Owen Davis

“ NETTIE (to Emma)
Mother, don’t you think I’d better leave the room?
SADIE (angrily)
Not if half the stories I’ve heard about you are true, I don’t.
HENRY
Come, come, no rows! Is this a time or place for spite? We’ve always been a united family, we’ve [15] always got to be,—leavin’ Ben out, of course. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
ORIN
Mum! Say Mum! (He pulls at Sadie’s dress) Why should anybody want to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?
ELLA
Can’t you stop that boy askin’ such fool questions? ”

“ SADIE (to Ella)
You, all alone in the world!
ELLA
Maybe I won’t be, when I get that money.
SADIE
You don’t mean you’d get married?
EMMA
At your age!
ELLA
I mean I never had anything in all my life; now I’m going to. I’m the youngest of all of you, except Ben, and he never was a real Jordan. I’ve never had a [13] chance; I’ve been stuck here till I’m most forty, worse than if I was dead, fifty times worse! Now I’m going to buy things—everything I want—I don’t care what—I’ll buy it, even if it’s a man! Anything I want!
NETTIE
A man! ”

“ SADIE
What about you? Didn’t you tell me yourself you tried to borrow from her?
ELLA
I got a chance to set up in business, so as I can be independent. I can go in with Mary Stanton, dressmakin’. I can do it for two hundred dollars, and she’s got to give it to me.
HENRY
You ought to be ashamed, all three of you, worryin’ Jane all day long. It’s more’n flesh and blood can stand!
NETTIE (to him)
Didn’t you say at breakfast you was coming here to-day to make Cousin Jane endorse a note for you? Didn’t you?
EMMA (fiercely)
You hush!
BEN (at back by window)
Ha! Ha! Ha! Crow buzzards. ”

“ After a moment’s hesitation, Jane crosses and sits in the chair beside his, the evening shadows deepen around them but the glow from the fire lights their faces.
JANE
I’m lonesome to-night. We always made a lot of birthdays when I was a girl.
BEN
Some do.
JANE
Your mother didn’t. She found me once trying, the day I was fifteen. I remember how she laughed at me.
BEN
All the Jordans have got a sense of humor.
JANE
She wasn’t a Jordan, not until she married your father.
[85] BEN
When a woman marries into a family, she mostly shuts her eyes and jumps in all over. ”

“ BEN (crosses in front of table and sits left of table)
They ain’t worth a damn with you gone—I didn’t know that till just now, but they ain’t.
JANE
It’s sort of sudden, the way you found that out.
BEN
Oh, it don’t take long for a man to get hungry—it only takes just a minute for a man to die; you can burn down a barn quick enough, or do a murder; it’s just living and getting old that takes a lot of time—Can’t you stay here, Jane?
JANE
There’s Nettie.
BEN
Nettie—that couldn’t stand the gaff—that run out on me when I was in trouble.
JANE
It doesn’t matter what folks do, if you love ’em enough. ”

“ ELLA
I don’t know as a body could expect any better; his father was a Baptist!
SADIE (angrily)
His father was a good man, and if he talked about God different from what you do, it was because he knew more about him. And as for my being here at all— (she rises with her arms about Orin) —I wouldn’t do it, not for anything less than my own mother’s deathbed.
[16] HENRY
This family don’t ever agree on nothin’ but just to differ.
EMMA
As far as I see, the only time you ever get together is when one of you is dead.
ELLA
Maybe that’s the reason I got such a feelin’ against funerals. ”

“ ELLA
A cat can look at a king!
[She opens the box and holds up the blue dress.
NETTIE
Oh! Oh!
ELLA (really moved)
Some folks would say a dress like that wasn’t decent, but I wouldn’t care, not if it was mine, and it might have been mine—but for her.
NETTIE
Yours! Grandma wouldn’t have left her money to you. She hated old people. Everybody does. She’d have left it to me, but for Jane Crosby!
[80] ELLA (looks at dress)
I always wanted a dress like this; when I was young, I used to dream about one, but mother only laughed. For years I counted on gettin’ me what I wanted, when she died ”

“ Jane crosses into room, shutting the dining-room door after her.
JANE
You like animals, don’t you, Ben?
BEN (surprised)
I don’t know. I don’t like to see ’em suffer.
JANE
Why?
BEN
I guess it’s mostly because they ain’t to blame for it. I mean what comes to ’em ain’t their fault. If a woman thinks she’s sick, ’til she gets sick, that’s her business. If a man gets drunk, or eats like a hog, he’s got to pay for it, and he ought to. Animals live cleaner than we do anyhow—and when you do anything for ’em they’ve got gratitude. Folks haven’t.
JANE
Hand me that sewing basket, Ben. ”

“ BEN
Sure, why not?
NETTIE (crosses to him. Sweetly)
There ain’t any reason why we can’t be friends, is there?
BEN
Well, I don’t know. There’s only one way I could ever get to trust you.
[104] NETTIE
What way, Ben?
BEN
I’d have to go to jail for five years and see if you’d wait for me!
EMMA
It’s an awful thing for a mother to have a fool for a child.
ELLA (goes upstage with Nettie)
Well, I must say you made a nice mess of things!
NETTIE (exits with Ella)
Well, I don’t care! I don’t see how anybody would expect me to be a mind reader!
SADIE
Come, Orin—say good-by to your Uncle Ben. ”

“ She exits through doors to dining room and closes the doors after her. Ben sits in glow from the fire, his eyes closed. In a moment the door at right is thrown open and Nettie stands in the doorway, the light from the hall falling on her. She has on Jane’s blue dress and is radiant with youth and excitement. ”

“ JANE
You’ll work for once, and work every day. The first day you don’t I’ll surrender you to the judge, and he’ll jail you. The rest of the Jordans will live as I [41] tell them to live, or for the first time in any of their lives, they’ll live on what they earn. Don’t forget, Ben, that right now I’m the head of the family. ”

“ JANE
Of course he did.
BEN
Anyhow, he gave ’em the best of it, all right.
JANE
You don’t mean that! You can’t!
BEN
I do. Let a man get miserable, and he is miserable. A woman ain’t really happy no other way.
JANE
Maybe you think I’m having an easier time right now than you are.
[87] BEN
I know it.
JANE
They all hate me, and they all want something, all the time. I can’t say yes, and it’s hard to always say no. Then there’s the farm, big, and poor, and all worked out. The Jordans have been taking their living out of this soil for more than a hundred years, and never putting anything back. ”

“ HENRY
What could we do?
BEN
Go to work and earn something for yourselves.
SADIE
Like you do, I suppose.
EMMA
The laughing-stock of all Veazie!
ELLA
Everybody’s talkin’ about it, anywhere you go.
NETTIE
Jane Crosby’s White Slave, that’s what they call you. Jane Crosby’s White Slave.
BEN (fiercely)
They call me that, do they?
ELLA (to Nettie)
Why can’t you ever hold your tongue?
BEN (in cold anger)
I’ve been a damned fool. I’m through.
[Hannah enters.
HANNAH
She wants you.
BEN
Jane?
[54] HANNAH
Yes. ”

“ SADIE
I’ve been a wife and a mother.
DOCTOR
Hannah’s with her, you know. I told you I didn’t want anybody up there but Jane and Hannah.
ELLA
But we’re her own daughters.
[8] DOCTOR
You don’t have to tell me, I brought both of you into the world. The right nursing might pull her through, even now; nothing else can, and I’ve got the two women I want. (He crosses to Henry at stove) Why don’t you put a little wood on the fire?
HENRY
Why—I thought ’twas warm enough. ”

“ Ella and Sadie, true Jordans by birth, are a degree above Emma in social standing, at least they were until Henry’s marriage to Emma made her a somewhat resentful member of the family. In Emma’s dialogue and in her reactions, I have attempted a rather nice distinction between the two grades of rural middle-class folk; the younger characters here, as in most other communities, have advanced one step.
Rise: At rise there is a long silence; the occupants of the room are ill at ease. Emma is grim and frowning. ”

“ Henry Jordan, a heavy set man of fifty, worn by his business cares into a dull sort of hopeless resignation. Emma, his wife, a stout and rather formidable woman of forty, with a look of chronic displeasure; Nettie, her daughter by a former marriage, a vain and shallow little rustic beauty; Sadie, a thin, tight-lipped woman of forty, a widow and a gossip; Orin, her son, a pasty-faced boy [4] of ten with large spectacles; Ella, a “Maiden lady” of thirty-six, restless and dissatisfied. ”

“ NETTIE
Father wouldn’t have taken that hundred dollars grandma left me if there had been any justice in the world. That’s what I came here for, not to talk to him. To tell Cousin Jane what father did, and to tell her about Nellie Namlin’s Christmas party, and that I’ve got to have a new dress. I’ve just got to!
SADIE
A new dress, and my rent ain’t paid. She’s got to pay it. My Orin’s got to have a roof over his head.
[52] HENRY
I don’t know as you’ve got any call to be pestering Jane all the time.
ELLA
She’s always wantin’ something. ”

“ She exits right.
SADIE
Yes. No! Yes. No! Folks that ain’t got no more gift of gab ain’t got much gift of intellect. I s’pose Hannah’s out there.
ELLA
Yes, she keeps all of us just everlastingly at it.
SADIE
When Jane comes back, I wish you and Nettie would leave me alone with her, just for a minute.
ELLA (as she works over sewing machine)
It won’t do you much good; she won’t lend any more money.
SADIE
Mother always helped me. I’ve got a right to expect it. ”

“ ELLA
I don’t know as it was ever what I called a cheerful room.
HENRY (severely)
A parlor’s where a person’s supposed to sit and think of God, and you couldn’t expect it to be cheerful!
ELLA (looks about)
Seems like we’d had trouble and disgrace enough in this family without her takin’ all the slip covers off of the chairs and sofa!
EMMA
It ain’t right!
SADIE
That Boston woman that’s building the house over on Elm Street ain’t so much as goin’ to have a parlor. I stopped her right on the street and asked her what she was plannin’ to do soon as the first of ’em died. ”

“ JANE
There’s more than one blue dress in the world.
BEN
Like enough. Maybe there’s mor’n one family like that lady’s, but I’ll be damned if they live in Veazie. (He crosses and opens cupboard and selects a bottle) I might as well run out and see how the old mare is getting on. ”

“ SADIE
Well, as far as that goes, why should they? It never sounded reasonable to me.
HENRY (sternly)
Decent folks don’t reason about religion; they just accept it.
ORIN
You could make a skin purse out of a sow’s ear, but I’ll be darned if you could make a silk purse out of one. I’ll bet God couldn’t. ”

“ You got a bad name, Ben, and I ain’t a-goin’ to take any chances.
BEN
I thought I’d get to go to her funeral, anyway, before they got me.
JIM
Well, you could, maybe, if you was to fix a bail bond. You’d take bail for him, wouldn’t you, Judge?
JUDGE
It’s a felony; I’d have to have good security.
JANE
I’m a rich woman, you said just now. Could I give bail for him? ”

“ NETTIE
Everybody’s callin’ you the chaperon! (She laughs) Not but what they ought to be one with him around; he’s awful good lookin’.
SADIE
You keep away from him. He’s no blood kin of yours, and he’s a bad man, if he is a Jordan. Always makes up to everything he sees in petticoats, and always did.
NETTIE
Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not looking for any jailbirds.
ELLA
It will be awful, Ben in State’s Prison,—and I guess he’ll have to go, soon as he stands his trial.
SADIE
He got drunk and had a fight with the two Kimbal boys, and they licked him, and that night he burned down their barn ”

“ BEN
Beauty’s only skin deep.
JANE
Folks change, even in a few weeks, outside and in. Hard work don’t hurt anybody.
BEN
I got chilblains on my feet. The damned shoes are stiffer than they ever was.
[84] JANE
Icebound, you said. Maybe it don’t have to be like that. Sometimes, just lately, it’s seemed to me that if folks would try, things needn’t be so bad. All of ’em try, I mean, for themselves, and for everybody else.
BEN
If I was you, I’d go out somewheres and hire a hall.
JANE
If you’d put some pork fat on those shoes to-night, your feet wouldn’t hurt so bad. ”

“ JANE
Yes.
BEN
Everybody’s always makin’ a fuss over women and their babies. I guess animals have got some feelings, too.
JANE (sewing)
Yes.
BEN
I know it—Yes, sometimes I sort of wish I could be here, in the spring.
JANE
You’ll be a big help.
BEN
I’ll be in prison. (He looks at her. She drops her head and goes on sewing) You forgot that, didn’t yer?
JANE
Yes.
BEN
What’s the difference? A prison ain’t just a place; it’s bein’ somewheres you don’t want to be, and that’s where I’ve always been. ”

“ JANE
Yes.
BEN
Just a few folks together, day after day, and every little thing you don’t like about the other raspin’ on your nerves ’til it almost drives you crazy! Most folks quiet, because they’ve said all the things they’ve got to say a hundred times; other folks talkin’, talkin’, talkin’ about nothing. Sometimes somebody sort of laughs, and it scares you; seems like laughter needs the sun, same as flowers do. Icebound, that’s what we are all of us, inside and out. ”

“ BEN
It’s all right, it never meant nothin’ to her, and I guess it didn’t mean much to me. It’s just as well it’s over.
NETTIE
It’s a whole lot better.
HENRY
Well—what’s passed is passed. Folks that plant the wind reap the whirlwind! There’s no use cryin’ over spilled milk.
ORIN
Say, Mum! What do you s’pose Uncle Henry thinks he means when he says things? ”

“ JANE
You’ve got good in you, Ben, deep down, if you’d only try. (Ben turns) I know, it’s always been that way! You’ve never tried for long; you’ve never had a real ambition.
BEN
When I was a kid I wanted to spit farther than anybody.
JANE
Good-by.
[She starts up to door.
BEN
And so you’re going to break your word?
JANE (hurt—turns)
BEN
I don’t know what ’twas you promised mother, but you’ve broke your word. No man ever needed a woman more’n I need you, and you’re leaving me.
JANE
That isn’t fair.
[113] BEN
It’s true, ain’t it ”

“ She holds it up joyfully, then covering her own dress with it, she looks at herself in a mirror on wall. As she stands smiling at her reflection, there is a sharp knock on the outside door. Jane hastily returns dress to box and as the knock is repeated, she puts the box under the sofa at left and crosses and opens the outside door. ”

“ A sewing table and lamp at center. A sewing machine near window [43] at left. A wall cupboard on the wall right of the doors to the dining room. An old sofa down left, two chairs at right. When the door at left, in vestibule, is opened, one may see a path up to the door, between two walls of snow.
Discovered: Ella sits right at sewing machine, hemming some rough towels. Orin and Nettie are by fireplace. Sadie sits right of center. Sadie and Orin are dressed for outdoors. Nettie’s coat, hat and overshoes are on a hat-rack by door at left. ”