against you, or grandmother. Quite the contrary. I was just anxious
that Jhansi should have a little respect for our family. It didn’t seem
to have a leg to stand on.
JHANSI
So you made it up--out of whole cloth?
PEYTON
No, not out of whole cloth.
GRANDMOTHER
Out of what cloth, then? Kindly tell me, out of what cloth?
MRS. ROOT
Peyton is not himself.
PEYTON
Well, it just came into my head that it was possible. You see,
grandmother, your having moved--I do wish you could see that I meant
nothing against your character. Absolutely the contrary. But your
having _moved_--
GRANDMOTHER
My having moved where?
PEYTON
Your having moved from New York State to Ohio at just that time--
GRANDMOTHER
I always did like to travel. Is that anything against a person’s
character?
PEYTON
I was claiming that you _had_ character.
GRANDMOTHER
I’ll stick to my own, thank you. I’ve had it quite a while and am used
to it. But I’d like to know right now what there is so immoral in
moving from one state to another--even if you are going to have a baby?
JHANSI
[_Raising her head._] There is nothing immoral in anything.
GRANDMOTHER
Fiddlesticks. [_BESSIE hands her the folio._] You found it, Bessie? The
key? Here, Peyton; come here. [_Opens portfolio, takes out a rolled
paper._] Happily preserved for this defense of my character in my old
age, is my wedding certificate.
MRS. BYRD
This is painful.
[_With ostentatious tact she turns and looks at a print on the rear
wall; motions SENATOR BYRD to join her._
GRANDMOTHER
I want you to look at the date--right there beside that pink
cupid--cherub, perhaps it is--anyway, read aloud the figures you see.
PEYTON
[_Sullenly._] 1869.
GRANDMOTHER
And here, in this other document, very fortunately at hand to meet the
attacks of my only grandson upon my integrity, what do you read there?
PEYTON
Clara--aged six weeks.
GRANDMOTHER
And the date?
[_MRS. ROOT, BESSIE, UNCLE GEORGE, all listen a little anxiously._
PEYTON
December, 1871.
[_A sigh of relief._
GRANDMOTHER
I trust now, Peyton, you will admit that a woman may move from one
state to another without being dissolute.
[_At this word MRS. ROOT is unable to bear more and hides her face in
her handkerchief._
UNCLE GEORGE
[_As one saving the situation._] Genealogy is interesting.
One is democratic, of course, but when there is behind
one what there is behind us, Senator, it enhances one’s
powers--responsibility--obligation. [_He has taken up the book and been
running through the pages._] Descendants of John Peyton. Here, Peyton,
are some things about your ancestors. Read them. Perhaps then instead
of tearing down you will have an impulse to build up. I commend this
book to you young people for study. It will do you no harm to think a
little of those worthy men from whom you come.
[_Marks the place with a card and gives the book to PEYTON._
JHANSI
[_Springing up._] I shall waste no time thinking of the worthy men from
whom I come! If I am related to a law-maker--I owe it to my soul to
become a law-breaker!
MRS. ROOT
You see, Bessie, what you have done.
JHANSI
When I thought there was in me no taint of civilization, I could put up
with your silly conventions, but if in a material sense I am part of
your society, then I have a spiritual obligation to fulfil in leaving
it! Peyton, respectability threatens to wall us in and stifle us. Are
you ready to walk from this house with me tonight, entering upon a free
union that says that--[_A snap of the finger_] for law?
PEYTON
Why--certainly.
MRS. BYRD
_Well_, if it comes to a matter of not caring to claim relationship,
_we_ certainly hesitated some time. Those Harrisons were not all they
should be.
JHANSI
[_A note of hope in her voice._] No?
MRS. BYRD
I said to Senator Byrd, now that the girl is marrying into one of the
best families in the state--not that that influenced us especially, but
I said, if she is trying to make something of herself, we must stand by
her, and we will mention only pleasant things. We will not allude to
what her grandfather did!
JHANSI
What did he do?
SENATOR BYRD
He burned down his neighbor’s house because that neighbor chased home
his pigs.
JHANSI
_Really?_ Yes!--my grandfather would do that!
PEYTON
Were any of the family found in the charred remains?
SENATOR BYRD
The family, I believe, escaped.
MRS. BYRD
But no thanks to old man Harrison.
JHANSI
No!--I’m sure grandfather _meant_ them to burn. [_Seizing book._] I
wonder if grandfather’s protest is recorded in this book!
MRS. BYRD
That book does not emphasize unfortunate occurrences.
MRS. ROOT
And how right it is! One should think only of the _good_ in human
nature.
PEYTON
[_Looking with JHANSI._] What is this fine print at the bottom of the
page?
MRS. BYRD
[_Hastily._] That is not important.
SENATOR BYRD
It is in fine print because it is not important.
PEYTON
One of the descendants of Peter Byrd. [_To JHANSI._] The leg at Bull
Run, you know. He--
MRS. ROOT
Peyton, remember that you are in your own house.
PEYTON
“Unfaithful to the high office of treasurer of the Baxter County
Cemetery Association.”
JHANSI
[_Gasping, then beaming._] Why--why!--a _grave_ robber! Was he a _near_
relative?
MRS. BYRD
I must say, Miss Root, that we did not come here to have our family
inquired into as far back as ancient history!
MRS. ROOT
No, Mrs. Byrd, I quite agree with you that it is not necessary to go
too far back in any family.
GRANDMOTHER
Neither necessary nor desirable.
BESSIE
Those early days must have been very trying.
PEYTON
Jhansi! The fine print of your family is _thrilling_. Here is a man--
MRS. ROOT
Peyton, stop reading from that tiresome and obsolete book. It is not
hospitable.
MRS. BYRD
Turn to your own family history and read a little fine print in it!
[_The other members of the PEYTON-ROOT family give each other
startled, nervous glances._
PEYTON
Why what a lovely idea. Uncle has marked it for us. [_After looking._]
Fine print in our family?
MRS. BYRD
It’s there.
BESSIE
Genealogy is so confusing. I never could understand it.
MRS. ROOT
And I don’t see why one should _try_ to understand it. Live well in the
present--that is sufficient.
GRANDMOTHER
It looks to me as if that book was not thoughtfully edited. I’m
surprised it has sold.
PEYTON
[_Snatching book from JHANSI._] Jhansi! I don’t want to boast! I hope
I shall not become a snob. You too have a family--and they had their
impulsive moments--but what was the most _largely_ low-down thing a man
of early days could do? [_PEYTONS and ROOTS draw together anxiously;
the BYRDS wait complacently._] As uncle has pointed out, Jhansi, I am a
descendant of Captain John Peyton. But when you have a remote ancestor,
you also have his less remote descendants--a fact sometimes overlooked.
Well, Stuart Peyton--
BESSIE
Mother, I wonder if the turkey isn’t ready now?
MRS. ROOT
It’s time for it to be ready.
[_She hurries out._
PEYTON
Stuart Peyton--“convicted of selling whiskey and firearms to the
Indians.”
[_Assumes an overbearing attitude._
MRS. BYRD
I guess the early days were trying, in more than one family.
PEYTON
[_Peering into the book._] And what is this? What is _this_? Stuart
Peyton was the father of _Richard_ Peyton--
JHANSI
Who founded this university!
PEYTON
[_In the voice of UNCLE GEORGE._] The university in which you are now
acquiring your education.
MRS. BYRD
Oh, I have no doubt that inducing the Indians to massacre the whites
was _profitable_.
PEYTON
A good sound basis for the family fortune.
UNCLE GEORGE
Young man, you go too far!
PEYTON
[_Holding book out to UNCLE GEORGE._] In thinking of these worthy men
from whom I come? [_Turns to the wall on which hang portraits of John
and Richard Peyton._] We don’t seem to have Stuart’s picture. Jhansi, I
don’t know that we need to leave society. There seems little--crevices
in these walls of respectability.
JHANSI
And whenever we feel a bit stifled we can always find air through our
family trees!
MRS. BYRD
I think, Senator, that we will not remain longer.
[_MRS. ROOT returns._
MRS. ROOT
Mary was just coming. Now we’ll have dinner!
BESSIE
Yes, a little family party to celebrate the happy--
PEYTON
[_Again bent over his family history._] Grandmother! Here’s something
about your ancestor, Gustave Phelps.
GRANDMOTHER
[_Rising. With weight._] Peyton--close that book.
(CURTAIN)
* * * * *
THE OUTSIDE
A PLAY IN ONE ACT
* * * * *
First Performed by the Provincetown Players, December 28, 1917
ORIGINAL CAST
CAPTAIN _of “The Bars” Life-Saving Station_, ABRAM GILLETTE
BRADFORD, _a Live-saver_ HUTCHINSON COLLINS
TONY, _a Portuguese Live-Saver_ LOUIS ELL
MRS. PATRICK, _who lives in the abandoned Station_ IDA RAUH
ALLIE MAYO, _who works for her_ SUSAN GLASPELL
THE OUTSIDE
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 gray, 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. Not 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 this place on the blink
all right. And then when it gets too God-forsaken for a life-savin’
station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the
winter. She’s 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 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, when 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 to 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 the
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 the 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 above 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