Plays
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 glass_) 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 glass 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
massacred 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.
SILAS: (_trying hard to see it_) It's not the learning itself--it's the
life that grows up from learning. Learning's like soil. Like--like
fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel more. You believe that?
FEJEVARY: Culture should do it.
SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the other
fellow more'n we do.
GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop an' your
water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, tend your own
horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for whoever the Lord
sends--there's none too many hours of the day left to be polite in.
SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that we buy
our soap--we don't want to say what soap-making made us.
GRANDMOTHER: We're honest.
SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems to me,
goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty with the
Indians was little to brag on.
GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else does.
SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed.
GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the government. And
what a government does is nothing for a person to be ashamed of.
SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is _he_ here? Why is Felix Fejevary
not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was ashamed of what his
government was.
GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government.
SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person--_a bein'_ that other
person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould do something for _you_.
'Twould 'a' done something for us to have _been_ Indians a little more.
My father used to talk about Blackhawk--they was friends. I saw
Blackhawk once--when I was a boy. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. You
know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the earth. Noble.
Noble like the forests--and the Mississippi--and the stars. His face was
long and thin and you could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful.
Looked like something that's never been caught. He was something many
nights in his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself
has got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians.
GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think you was
plum crazy.
SILAS: I s'pose they would, (_turning to_ FEJEVARY) But after you've
walked a long time over the earth--and you all alone, didn't you ever
feel something coming up from it that's like thought?
FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But--I wish I had.
SILAS: I love land--this land. I suppose that's why I never have the
feeling that I own it.
GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it--I want to know! What do you think we
come here for--your father and me? What do you think we left our folks
for--left the world of white folks--schools and stores and doctors, and
set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse.
Lost our way--weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in
that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what
_that's_ like--without your own roof--or fire--without--
(_She turns her face away._)
SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now--now isn't this too bad? I
don't say things right. It's because I never went to school.
GRANDMOTHER: (_her face shielded_) You went to school two winters.
SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did.
GRANDMOTHER: (_with the determination of one who will not have her own
pain looked at_) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well this summer?
FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with the new
purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to see them.
GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it was pretty
fine-sounding speeches they had in town?
FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war.
SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never mentioned
war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (_hearing a step, looking
out_) Mother, here's Felix.
(FELIX, _a well-dressed young man, comes in_.)
GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix?
FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton?
GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here.
FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you weren't.
GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em out, so you
wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on the cookie jar.
FELIX: Where is John?
SILAS: (_who is pouring a glass of wine for_ FELIX) You've not seen John
yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those young devils ran off
to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' round. But everybody'll be
home some time. Mary and the girls--don't ask me where they are. They'll
drive old Bess all over the country before they drive her to the bam.
Your father and I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him.
FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it all over
again?
SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want to talk
about what's to come, about--what 'twas all for. Great things are to
come, Felix. And before you are through.
FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself--walking around the town
to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that means more
growing--that big glucose plant going up down the river, the new lumber
mill--all that means many more people.
FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works.
SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields--a big rich
place--that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the land and the
way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard College, Felix.
Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix coming home from that
wonderful place!
FELIX: You make it seem wonderful.
SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful--know it so well you don't have to
say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's wonderful the way the
stars are wonderful--this place where all that the world has learned is
to be drawn from me--like a spring.
FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says--a distinguished new
English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has been thought and said
in the world'.
SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' (_slowly
rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to his feet_)
That's what that hill is for! (_pointing_) Don't you see it? End of our
trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. Plant a college, so's after
we are gone that college says for us, says in people learning has made
more: 'That is why we took this land.'
GRANDMOTHER: (_incredulous_) You mean, Silas, you're going to _give the
hill away_?
SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail--how could we keep that?
GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level--land's land
and not a thing you give away.
SILAS: Well, don't scold _me_. I'm not giving it away. It's giving
itself away, get down to it.
GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded.
SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in
what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (_to_
FEJEVARY, _humorously_) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave
it to me.