Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 7

At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than beautiful.

It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a little way up the gla.s.s. You might see the form of a cross in it, if you happened to think it that way. The leaves of this vine are not the form that leaves have been. They are at once repellent and significant_.

ANTHONY _is at work preparing soil--mixing, sifting. As the wind tries the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods as if rea.s.sured and returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He starts to answer the telephone, remembers something, halts and listens sharply. It does not buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times_ ANTHONY _is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, to which_ ANTHONY _longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up_.

ANTHONY _goes on preparing soil.

A moment later the gla.s.s door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and also_ MR HARRY ARCHER, _wrapped in a rug._)

ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir.

HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (_he holds it open to say this_)

ANTHONY: But please _do_. This stormy air is not good for the plants.

HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you mean, Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you?

ANTHONY: Miss Claire--Mrs Archer told me not to.

HARRY: Told you not to answer me?

ANTHONY: Not you especially--n.o.body but her.

HARRY: Well, I like her nerve--and yours.

ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once long and--Well, she buzzes her way, and all other buzzing--

HARRY: May buzz.

ANTHONY: (_nodding gravely_) She thought it would be better for the flowers.

HARRY: I am not a flower--true, but I too need a little attention--and a little heat. Will you please tell me why the house is frigid?

ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, (_patiently explaining it to_ MISS CLAIRE's _speechless husband_) You see the roses need a great deal of heat.

HARRY: (_reading the thermometer_) The roses have seventy-three I have forty-five.

ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three.

HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage!

ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid for the heating plant--but as long as it is defective--Why, Miss Claire would never have done what she has if she hadn't looked out for her plants in just such ways as this. Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about to flower?

HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?--that's what I want to know.

ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the heat turned off from the house.

HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance.

ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (_fervently_) I do. Harm was near, and that woke her up.

HARRY: And what about the harm to--(_tapping his chest_) Do roses get pneumonia?

ANTHONY: Oh, yes--yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look at Miss Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses?

HARRY: (_pulling the rug around him, preparing for the blizzard_) She has the fire within.

ANTHONY: (_delighted_) Now isn't that true! How well you said it. (_with a glare for this appreciation_, HARRY _opens the door. It blows away from him_) Please do close the door!

HARRY: (_furiously_) You think it is the aim of my life to hold it open?

ANTHONY: (_getting hold of it_) Growing things need an even temperature, (_while saying this he gets the man out into the snow_)

(ANTHONY _consults the thermometer, not as pleased this time as he was before. He then looks minutely at two of the plants--one is a rose, the other a flower without a name because it has not long enough been a flower. Peers into the hearts of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf, takes two paper bags, puts one over each of these flowers, closing them down at the bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also_ HATTIE, _a maid with a basket_.)

ANTHONY: What do you mean--blowing in here like this? Mrs Archer has ordered--

HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (_she uncovers the basket and takes out an electric toaster_)

ANTHONY: _Breakfast_--here? _Eat_--here? Where plants grow?

HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (_at a loss to know what to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange vine at the back, whose leaves lift up against the gla.s.s which has frost leaves on the outer side_)

ANTHONY: (_s.n.a.t.c.hing it away_) You--you think you can cook eggs under the Edge Vine?

HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I guess my work's as important as yours.

ANTHONY: There's a million people like you--and like Mr Archer. In all the world there is only one Edge Vine.

HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', anyhow.

ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's the Edge Vine.

HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody says so.

ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so.

HATTIE: No, because she's--

ANTHONY: You talk too much!

(_Door opens, admitting_ HARRY; _after looking around for the best place to eat breakfast, moves a box of earth from the table_.)

HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie?

(_They bring it to the open s.p.a.ce and he and_ HATTIE _arrange breakfast things_, HATTIE _with triumphant glances at the distressed_ ANTHONY)

ANTHONY: (_deciding he must act_) Mr Archer, this is not the place to eat breakfast!

HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place to eat breakfast. (_to_ HATTIE) Tell the other gentlemen--I heard Mr Demming up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he appears, that as long as it is such a pleasant morning, we're having breakfast outside. To the conservatory for coffee.