Plays
want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to
myself!
CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind
there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in
this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any
chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own
the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me!
MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself.
CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman!
(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_
CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from
the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives
on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a
part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this
conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things
which grow in unfavoring places_.)
MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must--
(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.)
BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too
kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want
folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save
a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I
call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where
the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly
thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on
the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess.
(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the
room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands
a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.)
BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no.
It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed
shut_) Want me now, Capt'n?
CAPTAIN: No.
BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.
CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I
don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.
(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between
the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.)
BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful
place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This
Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks
over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe
Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was
goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard
them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach,
eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was
goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk
notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't
move.
TONY: I see no bright colors.
BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I
guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery
store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New
York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm
going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he
deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a
buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across
the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said,
but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died,
and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry
for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean
folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had
men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she
wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say
an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I
said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.'
Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so
well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty
years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always
talkative.
(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there
beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.)
CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was.
BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea.
CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get
right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more
friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_)
Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here.
BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now.
(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE
MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down
the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward
it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.)
MRS PATRICK: They've gone?
(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.)
MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_)
Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just
because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself!
(_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big
door toward the dunes_.)
ALLIE MAYO: Wait.
(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if
overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.)
ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more.
(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That
boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her
chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in
labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For
twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the
way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at
something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start,
as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_)
Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard.
He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two
years we'd been married.
(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._)
The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days
after he was gone.
I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to
write till on the way home. (_a wait_)
Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard.
(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk
as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my
talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear
_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman
who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I
got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've
not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in
telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught
Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS
PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the
only woman in the world whose husband is dead!
MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_.
ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh.
(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has
fallen to the floor and steps outside._)
ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait.
MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you
didn't say an unnecessary word!
ALLIE MAYO: I don't.
MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into
things you know nothing about!
(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the
door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is
doing._)
ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you
know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that.
(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will
grow. Let it grow.
(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and
starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._)
ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if
she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line
of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the
woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They
fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!
(_Pointing to the closed door_.)
MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in
there!
ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose.
MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of
buried trees!
ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the
sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over
the buried trees.
MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out
farthest.
ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath,
tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest!
MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!
ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood
that guards a town.
MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the
outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore
where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die
here have named it that.
ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here
(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him.
But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it
to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The
Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe.
MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life.
ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's
shore to a harbor.
MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her
hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills
of sand that move and cover.
ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown.
Provincetown--where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever
see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of
them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back!
(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the
dunes_.
MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things
not worth a name.
(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.)
ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside!
(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.)
MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.)
They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like
shapes of blown sand.
ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more
personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given
up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what
holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are
true beside the things you want to see.