Icebound/Act 2
ACT TWO
Scene: Sitting room of the Jordan homestead some two months later.
This room also shows some traces of a family’s daily life, and to that extent is less desolate than the “parlor” of the first act, although the stern faith of the Puritan makes no concession to the thing we have learned to call “good taste.” The old-fashioned simplicity seen in such a room as this has resulted from poverty, both of mind and of purse, and has nothing akin to the simplicity of the artist; as a matter of fact, your true descendant of the settlers of 1605 would be the first to resent such an implication; to them the arts ere directly connected with heathen practices, and any incense burned before the altars of the Graces still smells to them of brimstone.
At back center folding doors, now partly open, lead to dining room. In. this room may be seen the dining table, back of the table a window looking out on to the farm yard, now deep in midwinter snow. At right is an open fireplace with a log fire. Below fireplace a door to hall. Up left door to small vestibule tn which is the outside door. Down left a window overlooking a snowbound countryside. The clock above the fireplace is set for quarter past four. Several straight-backed chairs and a woodbox by fireplaces. A sewing table and lamp at center. A sewing machine near window at left. A wall cupboard on the wall right of the doors to the dining room. An old sofa down left, two chairs at right. When the door at left, in vestibule, is opened, one may see a path up to the door, between two walls of snow.
Discovered: Ella sits right at sewing machine, hemming some rough towels. Orin and Nettie are by fireplace. Sadie sits right of center. Sadie and Orin are dressed for outdoors. Nettie’s coat, hat and overshoes are on a hat-rack by door at left. Orin, as the curtain goes up, is putting a log on the fire.
Why should n’t he put wood on the fire if he wants to?
Because it ain’t your wood.
No, it ’s hers! Everything is hers!
And maybe she just don’t know it.
Ah! (She bends closer to the fire as the log blazes up) I do love a good fire! Oh it ’s nice to be warm!
There ’s somethin’ sensual about it.
Mother told me that the next time you started talkin’ indecent I was to leave the room.
Tell your mother I don’t wonder she ’s sort of worried about you. I ’d be if you was my daughter.
I don’t see why you can’t let Nettie alone!
She ’s always picking on me, Aunt Ella! To hear her talk anybody would think I was terrible.
I know more about what ’s going on than some folks think I do.
Then you know a lot. I heard Horace Bevins say a week ago that he did n’t know as it was any use tryin’ to have a Masonic Lodge in the same town as you.
They never was a Bevins yet did n’t have his tongue hung from the middle; the day his mother was married she answered both the responses.
Mum! Mum! Shall I take my coat off; are we going to stay, Mum?
No, we ain’t going to stay. I just want to see Cousin Jane for a minute.
She ’s in the kitchen with Hannah.
Watchin’ her, I bet! I wonder Hannah puts up with it.
If you was to live with Jane for a spell, I guess you ’d find you had a plenty to put up with.
It ’s enough to make the Jordans turn in their graves, all of ’em at once.
I guess all she ’d say would be, “Let ’em if it seemed to make ’em any more comfortable.”
[Jane enters. She has apron on and some towels over her arm.
Are those towels finished?
Some is! Maybe I ’d done all of ’em if I ’d been a centipede.
Oh! I did n’t see you, Sadie.
Oh! Ha, ha! Well, I ain’t surprised.
Well, Orin, does the tooth still hurt you?
Naw, it don’t hurt me none now. I got it in a bottle.
[He takes small bottle from pocket.
Oh you nasty thing. You get away!
What did I tell you about showin’ that tooth to folks!
Never mind, Orin, just run out to the barn and tell your Uncle Ben we ’ve got to have a path cleared under the clothes-lines.
All right.
[He crosses toward door.
Hannah ’s going to wash to-morrow, tell him. I ’ll expect a good wide path.
I ’ll tell him.
[He exits.
I must say you keep Ben right at it, don’t you?
Yes. (She takes the last finished towel and speaks to Ella) I ’ll come back for more.
First I thought he ’d go to jail before he ’d work, but he did n’t, did he?
No.
[She exits right.
Yes. No! Yes. No! Folks that ain’t got no more gift of gab ain’t got much gift of intellect: I s ’pose Hannah ’s out there.
Yes, she keeps all of us just everlastingly at it.
When Jane comes back, I wish you and Nettie would leave me alone with her, just for a minute.
It won’t do you much good; she won’t lend any more Money.
Mother always helped me. I ’ve got a right to expect it.
Expectin’ ain’t gettin’.
I don’t know what I ’ll do.
You had money out of her; so has Henry.
sable (shocked, to Nettie) You don’t mean to say your father ’s been borrowin’ from her.
[This to Nettie.
He ’s always borrowin’. Did n’t he borrow the hundred dollars grandma left me? I ’m not going to stand it much longer.
Henry ’s havin’ trouble with his business.
We ’re fools to put up with it. Everybody says so. We ought to contest the will.
Everybody says so but the lawyers; they won’t none of ’em touch the case without they get money in advance.
How much money? Did n’t your father find out, Nettie?
The least was five hundred dollars.
Can you see us raisin’ that?
If we was short, we might borrow it from Jane.
We ’d have to be smarter ’n I see any signs of; she ’s through lendin’.
How do you know?
I tried it myself.
What do you want money for. Ain’t she takin’ you in to live with her?
I don’t call myself beholden for that. She had to have some one, with Ben here, and her unmarried, and next to no relation to him.
Everybody ’s callin’ you the chaperon! (She laughs) Not but what they ought to be one with him around; he ’s awful good lookin’.
You keep away from him. He ’s no blood kin of yours, and he ’s a bad man, if he is a Jordan. Always makes up to everything he sees in petticoats, and always did.
Thanks for the compliment, but I ’m not looking for any jailbirds.
It will be awful, Ben in State’s Prison,—and I guess he ’ll have to go, soon as he stands his trial.
He got drunk and had a fight with the two Kimbal boys, and they licked him, and that night he burned down their barn; everybody knows it.
He ’s bad, all through, Ben is.
He ’ll get about five years, father says. I guess that will take some of the spunk out of him.
[A sound in the hall at right.
Hush! I think he ’s coming.
[Ben enters at right with a big armful of firewood and crosses and drops it heavily into woodbox, then turns and looks at them in silence.
Seems kind of funny, your luggin’ in the wood.
Does it?
Did you see Orin out there?
Yes, he went along home.
How do you like workin’?
How do you think I like it? Workin’ a big farm in winter, tendin’ the stock and milking ten cows. How do I like it?
[As he stands by fire Nettie looks up at him.
I think it’s just a shame!
Are you going to make towels all the afternoon?
I am ’til they ’re done, then I expect she ’ll find somethin’ else for me to do.
Do you know I ’m sorry for you, awful sorry.
[She speaks low. Ella and Sadie are at the other side of room.
Then you ’re the only one.
Maybe I am, but I ’m like that.
Another month of it, then State’s Prison, I guess. I don’t know as I ’ll be sorry when the time comes.
Oh, Uncle Ben! No, I ’m not goin’ to call you that. After all, you ’re not really any relation, are you? I mean to me?
No.
I ’m just going to call you Ben!
You ’re a good kid, Nettie.
Oh, it isn ’t that, Ben, but it does just seem too awful.
[As she looks up at him, the outside door opens and Henry and Emma enter. They see Nettie and Ben together by the fire.
Nettie!
Yes, mother?
You come away from him.
What do you mean by that?
You tell him, Henry.
I don’t know as it ’s any use to———
Tell him what I mean.
Emma thinks, considerin’ everything, that it ’s best Nettie should n’t talk to you.
Why don’t you keep her at home then? You don’t suppose I want to talk to her.
Oh, we ain’t wanted here, I guess. We know that, not by you, or by her;—and Henry ’s the oldest of the Jordans. All this would be his, if there was any justice in the world.
Father would n’t have taken that hundred dollars grandma left me if there had been any justice in the world. That ’s what I came here for, not to talk to him. To tell Cousin Jane what father did, and to tell her about Nellie Namlin’s Christmas party, and that I ’ve got to have a new dress. I ’ve just got to!
A new dress, and my rent ain’t paid. She ’s got to pay it. My Orin ’s got to have a roof over his head.
I don’t know as you ’ve got any call to be pestering Jane all the time.
She ’s always wantin’ something.
What about you? Did n’t you tell me yourself you tried to borrow from her?
I got a chance to set up in business, so as I can be independent. I can go in with Mary Stanton, dress-makin’. I can do it for two hundred dollars, and she ’s got to give it to me.
You ought to be ashamed, all three of you, worryin’ Jane all day long. It ’s more ’n flesh and blood can stand!
Did n’t you say at breakfast you was coming here to-day to make Cousin Jane endorse a note for you? Did n’t you?
You hush!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Crow buzzards.
Endorsing a note ain’t lending money, is it? It ’s a matter of business. I guess my note ’s good.
Take it to the bank without her name on it and see how good it is.
You don’t think we want to ask her favors, but Henry ’s in bad trouble and she ’ll just have to help us this time.
There’ s one way out of your troubles. One thing you could all do, for a change, instead of making Jane pay all your bills. I wonder you have n’t any of you thought of it.
What could we do?
Go to work and earn something for yourselves.
Like you do, I suppose.
The laughing-stock of all Veazie!
Everybody ’s talkin’ about it, anywhere you go.
Jane Croshy’s White Slave, that ’s what they call you. Jane Crosby’s White Slave.
They call me that, do they?
Why can’t you ever hold your tongue?
I ’ve been a damned fool. I ’m through.
[Hannah enters.
She wants you,
Jane?
Yes.
I won’t come.
There ’ll be another row.
Tell her I said I would n’t come.
[He sits.
She ’s awful set, you know, when she wants anything.
You tell her I won’t come.
Well, I don’t say I hanker none to tell her, but I ’d rather be in my shoes than yourn.
[She exits.
Well, I must say I don’t blame you a mite.
If the Jordans is a lot of slaves, I guess it’ s pretty near time we knew it.
She ’ll turn you over to Judge Bradford, Ben; he ’ll lock you up. It ain’t goin’ to help me none with the bank, a brother of mine bein’ in jail.
So they ’re laughing at me, are they, damn them.
She ’s coming!
[There is a moment’s pause and Jane enters door right. Hannah follows to door and looks on eagerly.
I sent for you, Ben.
I won’t budge.
Must we go through all this again?
I ain’t going to move out of this chair to-day. You do what you damned please.
I am sorry, but you must.
Send for Jim Jay, have me locked up, do as you please. Oh, I ’ve said it before, but this time I mean it.
And you won’t come?
No.
Then I ’ll do the best I can alone.
[She crosses up to wall closet and opens it and selects a large bottle, and turns. Ben rises quickly.
What do you want of that?
It ’s one of the horses. I don’t know what ’s the matter with her. She ’s down in her stall, just breathing, She won’t pay any attention to me.
Old Nellie?
Yes.
What you got? (He steps to her and takes the bottle from her and looks at it) That stuff ’s no good. Here! (He steps to cabinet and selects another bottle) If you had n’t spent five minutes stalling around, I might have had a better chance.
[He exits quickly at left.
I allers said ’t was easier to catch flies with honey than ’t was with vinegar.
What ’s Ben know about horses?
A lot.
I did n’t know that.
Neither did Ben, six weeks ago.
[She exits.
Mother was like that, about animals. I guess Ben sort of takes after her.
Ben! Like your mother!
Of course he is. He ’s the “spit and image of her.”
[She exits.
She made him go! It would n’t surprise me a mite if she ’d pushed that old horse over herself.
[Jane enters.
He would n’t let me in the barn. (For the first time in the play, she laughs lightly) Well—(She looks about at them) we have quite a family gathering here this afternoon, I am wondering if there is any—special reason for it?
I wanted to talk with yer for just a minute, Jane.
So do I.
Anybody else?
[She looks about.
I do.
So do I.
I ’ve a lot to do; suppose I answer you all at once. I ’m sorry, but I won’t lend you any money.
Of course, I did n’t think they ’d call that note of mine; it ’s only five hundred, and you could just endorse it.
No!
I was going to ask you———
No!
I got a chance to be independent Jane, and——— No. I have n’t any money. I won’t have before the first of the month.
No money!
I bet you ’re worth as much to-day as you was the day mother died.
To a penny. I ’ve lived, and run this house, and half supported all of you on what I ’ve made the place earn. Yesterday I spent the first dollar that I did n’t have to spend. I mean, on myself. But that ’s no business of yours. I am worth just as much as the day I took the property, and I ’m not going to run behind, so you see, after all, I ’m a real Jordan.
Seems so. I never knew one of ’em yet who did n’t seem to think he could take it with him.
Well, Jane, I don’t know as it ’s any use tryin’ to get you to change your mind?
I ’m sorry.
You can leave that for us to be. I guess it ’s about the only thing we ’ve got a right to. Get your things on, Nettie!
I ’m going to stay a while with Aunt Ella; I won’t be late.
I don’t know what I ’m goin’ to do about that note. I s ’pose I ’ll find some way out of it.
I hope so.
Thank yer. Of course we know there ’s always the poorhouse. Come, Henry.
[She exits at left, leaving the outside door open.
Emma is a little upset, I hope you won’t mind her talk. I guess her part of it ain’t any too easy.
[He exits, shutting the door.
Poor Henry! Of course I s ’pose you ’re right not to lend it to him. But I don’t know as I could do it, but I ’m sensitive.
Perhaps it ’s harder to say no than you think.
[Hannah enters.
I got everything ready for to-morrow’s wash, but the sheets off your bed, Miss Ella.
Good Land! I forgot ’em. Nettie will bring ’em right down.
After that, I ’m going to stay and help Aunt Ella. I was wondering if you ’d be here all the afternoon.
Yes.
Nothing special, you know. I ’d just like to have a little visit with you.
[She exits at left with Ella.
Every time I listen to that girl I get fur on my tongue.
Fur?
Like when my dyspepsia ’s coming. There ’s two things I can’t abide, her and cucumbers.
[She crosses to door left.
Hannah!
Well?
We are going to have rather a special supper to-night.
We are?
Yes, That ’s why I had you roast that turkey yesterday.
That ’s for Sunday!
No, it ’s for to-night.
Why is it?
It ’s my birthday.
I did n’t know that.
No, it is n’t exactly a national holiday, but we ’ll have the turkey, and I ’ll get some preserves up, and I want you to bake a cake, a round one. We ’ll have candles on it. I got some at the store this morning.
Candles?
Yes.
Who ’s going to be to this party?
Why—just—just ourselves.
Just you and Mr. Ben and Miss Ella?
Yes.
You don’t want candles on that cake, you want crape on it.
[She exits door left.
[Jane crosses up and starts to clear the dining-room table of its red table cover, as Ben enters door left.
Well, I fixed Old Nellie up. (He puts his bottle back in its place in the wall cabinet) Just got her in time. Thought she was gone for a minute, but she ’s going to be all right.
That ’s good.
[She folds the tablecloth up and puts it away.
She knew what I was doin’ for her too; you could tell by the way she looked at me! She ’ll be all right, poor old critter. I remember her when she was a colt, year before I went to high school.
[Jane crosses into room, shutting the dining-room door after her.
You like animals, don’t you, Ben?
I don’t know. I don’t like to see ’em suffer.
Why?
I guess it ’s mostly because they ain’t to blame for it. I mean what comes to ’em ain’t their fault. If a woman thinks she’s sick, ’til she gets sick, that ’s her business. If a man gets drunk, or eats like a hog, he ’s got to pay for it, and he ought to. Animals live cleaner than we do anyhow—and when you do anything for ’em they ’ve got gratitude. Folks have n’t.
Hand me that sewing basket, Ben.
[She has seated herself at left center by table. Ben at left of table, hands her the basket as she picks up some sewing.
It ’s funny, but except for a dog or two, I don’t remember carin’ nothin’ for any of the live things, when I lived here I mean.
I guess that ’s because you did n’t do much for them.
I guess so—Sometimes I kind of think I ’d like to be here when spring comes—and see all the young critters coming into the world—I should think there ’d be a lot a feller could do, to make it easier for ’em.
Yes.
Everybody ’s always makin’ a fuss over women and their babies. I guess animals have got some feelings, too.
Yes.
I know it—Yes, sometimes I sort of wish I could be here, in the spring.
You ’ll be a big help.
I ’ll be in prison. (He looks at her. She drops her head and goes on sewing) You forgot that, did n’t yer?
Yes.
What ’s the difference? A prison ain’t just a place; it ’s bein’ somewheres you don’t want to be, and that ’s where I ’ve always been.
You liked the army?
I s ’pose so.
Why?
I don’t know, there was things to do, and you did ’em.
And some one to tell you what to do?
Maybe that ’s it, somebody that knew better ’n I did. It galled me at first, but pretty soon we got over in France, an’ I saw we was really doin’ something, then I did n’t mind. I just got to doin’ what I was told, and it worked out all right.
You liked France, too?
Yes.
I ’d like to hear you tell about it.
Maybe I ’ll go back there some time. I don’t know as I ’d mind farming a place over there. Most of their farms are awful little, but I don’t know but what I ’d like it.
Farming is farming. Why not try it here?
Look out there! (He points out of the window at the drifted snow) It ’s like that half the year, froze up, everything, most of all the people. Just a family by itself, maybe. Just a few folks, good an’ bad, month after month, with nothin’ to think about but just the mean little things, that really don’t amount to nothin’, but get to be bigger than all the world outside.
Somebody must do the farming, Ben.
Somebody like the Jordans, that ’s been doin’ it generation after generation. Well, look at us. I heard a feller, in a Y.M.C.A, hut, tellin’ how nature brought animals into the world, able to face what they had to face———
Yes, Ben?
That ’s what nature ’s done for us Jordans,—brought us into the world half froze before we was born. Brought us into the world mean, and hard, so ’s we could live the hard, mean life we have to live.
I don’t know, Ben, but what you could live it different.
They laugh over there, and sing, and God knows when I was there they did n’t have much to sing about. I was at a rest camp, near Nancy, after I got wounded. I told you about the French lady with all those children that I got billeted with.
Yes.
They used to sing, right at the table, and laugh! God! It brought a lump into my throat mor’n once, lookin’ at them, and rememberin’ the Jordans!
I guess there was n’t much laughing at your family table.
Summers nobody had much time for it, and winters,—well, I guess you know.
Yes.
Just a few folks together, day after day, and every little thing you don’t like about the other raspin’ on your nerves ’til it almost drives you crazy! Most folks quiet, because they ’ve said all the things they ’ve got to say a hundred times; other folks talkin’, talkin’, talkin’ about nothing. Sometimes somebody sort of laughs, and it scares you; seems like laughter needs the sun, same as flowers do. Icebound, that ’s what we are all of us, inside and out.
[He stands looking grimly out window.
Not all. I laughed a lot before I came here to live.
I remember, you were just a little girl.
I was fourteen. See if there ’s a spool of black sewing cotton in that drawer.
You mean thread?
Yes.
This it?
[He holds up a spool of white thread.
Would you call that black?
No—it ain’t black. (He searches and finds black thread) Maybe this is it!
Maybe it is! (She takes it) You were with that French family quite a while, were n’t you?
Most a month; they was well off, you know; I mean, they was, before the war. It was a nice house.
How nice?
I don’t know, things—well—useful, you know, but nice, not like this.
[He looks about.
It ’s not very pretty, but it could be. I could make it.
If you did, folks would be sayin’ you wasn’t respectable.
Tell me about the dinner they gave you the night before you went back to your company.
I told you.
Tell me again.
They was all dressed up, the whole family, and there I was with just my dirty old uniform.
Yes.
It was a fine dinner, but it wasn’t that. It was their doin’ so much for me, folks like that—I ’ve sort of pictured ’em lots of times since then.
Go on.
All of the young ones laughing and happy, and the mother too, laughing and tryin’ to talk to me, and neither one of us knowing much about what the other one was sayin’.
[He and Jane both laugh.
And the oldest daughter? The one that was most grown up?
She was scared of me somehow, but I don’t know as ever I ’ve seen a girl like her, before or since.
Maybe ’twas that dress you told me about; seems to me you don’t remember much else about her; not so much as what color her hair was, only just that that dress was blue.
Yes.
Sometimes you say dark blue!
[She is watching him closely through half-shut eyes.
I guess so.
And then I say, dark as something I point out to you, that isn’t dark at all, and you say, “No, lighter than that!”
Just—sort of blue.
Yes, sort of blue, It had lace on it, too, didn’t it?
Lace? Maybe—yes, lace.
There ’s more than one blue dress in the world.
Like enough. Maybe there ’s mor’n one family like that lady’s, but I ’ll be damned if they live in Veazie. (He crosses and opens cupboard and selects a bottle) I might as well run out and see how the old mare is getting on.
[He selects bottle from shelf.
And you’ve got to shovel those paths for the clothes lines yet.
I know.
Well, don’t forget.
It ain’t likely you’ll let me.
[He exits at door right. Jane laughs softly to herself, and runs to closet and takes out a large cardboard box and putting it on the table, she cuts the string and removes the wrapping paper, then lifts the cover of the box and draws out a dainty light-blue gown with soft lace on the neck and sleeves. She holds it up joyfully, then covering her own dress with it, she looks at herself tn a mirror on wall. As she stands smiling at her reflection, there is a sharp knock on the outside door. Jane hastily returns dress to box and as the knock is repeated, she puts the box under the sofa at left and crosses and opens the outside door.
Judge Bradford enters.
Oh, it’s you, Judge! Come in.
I thought I ’d stop on my way home and see how you were getting on, Jane.
I ’ll take your coat.
I ’ll just put it here. (He puts coat on chair) Have you time to sit down a minute?
Of course.
[They sit.
That is n’t a smile on your lips, is it, Jane?
Maybe———
I ’m glad I came!
It ’s my birthday.
Why, Jane! (He crosses to her and holds out his hand. She takes it) Many happy returns!
Many—happy returns—that ’s a lot to ask for.
You ’re about twenty-two, or twenty-three, are n’t you?
Twenty-three.
Time enough ahead of you. (His eye falls on the bow, imperfectly hidden under the sofa; out of it a bit of the blue dress is sticking) Hello! What ’s all that?
My birthday present.
Who gave it to you?
I did.
Good! It’s about time you started to blossom out.
I ordered a lot of things from Boston; they ’ll be here to-morrow.
I suppose that one ’s a dress?
Yes.
Light blue, is n’t it?
Just sort of blue—with lace on it.
Oh, you ’re going to wear it, I suppose, in honor of your birthday?
To-night—oh, no—soon maybe, but not to-night.
How soon?
Soon as I dare to; not just yet.
You have plenty of money; you ought to have every comfort in the world, and some of the luxuries.
Judge! I want you to do something for me.
And of course I ’ll do it.
I want you to get Ben off. I want you to fix it so he won't go to State’s Prison,
But if he ’s guilty, Jane?
I want you to go to old Mr. Kimbal for me and offer to pay him for that barn of his that Ben burned down. Then I want you to fix it so he won’t push the case, so ’s Ben gets off.
Do you know what you are asking of me?
To get Ben off.
To compound a felony.
Those are just words, Judge, and words don’t matter much to me. I might say I was n’t asking you to compound a felony. I was askin’ you to save a sinner, but those would be just words too. There ’s nobody else; you ’ve got to help me.
I ’ve always thought a lot could be done for Ben, by a good lawyer.
It does n’t matter how, so long as it ’s done.
He was drinking, with a crowd of young men; the two Kimbal boys jumped on him and beat him up rather badly. That ’s about all we know, aside from the fact that Ben was drunk, and that that night the Kimbals’ barn was set on fire.
Just so long as you can get him off, Judge.
I think a case of assault could be made against the Kimbal boys, and I think it would stand.
What of it?
It is quite possible that the old man, if he knew that action was to be taken against his sons, and if he could be tactfully assured of payment for his barn, say by Ben, in a year’s time, might be persuaded to petition to have the indictment against Ben withdrawn. In that event, I think the chances would be very much in Ben’s favor.
I don’t care what names you call it, so long as it ’s done. Will you fix it?
Well, it ’s not exactly a proper proceeding for a Judge of the Circuit Court.
I knew you ’d do it.
Yes, and I think you knew why, did n’t you?
Ever since she ’s died, you ‘ve helped me about everything. Before she died you were just as good to me, and nobody else was.
I am glad you said that, because it clears me from the charge of being what poor Ben calls “one of the crow buzzards,” and I don’t want you to think me that.
No, you ’re not that.
I love you, Jane.
No!
Yes—I ’ve done that for a long while. Don’t you think you could get used to the thought of being my wife?
No.
I think I could make you happy.
No.
I am afraid being happy is something you don’t know very much about.
No.
It is n’t a thing that I am going to hurry you over, my dear, but neither is it a thing that I am going to give up hoping for.
When you told me, that day, that Mrs. Jordan had left me all her money, I could n’t understand; then, afterwards, you gave me the letter she left for me. I want you to read it.
What has her letter to do with us?
Maybe, reading it, you ’ll get to know something you ’ve got a right to know, better than I could tell it to you.
Very well.
It ’s here. (She opens drawer, and selects a letter in a woman’s old-fashioned handwriting, from a large envelope of papers) She was a cold woman, Judge. She never let me get close to her, although I tried. She did n’t love me. I was as sure of it then as I am now. (She holds out the letter) Read it.
If it ’s about the thing I ’ve been speaking of, I ’d rather hear it in your voice.
“My dear Jane, the doctor tells me I have n’t long to live, and so I ’m doing this, the meanest thing I think I ’ve ever done to you. I ’m leaving you the Jordan money. Since my husband died, there has been just one person I could get to care about; that ’s Ben, who was my baby so long after all the others had forgotten how to love me, And Ben ’s a bad son, and a bad man. I can’t leave him the money; he ’d squander it, and the Jordans’ money came hard.”
Poor woman! It was a bitter thing for her to have to write like that.
“If squandering the money would bring him happiness, I ’d face all the Jordans in the other world and laugh at them, but I know there ’s only just one chance to save my boy,—through a woman who will hold out her heart to him and let him trample on it, as he has on mine.”
Jane!
“Who ’d work, and pray, and live for him, until as age comes on, and maybe he gets a little tired, he ’ll turn to her. And you ’re that woman, Jane; you ’ve loved him ever since you came to us. Although he does n’t even know it. The Jordan name is his, the money ’s yours, and maybe there ’ll be another life for you to guard. God knows it is n’t much I ’m leaving you, but you can’t refuse it, because you love him, and when he knows the money is yours, he will want to marry you. I ’m a wicked old woman. Maybe you ’ll learn to forgive me as time goes on—It takes a long time to make a Jordan.” (Jane drops her hand to her side) Then she just signed her name.
Is the damnable thing she says there true?
Yes, Judge.
And you ’re going to do this thing for her?
No, for him.
He is n’t worth it.
I guess you don’t understand.
No.
[He crosses and picks up his coat.
You can’t go like that, angry. You have to pay a price for being a good man, Judge—I need your help.
You mean he needs my help?
Yes, and you ’ll have to give it to him, if what you said a little while ago was true.
It was true, Jane. I ’ll help him.
[He picks up his hat.
I ’ve an errand at the store. I ’ll go with you.
[She takes hat and coat from rack and puts them on.
Is it anything I could have sent up for you?
I guess not. You see, I ’ve got to match a color.
Another new dress?
Just a ribbon, for my hair.
I did n’t know women still wore ribbons in their hair.
It seems they do—in France.
[They exit together at left to the outside door and off.
Nettie and Ella enter quickly, after a slight pause, Nettie running in from right, followed more sedately by Ella.
You see! I was right! She went with him.
[She has run to window left and is looking out.
That ’s what money does. If mother had n’t left her everything, he would n’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole.
Well, if she ’s fool enough to stay in this place, I guess he ’s about the best there is.
Then trust her for gettin’ him; by the time she gets through in Veazie, this town will be barer than Mother Hubbard’s cupboard by the time the dog got there. (Her eye falls on Jane’s box, partly under sofa.) What's that?
[She bends over, looking at it.
What?
I never saw it before. (She draws it out) Looks like a dress. See! Blue silk!
Open it.
Must be hers! Maybe she would n’t like it.
Maybe she would n’t know it.
A cat can look at a king!
[She opens the box and holds up the blue dress.
Oh! Oh!
Some folks would say a dress like that was n’t decent, but I would n’t care, not if it was mine, and it might have been mine—but for her.
Yours! Grandma would n’t have left her money to you. She hated old people. Everybody does. She ’d have left it to me, but for Jane Crosby!
I always wanted a dress like this; when I was young, I used to dream about one, but mother only laughed. For years I counted on gettin’ me what I wanted, when she died; now I never will.
I will—somehow!
Maybe but not me. Oh, if I could have the feelin’ of a dress like that on me, if I could wear it once, where folks could see me—Just once! Oh, I know how they ’d laugh—I would n’t care
I can’t stand it if she’s going to wear things like that.
I ’ll put it back.
[She starts to do so.
Not yet.
I guess the less we look at it, the better off we ’ll be.
[There is a ring at the front door.
Who ’s that?
Here! (She hands the box to Nettie) Shove it back under the sofa, I ’ll go and see. (She turns and crosses to door left and out to the vestibule. Nettie, with the box in her arms, hesitates for a moment then turns and exits at right, taking the box with her. Ella opens the outside door at left, showing Orin on the doorstep. Ella looks at him angrily) For time’s sake, what are you ringing the bell for?
Mum says for me not to act like I belonged here.
Well, I ’m goin’ to shut the door. Git in or git out!
I got a note. (He enters room as Elle shuts door) It ’s for her.
Let me see it.
Mum said not to let on I had nothin’ if you came nosin’ around.
[Jane enters from left.
I just ran across to the store. I have n’t been five minutes.
[She takes coat off.
He ’s got a note for you, from Sadie.
Oh, let me see it, Orin.
She said, if you said is they an answer, I was to say yes, they is.
Just a minute.
[She opens note and reads it.
I must say she did n’t lose much time.
Poor Sadie! Wait, Orin! (She sits at table and takes checkbook from the drawer and writes) Just take this to your mother.
You don’t mean you ’re goin’ to———
Be quiet, Ella. Here, Orin. (She hands him check) Don’t lose it, and run along.
ORIN All right. Mum said we was goin’ to have dinner early, and go to a movie! Good night.
Good night.
[Orin exits.
So you sent her her rent money, after all?
Here!
[She rises and hands a check to Ella.
What ’s that?
Two hundred dollars. You can try that dressmaking business if you want to, Ella.
[Looks at check.
Two hundred dollars!
You need n’t thank me.
That ain’t it. I was just wonderin’ what ’s come over you all of a sudden.
[Ben enters.
It ’s my birthday, that ’s all. Did you know it was my birthday, Ben?
Is it? I shoveled them damned paths!
[He crosses and sits by fire.
Ella ’s going into the dressmaking business, Ben.
What of it?
That ’s what I say. It ain’t much of a business.
[She exits at right; outside it grows to dusk.
Are you tired?
Maybe.
[He stretches his feet out toward fire.
You ’ve done a lot of work to-day.
And every day.
I don’t suppose you know how much good it ’s done you, how well you look!
Beauty ’s only skin deep.
Folks change, even in a few weeks, outside and in. Hard work don’t hurt anybody.
I got chilblains on my feet. The damned shoes are stiffer than they ever was.
Icebound, you said. Maybe it don’t have to be like that. Sometimes, just lately, it ’s seemed to me that if folks would try, things need n’t be so bad. All of ’em try, I mean, for themselves, and for everybody else.
If I was you, I ’d go out somewheres and hire a hall.
If you ’d put some pork fat on those shoes to-night, your feet would n’t hurt so bad.
Maybe.
[He sits looking moodily into the fire. After a moment’s hesitation, Jane crosses and sits in the chair beside his, the evening shadows deepen around them but the glow from the fire lights their faces.
I ’m lonesome to-night. We always made a lot of birthdays when I was a girl.
Some do.
Your mother did n’t. She found me once trying, the day I was fifteen. I remember how she laughed at me.
All the Jordans have got a sense of humor.
She was n’t a Jordan, not until she married your father.
When a woman marries into a family, she mostly shuts her eyes and jumps in all over.
Your mother was the best of the whole lot of you. Anyway, I think so.
I know it. I always thought a lot of her, in spite of our being relations.
She loved you, Ben.
She left me without a dollar, knowin’ I was going to State’s Prison, and what I ’d be by the time I get out.
Maybe some day you ’ll understand why she did it.
Because she thought you ’d take better care of the money than any of the rest of us,
And you hate me because of that, the way all the rest of the Jordans do?
Sometimes.
I suppose it’s natural.
But I ain’t such a fool as Henry, and the women folks. They think you took advantage and fooled her into what she did, I thought so at first, now I don’t.
What do you think now, Ben?
She ’d watched you; she knew you were worth mor’n all of us in a lump. I know it, too, but some way it riles me worse than if you was n’t.
That ’s silly!
Don’t you suppose I know what you ’ve been doin’ to me. Tryin’ to make a man of me. Tryin’ to help me. Standing up to me and fightin’ me every day, tryin’ to teach me to be decent. Workin’ over me like I was a baby, or somethin’, and you was tryin’ to teach me how to walk. Gettin’ me so upset that every time I don’t do what I ought to do, I get all het up inside; I never was so damned uncomfortable in all my life.
And I never was so happy.
I s ’pose God knew what he was about when he made women.
Of course he did.
Anyhow, he gave ’em the best of it, all right.
You don’t mean that! You can’t!
I do. Let s man get miserable, and he is miserable. A woman ain’t really happy no other way.
Maybe you think I ’m having an easier time right now than you are.
I know it.
They all hate me, and they all want something, all the time, I can’t say yes, and it ’s hard to always say no. Then there ’s the farm, big, and poor, and all worked out. The Jordans have been taking their living out of this soil for more than a hundred years, and never putting anything back.
Just themselves, that ’s all.
Worked right, like they do out West, this place could be what it ought to be. How can I do that; it needs a man.
I been thinkin’ lately things could be done a whole lot different.
By a man, if he loved the old place— You Jordans robbed this soil always. Suppose one of you tried to pay it back—it would mean work and money, for a couple of years maybe, then I guess you ’d see what gratitude meant.
It could be done; it ought to be.
By you, Ben!
No—I guess I ain’t got the judgment.
You ’ve got it, if you ’d learn to use it.
Anyhow, I ’ve got just a month, that ’s all.
Maybe you ’ll have more.
I ’m as good as convicted as I sit here. I ’ve only got a month.
Then help me for that month. We could plan how to start out in the spring. I ’ve got books that will help us, and I can get more. We could do a lot!
I don’t know but what we could!
Will you shake hands on it?
[She offers her hand.
What for?
Oh, just because we never have.
We ain’t goin’ to change everything, are we?
One thing. We ’re going to be friends.
You ’re a good sport, game as a man, gamer maybe.
And now for the surprise.
The what!
You ’ll see. I want you to sit right here, until I open those doors.
[She points to doors to dining room.
I was n’t thinkin’ of movin’.
Just sit right there.
And do what?
Think.
What of?
Oh, anything—so long as it ’s pleasant—of the spring that ’s coming———
In the prison down at Thomaston.
Of France then, of the family that was so good to you—of the beautiful lady—of the daughter, if you want to, the one that was most grown up—and of the wonderful blue dress. Just shut your eyes and think, ’til I come back!
[She exits through doors to dining room and closes the doors after her. Ben sits in glow from the fire, his eyes closed. In a moment the door at right is thrown open and Nettie stands in the doorway, the light from the hall falling on her. She has on Jane’s blue dress and is radiant with youth and excitement.
Ben! Look at me! Look, Ben!
What?
Look Ben:
[He looks at her and for a moment sits in stupid wonder, then rises slowly to his feet.
It ’s—It ’s Nettie!
Did you ever see anything so lovely, did you?
You ’re—you ’re a woman, Nettie!
Of course I am, you stupid!
God! How I’ve starved for somethin’ pretty to look at! God! How I ’ve starved for it!
That ’s why I came down, I wanted you to see! I waited there in the hall till she went out.
And you ’ve been here all the time, and I haven’t so much as looked at you!
You ’ve been in trouble, Ben!
I ’ll get out of that somehow! I ’m going to make a fight, I ain’t goin’ to let ’em take me now.
Honest, Ben?
Not now. Oh, you pretty kid! You pretty little thing!
[He catches her fiercely in his arms.
You must n’t, Ben!
Must n’t! You don’t know me!
Just one then! (She holds up her lips, and as he kisses her ardently, the dining-room doors back of them open and Jane stands in the doorway, looking at them. She has removed her apron and has made some poor attempt at dressing up. Back of her we see the table bravely spread for the festive birthday party. There is a large turkey and other special dishes, and a round cake on which blaze twenty-two tiny candles. They turn their heads, startled, as Jane looks at them, and Ben tightens his arms defiantly about Nettie) Let me go!
(Then to Jane) Why are you looking at me like that?
Let me go.
To hell with your dream of grubbing in the dirt. Now I know what I want, and I ’m going to get it.
Let go, dear. (She draws away) I ’m ashamed about wearin’ your dress, Cousin Jane, I ’ll take it right off.
You need n’t. I guess I don’t want it any more. (For the first time her eyes leave Ben’s face. She turns and steps past them to the door at right and calls) Supper ’s ready, Ella!
[Hannah enters at back in dining room with a plate of hot biscuits.
CURTAIN