Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 44

FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers.

MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to be deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he fought?

FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so sorry this thing happened. It will get them into the courts--and I don't think they have money to fight.

MADELINE: (_giving it clean and straight_) Gee, I think that's rotten!

FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one way or the other.

MADELINE: (_she has taken her seat again, is thinking it out_) I'm twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first birthday I get that money Grandfather Morton left me?

FEJEVARY: What are you driving at?

MADELINE: (_simply_) They can have my money.

FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What _are_ these people to you?

MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say about ourselves. Well, I'm going to pretend--just for fun--that the things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll--arrange so I can get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine.

FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my years of trustees.h.i.+p! If you could know how I've nursed that little legacy along--until now it is--(_breaking off in anger_) I shall not permit you to destroy yourself!

MADELINE: (_quietly_) I don't see how you can keep me from 'destroying myself'.

FEJEVARY: (_looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In genuine amazement, and hurt_) Why--but it's incredible. Have I--has my house--been nothing to you all these years?

MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't have been--very gay for me--without you all--though Horace gets my goat!

FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel--'get your goat'?

MADELINE: I love auntie. (_rather resentfully_) You know that. What has that got to do with it?

FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife his college.

MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly.

FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about what I'm trying to do--this appropriation that would a.s.sure our future. If Silas Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with revolutionists, Morton College will get no help from the state. Do you know enough about what you are doing to a.s.sume this responsibility?

MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If it's true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get justice--

FEJEVARY: I didn't say it!

MADELINE: Why, you did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's true that these strangers in our country are going to be abused because they're poor,--what else could I do with my money and not feel like a skunk?

FEJEVARY: (_trying a different tack, laughing_) Oh, you're a romantic girl, Madeline--skunk and all. Rather nice, at that. But the thing is perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. You speak as if you had millions. And if you did, it wouldn't matter, not really. You are going against the spirit of this country; with or without money, that can't be done. Take a man like Professor Holden. He's radical in his sympathies--but does he run out and club the police?

MADELINE: (_in a smouldering way_) I thought America was a democracy.

FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy.

MADELINE: Well, is that any reason for not having it?

FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about the war--about America--when you consider where your brother is.

MADELINE: Fred had--all kinds of reasons for going to France. He wanted a trip. (_answering his exclamation_) Why, he _said_ so. Heavens, Fred didn't make speeches about himself. Wanted to see Paris--poor kid, he never did see Paris. Wanted to be with a lot of fellows--knock the Kaiser's block off--end war, get a French girl. It was all mixed up--the way things are. But Fred was a pretty decent sort. I'll say so. He had such kind, honest eyes. (_this has somehow said itself; her own eyes close and what her shut eyes see makes feeling hot_) One thing I do know! Fred never went over the top and out to back up the argument you're making now!

FEJEVARY: (_stiffly_) Very well, I will discontinue the argument I'm making now. I've been trying to save you from--pretty serious things.

The regret of having stood in the way of Morton College--(_his voice falling_) the horror of having driven your father insane.

MADELINE: _What?_

FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was talking with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him relates back to the pioneer life--another price paid for this country. The lives back of him were too hard. Your great-grandmother Morton--the first white woman in this region--she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore too much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the task. But it--left a scar.

MADELINE: And father is that--(_can hardly say it_)--scar. (_fighting the idea_) But Grandfather Morton was not like that.

FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust with feeling for others. (_gently_) But Holden feels your father is the--dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates on corn--excludes all else--as if unable to free himself from their old battle with the earth.

MADELINE: (_almost crying_) I think it's pretty terrible to--wish all that on poor father.

FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. It's just one other way of paying the price for his country. We needn't get it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go to your father in his--heritage of loneliness.

MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been--dwarfed. Mother wouldn't have cared for him if he had always been--like that.

FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no endurance for losing it. Too much had been endured just before life got to him.

MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix--I'm afraid that's true? (_he nods_) Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things near--the--the too much--the too hard,--feel them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's different--easier--he can't come into the world that's been earned. Oh, I wish I could help him!

(_As they sit there together, now for the first time really together, there is a shrill shout of derision from outside_.)

MADELINE: What's that? (_a whistled call_) Horace! That's Horace's call.

That's for his gang. Are they going to start something now that will get Atma in jail?

FEJEVARY: More likely he's trying to start something. (_they are both listening intently_) I don't think our boys will stand much more.

(_A scoffing whoop_. MADELINE _springs to the window; he reaches it ahead and holds it_.)

FEJEVARY: This window stays closed.

(_She starts to go away, he takes hold of her_.)

MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here?

FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline--plain, straight truth. If you go out there and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it right for you.

MADELINE: You needn't!

FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not child's play--not today. You could get twenty years in prison for things you'll say if you rush out there now. (_she laughs_) You laugh because you're ignorant. Do you know that in America today there are women in our prisons for saying no more than you've said here to me!

MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!