by Dan Isaac
bram [wrathfully]: So that’s what you call me, an underground rat, for makin’ you a livin’ all these years. [Hester covers her face with her hands.] Whatsamatter with you anyhow? You been actin’ like you was out of your head the last two three days.
hester: Maybe I am outa my head. It wouldn’t be no wonder if I was. I got somethin’ here I didn’t tell you about. [She comes toward him.] Weighed on me like a rock ever since I got it. [She draws a letter from her blouse.]
bram: What’s that?
hester: It’s a letter.
bram [taking the letter and turning it curiously in his hands]: Hmm . . . that’s what it is. Who could it be frum you guess?
hester: I don’t know. But it’s got me scared outa my wits. Tim Adams give it to me Thursday mawnin’ at the store . . . I started to ask him to read it fer me. He said it come frum Pennsylvainy. But somethin’ stopped me. I dunno what. I didn’t have the heart to hear it read. Somethin’ told me that there was somethin’ wrong.
bram: John, huh?
hester [slowly]: Yes, John. He mought be up there. I dunno. Something mought’ve happened.
bram: Git Star to read it. She ought to be able to read by now.
hester: No, leave Star be.
bram: I’ll git her up. [He starts to the door.] She’ll read it an’ then you’ll have it off your mind.
hester: No, no. Leave her be. She just got in two hours ago. She needs her sleep . . . besides I don’t want to read it right now.
bram: Got in two hours ago! What dya mean by that? Where she been all that time?
hester: I toleja last night that Star was gone to Birmingham for the day.
bram: You told me nothin’ last night.
hester: Then it musta slipped my mind. That letter’s been all I kin think of since I got it.
bram [growing excited]: Where’s Star been? You tell me. How come she got in so late? Did she stay out all night?
hester: Don’t yell at me like that. Star’s been visitin’ in Birmin’ham with some rich girls she met there. They give her swell presents and take her out on parties and things.
bram: Rich girls, huh?
hester: They even promised they’d git her a job. Let her be, Bram let her be.
[Bram has gone into the bedroom and drags Star out by the wrists. She breaks away from him and runs across the room, where she stands sullenly defiant. She is a handsome, mature girl of about sixteen. She wears a red silk kimono.]
star [looking from one to the other]: What’s all this ’bout I’d liketa know. Draggin’ me outa bed like that. Who the holy hell do you think you are?
bram [fiercely]: Usin’ cuss words like any cheap floozie. There’s your daughter for you. There she is. Look at her will ya! Who give you that thing you got on! [Star says nothing but draws it tighter around her.] WHO GIVE IT TO YOU I SAID. [He grabs her arm and twists it.]
star: Leggo of me, damn you. It’s none of your business.
hester: Ain’t I toleja Bram it was girls in Birmingham, rich society people that give her them things?
bram: Don’t give me that stuff. Maybe I am an underground rat, but I still got sense enough in my head to know that it weren’t no Birmingham girls that give her them cathouse rags she’s got on. Who was it, huh? Who give you them things?
star: Leave me be. [She jerks away from him.] What did you ever give me that you should make such a fuss!
bram: The bread you eat, that’s what I give. Now I’ll give you something more if you want it. [He slaps her.] I’ll give you that!
star [gasping]: You can’t do that. You can’t pull stuff like that on me. You goddam ole fool you. I guess I gotta have friends all right.
bram: You gotta have friends have you.
star: Sure I have and places to go.
bram: Then go to them.
hester: Bram, you can’t do that. It’s craziness. [To Star.] Honey, you can’t listen to that man. He’s out of his head. [To Bram.] Yes, Bram you get to listen. Star ain’t done a thing wrong, I swear that she ain’t. Your own daughter, Bram, you know better than to think such a thing . . . [She gasps and covers her face.]
star [harshly]: Maybe he’s right. Yeah. Maybe it ain’t no rich girls that give me these things. What of it? I’m young. I want some fun out of life. I’ll tell you who took me to Birmingham. Jake Walland did . . . [Hester gasps as though struck.] It was him that bought me the hat and the shoes and the new pocketbook. Yeah, and he bought me this. He bought me everything that I brung home with me. What of it? We had a swell time. [She laughs wildly.] Sure we did, we had a swell time in Birmin’ham, me and Jake Walland did . . . and if you think that I’m sorry . . . .
hester [slowly, stunned]: No, no, it ain’t true.
bram: She went with Jack Walland! Did you hear? [He comes toward Star threateningly.] You went with that dirty skirt-chasing . . . .
hester: Bram!
bram: You let him . . . .
hester: Bram!
bram: Git outa here, you dirty little . . . .
star: Sure I’ll go. I got places to go all right. Places right here in this camp I can go.
hester: Star, don’t go. For God’s sake, Star don’t go. [To Bram.] You got to stop her, Bram. She can’t go off like this—to that man! [Star darts out the cabin door. Hester starts to follow her, then rushes to Bram and clutches her arm.] Stop her, Bram. She can’t go like that. Bring her back.
bram: No, let her go with him . . . I’m through.
[He goes out slowly and slams the door. Hester opens the door and stands there with her back to the audience. Joel, a small boy of about eleven, appears in the inner doorway.]
joel [frightened]: Mom, what’s the matter?
hester [turning slowly, dazed]: Nothing. Nothing, Joel. [Her eyes begin to focus on him.] Git dressed, Joel, and go on to school and study hard as you kin. Your mama’s not feeling good.
joel: Was something wrong in here just now? Look, Mama, you dropped something on the floor. [It is the letter. Joel hands it to his mother. She turns it dully in her hands.] What is it, Mama? Is it a letter? [Hester says nothing, but stands there dully.] Why dontcha turn the lamp out, Mama! It’s daylight now.
hester: Yes, the lamp, turn it out. And take the letter to school with you and git your teacher to read it and let you know what it says.
[Joel takes the letter from her hand. Extinguishes lamp and goes quietly into the inner room.]
hester [brooding to herself]: I think—John’s dead . . . .
[She picks up Star’s red silk belt and folds it slowly around her fingers.]
curtain
scene two
Scene: Bram’s cabin. Evening of the next day.
The schoolteacher, Miss Wallace, has just finished reading the letter to Hester and Bram. Bram sits stoically puffing his cob pipe in the chair by the stove. Miss Wallace sits in the armchair by the small lamp table. Hester paces distractedly about the room, touching things absently with her nervous hands. Joel crouches timidly on the floor in one corner. Miss Wallace is a youngish, fluttery person in a neat tailored suit and dark hat.
bram: Seems like she should been here before now. Said she was aleavin’ when she wrote the letter. How long did you keep it, Hester?
hester: Three days.
bram: Three days. It don’t take that long to come from Philadelphia. [He knocks his pipe on the stove and refills it from a leather pouch.] Read it over again, willya, Miss Wallace? Seems like I just couldn’t take it all in.
hester [in a choked voice]: I heard all I want. I don’t wanta hear no more of it. It goes through me like a knife, every word of it. [She walks blindly over to the table and places her hands on a large bunch of turnips and carrots, raises the knife to cut them, then lowers it slowly to the table and stands motionless, apparently forgetting what she had started to do.] Read it to Bram. I gotta get on with supper.
miss wallace: You want me to read the whole thing over again, Mr. Pilcher?
bram [clearing his throat]:
No, just read me that part about him going to work there in them Yankee coal mines. That’s what I can’t get straight in my head.
hester: John hated the coal mines. That was why he left home.
bram: Yeah, that was your doin’, Hester. You done your best to poison his mind against his own father’s occupation. But it was in his blood, you see, just like I toleja. In our family we been diggin’ coal fer hunerds o’ years. What I caint understand is why he wanted to work up there in them damn Yankee mines in Pennsylvainy. Why didn’t he come back down here where he belonged ’stead of workin’ up there where they got all them damn fool contraptions like machine loadin’ and things to kill people with.
hester: John’s dead. Don’t you understand, Bram. What difference does it make what mines he was workin’ in long as he’s dead anyhow?
bram: Just the same I wish you’d read it over agin, Miss Wallace. It don’t come straight in my head. That part about him quittin’ the job on the cattle boat and goin’ to work in the mines . . . .
miss wallace [reading]: “Of course, when John and me got married John had to quit his job on the boat . . .”
hester: It was her that made him quit. If she hadn’t married him he’d be living now.
miss wallace [continuing]: “. . . John tried getting jobs everywhere but work was so scarce and times was so bad. There was nothing he could do it seemed like but work in the coal mines and so that was what it come to, though me and John both hated mining . . . .”
hester: She hated mining, did she? What did it matter to her what my boy had to do. He was gone from home seven years, Miss Wallace, and we never got a word from him all that time. But just the same I was glad he was gone because I thought he was out of the coal mines. That was what I wanted for John, Miss Wallace, that was what I worked so hard for, to keep him out of the mines. There wasn’t no school here when John was a kid so he got no learnin’ at all. Couldn’t write his own name. Just like Bram. All he known how to do was dig coal. But I was dead set aginst him doing that. I give him all the money I’d saved to take him down to Mobile and buy him the few things he needed. And then he was gone, not a word did we hear from him all that time . . . but still I was glad he was gone ’cause I thought he was out of the mines. Now this here woman she writes me and tells me John’s dead. He was killed in the coal mines.
miss wallace: Oh, Mrs. Pilcher. I know how you feel.
bram: Don’t take on so, Hester, you’re gettin’ Miss Wallace all upset. I wanta hear the rest of it. I still can’t make it all out.
miss wallace: Where was I now? Oh yes . . . “John was ashamed you should know he’d gone back to the mines and that was the reason he never let me write you a letter about us getting married and all. We planned as soon as we got some money saved up we’d go into something else, maybe start a little business or buy a farm somewheres so John could work outdoors like he wanted to and the little boy could grow up to be strong . . . .”
hester: The little boy! John’s son!
bram: Yeah, John’s son. At least he’s got a boy, Hester. You got that to be thankful for.
hester: What did it say the boy’s name was?
bram: She said it was Luke.
miss wallace: Yes, Luke, a good old Biblical name. It means light.
hester: Light!
miss wallace: Yes, that’s what it means.
bram: Go on with the letter, Miss Wallace.
miss wallace [continuing to read the letter]: “But our plans, they never worked out somehow. The company stopped paying cash. Instead they paid us paper money called scrip that you couldn’t use anywhere but the company store so we had to buy everything there and prices went up so high it was all we could do to keep living, and then sometimes we couldn’t even get any scrip. We got behind on the rent and the company took all John’s pay ’cause the house we lived in was theirs. Everything was theirs, it all belonged to the company. And for weeks at a time the mines would be shut down and there wouldn’t be food in the house and the rent way behind till it got so we owed so much that we couldn’t ever catch up. And then this awful thing happened to John in the mines, he got caught on the tracks and the car . . . .”
hester [almost shrieking]: No, no, don’t read that part over. Excuse me, Miss Wallace, I just couldn’t stand to hear it.
bram: Well, it should be a lesson to these people that are always wantin’ new-fangled contraptions—what do they do? —they git killed on ’em, that’s all.
hester: Don’t Bram! Miss Wallace, excuse me for takin’ on like this.
miss wallace [dabbing her eyes]: I know how you feel, Mrs. Pilcher. I haven’t any children of my own, but believe me, I know how you feel.
hester: It’s that woman that done it all. Yes. She dragged my boy down in the mines to make her a living and she killed him down there.
bram: Now, Hester—
hester [fiercely]: Yes, she killed him, that’s what she’s done. Her and the mines together, they killed my boy and now she writes about him as if he’d been all her’n. It was me that give birth to him, wasn’t it? It was me that brung him up and worked and sweated over him—it was me, not her!
Oh, I know her kind. I can see it all just as plain as if it had happened right in front of my eyes. Her, the cheap, lazy kind that wears loud perfume and fancy clothes and lays around the house all day while my boy worked his poor life away down there in them dirty black holes!
bram: Don’t take on like that, Hester. She don’t sound like that kind of girl to me. You heard in the letter how they went hungry and the company shut the place down and all they had was this paper stuff called scrip.
hester: Oh, she didn’t hurt herself none, you can depend on that.
bram: I don’t see that she was to blame for what happened. John had it in his blood to dig out coal. He couldn’t do nothing else anyhow. So why was the girl to blame?
miss wallace: I think Mr. Pilcher’s right. The girl must’ve done the best she could, Mrs. Pilcher. You can tell that from the letter. She must have been simply crushed, poor thing!
hester: You needn’t feel sorry for her. I know her kind. They bleed the life from one man and then they go on to the next!
Excuse me, Miss Wallace, I just can’t seem to get quieted down inside . . . .
bram [clearing his throat]: Well, Hester—now that her and John’s boy are comin’ down here to live with us—
hester: She ain’t comin’ here—I tell you that flat.
bram: But she says she ain’t got no place else to take the boy, Hester.
hester: The boy can come—but not her.
bram: Her folks are dead.
miss wallace: Yes and she’s sick, poor girl.
bram: I reckon she ain’t got no place else to go.
miss wallace [fluttering]: Oh, I should think she should’ve arrived by now—I do hope nothing’s happened to the poor girl. I think it’s so unsafe for a woman to travel alone—unprotected—these days! Well, I— [She starts to get up.]
hester: She’s probably got herself a new man by now. That’s it. Lord knows what she’s done with John’s boy.
bram: I reckon they’ll git here sooner or later.
hester: We’ll take the boy, Bram, but not her. Not that woman. I just dare her to try to set her foot in this house!
miss wallace: Oh, dear, I—
hester: Besides, we got no room for her.
bram [slowly]: She kin have Star’s room.
hester [fiercely]: What’re you talking about? Star’s room!
bram: Star’s gone. She kin have Star’s room.
hester: Star’s coming back. She ain’t gone for good.
bram: Gone for good or for bad, I’ll tell you one thing. She ain’t never coming back here. She’s took up with that sonova—
hester: Bram!
bram: Excuse me, Miss Wallace. I forgot you was here. Anyhow, he kin keep her now. I’m through.
miss wallace [shocked]: I — I — I really think I’d better be tripping
along—the weather’s so uncertain—you know how it is, I—I have a slight cold in the chest— [She opens the outside door, wrapping woolen scarf about her chest. She steps outside, then darts back in with a frightened exclamation.] Oh, dear, there’s a—a disorderly couple out there on the street! I’d better wait till they pass— [Her mouth is agape.] The woman is so intoxicated she can hardly walk. Why it’s—oh, my stars, it’s Mr. Adams!
bram: He’s coming up here, I do believe!
miss wallace: Oh, Mr. Adams! You gave me such a fright! Oh, my dear, I—
adams: Good evenin’, Miss Wallace. [He appears in the doorway supporting Fern, who seems barely conscious.] Got a mighty sick young woman here. Come into my store just now and keeled right over at the counter. Sez she’s lookin’ for some folks name o’ Pilcher so I reckon it must be you. Was you expectin’ her Mizz Pilcher?
hester [after a long pause]: Well, I—
bram: Yes, we was expectin’ her.
adams: Come on in, young lady. Mighty nasty weather we been having lately. Ole Hetty, my sister, come down agin with the break-bone fever. Seems like ever fall she has a spell of it.
What become of the young man? Had a young man with us a moment ago. Oh, there you be, young feller, skulkin’ behind yer mummy’s skirt. Come on out here in the light where folks kin take a good look at yer—
hester [darting forward with a smothered cry]: John’s boy! It’s John’s little boy! The same eyes! [She snatches off his cap.] And the same hair! John’s hair used to curl like that every time it rained in a thousand or so little rings all over his head! He’s John all over again—I swan! [She turns.] Bram! Don’t stand there like a stick!
bram [stupidly]: What d’ya want me to do?
hester: What do I want him to do, what do I want him to do? I swan, you git more thick in the skull every day!! Bring their things in!
[Bram exits with Adams.]
hester [to the boy]: Come over here, honey, and set yourself down by the stove. You must be wet clean through. [To Fern.] I bet you ain’t got him a bite to eat all day, huh? I’ll fix you a cup of hot tea, that I will, and I’ll put you a spot of rum on it.
