in both their hearts, who had known him as it was given to few to know him. How he had lived in sorrow; how he had died a martyr on the very day of Christ's death upon the cross. And they believed that Abraham Lincoln gave his life for his country even as Christ gave his for the world.
And so must we believe that God has reserved for this Nation a destiny high upon the earth.
Many years afterward Stephen Brice read again to his wife those sublime closing words of the second inaugural:—
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in theright as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finishthe work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for himwho shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his children—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peaceamong ourselves and with all nations."
The author has chosen St. Louis for the principal scene of this story for many reasons. Grant and Sherman were living there before the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln was an unknown lawyer in the neighboring state of Illinois. It has been one of the aims of this book to show the remarkable contrasts in the lives of these great men who came out of the West. This old city of St. Louis, which was founded by Laclede in 1765, likewise became the principal meeting-place of two great streams of emigration which had been separated, more or less, since Cromwell's day. To be sure, they were not all Cavaliers who settled in the tidewater Colonies. There were Puritan settlements in both Maryland and Virginia. But the life in the Southern states took on the more liberal tinge which had characterized that of the Royalists, even to the extent of affecting the Scotch Calvinists, while the asceticism of the Roundheads was the keynote of the Puritan character in New England. When this great country of ours began to develop, the streams moved westward; one over what became the plain states of Ohio and Indiana and Illinois, and the other across the Blue Ridge Mountains into Kentucky and Tennessee. They mixed along the line of the Ohio River. They met at St. Louis, and, farther west, in Kansas.
Nor can the German element in St. Louis be ignored. The part played by this people in the Civil War is a matter of history. The scope of this book has not permitted the author to introduce the peasantry and trading classes which formed the mass in this movement. But Richter, the type of the university-bred revolutionist which emigrated after '48, is drawn more or less from life. And the duel described actually took place in Berlin.
St. Louis is the author's birthplace, and his home, the home of those friends whom he has known from childhood and who have always treated him with unfaltering kindness. He begs that they will believe him when he says that only such characters as he loves are reminiscent of those he has known there. The city has a large population,—large enough to include all the types that are to be found in the middle West.
One word more. This book is written of a time when feeling ran high. It has been necessary to put strong speech into the mouths of the characters. The breach that threatened our country's existence is healed now. There is no side but Abraham Lincoln's side. And this side, with all reverence and patriotism, the author has tried to take.
Abraham Lincoln loved the South as well as the North.
Behind that door was the future: so he opened it fearfullyBeing caught was the unpardonable crimeBelieve in others having a hard timeFreedom meant only the liberty to earn their own livingHumiliation and not conscience which makes the stingMost dangerous of gifts, the seeing of two sides of a quarrelNaturally she took preoccupation for indifferencePrinciple in law not to volunteer informationRead a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseasesShe could pass over, but never forgive what her aunt had saidSilence—goad to indiscretionSimple men who command by force of characterSo much for Democracy when it becomes a catchwordThey have to print somethingTo be great is to be misunderstood
By Winston Churchill
A Play in Three Acts
This play was written during the war. But owing to the fact that several managers politely declined to produce it, it has not appeared on any stage. Now, perhaps, its theme is more timely, more likely to receive the attention it deserves, when the smoke of battle has somewhat cleared. Even when the struggle with Germany and her allies was in progress it was quite apparent to the discerning that the true issue of the conflict was one quite familiar to American thought, of self-determination. On returning from abroad toward the end of 1917 I ventured into print with the statement that the great war had every aspect of a race with revolution. Subliminal desires, subliminal fears, when they break down the censor of law, are apt to inspire fanatical creeds, to wind about their victims the flaming flag of a false martyrdom. Today it is on the knees of the gods whether the insuppressible impulses for human freedom that come roaring up from the subliminal chaos, fanned by hunger and hate, are to thrash themselves out in anarchy and insanity, or to take an ordered, intelligent and conscious course. Of the Twentieth Century, industrial democracy is the watchword, even as political democracy was the watchword of the two centuries that preceded it. Economic power is at last realized to be political power. No man owns himself, no woman owns herself if the individual is not economically free. Perhaps the most encouraging omen of the day is the fact that many of our modern employers, and even our modern financiers and bankers seem to be recognizing this truth, to be growing aware of the danger to civilization of its continued suppression. Educators and sociologists may supply the theories; but by experiment, by trial and error,—yes, and by prayer, —the solution must be found in the practical domain of industry.
TIME: A bright morning in October, 1917,
GEORGE PINDAR, in the uniform of a first lieutenant of the army, enters by the doorway, upper right. He is a well set up young man of about twenty-seven, bronzed from his life in a training camp, of an adventurous and social nature. He glances about the room, and then lights a cigarette.
ASHER PINDAR, his father, enters, lower right. He is a tall, strongly built man of about sixty, with iron grey hair and beard. His eyes are keen, shadowed by bushy brows, and his New England features bear the stamp of inflexible "character." He wears a black "cutaway" coat and dark striped trousers; his voice is strong and resonant. But he is evidently preoccupied and worried, though he smiles with affection as he perceives GEORGE. GEORGE'S fondness for him is equally apparent.
GEORGE. Hello, dad.
ASHER. Oh, you're here, George.
GEORGE (looking, at ASHER). Something troubling you?
ASHER (attempting dissimulation). Well, you're going off to France, they've only given you two days' leave, and I've scarcely seen anything of you. Isn't that enough?
GEORGE. I know how busy you've been with that government contract on your hands. I wish I could help.
ASHER. You're in the army now, my boy. You can help me again when you come back.
GEORGE. I want to get time to go down to the shops and say goodbye to some of the men.
ASHER. No, I shouldn't do that, George.
GEORGE (surprised). Why not? I used to be pretty chummy with them, you know,—smoke a pipe with them occasionally in the noon hour.
ASHER. I know. But it doesn't do for an employer to be too familiar with the hands in these days.
GEORGE. I guess I've got a vulgar streak in me somewhere, I get along with the common people. There'll be lots of them in the trenches, dad.
ASHER. Under military discipline.
GEORGE (laughing). We're supposed to be fighting a war for democracy. I was talking to old Bains yesterday,—he's still able to run a lathe, and he was in the Civil War, you know. He was telling me how the boys in his regiment stopped to pick blackberries on the way to the battle of Bull Run.
ASHER. That's democracy! It's what we're doing right now—stopping to pick blackberries. This country's been in the war six months, since April, and no guns, no munitions, a handful of men in France—while the world's burning!
GEORGE. Well, we won't sell Uncle Sam short yet. Something is bothering you, dad.
ASHER. No—no, but the people in Washington change my specifications every week, and Jonathan's arriving today, of all days.
GEORGE. Has Dr. Jonathan turned up?
ASHER. I haven't seen him yet. It seems he got here this morning. No telegram, nothing. And he had his house fixed up without consulting me. He must be queer, like his father, your great uncle, Henry Pindar.
GEORGE. Tell me about Dr. Jonathan. A scientist,—isn't he? Suddenly decided to come back to live in the old homestead.
ASHER. On account of his health. He was delicate as a boy. He must have been about eight or nine years old when Uncle Henry left Foxon Falls for the west,—that was before you were born. Uncle Henry died somewhere in Iowa. He and my father never got along. Uncle Henry had as much as your grandfather to begin with, and let it slip through his fingers. He managed to send Jonathan to a medical school, and it seems that he's had some sort of a position at Johns Hopkins's—research work. I don't know what he's got to live on.
GEORGE. Uncle Henry must have been a philanthropist.
ASHER. It's all very well to be a philanthropist when you make more than you give away. Otherwise you're a sentimentalist.
GEORGE. Or a Christian.
ASHER. We can't take Christianity too literally.
GEORGE (smiling). That's its great advantage, as a religion.
ASHER. George, I don't like to say anything just as you're going to fight for your country, my boy, but your attitude of religious skepticism has troubled me, as well as your habit of intimacy with the shop hands. I confess to you that I've been a little afraid at times that you'd take after Jonathan's father. He never went to church, he forgot that he owed something to his position as a Pindar. He used to have that house of his overrun with all sorts of people, and the yard full of dirty children eating his fruit and picking his flowers. There's such a thing as being too democratic. I hope I'm as good an American as anybody, I believe that any man with brains, who has thrift, ought to rise—but wait until they do rise. You're going to command men, and when you come back here into the business again you'll be in a position of authority. Remember what I say, if you give these working people an inch, they'll take all you have.
GEORGE (laying his hand on ASHER's shoulder). Something is worrying you, dad. We've always been pretty good pals, haven't we?
ASHER. Yes, ever since you were a little shaver. Well, George, I didn't want to bother you with it—today. It seems there's trouble in the shops,—in our shops, of all places,—it's been going on for some time, grumbling, dissatisfaction, and they're getting higher wages than ever before—ruinous wages. They want me to recognize the union.
GEORGE. Well, that beats me. I thought we were above the labour-trouble line, away up here in New England.
ASHER (grimly). Oh, I can handle them.
GEORGE. I'll bet you can. You're a regular old war horse when you get started. It's your capital, it's your business, you've put it all at the disposal of the government. What right have they to kick up a row now, with this war on? I must say I haven't any sympathy with that.
ASHER (proudly). I guess you're a real Pindar after all, George.
(Enter an elderly maid, lower right.)
MAID. Timothy Farrell, the foreman's here,
(Enter, lower right, TIMOTHY, a big Irishman of about sixty, in working clothes.)
TIMOTHY. Here I am, sir. They're after sending word you wanted me.
GEORGE (going up to TIMOTHY and shaking his hand warmly). Old Timothy!I'm glad to get sight of you before I go.
TIMOTHY. And it's glad I am to see you, Mr. George, before you leave. And he an officer now! Sure, I mind him as a baby being wheeled up and down under the trees out there. My boy Bert was saying only this morning how we'd missed the sight of him in the shops this summer. You have a way with the men, Mr. George, of getting into their hearts, like. I was thinking just now, if Mr. George had only been home, in the shops, maybe we wouldn't be having all this complaint and trouble.
GEORGE. Who's at the bottom of this, Timothy? Rench? Hillman? I thought so. Well, they're not bad chaps when you get under their skins.
(He glances at his wrist watch)
Let me go down and talk with them, dad,—I've got time, my train doesn't leave until one thirty.
ASHER (impatiently, almost savagely). No, I'll settle this, George, this is my job. I won't have any humoring. Come into my study, Timothy.
TIMOTHY, shaking his head, follows ASHER out of the door, left.
After a moment GEORGE goes over to the extreme left hand corner of the room, where several articles are piled. He drags out a kit bag, then some necessary wearing apparel, underclothes, socks, a sweater, etc., then a large and rather luxurious lunch kit, a pin cushion. with his monogram, a small travelling pillow with his monogram, a linen toilet case embroidered in blue, to hang on the wall—these last evidently presents from admiring lady friends. Finally he brings forth a large rubber life preserving suit. He makes a show of putting all these things in the bag, including the life- preserving suit; and reveals a certain sentiment, not too deep, for the pillow, the pincushion and the toilet case. At length he strews everything over the floor, and is surveying the litter with mock despair when a girl appears on the lawn outside, through one of the windows. She throws into the room a small parcel wrapped in tissue paper, and disappears. GEORGE picks up the parcel and looks surprised, and suddenly runs out of the door, upper right. He presently returns, dragging the girl by the wrists, she resisting.
MINNIE FARRELL is about twenty one, with black hair and an abundant vitality. Her costume is a not wholly ineffective imitation of those bought at a great price at certain metropolitan establishments. A string of imitation pearls gleams against her ruddy skin.
MINNIE. Cut it out, George! (Glancing around apprehensively.) Say, if your mother was to find me here she'd want to send me up to the reformatory (she frees herself).
GEORGE. Where the deuce did you blow in from? (Regarding her with admiration.) Is this the little Minnie Farrell who left Foxon Falls two years ago? Gee whiz! aren't we smart!
MINNIE. Do you like me? I'm making good money, since the war.
GEORGE. Do I like you? What are you doing here?
MINNIE. My brother Bert's out there—he ain't working today. Mr. Pindar sent for father, and we walked up here with him. Where is he?
GEORGE (nodding toward the study). In there. But what are you doing, back in Foxon Falls?
MINNIE. Oh, visiting the scenes of my childhood.
GEORGE (tearing open the tissue paper from the parcel). Did you makethese for me?(He holds up a pair of grey woollen wristlets.)
MINNIE. Well, I wanted to do something for a soldier, and when I heard you was going to France I thought you might as well have 'em.
GEORGE. How did you hear I was going?
MINNIE. Bert told me when I came home yesterday. They say it's cold in the trenches, and nothing keeps the hands so warm as wristlets. I know, because I've had 'em on winter mornings, early, when I was going to work. Will you wear 'em, George?
GEORGE. Will I wear them! (He puts then on his wrists.) I'll never take them off till the war's over.
MINNIE (pleased). You always were a josher!
GEORGE. Tell me, Minnie, why did you run away from me two years ago?
MINNIE. Run away from you! I left because I couldn't stand this village any longer. It was too quiet for me.
GEORGE. You're a josher! You went off while I was away, without telling me you were going. And then, when I found out where you were and hustled over to Newcastle in my car, you turned me down hard.
MINNIE. You didn't have a mortgage on me. There were plenty of girls of your own kind at that house party you went to. I guess you made love to them, too.
GEORGE. They weren't in the same class with you. You've got the ginger.
MINNIE. I've still got the ginger, all right.
GEORGE. I thought you cared for me.
MINNIE. You always had the nerve, George.
GEORGE. You acted as if you did.
MINNIE. I'm a good actor. Say, what was there in it for me?—packing tools in the Pindar shops, and you the son of my boss? You didn't want nothing from me except what all men want, and you wouldn't have wanted that long.
GEORGE. I was crazy about you.
MINNIE (her eyes falling on the travelling pillow and the pincushion; picking theron: up in turn). I guess you told them that, too.
GEORGE (embarrassed). Oh, I'm popular enough when I'm going away. They don't care anything about me.
MINNIE (indicating the wristlets). You don't want them,—I'll give 'em to Bert.
GEORGE. No, you won't.
MINNIE. I was silly. But we had a good time while it lasted,—didn't we, George?
(She evades him deftly, and picks up the life-preserving suit.)
What's this?—a full dress uniform?
GEORGE. When a submarine gets you, all you've got to do is to jump overboard and blow this—
(He draws the siren from the pocket and starts to blow it, but sheseizes his hand.)
—and float around until a destroyer picks you up.
(Takes from another pocket a metal lunch box.)
This is for pate de foie gras sandwiches, and there's room in here—
(Indicating another pocket.)
—for a bottle of fizz. Come along with me, Minnie, ship as a Red Cross nurse, and I'll buy you one. The Atlantic wouldn't be such a bad place, with you,—and we wouldn't be in a hurry to blow the siren. You'd look like a peach in a white costume, too.
MINNIE. Don't you like me in this?
GEORGE. Sure, but I'd like that better.
MINNIE. I'd make a good nurse, if I do say it myself. And I'd take good care of you, George,—as good as any of them.
(She nods toward the pillow and pincushion.)
GEORGE. Better!
(He seizes her hands and attempts to draw her toward him.)
You used to let me!
MINNIE. That ain't any reason.
GEORGE. Just once, Minnie,—I'm going away.
MINNIE. No. I didn't mean to come in here—I just wanted to see what you looked like in your uniform.
(She draws away from him, just as Dr. JONATHAN appears in thedoorway, lower right.)
Goodbye, George.
(She goes out through the doorway, upper right.)
(DR. JONATHAN may be almost any age,—in reality about thirty five. His head is that of the thinker, high above the eyes. His face bears evidence in its lines of years of labour and service, as well as of a triumphant struggle against ill health. In his eyes is a thoughtful yet illuminating smile, now directed toward GEORGE who, when he perceives him, is taken aback,)
DR. JONATHAN. Hello! I was told to come in here,—I hope I'm not intruding.
GEORGE. Not at all. How—how long have you been here?
DR. JONATHAN. Just long enough to get my bearings. I came this morning.
GEORGE. Oh! Are you—are you Dr. Jonathan?
DR. JONATHAN. I'm Jonathan. And you're George, I suppose.
GEORGE. Yes. (He goes to him and shakes hands.) I'm sorry to be leaving just as you come.
DR. JONATHAN. I'll be here when you return.
GEORGE. I hope so (a pause). You won't find Foxon Falls a bad old town.
DR. JONATHAN. And it will be a better one when you come back.
GEORGE. Why do you say that?
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). It seems a safe conjecture.
(Dr. JONATHAN is looking at the heap of articles on the floor.)
GEORGE (grinning, and not quite at ease). You might imagine I was embarking in the gent's furnishing business, instead of going to war. (He picks up the life-preserving suit.) Some friend of mother's told her about this, and she insisted upon sending for it. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but I can't take it, of course.
(He rolls it up and thrusts it under the sofa, upper left.)
You won't give me away?
DR. JONATHAN. Never!
GEORGE. Dad ought to be here in a minute, he's in there with old Timothy Farrell, the moulder foreman. It seems that things are in a mess at the shops. Rotten of the men to make trouble now—don't you think?—when the country's at war! Darned unpatriotic, I say.
DR. JONATHAN. I saw a good many stars in your service flag as I passed the office door this morning.
GEORGE. Yes. Over four hundred of our men have enlisted. I don't understand it.
DR. JONATHAN. Perhaps you will, George, when you come home.
GEORGE. You mean—
(GEORGE is interrupted by the entrance, lower right, of his mother, AUGUSTA PINDAR. She is now in the fifties, and her hair is turning grey. Her uneventful, provincial existence as ASHER'S wife has confirmed and crystallized her traditional New England views, her conviction that her mission is to direct for good the lives of the less fortunate by whom she is surrounded. She carries her knitting in her hand,—a pair of socks for GEORGE. And she goes at once to DR. JONATHAN.)
AUGUSTA. So you are Jonathan. They told me you'd arrived—why didn't you come to us? Do you think it's wise to live in that old house of your father's before it's been thoroughly heated for a few days?
DR. JONATHAN (taking her hand). Oh, I'm going to live with the doors and windows open.
AUGUSTA. Dear me! I understand you've been quite ill, and you were never very strong as a child. I made it my business to go through the house yesterday, and I must say it looks comfortable. But the carpenters and plumbers have ruined the parlour, with that bench, and the sink in the corner. What are you going to do there?
DR. JONATHAN. I'm having it made into a sort of laboratory.
AUGUSTA. You don't mean to say you intend to do any work!
DR. JONATHAN. Work ought to cure me, in this climate.
AUGUSTA. You mean to practise medicine? You ought to have consulted us. I'm afraid you won't find it remunerative, Jonathan,—but your father was impractical, too. Foxon Falls is still a small place, in spite of the fact that the shops have grown. Workmen's families can't afford to pay big fees, you know.
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). I know.
AUGUSTA. And we already have an excellent physician here, Dr. Senn.
DR. JONATHAN. I shan't interfere with Dr. Senn.
GEORGE (laying his hand on AUGUSTA's shoulder: apologetically). Mother feels personally responsible for every man, woman and child in Foxon Falls. I shouldn't worry about Dr. Jonathan if I were you, mother, I've got a notion he can take care of himself.
AUGUSTA (a little baffled by DR. JONATHAN's self-command, sits down and begins to knit). I must get these socks finished for you to take with you, my dear. (To DR. JONATHAN) I can't realize he's going! (To GEORGE) You haven't got all your things in your bag! Where's the life-preserving suit I sent for?
GEORGE (glancing at DR. JONATHAN). Oh that's gone, mother.
AUGUSTA. He always took cold so easily, and that will keep him warm and dry, if those terrible Germans sink his ship. But your presents, George! (To DR. JONATHAN:) Made for him by sisters of his college friends.
GEORGE (amused but embarrassed). I can't fit up a section of the trenches as a boudoir.
AUGUSTA. Such nice girls! I wish he'd marry one of them. Who made you the wristlets? I hadn't seen them.
GEORGE (taking of the wristlets and putting them in his bag). Oh, I can't give her away. I was—just trying them on, to see if they fitted.
AUGUSTA. When did they come?
GEORGE (glancing at DR. JONATHAN). Er—this morning.
(Enter ASHER and TIMOTHY from the study, left. ASHER is evidentlywrought up from his talk with TIMOTHY.)
ASHER. Remember, Timothy, I rely on sensible men like you to put a stop to this nonsense.
AUGUSTA. Asher, here's Jonathan.
ASHER. Oh! (He goes up to DR. JONATHAN and takes his hand, though it is quite evident that his mind is still on the trouble in the shops). Glad to see you back in Foxon Falls, Jonathan. I heard you'd arrived, and would have dropped in on you, but things are in a muddle here just now.
DR. JONATHAN. Not only here, but everywhere.
ASHER. You're right. The country's going to the dogs. I don't know what will straighten it out.
DR. JONATHAN. Intelligence, open-mindedness, cooperation, Asher.
ASHER (arrested: looking at him). Hum!
DR. JONATHAN (leaving him and going up to TIMOTHY). You don't remember me, Timothy?
TIMOTHY. Sure and I do, sir,—though you were only a little lad. You mind me of your father,—your smile, like. He was the grand, simple man! It's happy I am to see you back in Foxon Falls.
DR. JONATHAN. Yes, I've been ordered to the rear.
TIMOTHY. The rear, is it? I'm thinking we'll be fighting this war inFoxon Falls, too.
DR. JONATHAN. Yes, much of it will be fought behind the battle lines.
AUGUSTA. You think the Germans will come over here?
DR. JONATHAN. No, but the issue is over here already.
(DR. JONATHAN picks up her ball of wool, which has fallen to the floor.)
AUGUSTA (looking at him apprehensively: puzzled). Thank you, Jonathan.
(She turns to TIMOTHY, who has started toward the door, lower right)
Wait a moment, Timothy, I want to ask you about your children. What do you hear from Minnie? I always took an interest in her, you know, —especially when she was in the tool packing department of the shops, and I had her in my Bible class. I appreciated your letting her come, —an Irishman and a Catholic as you are.
TIMOTHY. The Church has given me up as a heathen, ma'am, when I married your cook, and she a Protestant.
AUGUSTA. I've been worried about Minnie since she went to Newcastle. She has so much vitality, and I'm afraid she's pleasure loving though she seemed to take to religion with her whole soul. And where's Jamesy?
TIMOTHY. Jamesy, is it? It's gone to the bad entirely he is, with the drink. He left the shops when the twelve-hour shifts began—wherever he's at now. It's home Minnie came from Newcastle yesterday, ma'am, for a visit,—she's outside there now, with Bert,—they walked along with me.
AUGUSTA. Bring them in, I want to see them,—especially Minnie. I must say I'm surprised she should have come home without calling on me.
TIMOTHY. I'll get them, ma'am.
(He goes out of the door, upper right. GEORGE, who has been palpably ill at ease during this conversation, now makes for the door, lower right.)
AUGUSTA. Where are you going, my dear?
GEORGE (halting). I thought I'd look around and see if I'd forgotten anything, mother.
AUGUSTA. Stay with us,—there's plenty of time.
(TIMOTHY returns through the doorway, upper right, with BERT, but without MINNIE.)
TIMOTHY. It's disappeared entirely she is, ma'am,—here one minute and there the next, the way with young people nowadays. And she's going back to Newcastle this afternoon, to her job at the Wire Works.
AUGUSTA. I must see her before she goes. I feel in a measure responsible for her. You'll tell her?
TIMOTHY. I'll tell her.
AUGUSTA. How are you getting along, Bert?
BERT. Very well, thank you, Mrs. Pindar.
(The MAID enters, lower right.)
MAID. Miss Thorpe wishes to speak with you, ma'am.
AUGUSTA (gathering up her knitting). It's about the wool for the RedCross.
(Exit, lower right.)
GEORGE (shaking hands with BERT). Hello, Bert,—how goes it?
BERT. All right, thank you, lieutenant.
GEORGE. Oh, cut out the title.
(BERT FARRELL is about twenty three. He wears a brown flannel shirt and a blue four-in-hand tie, and a good ready-made suit. He holds his hat in front of him. He is a self-respecting, able young Irish American of the blue-eyed type that have died by thousands on the battle fields of France, and whose pictures may be seen in our newspapers.)
ASHER. You're not working today, Bert?
BERT. I've left the shops, Mr. Pindar,—I got through last night.
ASHER. Left the shops! You didn't say anything about this, Timothy!
TIMOTHY. No, sir,—you have trouble enough today.
ASHER (to BERT). Why did you leave?
BERT. I'm going to enlist, Mr. Pindar,—with the Marines. From whatI've heard of that corps, I think I'd like to join it.
ASHER (exasperated). But why do you do a thing like this when you must know I need every man here to help turn out these machines? And especially young men like you, good mechanics! If you wanted to serve your country, you were better off where you were. I got you exempted —(catching himself) I mean, you were exempted from the draft.
BERT. I didn't want to be exempted, sir. More than four hundred of the boys have gone from the shops, as well as Mr. George here, and I couldn't stand it no longer.
ASHER. What's Mr. George got to do with it? The cases are different.
BERT (stoutly). I don't see that, Mr. Pindar. Every man, no matter who he is, has to decide a thing like this for himself.
GEORGE. Bert's right, dad.
ASHER. You say he's right, when you know that I need every hand I can get to carry out this contract?
GEORGE. He's going to make a contract, too. He's giving up all he has.
ASHER. And you approve of this, Timothy?
TIMOTHY. Sure, I couldn't stop him, Mr. Pindar! And it's proud I am of him, the same as you are of Mr. George, that he'd be fighting for America and liberty.
ASHER. Liberty! License is what we're getting now! The workman thinks he can do as he pleases. And after all I've done for my workmen, —building them a club house with a piano in it, and a library and a billiard table, trying to do my best to make them comfortable and contented. I pay them enough to buy pianos and billiard tables for themselves, and you tell me they want still higher wages.
TIMOTHY. They're saying they can go down to the shipyards, where they'd be getting five dollars and thirty cents a day.
ASHER. Let them go to the shipyards, if they haven't any sense of gratitude! What else do they say?
TIMOTHY. That you have a contract, sir, and making millions out of it.
ASHER. What can they know about my profits?
TIMOTHY. It's just that, sir,—they know nothing at all. But they're saying they ought to know, since things is different now, and they're working for the war and the country, the same as yourself.
ASHER. Haven't I established a system of bonuses, to share my profits with the efficient and the industrious?
TIMOTHY. They don't understand the bonuses,—how you come by them. Autocracy is the word they use. And they say you put up a notice sudden like, without asking them, that there'd be two long shifts instead of three eight-hour ones. They're willing to work twelve hours on end, for the war, they say, but they'd want to be consulted.
ASHER. What business is it of theirs?
TIMOTHY. Well, it's them that has to do the hard work, sir. There was a meeting last night, I understand, with Rench and Hillman and a delegate come from Newcastle making speeches, the only way they'd get their rights would be for you to recognize the union.
ASHER. I'll never recognize a union! I won't have any outsiders, meddlers and crooks dictating my business to me.
TIMOTHY. I've been with you thirty years, come December, Mr. Pindar, and you've been a good employer to me. I don't hold with the unions—you know it well, sir, or you wouldn't be asking me advice. I'm telling you what they're saying.
ASHER. I didn't mean to accuse you,—you've been a good and loyal employee—that's why I sent for you. Find out what their game is, and let me know.
TIMOTHY. It's not a detective I am, Mr. Pindar. I'm a workman meself. That's another thing they're saying, that you'd pay detectives to go among them, like workingmen.
ASHER (impatiently). I'm not asking you to be a detective,—I only want you to give me warning if we are to have a strike.
TIMOTHY. I've warned you, sir,—if it's only for the sake of beating theGermans, the dirty devils.
GEORGE (turning to BERT). Well, here's wishing you luck, Bert, and hoping we'll meet over there. I know how you feel,—you want to be in it, just as I do.
ASHER (turning). Perhaps I said more than I meant to, Bert. I've got to turn out these machines in order that our soldiers may have shrapnel to fight with, and what with enlistments and the determination of unscrupulous workmen to take advantage of the situation, I'm pretty hard pressed. I can't very well spare steady young men like you, who have too much sense and too much patriotism to mix yourselves up with trouble makers. But I, too, can understand your feeling,—I'd like to be going myself. You might have consulted me, but your place will be ready for you when you come back.
BERT. Thank you, sir. (He turns his hat over in his hands.) Maybe it would be fair to tell you, Mr. Pindar, that I've got a union card in my pocket.
ASHER. You, Timothy Farrell's son!
TIMOTHY. What's that? And never a word to me!
BERT (to TIMOTHY). Why wouldn't I join the union? I took out the card this morning, when I see that that's the only way we'll get what's coming to us. We ain't got a chance against the, employers without the union.
TIMOTHY. God help me, to think my son would join the union,—and he going to be a soldier!
BERT (glancing at GEORGE). I guess there'll be other union men in the trenches besides me.
ASHER. Soldier or no soldier, I'll never employ any man again who's joined a union.
GEORGE (perturbed). Hold on, dad!
ASHER. I mean what I say, I don't care who he is.
BERT (who retains his self-possession). Excuse me, Mr. Pindar, but I'd like to ask you a question—I've heard the men talking about this in the shops. You don't like it if we go off to—fight, but if we join the union you fire us, no matter how short-handed you are.
ASHER. It's a principle with me,—I won't have any outside agency dictating to me.
BERT. But if it came to recognizing the union, or shutting down?
ASHER. I'd shut down tomorrow.
(GEORGE, who sees the point, makes a gesture as if about to interrupt.)
BERT. That's what I'm getting at, Mr. Pindar. You say you'd shut down for a principle, whether the government gets the machines or not. And the men say they'd join the union for a principle, whether the government gets the machines or not. It looks to me as if both was hindering the war for a principle, and the question is, which principle is it that agrees best with what we're fighting for?
ASHER. No man joins a union for a principle, but for extortion. I can't discuss it,—I won't!
BERT. I'm sorry, sir.
(He turns to go out, lower right.)
GEORGE (overtaking him and grasping his hand). So long, Bert. I'll look you up, over there!
BERT (gazing at him). All right, Mr. George.
GEORGE. Goodbye, Timothy. Don't worry about the boy.
TIMOTHY. It's proud I am to have him go. Mr. George,—but I can't think why he'd be joining the union, and never telling me.
(He stands for a moment troubled, glancing at ASHER, torn between loyalty to his employer and affection for his son. Then he goes out slowly, upper right. All the while DR. JONATHAN has stood in the rear of the room, occasionally glancing at GEORGE. He now comes forward, unobtrusively, yet withal impressively.)
ASHER. I never expected to hear such talk from a son of Timothy Farrell,—a boy I thought was level-headed. (To DR. JONATHAN) What do you think of that? You heard it.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, he stated the issue, Asher.
ASHER. The issue of what?
DR. JONATHAN. Of the new century.
GEORGE. The issue of the new century
ASHER. You're right, we've got to put these people down. After the war they'll come to heel,—we'll have a cheap labour market then.
DR. JONATHAN. Humanity has always been cheap, but we're spending it rather lavishly just now.
ASHER, You mean that there will be a scarcity of labour? And that they can continue to blackmail us into paying these outrageous wages?
DR. JONATHAN. When you pay a man wages, Asher, you own him,—until he is turned over to somebody else.
ASHER (puzzled, a little suspicious for the first time). I own his labour, of course.
DR. JONATHAN. Then you own his body, and his soul. Perhaps he resents being regarded as a commodity.
ASHER. What else is labour?
DR. JONATHAN. How would you like to be a commodity?
ASHER. I? I don't see what that has to do with it. These men have no consideration, no gratitude, after the way I've treated them.
DR. JONATHAN. Isn't that what they object to?
ASHER. What?
DR. JONATHAN. To being treated.
ASHER. Object to kindness?
DR. JONATHAN. To benevolence.
ASHER. Well, what's the difference?
DR. JONATHAN. The difference between self-respect and dependence.
ASHER. Are—are you a Socialist?
DR. JONATHAN. NO, I'm a scientist.
(ASHER is standing staring at him when the MAID enters, lower right.)
MAID. Your long distance call to Washington, sir.
ASHER. Very well.
(As he starts to go out he halts and looks at DR. JONATHAN again, and then abruptly leaves the room, lower right, following the MAID.)
GEORGE (who has been regarding DR. JONATHAN: after a moment's hesitation). You seem to think there's something to be said for the workman's attitude, Dr. Jonathan.
DR. JONATHAN. What is his attitude, George?
GEORGE. Well, you heard Bert just now. I thought he had poor old dad on the hip when he accused the employer of holding up the war, too. But after all, what labour is after is more money, isn't it? and they're taking advantage of a critical situation to get it. And when they get money, most of them blow it in on sprees.
DR. JONATHAN. George, what are you going to France to fight for?
GEORGE. Germany's insulted our flag, murdered our people on the high seas and wants to boss the world.
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). The issue, then, is human freedom.
GEORGE. Sure thing!
DR. JONATHAN. And you think every man and woman in this country is reasonably free?
GEORGE. Every man can rise if he has the ability.
DR. JONATHAN. What do you mean by rise?
GEORGE. He can make money, set up for himself and be his own boss.
DR. JONATHAN. In other words, he can become free.
GEORGE (grinning). I suppose that's one way of putting it.
DR. JONATHAN. Money gives him freedom, doesn't it? Money gave you yours,—to go to school and college until you were twenty four, and get an education,—such as it was.
GEORGE. Such as it was!
DR. JONATHAN. Money gave you the choice of engaging in an occupation in which you could take an interest and a pride, and enabled you occasionally to go on a spree, if you ever went on a spree, George.
GEORGE. Once in awhile.
DR. JONATHAN. But this craving for amusement, for excitement and adventure isn't peculiar to you and me. Workingmen have it too,—and working girls.
GEORGE. You're a wise guy, I guess.
DR. JONATHAN. Oh no,—not that! But I've found out that you and I are not so very different from Timothy Farrell and his children,—Bert and Jamesy and—Minnie.
GEORGE (startled, and looking around to follow DR. JONATHAN'S glance toward the windows). What do you know about them?
DR. JONATHAN. Oh, nothing at first hand. But I can see why Bert's going to the war, and why Jamesy took to drink, and why Minnie left Foxon Falls.
GEORGE. The deuce you can!
DR. JONATHAN. And so can you, George. When you get back from France you will know what you have been fighting for.
GEORGE. And what's that?
DR. JONATHAN. Economic freedom, without which political freedom is a farce. Industrial democracy.
GEORGE. Industrial democracy! Well, it wasn't included in my education at Harvard.
DR. JONATHAN. Our education begins, unfortunately, after we leaveHarvard,—with Bert and Jamesy and Minnie. And here's Minnie, now!
GEORGE (hastily). I'll beat it! Mother wants to talk to her.
DR. JONATHAN (his hand on GEORGE'S arm). No,—wait.
(Enter, lower right, AUGUSTA, followed by MINNIE FARRELL. MINNIE, AUGUSTA'S back being turned toward her, gives GEORGE a wink, which he acknowledges, and then glances toward DR. JONATHAN. AUGUSTA, with her knitting, seats herself in an armchair. Her attitude is somewhat inquisitorial; her tone, as she addresses MINNIE, non- committal. She is clearly offended by MINNIE'S poise and good- natured self-assertion.)
AUGUSTA. You remember Mr. Pindar, Minnie.
MINNIE (demurely). Glad to meet you again, Mr. Pindar. I hear you're going off to the war. Well, that's great.
GEORGE (squeezing her hand; she winces a little). Oh, yes,-I rememberMinnie.
AUGUSTA. And this is Dr. Jonathan Pindar.
MINNIE (who has been eyeing DR. JONATHAN as a possible enemy; with reserve). Glad to meet you, I'm sure.
DR. JONATHAN (smiling at her as he takes her hand). The pleasure is —mutual.
MINNIE (puzzled, but somewhat reassured). Glad to meet you.
DR. JONATHAN. I've come to live in Foxon Falls. I hope we'll be friends.
MINNIE. I hope so. I'm going back to Newcastle this afternoon, there's nothing doing here.
DR. JONATHAN. Would you stay, if there were something doing?
MINNIE. I—I don't know. What would I be doing here?
AUGUSTA (disapprovingly, surveying, MINNIE'S costume). I don't think I should have recognized you, Minnie.
MINNIE. City life agrees with me, Mrs. Pindar. But I needed a little rest cure, and I came to see what the village looked like.
DR. JONATHAN. A sort of sentimental journey, Minnie.
MINNIE (flashing a look at GEORGE, and another at DR. JONATHAN). Well, you might call it that. I get you.
AUGUSTA. Minnie, what church do you attend in Newcastle?
MINNIE. Well, I haven't got a seat in any particular church, Mrs.Pindar.
AUGUSTA. I didn't expect you to go to the expense of getting a seat. I hope you delivered the letter our minister gave you to the minister of the First Church in Newcastle.
MINNIE. No, I didn't, Mrs. Pindar, and that's the truth. I never went near a church.
AUGUSTA (drily). It's a pity you ever went to Newcastle, I think.
MINNIE. It's some town! Every time you ride into it you see a big sign, "Welcome to Newcastle, population one hundred and six thousand, and growing every day. Goodbye, and thank you!"
AUGUSTA (knitting). You drive about in automobiles!
MINNIE. Oh, sometimes I get a joy ride.
AUGUSTA. It grieves me to hear you talk in this way. I knew you were pleasure loving, I thought I saw certain tendencies in you, yet you seemed to realize the grace of religion when you were in my Bible class. Your brother Jamesy took to drink—
MINNIE. And I took to religion. You meant to be kind, Mrs. Pindar, and I thank you. But now I know why Jamesy took to drink—it was for the same reason I took to religion.
AUGUSTA (scandalized). Minnie!
MINNIE. We were both trying to be free, to escape.
AUGUSTA. To escape? From what?
MINNIE (with a gesture indicating futility). I guess it would be pretty hard to get it across to you, Mrs. Pindar. But I was working ten hours a day packing tools in your shops, and all you gave me when the whistle blew was—Jesus.
(A pause: GEORGE takes a step toward her.)
Jamesy took to drink, and I took to Jesus. I'm not saying anything against Him. He had His life, but I wanted mine. Maybe He would have understood.
(Turning impulsively toward DR. JONATHAN.)
I've got a hunch that you understand.
AUGUSTA. Minnie, I can't let you talk about religion in this way in my presence.
MINNIE. I'm sorry, Mrs. Pindar, I knew it wasn't no use to come and see you,—I told father so.
AUGUSTA. I suppose, if you're determined to continue this life of—(she catches herself) I can't stop you.
MINNIE (flaring up). What life? Don't worry about me, Mrs. Pindar,—I get twenty five dollars a week at the Shale Works making barb wire to trip up the Huns with,—enough to get nice clothes—(she glances down at her dress) and buy good food, and have a good time on the side.
AUGUSTA (whose conceptions of what she believes to be MINNIE's kind are completely upset). You still work?
MINNIE. Work! Sure I work. I wouldn't let any man get a strangle hold on me. And I don't kick at a little overtime, neither. I'm working for what he's going to fight for—(indicating GEORGE) it ain't for myself only, but for everybody that ain't been free, all over the world. (To DR. JONATHAN.) Ain't that right? (She does not wait for his nod of approval.) I was just saying this morning—(she looks toward GEORGE and catches herself)—I've been wishing all along I could do more—go as a nurse for some of the boys.
AUGUSTA. A nurse!
MINNIE (to DR. JONATHAN). If I was a man, I'd have been a doctor, like you. Sick people don't bother me, I give myself to 'em. Before mother died, when she was sick, she always said I'd ought to have been a nurse. (A pause.) Well, I guess I'll go along. The foreman only give me a couple of days off to see the old home town.
GEORGE. Hold on, Minnie.
MINNIE. What is it?
GEORGE (to AUGUSTA). Minnie and I are old friends, mother.
AUGUSTA. Old friends?
GEORGE. Yes. I knew her—very well before she went away from FoxonFalls, and I went to Newcastle and took her out for a drive in my car.
MINNIE (vehemently). No, you never.
GEORGE. Why do you deny it?
MINNIE. There's nothing to it.
AUGUSTA (aghast). George!
GEORGE. Well, it's true. I'm not ashamed of it, though Minnie appears to be.
MINNIE (on the verge of tears). If you wasn't ashamed, why didn't you tell, her before? I'm not ashamed of it, neither. It was natural.
AUGUSTA (after a pause, with a supreme effort to meet the situation). Well, I suppose men are different. But there's no excuse for you, after all I tried to do for you.
MINNIE. Thank God men are different!
(AUGUSTA rises. The ball of wool drops to the floor again, and DR.JONATHAN picks it up.)
GEORGE. Mother, I'd like to tell you about it. You don't understand.
AUGUSTA. I'm afraid I do understand, dear.
(As she leaves the room, with dignity, GEORGE glances appealingly atDR. JONATHAN.)
DR. JONATHAN (going up to MINNIE and taking her hand). Do you think you'd have time to drop in to see me, Minnie, before your train goes?
MINNIE (gazing at him; after a moment). Sure! I guess I'd like to talk to you.
DR. JONATHAN. It's the little white house across the Common.
MINNIE. Oh, I know, that's been shut up all these years.
DR. JONATHAN. And is open now again.
(He goes out, lower right, and there is a brief silence as the two look after him.)
MINNIE. Say, who is he?
GEORGE. Why, he's a cousin of mine—
MINNIE. I don't mean that. He's somebody, ain't he?