Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 30

SMITH: Yes, seems all right.

(SILAS _stands in the doorway and looks off at the hill_.)

GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas?

SILAS: After I get a little gla.s.s of wine--to celebrate Felix and me being here instead of farther south--I'd like to tell you what I want for the hill. (_to_ FEJEVARY _rather bashfully_) I've been wanting to tell you.

FEJEVARY: I want to know.

SILAS: (_getting the wine from the closet_) Just a little something to show our grat.i.tude with.

(_Goes off right for gla.s.ses_.)

GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the hill--while they're anxious.

FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it.

GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him something.

Silas has worked--all the days of his life.

FEJEVARY: I know.

GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. (_rather to herself_) Know too well to think about it.

GRANDMOTHER: (_as_ SILAS _returns_) I'll get more cookies.

SILAS: I'll get them, mother.

GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her own cookies.

SILAS: (_seeing how hard it is for her_) I wish mother would let us do things for her.

FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's a great thing for us to have her,--this touch with the life behind us.

SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you--who can see those things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I hadn't had what you've seen.

FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be generous.

SILAS: I'm not generous. _I'm_ seeing something now. Something about you. I've been thinking of it a good deal lately--it's got something to do with--with the hill. I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these years to have a family like yours next place to. They did something pretty nice for the corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary.

Funny--how things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins don't end. It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own country--and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to do--

FEJEVARY: No.

SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off.

FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country.

SILAS: (_brusquely_) Where's your left arm--may I be so bold as to inquire? Though your left arm's nothing alongside--what can't be measured.

FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man--it seems to me my life has failed.

SILAS: (_raising his gla.s.s_) Well, if your life's failed--I like failure.

(GRANDMOTHER MORTON _returns with her cookies_.)

GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds--Mr Fejevary. These have seeds in 'em.

FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first.

SILAS: Mother, you'll have a gla.s.s of wine?

GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine.

SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it.

GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to war.

FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's cold.

(FEJEVARY _brings it to her, and the cookies_) The Indians used to like cookies. I was talking to that young whippersnapper about the Indians.

One time I saw an Indian watching me from a bush, (_points_) Right out there. I was never afraid of Indians when you could see the whole of 'em--but when you could see nothin' but their bright eyes--movin'

through leaves--I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there an hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, Red or White, a man's a man--I'll take him some cookies.

FEJEVARY: It succeeded?

GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy.

SILAS: Probably we killed him.

GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was ma.s.sacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians.

SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us.

GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is.

SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to school--

GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters you went to school.

SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so.

But I knew it was so! But I mean school--the way Mr Fejevary went to school. He went to universities. In his own countries--in other countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest things men have thought since first they began to think--all that was put before them.

FEJEVARY: (_with a gentle smile_) I fear I left a good deal of it untouched.

SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes something of men--learning. A house that's full of books makes a different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just to show off.

GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house.