She grows really angry It’s just as I said — you never wanted but one thing from me.
GEORGE
No, no. I don’t know how to explain. I don’t know what to say. I can’t help it, feeling as I do now.
LOUISE
Well, you can tell me who it is.
SETH RICHMOND’S head pops up over the woodpile and then disappears again GEORGE Suddenly Louise, why did you say you wanted to see me?
LOUISE
Getting an idea. She stands for a moment, looking sternly at
GEORGE
Suppose I told you — suppose you had to marry me.
GEORGE
Slumping. He’s terribly frightened Oh, Louise — no — no — don’t say it, Louise — Oh, Louise, I never intended — Louise — why’d you write me that note that day at the funeral — I don’t know what to say, Louise.
He suddenly becomes brave. He braces his shoulders All right — if it’s that — all right, Louise — I won’t go back on you. If it’s that, we’ll do it. We’ll get married.
GEORGE is still terribly upset, LOUISE looks at him a moment and then laughs
LOUISE
Oh, George — it’s all right. It ain’t that. I was only scaring you. You don’t have to have me. I can get all the men I want. I can get a better man than you are.
GEORGE
Immensely relieved. He turns to face LOUISE. His face is lighted with joy Louise — Louise!
LOUISE
Her voice suddenly softening George — tell me who you’re stuck on.
She keeps looking back over her shoulder as though expecting some one
GEORGE
Louise, I can’t. I can’t — it’s some one — she isn’t stuck on me. She won’t ever have me. I don’t think she cares anything about me.
She keeps looking offstage, right. Heavy footsteps are heard approaching but GEORGE does not notice LOUISE Softly Oh, George, I do.
She takes a step toward GEORGE and puts a hand on his shoulder, GEORGE doesn’t know what to do. SETH RICHMOND’S head pops up from behind the lumber pile.
Oh, George!
Suddenly she throws her arms around GEORGE’S neck and falls against him, clinging to him. GEORGE is beside himself with embarrassment. He takes hold of her arms and tries to pull them from about his neck. At this moment ED HANBY enters. He rushes upon the two people. He grabs LOUISE’S arm and jerks her away from GEORGE, ED turns to face GEORGE and LOUISE draws away. She laughs ED To GEORGE
Damn you, you smart aleck kid.... This is my girl you’re monkeying with, here. I’ve been waitin’ to catch somebody monkeyin’ with her. So you’re hanging around, trying to get gay with her.
Suddenly ED’S fist shoots out. He hits GEORGE and he goes sprawling GEORGE He is furious and begins to cry But I didn’t... I didn’t.
ED stands over GEORGE and when GEORGE gets to his feet, ED Knocks him down again It’s a damn lie...
He gets to his feet and rushes furiously at ED.
GEORGE is beside himself with anger now and each time he rushes ED, the bartender slings him aside. Finally ED Knocks GEORGE down. He lies still on the ground — knocked out ED Turning to LOUISE and advancing on her And you too! I told you! I want you, and I’m gonna get you! You can’t monkey with me!
He grabs LOUISE by the shoulder and shades her. With his big fist he slaps her and knocks her down, LOUISE is crying. She springs at ED HANBY and tries to bite and scratch him. She is helpless in his hands. He flings her to the ground and stands over her Are you going to, or ain’t you?
She lies still a moment and then a smile comes through her tears. She rises and suddenly grows tender, ED steps back and LOUISE goes to him, throwing her arms about his neck. He takes her rather gently into his arms. He looks over toward GEORGE, who is lying still on the ground He’ll be all right. I didn’t want to hit the kid, but I can’t have any monkey business about you any more.
He turns toward LOUISE and with his hand he turns her face up toward his Are you gonna behave?
LOUISE
Yes, Ed, I’ll behave.
ED
No more foolin’ around?
LOUISE
No, no more. —
ED
Well, we might as well get going. You’re mine now. I’m gonna marry you right away. I’m gonna go get the license. I’m gonna make a good woman of you — my woman... see!
LOUISE
Oh, Ed!
They stand for a moment embracing, LOUISE is very humble now. ED pisses her. He goes to GEORGE, who is lying on his face on the ground, and turns him over, GEORGE half sits up
ED
Oh, hell, you’re all right.
He goes away along the street, GEORGE sits up. He feels his eye which has begun to swell and a damaged place on his forehead. He puts his hand on his head. He looks at his hand. There is blood on it. He gets up slowly, and stares around. He is confused, angry and baffled, SETH RICHMOND comes out from behind the lumber pile
SETH
Why, George Willard, what happened?
GEORGE
Looking at SETH for a moment, becomes overcome with anger You — you — always you!
SETH
Why, George....
GEORGE
I’m getting onto you — you’re a sneak — I’ve been watching you. Once I thought you were my friend.
GEORGE gets furious A sneak — a damn sneak.
GEORGE rushes at SETH. SETH is frightened. He gets to his knees watching GEORGE, carefully. He suddenly jumps to his feet and runs away, GEORGE is standing, his legs apart, shading with fury Sneak! Don’t be a damn coward! Wait, I dare you! Come on! Stand up!
LOUISE is filled with delight. She is rocking with laughter as the curtain falls
CURTAIN
Between Scene 7 and Scene 8 and while the stage is dark BUN GRADY and his wife are heard still quarreling
BUN
Ella, Ella.
WOMAN’S VOICE Oh, shut up!
BUN
Ella, Ella, please come and look. I saw one of them cats.
WOMAN’S VOICE
If you don’t get back to work, Bun Grady, I’ll cat you.
BUN
Oh, Ella, Ella.
SCENE VIII
TIME: — LATER same evening ELIZABETH WILLARD’S bedroom in the new WILLARD house. It is also very simply furnished. There is a table with three chairs at the right front, and at the left front at backstage a table on which sits a work basket with ELIZABETH WILLARD’S sewing, scissors, etc. There is a hatrack backstage, center, on which hang a coat and hat. There are three chairs about the table, backstage left and ELIZABETH is seated in one of these chairs, a rocker, in front of the hatrack while DOCTOR REEFY sits in the chair between the table, right front, and the audience. He sits facing ELIZABETH. There is a small black medicine case, sitting on the floor, left rear
REEFY
Elizabeth, you ought to get out of this town. You ought to leave here. Winter will be coming again, soon now, and all winter again you’ll be tied up here in this room.
He looks about the room It’s been your prison, hasn’t it? I don’t see, Elizabeth, why you shouldn’t have it in your mind — something to look forward to — you could go away somewhere to the south, you and George.
He laughs a little self-consciously The boy — well, I daresay George isn’t a wonder — but he’s a good boy. Why couldn’t you two leave this place together?
ELIZABETH
Shrugging her shoulders Oh, Doctor, even if we had the money to do that — to tie the boy up to me — to a sick woman — to hang myself onto him —
REEFY
You’ve already spoken to me of something — do you remember — that day in my office —
He points offstage, right It’s there, isn’t it?
ELIZABETH
Smiling, but turning her head quickly Careful — careful. Do you mind looking out into the hallway? REEFY steps offstage to the left rear It’s happened — before — I me
an people — overhearing — things.
REEFY
From offstage You mean?
ELIZABETH
Yes, I mean that. Come back here a minute, Doctor Reefy.
REEFY comes back and goes to the chair where he was near ELIZABETH. There is a sound from the alleyway. A bottle breads with a crash against a brick wall
VOICE Angrily God damn that cat!
ELIZABETH
Laughing bitterly There must — have been a thousand — bottles — thrown — at — cats out there in the alleyway.
REEFY
Yes, I hear it from my office window. Poor man. He always misses.
ELIZABETH
Looks at the doctor and speaks half tenderly It’s odd that I’ve never called you anything but Doctor Reefy, have I? For a long time now you’ve been calling me Elizabeth.
She turns again to look, she looks toward the audience That man out there — poor man. It’s the man they call Bun Grady. You know him, don’t you — he’s a baker?
She looks again at REEFY and speaks meditatingly I knew a woman once — when I was a young girl — a Mrs. Walker. The Walkers used to live out on Trunion Pike, in a big old house. I think Gord Snavely lives out there now. I used to drive out there as a girl to bring milk for the hotel here. It wasn’t anything, only — they always seemed so happy together — Mr. and Mrs. Walker. And yet — do you know, Doctor Reefy, I don’t believe, from the time they married until she died — an old woman — she ever called him anything but Mr. Walker.
Speaking softly People, people — I wonder why I wasn’t born a man. To go about — to be with all kinds of people — to look into people’s lives...
REEFY
I know — it’s what I love, too....
ELIZABETH
Mr. and Mrs. Walker — I used to think — to wonder. I’m a sick woman — I can say anything to you — my doctor.
REEFY
Yes, of course.
ELIZABETH
Do you suppose, Doctor Reefy — you know — at night — when they were in bed together — the moment of love — he holding her — she holding him — tightly. Do you suppose then — at the great moment — would she say to him — oh, you know —
She laughs almost gaily Kiss me — kiss me hard, Mr. Walter.
REEFY
He laughs Elizabeth! Elizabeth!
ELIZABETH
Mockingly Doctor Reefy! Doctor Reefy!
Her mood changes. She becomes serious You know, Doctor Reefy, my husband is always blaming my son for his interest, his absorption, in people. I guess George gets it from me. I’ve been sick like this for a long time, now, often confined here in this room. I sit here by the window...
She becomes excited That man — that poor little baker — Bun Grady — you know him, a small fat man....
REEFY
Yes, I know him — God, yes!
ELIZABETH
I can hear his voice and his wife’s voice — sometimes in the night in my dreams! Always I hear it. Talking, quarreling, fighting, in the room at the back of the bakery. She’s always scolding. He’s afraid of her. She’s got him. Don’t you suppose, Doctor Reefy, that they ever draw close, living like that? She always scolds. They haven’t any child — is that the reason?
REEFY
No — that isn’t the reason — if you look too much at one side of small-town life it frightens you.
ELIZABETH
I dare say her life has proved a disappointment. She takes it out on him. I hear her voice in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. God! It goes on and on. Now it has got into my dreams. Never a day passes but she is at him — always scolding! I sit here watching and listening. It isn’t that I want to pry into their lives. Doctor Reefy — how many lives are like that?
REEFY
Reaching over and taking her hand Enough of them, God knows.
ELIZABETH
The poor man, so angry all the time. He’d like to hurt his wife — to kill her. She scolds and scolds. She never stops. When he gets angry at her she begins to cry. So he takes it out on the cats. The alleyway is full of them. Listen, Doctor Reefy — look!
ELIZABETH is staring straight ahead of her, past DOCTOR REEFY and toward the audience, DOCTOR REEFY turns and also stares Look — there in the light from the door.
Again there is a crash of glass against a brick wall VOICE From offstage God damn — almost got him that time.
REEFY and ELIZABETH both shudder a little. They look at each other
ELIZABETH
You know, there are times when I sit here — I’ve been half ill like this for ten years now — sometimes — you’ll laugh at me — I sit here and pray. I so want the poor man to have, at last, some day, before I die — his moment of triumph — the satisfaction of killing, or hurting one of those cats.
REEFY
Leaving ELIZABETH, begins walking up and down the room Elizabeth! It makes me furious!
ELIZABETH
Why? What?
REEFY
You should have broken it long ago. I remember when I first knew you. You were so young looking — so lovely. You were actually doing the chambermaid work in this miserable little hotel.... Why — why?
ELIZABETH
I don’t know. I suppose on account of the boy.
She shrugs her shoulders as though dismissing the subject Tom came here to be a clerk. He was the second man who — the other was a man who came here — Tom knew — he couldn’t help knowing. Let’s not speak of it any more. I married Tom and then the boy came.
REEFY
If George knew this — the boy’s all right — if he knew — if I told him....
He turns and points offstage, right It’s in there, isn’t it — he wouldn’t stand for you not having it — not using it. He wouldn’t stand for your saving it for him — not for a minute.
ELIZABETH
She becomes excited Doctor Reefy.
REEFY
Yes, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH
Commanding Go to that door and look out into the hall. Listen.
REEFY runs nervously offstage, left, and immediately reappears What a fool I’ve been! Why didn’t I think of this before? Every time I’ve left this room I’ve been afraid. Take your knife. There is a hole. It is covered with paper. Do you feel a hole?
REEFY
From offstage, right Yes.
ELIZABETH
Cut out the paper.
There is the sound of footsteps in the hall. Some one tries the door and then knocks. REEFY comes onstage with a little package in his hand
ELIZABETH Intensely excited.
Quick! Quick! Put it in your pocket! Wait! Don’t go away. Stay here. I have to talk to you. I have to tell you something. Come in.
GEORGE WILLARD Enters from left. When ELIZABETH sees him she slumps back limply into her chair. GEORGE is quite badly banged up from his fight with HANBY. He has a black-and-blue eye and a place on his forehead, where the skin has been knocked off. He is very much embarrassed and comes into the room and looks about shyly
GEORGE
Hello, mother, — Oh, hello, Doctor Reefy.
REEFY
Why, hello, George.
He walks to GEORGE, puts his hand up and examines the bruised eye What’s this? What hit you, George? Did you bump into a door? Well, anyway, it’s one you can be proud of, it’s a darby.
ELIZABETH
Come here, George. Let me see. Kneel down here.
GEORGE goes awkwardly and shyly across the room to his mother, but does not kneel. Crosses to sit in chair near little table
GEORGE
Aw, it’s nothin’!
ELIZABETH
Poor boy! — What happened?
GEORGE
Looking from one to the other of the two people, his feet shuffling about Well, — it wasn’t any door knob and there wasn’t any horse kicked me either. It was a man’s fist. Ed Hanby did it.
ELIZABETH
Ed
Hanby?
GEORGE
Well, you see, Mother. I don’t exactly know what it was all about myself — I guess it was about a girl.
REEFY
The field of honor, eh?
GEORGE
It was about Louise Trunion.
ELIZABETH
Louise Trunion?
GEORGE
She said she wanted to see me — so I went out there tonight, to her house — Then Ed Hanby came and beat me up.
ELIZABETH
But why, why should he do that?
GEORGE
Well — I guess Ed’s stuck on Louise. I guess she wanted to make him jealous. I got it figured out that way now, but I didn’t have it figured out then. She told me to come out, she wanted to see me, and like a fool I went. Now the whole town will give me the laugh.
He is squirming with embarrassment I’d hardly got out there before Ed came and wanted to know what I was doing. Then Louise, just to make him sore, I guess, pretended she was stuck on me. She put her arms around my neck, when he was right there looking, and she kissed me too; but anyway, I didn’t run. He hit me, but I tackled him.
REEFY
Didn’t I say the field of honor? — Well, anyway, I’m glad you tackled him. It was a little like Old Windpeter Winters tackling the railroad locomotive, wasn’t it, George?
They all laugh a little, GEORGE moves toward the exit, left
GEORGE
Mother, I just came in — are you feeling pretty well today?
ELIZABETH
Yes, I’m all right, George. Doctor, should he have anything on his eye?
REEFY
No, he’ll be all right.
GEORGE
I gotta go now.... Good night.
He exits
ELIZABETH
Good night, son.
REEFY
Good night, George.
ELIZABETH
Quickly to
REEFY
About the money, Doctor Reefy — you keep it for George. I’ve got a strange feeling that I won’t last long now. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.
REEFY
Elizabeth, for Heaven’s sake, woman, be sensible. This money...
There is a sound of footsteps offstage, left, REEFY stands at attention, listening TOM WILLARD’S voice — offstage
Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson Page 309
