Part 2

It's all--other side _to_.

MRS PETERS: Somebody--wrung--its--neck.

(_Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are heard outside_. MRS HALE _slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. Enter_ SHERIFF _and_ COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS _rises_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries_) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?

MRS PETERS: We think she was going to--knot it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (_seeing the birdcage_) Has the bird flown?

MRS HALE: (_putting more quilt pieces over the box_) We think the--cat got it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_preoccupied_) Is there a cat?

(MRS HALE _glances in a quick covert way at_ MRS PETERS.)

MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_to_ SHERIFF PETERS, _continuing an interrupted conversation_) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. (_they start upstairs_) It would have to have been someone who knew just the--

(MRS PETERS _sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can not help saying it_.)

MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box.

MRS PETERS: (_in a whisper_) When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get there--(_covers her face an instant_) If they hadn't held me back I would have--(_catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, falters weakly_)--hurt him.

MRS HALE: (_with a slow look around her_) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around, (_pause_) No, Wright wouldn't like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.

MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don't know who killed the bird.

MRS HALE: I knew John Wright.

MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out of him.

MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him.

(_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.)

MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't _know_.

MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, after the bird was still.

MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old, and me with no other then--

MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking for the evidence?

MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale.

MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?

MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on.

MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know whether it was broke or not.

MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My, it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_!

(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.)

MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it--

(_The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door_.)

HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, (_to the_ SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better.

SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in?

(_The_ LAWYER _goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out. (_Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back_) No, Mrs Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters?

MRS PETERS: Not--just that way.

SHERIFF: (_chuckling_) Married to the law. (_moves toward the other room_) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_scoffingly_) Oh, windows!

SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale.

(HALE _goes outside. The_ SHERIFF _follows the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _into the other room. Then_ MRS HALE _rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at_ MRS PETERS, _whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting_ MRS HALE_'s. A moment_ MRS HALE _holds her, then her own eyes point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly_ MRS PETERS _throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other room_. MRS HALE _snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ SHERIFF.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_facetiously_) Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies?

MRS HALE: (_her hand against her pocket_) We call it--knot it, Mr Henderson.

(CURTAIN)

THE OUTSIDE

First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre, December 28, 1917.

CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station)

BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)

TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)

MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)

ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)

SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff beach grass--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to them._

CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys.

BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we picked him up.

CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him back. I'll go on awhile.

(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to relax, and come into the room._)

BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_) Work,--tryin to put life in the dead.

CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?

BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.

CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?

(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._)

BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore.

TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch.

BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_ CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_. Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot (_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. (_more genially_) I wouldn't.

CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?

BRADFORD: I never saw him before.

CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore there.

BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY, _boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead, Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.

BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_) This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony?

TONY: I never was here before.

BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh! 'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_) Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the winter. She's a cheerful one.

TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing. Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other things.

BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once, but--

(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she is excited and angry_.)

MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself!

CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving station when the sea had sent a man to it.

MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't 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._)