Thomas Wolfe, page 533
laura: You’ve been away for eight years. (As though to break conversation takes two steps away, sees picture.)
richard: And now I’m back. (He walks over to the mantel, looks at the portrait fixedly a minute, and speaks without turning away). When I was four or five years old I can remember—mother (The word has a strange unused sound to him and he says it awkwardly but with reverence.) sitting here by the hearth night after night rocking away with me in her arms. (He turns swiftly [to L.]) Laura, I know it was the eternal black fear of that waiting that killed her.
laura [standing perfectly still]: Waiting! What waiting?
richard: Waiting for pa to come in out of the mountains. She never knew when they’d bring him in with a bullet through him.
laura: I have felt the same fear, Dick. [Goes to Dick, close, arm on shoulder.] There’s never a day goes by but what I feel it. And now, well you have come back, so I suppose it will be twice as great.
richard (drawing his breath sharply) [Richard crosses to window, Laura to chair]: Ah! They’re still at it, are they?
laura: Of course. Do you think it will ever end as long as Uncle Tom is alive? [Richard turns.] He’s been in three times this last week to see pa and I’m afraid it means trouble again.
richard: They’re both getting old. I had hoped it would be over.
laura [Laura goes to Dick at window.] (Almost with a sob): Over! Dick, it will never be over until there are no more to fight and kill.
richard: No! I suppose not. They’ll go on shooting and killing each other as long as they last. And all because of a quarrel we had nothing to do with. [Richard goes to desk.] We don’t even know how it started. I could understand anyone as wild and rough as Uncle Tom going on with it but how a man like pa can keep it up is beyond me.
laura (seriously): Do you think we can train ourselves away from our people, Dick?
richard (emphatically): Yes! In a certain sense—the proper one. I’ve been home only two days and I can already see just what the last eight years has meant to me.
laura: Is it best to change that way, Dick [Goes to R.], when you have to live here? (Pause. Nervously turning it on herself.) Look at me. [Turns.] I have good chances of being a nice old maid simply because—
richard: Because a mountaineer wants a woman who can qualify as a packhorse when he marries.
laura: And I’m afraid I can’t qualify. (With a little laugh.) At least I’m not swamped with offers. (To L. end of table.) Ever since Pa sent me off to St. Genevieve’s, they all stay away—even the boys I’ve known all my life.
richard: You’re not their kind, Laura. [Down to chair, right.] It’s right that they should keep their distance.
laura [sits in chair L.]: Perhaps—but it’s awfully lonesome.
richard [goes to Laura’s chair L. Pats her hand]: Don’t you fret! Life has something better in store for you, Laura [Sits on arm of her chair.], and somehow or other I’m going to get it.
laura (smiling): All the tourists think mountain life is quite romantic.
richard: They see it from the train window.
laura: I’ve been reading a book—
richard [seated on Laura’s chair] (scornfully): The books! Oh yes. But if you should read a thousand books which told you the mountains were wild and free [and] the mountain people lead wild adventurous lives, would you believe them?
laura (wistfully): I’d like to believe them, Dick.
richard: But you know it’s a lie. You read of beautiful mountain girls, mountain-Europas running around on their small bare feet, with their golden hair flying in the wind. (He laughs contemptuously.) Laura, how many beautiful mountain girls have you seen?
laura (truthfully): There aren’t many.
richard: They are big, rawboned, awkward girls made thin and rough with hard work. They are married off before they’re twenty and at twenty-five they are breeding droves of children. At thirty (He rises with a quick movement of distaste [goes toward window].)—well, at thirty they are broken and old.
laura: I’m afraid that’s so.
richard [turns to Laura]: I passed by Tom Bryce’s shanty on my way up Bald Pate. You know where the place is, dug in on the side of the hill (She nods.)—stretched out below there in a level plain of rhododendron and laurel. And in front of Tom’s door, some six or eight dirty little children were grubbing, so dirty and skinny and weazened that they looked like little monkeys! I looked at all that beauty on one hand and at all that filth and squalor on the other and then I looked up around me at these mountains standing there eternally to guard these people away from life.
laura [Laura rises, goes to Richard at window, turns him to her]: Poor old Dick. It was hard on you to come back, wasn’t it? But it was fine, too.
richard: No. It wasn’t either hard or fine. I couldn’t do anything else. I’ve been gone eight years and there hasn’t been a day of that time but what I could see these people back here, tired, gaunt creatures, fighting their pitiful little battle with the mountains which shut them off from the ways of other men.
laura: It’s not the ways of other men they need, Dick, so much as some more decent way of living their own lives.
richard: It’s the mountains, Laura, the mountains that use them up and kill them.
laura: Don’t say that. I love the mountains, Dick. They are fine and beautiful.
richard: You’ve never felt their tyranny [Laura turns away left.]—except perhaps—(He hesitates.) in some . . .
laura (Looking at him steadily): Except that they’ve kept me away from—from people.
richard (flushing) Well—yes. When the people try to eke a living out of the ground, the mountains give up a half living—choosing to kill by inches.
laura: Perhaps. But people don’t leave them. There must be a reason for it. [To table.]
richard: There is, Laura. A man may leave the town or the farm or the sea, and stay away, but it isn’t often he can leave the mountains. (He turns to the window and is staring out at the peaks in the distance.)
laura (softly, taking an impulsive little step toward him) [goes toward him again]: Is that why you came back, Dick?
richard (after a pause) [Richard turns a little toward L.]: Maybe so, I can’t exactly tell you why. God knows I hate those hills over there.
laura (shocked) [Steps back]: Oh, you don’t mean that.
richard: They stand over against me there as something evil, like the witches in Macbeth.
laura [Laura crosses to chair L.]: Your boyhood notions, Dick. You used to frighten me half to death when you talked like that. Heavens! What an imagination you had! [Sits.] I was afraid to step outside after dark for fear the mountains would gobble us up.
richard (sadly): They get a great many, Laura—people like Tom Bryce, slaving his life away on the side of a hill to keep food in the mouth of those six little wretches and his snuff-dipping wife. She was under forty when I left but she had that stolid hopeless look then as if she were tired of living.
laura (softly): She died while you were gone, Dick.
richard (with reverence): Poor woman. What a life. [Turns right, paces R. & L. back of table.] (With an outburst.) There’s the terrible story these brooding hills have to tell, a story of existence where people eat, sleep and die in one room foul with the smell of dirty bodies, of haggard women lying—in such places giving birth to one child after another while the little unwashed, unkempt devils swarm around on the floor like so many flies. [Finishes by chair R.]
laura (with a shiver): I’d rather believe the books, Dick. You’re too much of a realist.
richard: It’s the truth, Laura. [Richard goes to left of table.] And that is something most people hate to face. [Pause.]
laura (presently): I suppose you notice it more having lived in the city so long.
richard: Yes. For eight years now I’ve carried the picture with me of these miserable people beating their lives away against the side of a hill; a picture that haunted and hurt. It brought me back and here I’ll stay. [Returns, goes to window.] I believe I have a job to do. I used to say to the mountains, “You can be beat and I’ll do it some day.”
laura: You’re a dreamer, Dick, but I think you’re fine. [Laura rises, goes back towards window.] I’ve wanted you back with all my heart—at times I thought I’d go crazy at the loneliness of it all. [Richard moves towards her.] I wanted the old days back when you would tease me, and yank my hair, or pull me up a hill behind you.
richard [Richard goes up to her, takes her outstretched hands behind table] (his eyes shining): We’ll do it again, Laura—go up the hill I mean. I reckon we’re not too old for that.
laura: But there have been times, when I wasn’t thinking of myself, that I hoped [Laura draws away 2 steps, lower tone.], I almost prayed you wouldn’t come back.
richard (startled): What do you mean, Laura?
laura (going up to him impulsively) [flings herself on him, clings to him]: Dick, Dick, you’re too fine a fellow to waste yourself up here.
richard: I won’t waste myself. I might have made more money by practicing in the city but I can do real work here. (Enthusiastically.) Why, Laura, I can do wonders. [Laura draws away.] Think of all these people—
laura: I don’t mean money, Dick, If you only had a free hand to help these people you would do wonders. I’m sure of that.
richard (puzzled): A free hand?
laura: The same thing happened to pa, that I’m afraid—[Turns away ½ step.] (She stops.)
richard: Will happen to me? Is that what you mean? (She nods. Richard continues with the utmost earnestness.) I tell you I will never take part in it. I think I’d sooner die. See what it has done to pa. Think of what he might have been, what he might have done up here if he hadn’t lined up with one side. [Richard steps forward.]
laura: Pa’s a good man, Dick. We’ll never know a better [Takes a step.] But he couldn’t go against his family. Don’t you see it’s hopeless? Why, Uncle Tom has looked forward to your coming back all this time. It has never occurred to him that you might be changed. He can’t see anything else in life but a fight with the Gudgers. Every week he comes in and cleans and oils your rifle till it fairly shines. And when he puts it back in the closet he always says: “Just wait till Dick gets home, we’ll show them a thing or two.” That’s what you’ve got to face, Dick.
richard: All right, then. If things stand that way I’m ready to face them and to tell them I’ll take no part in their game. And the sooner I get that settled the better. (In passionate anger.) Haven’t they made it hard enough on you and me? [Steps towards left.] Won’t my work up here be all the harder because everyone in the whole country is snarling at each other from two armed camps? Why, I believe the Gudger and Fitzpatrick people [Down between table and chair.] would rather die than ask help from pa. And he’s the only doctor up here.
laura: But how can you do it? Don’t you know what it means to belong to a mountain family, to (Repeating with emphasis.) belong to it?
richard (angrily) [crosses front of table to left front of chair]: Family be damned. I won’t commit murder—that’s what it is—for all the families in the world. I’ve got my own life to lead.
laura [L. down by chair]: Are you sure it’s your own?
richard: Who do you think it belongs to?
laura [comes further down, right of table]: It ought to be yours, but is it?
richard: It has to be.
laura: There are many things that stand between us all and the freedom we want for ourselves.
richard [Richard turns. Crosses to her right]: What are you driving at, Laura? [Pause.] (He looks at her hurt and surprised at her attitude.) I had looked to you for support. You know what I have dreamed of doing here. Do you think me just a fool?
laura [Laura goes to him]: I wish there were more fools like you.
richard: Why do you side against me, then?
laura (gently) [looking up at him]: I never have and I never will side against you, Dick. I—love you too much.
richard (quickly seizing her hands): I know you do. But you mustn’t lose heart, Laura. We are brave enough and strong enough to look them all in the face and refuse them.
laura (clinging to him) [says into his shoulder]: I’m afraid, Dick. I’m afraid for you. I hate to see you made unhappy and wretched. I hate to see your dreams broken. (Head up.) Dick, you’ll give in, in the end. There’s no way out of it. Pa had to and I know he was fine when he came back as you are. (Loyally.) He still is. (Speaking rapidly and earnestly.) Oh go, please go, Dick. (Pushing him off.) Go away from it all. If you don’t, you are lost.
richard: Lost! Run away now? Why, I’ve just begun to fight.
laura: Yes, yes—but you can’t win.
richard: But I can. (After a pause.) Has anything happened lately?
laura: Yes. Last week. Someone shot at cousin Joe Weaver. They don’t know who it was.
richard [Richard turns, goes to end of table left]: Was Joe hurt?
laura: No.
richard: I suppose they’re up in arms about it.
laura: I’m afraid it won’t take much to start them again. I told you Uncle Tom had kept coming in to see pa this week.
richard (angrily): I can’t understand it. [Quick turn to mantel and back.] I never could. To think pa would allow himself to be drawn into it. I believe he hates the whole thing as much as I do. [Turns back towards Laura.]
laura: Don’t blame him too soon, Dick.
richard: If there’s any reason for carrying on this fight except prejudice and stubbornness I’ve never—(A man goes by the window. There are steps on the veranda. Laura looks warningly at Richard.) [Richard goes to fireplace left.]
laura: Psh! Here he comes! [Goes to open the door.]
Dr. Weaver enters the hall. He deposits his little square satchel on the sofa and hangs his dusty felt hat on the rack. Dr. Weaver is a heavy, florid-faced man of medium height and slightly over fifty years old. He is smooth-shaven and his hair is short and grizzly gray. His face is seamed with heavy decisive lines which do not detract, however, from his genial, good-humored features. The total impression from the man is one of kindness linked to strength and character. He stands in the door knocking the dust from his baggy clothes and tramps heavily into the room. He greets Laura with a rough affectionate hug. [She takes his case.]
richard (affectionately): Hello, pa.
weaver: Good evenin’, son. (Giving Laura another bearlike squeeze.) What do you think of your sister, Dick? She’s a grownup lady, ain’t she? [They come into room.]
richard: And a mighty pretty one, too.
weaver [looks up at picture]: She gets more like her mother every day. I reckon I can’t say no more than that. [Brings her toward table C.]
laura: I think both of you have said enough already. Are you hungry, pa?
weaver: I could eat a horse; got me any supper?
laura (contritely): I’m sorry. I lost track of time here talking to Dick. I’ll have it in a hurry. (She goes out.)
weaver (calling after): Cut a few chunks off that side of ham I got from Tom Wilson. [Goes L. to chair. Richard still at fireplace.] Well, son, what have you done with yourself today? [He has sunk heavily into a chair.]
richard: Oh, I climbed Bald Pate.
weaver: Climbed Bald Pate! How I’d like to be young and spry again. I’ve been over every one of these hills from bonnet to bootstrap, you might say. (Richard slaps Weaver on back.) Son, reach into that desk and get me that box of cigars. (Richard [goes to desk.] pulls down the lid of the desk and offers the box to his father, who selects a cigar. Richard starts to return the box.) Go ahead and take one. I reckon you smoke behind my back. (Richard selects a cigar a little sheepishly and puts the box back.)
richard [puts box back. Stays right]: You see—I don’t think you’ve ever seen me smoke before.
weaver: I hope not. You were just a shoot of a seventeen-year-old boy when I sent you off. (He has lighted his cigar and sinks back in his chair [left] a little wearily.)
richard [Pause. Stands at desk]: Tired, pa? (Weaver nods.) Had a hard day, I guess?
weaver: I came close to drivin’ the legs off the mare. I went to Beetree to see Ben Weathers.
richard: What’s wrong with Ben? (Sits right of table.)
weaver (wearily): The same old story. He got into a fight last night with a fellow in Marion and they carved each other up a bit. Both had licker in ’em, I reckon. But, pshaw! You can’t kill ’em. Like as not they’ll be at it again next week. (Good humoredly.) If he does I’ll send you to see him.
richard: Well, I’m ready to start any time now.
weaver: Take your time, son. You’ll have enough to do once you get started. I don’t know how it’s going to feel with another medico up here. I’ve been the only one for thirty years. But I’m getting old, Dick. It won’t be many years before you’ll have the reins in your own hands. I reckon you came along about the right time.
richard: They’ll hate to lose you, pa. These people think a lot of you.
weaver: Do they? I wonder, now. Some of them, maybe. Not all, Dick. not all. There are people here, son, who would lay down and die before they’d ask me in to help them. our friends, the Gudgers, for instance.
richard: Haven’t they ever called you in?
weaver: Nary a time.
richard: But surely they needed you.
weaver: They’ve needed me often enough and no mistake. But they’re all stubborn as mules. Only last year Bob Gudger—he’s the cousin of Clem down here at the store—got down with pneumonia.
richard: And they never called you in! [Pause.] How’d he get along?
weaver (grimly): He died. (In a tone of deep bitterness, but with unmistakable regret also.) Served them right, the fools. I’ve never refused to go anywhere I was needed day or night for thirty years. They can’t blame me. I’d have gone if they had asked me. (He looks searchingly at Richard.)
richard (evasively): They should have called you in, of course.
weaver: Of course they should have. What fools they are! (Laughing suddenly.) You’ll meet all kinds up here. I set a fellow’s leg last week who thought he was a bird.
richard: And now I’m back. (He walks over to the mantel, looks at the portrait fixedly a minute, and speaks without turning away). When I was four or five years old I can remember—mother (The word has a strange unused sound to him and he says it awkwardly but with reverence.) sitting here by the hearth night after night rocking away with me in her arms. (He turns swiftly [to L.]) Laura, I know it was the eternal black fear of that waiting that killed her.
laura [standing perfectly still]: Waiting! What waiting?
richard: Waiting for pa to come in out of the mountains. She never knew when they’d bring him in with a bullet through him.
laura: I have felt the same fear, Dick. [Goes to Dick, close, arm on shoulder.] There’s never a day goes by but what I feel it. And now, well you have come back, so I suppose it will be twice as great.
richard (drawing his breath sharply) [Richard crosses to window, Laura to chair]: Ah! They’re still at it, are they?
laura: Of course. Do you think it will ever end as long as Uncle Tom is alive? [Richard turns.] He’s been in three times this last week to see pa and I’m afraid it means trouble again.
richard: They’re both getting old. I had hoped it would be over.
laura [Laura goes to Dick at window.] (Almost with a sob): Over! Dick, it will never be over until there are no more to fight and kill.
richard: No! I suppose not. They’ll go on shooting and killing each other as long as they last. And all because of a quarrel we had nothing to do with. [Richard goes to desk.] We don’t even know how it started. I could understand anyone as wild and rough as Uncle Tom going on with it but how a man like pa can keep it up is beyond me.
laura (seriously): Do you think we can train ourselves away from our people, Dick?
richard (emphatically): Yes! In a certain sense—the proper one. I’ve been home only two days and I can already see just what the last eight years has meant to me.
laura: Is it best to change that way, Dick [Goes to R.], when you have to live here? (Pause. Nervously turning it on herself.) Look at me. [Turns.] I have good chances of being a nice old maid simply because—
richard: Because a mountaineer wants a woman who can qualify as a packhorse when he marries.
laura: And I’m afraid I can’t qualify. (With a little laugh.) At least I’m not swamped with offers. (To L. end of table.) Ever since Pa sent me off to St. Genevieve’s, they all stay away—even the boys I’ve known all my life.
richard: You’re not their kind, Laura. [Down to chair, right.] It’s right that they should keep their distance.
laura [sits in chair L.]: Perhaps—but it’s awfully lonesome.
richard [goes to Laura’s chair L. Pats her hand]: Don’t you fret! Life has something better in store for you, Laura [Sits on arm of her chair.], and somehow or other I’m going to get it.
laura (smiling): All the tourists think mountain life is quite romantic.
richard: They see it from the train window.
laura: I’ve been reading a book—
richard [seated on Laura’s chair] (scornfully): The books! Oh yes. But if you should read a thousand books which told you the mountains were wild and free [and] the mountain people lead wild adventurous lives, would you believe them?
laura (wistfully): I’d like to believe them, Dick.
richard: But you know it’s a lie. You read of beautiful mountain girls, mountain-Europas running around on their small bare feet, with their golden hair flying in the wind. (He laughs contemptuously.) Laura, how many beautiful mountain girls have you seen?
laura (truthfully): There aren’t many.
richard: They are big, rawboned, awkward girls made thin and rough with hard work. They are married off before they’re twenty and at twenty-five they are breeding droves of children. At thirty (He rises with a quick movement of distaste [goes toward window].)—well, at thirty they are broken and old.
laura: I’m afraid that’s so.
richard [turns to Laura]: I passed by Tom Bryce’s shanty on my way up Bald Pate. You know where the place is, dug in on the side of the hill (She nods.)—stretched out below there in a level plain of rhododendron and laurel. And in front of Tom’s door, some six or eight dirty little children were grubbing, so dirty and skinny and weazened that they looked like little monkeys! I looked at all that beauty on one hand and at all that filth and squalor on the other and then I looked up around me at these mountains standing there eternally to guard these people away from life.
laura [Laura rises, goes to Richard at window, turns him to her]: Poor old Dick. It was hard on you to come back, wasn’t it? But it was fine, too.
richard: No. It wasn’t either hard or fine. I couldn’t do anything else. I’ve been gone eight years and there hasn’t been a day of that time but what I could see these people back here, tired, gaunt creatures, fighting their pitiful little battle with the mountains which shut them off from the ways of other men.
laura: It’s not the ways of other men they need, Dick, so much as some more decent way of living their own lives.
richard: It’s the mountains, Laura, the mountains that use them up and kill them.
laura: Don’t say that. I love the mountains, Dick. They are fine and beautiful.
richard: You’ve never felt their tyranny [Laura turns away left.]—except perhaps—(He hesitates.) in some . . .
laura (Looking at him steadily): Except that they’ve kept me away from—from people.
richard (flushing) Well—yes. When the people try to eke a living out of the ground, the mountains give up a half living—choosing to kill by inches.
laura: Perhaps. But people don’t leave them. There must be a reason for it. [To table.]
richard: There is, Laura. A man may leave the town or the farm or the sea, and stay away, but it isn’t often he can leave the mountains. (He turns to the window and is staring out at the peaks in the distance.)
laura (softly, taking an impulsive little step toward him) [goes toward him again]: Is that why you came back, Dick?
richard (after a pause) [Richard turns a little toward L.]: Maybe so, I can’t exactly tell you why. God knows I hate those hills over there.
laura (shocked) [Steps back]: Oh, you don’t mean that.
richard: They stand over against me there as something evil, like the witches in Macbeth.
laura [Laura crosses to chair L.]: Your boyhood notions, Dick. You used to frighten me half to death when you talked like that. Heavens! What an imagination you had! [Sits.] I was afraid to step outside after dark for fear the mountains would gobble us up.
richard (sadly): They get a great many, Laura—people like Tom Bryce, slaving his life away on the side of a hill to keep food in the mouth of those six little wretches and his snuff-dipping wife. She was under forty when I left but she had that stolid hopeless look then as if she were tired of living.
laura (softly): She died while you were gone, Dick.
richard (with reverence): Poor woman. What a life. [Turns right, paces R. & L. back of table.] (With an outburst.) There’s the terrible story these brooding hills have to tell, a story of existence where people eat, sleep and die in one room foul with the smell of dirty bodies, of haggard women lying—in such places giving birth to one child after another while the little unwashed, unkempt devils swarm around on the floor like so many flies. [Finishes by chair R.]
laura (with a shiver): I’d rather believe the books, Dick. You’re too much of a realist.
richard: It’s the truth, Laura. [Richard goes to left of table.] And that is something most people hate to face. [Pause.]
laura (presently): I suppose you notice it more having lived in the city so long.
richard: Yes. For eight years now I’ve carried the picture with me of these miserable people beating their lives away against the side of a hill; a picture that haunted and hurt. It brought me back and here I’ll stay. [Returns, goes to window.] I believe I have a job to do. I used to say to the mountains, “You can be beat and I’ll do it some day.”
laura: You’re a dreamer, Dick, but I think you’re fine. [Laura rises, goes back towards window.] I’ve wanted you back with all my heart—at times I thought I’d go crazy at the loneliness of it all. [Richard moves towards her.] I wanted the old days back when you would tease me, and yank my hair, or pull me up a hill behind you.
richard [Richard goes up to her, takes her outstretched hands behind table] (his eyes shining): We’ll do it again, Laura—go up the hill I mean. I reckon we’re not too old for that.
laura: But there have been times, when I wasn’t thinking of myself, that I hoped [Laura draws away 2 steps, lower tone.], I almost prayed you wouldn’t come back.
richard (startled): What do you mean, Laura?
laura (going up to him impulsively) [flings herself on him, clings to him]: Dick, Dick, you’re too fine a fellow to waste yourself up here.
richard: I won’t waste myself. I might have made more money by practicing in the city but I can do real work here. (Enthusiastically.) Why, Laura, I can do wonders. [Laura draws away.] Think of all these people—
laura: I don’t mean money, Dick, If you only had a free hand to help these people you would do wonders. I’m sure of that.
richard (puzzled): A free hand?
laura: The same thing happened to pa, that I’m afraid—[Turns away ½ step.] (She stops.)
richard: Will happen to me? Is that what you mean? (She nods. Richard continues with the utmost earnestness.) I tell you I will never take part in it. I think I’d sooner die. See what it has done to pa. Think of what he might have been, what he might have done up here if he hadn’t lined up with one side. [Richard steps forward.]
laura: Pa’s a good man, Dick. We’ll never know a better [Takes a step.] But he couldn’t go against his family. Don’t you see it’s hopeless? Why, Uncle Tom has looked forward to your coming back all this time. It has never occurred to him that you might be changed. He can’t see anything else in life but a fight with the Gudgers. Every week he comes in and cleans and oils your rifle till it fairly shines. And when he puts it back in the closet he always says: “Just wait till Dick gets home, we’ll show them a thing or two.” That’s what you’ve got to face, Dick.
richard: All right, then. If things stand that way I’m ready to face them and to tell them I’ll take no part in their game. And the sooner I get that settled the better. (In passionate anger.) Haven’t they made it hard enough on you and me? [Steps towards left.] Won’t my work up here be all the harder because everyone in the whole country is snarling at each other from two armed camps? Why, I believe the Gudger and Fitzpatrick people [Down between table and chair.] would rather die than ask help from pa. And he’s the only doctor up here.
laura: But how can you do it? Don’t you know what it means to belong to a mountain family, to (Repeating with emphasis.) belong to it?
richard (angrily) [crosses front of table to left front of chair]: Family be damned. I won’t commit murder—that’s what it is—for all the families in the world. I’ve got my own life to lead.
laura [L. down by chair]: Are you sure it’s your own?
richard: Who do you think it belongs to?
laura [comes further down, right of table]: It ought to be yours, but is it?
richard: It has to be.
laura: There are many things that stand between us all and the freedom we want for ourselves.
richard [Richard turns. Crosses to her right]: What are you driving at, Laura? [Pause.] (He looks at her hurt and surprised at her attitude.) I had looked to you for support. You know what I have dreamed of doing here. Do you think me just a fool?
laura [Laura goes to him]: I wish there were more fools like you.
richard: Why do you side against me, then?
laura (gently) [looking up at him]: I never have and I never will side against you, Dick. I—love you too much.
richard (quickly seizing her hands): I know you do. But you mustn’t lose heart, Laura. We are brave enough and strong enough to look them all in the face and refuse them.
laura (clinging to him) [says into his shoulder]: I’m afraid, Dick. I’m afraid for you. I hate to see you made unhappy and wretched. I hate to see your dreams broken. (Head up.) Dick, you’ll give in, in the end. There’s no way out of it. Pa had to and I know he was fine when he came back as you are. (Loyally.) He still is. (Speaking rapidly and earnestly.) Oh go, please go, Dick. (Pushing him off.) Go away from it all. If you don’t, you are lost.
richard: Lost! Run away now? Why, I’ve just begun to fight.
laura: Yes, yes—but you can’t win.
richard: But I can. (After a pause.) Has anything happened lately?
laura: Yes. Last week. Someone shot at cousin Joe Weaver. They don’t know who it was.
richard [Richard turns, goes to end of table left]: Was Joe hurt?
laura: No.
richard: I suppose they’re up in arms about it.
laura: I’m afraid it won’t take much to start them again. I told you Uncle Tom had kept coming in to see pa this week.
richard (angrily): I can’t understand it. [Quick turn to mantel and back.] I never could. To think pa would allow himself to be drawn into it. I believe he hates the whole thing as much as I do. [Turns back towards Laura.]
laura: Don’t blame him too soon, Dick.
richard: If there’s any reason for carrying on this fight except prejudice and stubbornness I’ve never—(A man goes by the window. There are steps on the veranda. Laura looks warningly at Richard.) [Richard goes to fireplace left.]
laura: Psh! Here he comes! [Goes to open the door.]
Dr. Weaver enters the hall. He deposits his little square satchel on the sofa and hangs his dusty felt hat on the rack. Dr. Weaver is a heavy, florid-faced man of medium height and slightly over fifty years old. He is smooth-shaven and his hair is short and grizzly gray. His face is seamed with heavy decisive lines which do not detract, however, from his genial, good-humored features. The total impression from the man is one of kindness linked to strength and character. He stands in the door knocking the dust from his baggy clothes and tramps heavily into the room. He greets Laura with a rough affectionate hug. [She takes his case.]
richard (affectionately): Hello, pa.
weaver: Good evenin’, son. (Giving Laura another bearlike squeeze.) What do you think of your sister, Dick? She’s a grownup lady, ain’t she? [They come into room.]
richard: And a mighty pretty one, too.
weaver [looks up at picture]: She gets more like her mother every day. I reckon I can’t say no more than that. [Brings her toward table C.]
laura: I think both of you have said enough already. Are you hungry, pa?
weaver: I could eat a horse; got me any supper?
laura (contritely): I’m sorry. I lost track of time here talking to Dick. I’ll have it in a hurry. (She goes out.)
weaver (calling after): Cut a few chunks off that side of ham I got from Tom Wilson. [Goes L. to chair. Richard still at fireplace.] Well, son, what have you done with yourself today? [He has sunk heavily into a chair.]
richard: Oh, I climbed Bald Pate.
weaver: Climbed Bald Pate! How I’d like to be young and spry again. I’ve been over every one of these hills from bonnet to bootstrap, you might say. (Richard slaps Weaver on back.) Son, reach into that desk and get me that box of cigars. (Richard [goes to desk.] pulls down the lid of the desk and offers the box to his father, who selects a cigar. Richard starts to return the box.) Go ahead and take one. I reckon you smoke behind my back. (Richard selects a cigar a little sheepishly and puts the box back.)
richard [puts box back. Stays right]: You see—I don’t think you’ve ever seen me smoke before.
weaver: I hope not. You were just a shoot of a seventeen-year-old boy when I sent you off. (He has lighted his cigar and sinks back in his chair [left] a little wearily.)
richard [Pause. Stands at desk]: Tired, pa? (Weaver nods.) Had a hard day, I guess?
weaver: I came close to drivin’ the legs off the mare. I went to Beetree to see Ben Weathers.
richard: What’s wrong with Ben? (Sits right of table.)
weaver (wearily): The same old story. He got into a fight last night with a fellow in Marion and they carved each other up a bit. Both had licker in ’em, I reckon. But, pshaw! You can’t kill ’em. Like as not they’ll be at it again next week. (Good humoredly.) If he does I’ll send you to see him.
richard: Well, I’m ready to start any time now.
weaver: Take your time, son. You’ll have enough to do once you get started. I don’t know how it’s going to feel with another medico up here. I’ve been the only one for thirty years. But I’m getting old, Dick. It won’t be many years before you’ll have the reins in your own hands. I reckon you came along about the right time.
richard: They’ll hate to lose you, pa. These people think a lot of you.
weaver: Do they? I wonder, now. Some of them, maybe. Not all, Dick. not all. There are people here, son, who would lay down and die before they’d ask me in to help them. our friends, the Gudgers, for instance.
richard: Haven’t they ever called you in?
weaver: Nary a time.
richard: But surely they needed you.
weaver: They’ve needed me often enough and no mistake. But they’re all stubborn as mules. Only last year Bob Gudger—he’s the cousin of Clem down here at the store—got down with pneumonia.
richard: And they never called you in! [Pause.] How’d he get along?
weaver (grimly): He died. (In a tone of deep bitterness, but with unmistakable regret also.) Served them right, the fools. I’ve never refused to go anywhere I was needed day or night for thirty years. They can’t blame me. I’d have gone if they had asked me. (He looks searchingly at Richard.)
richard (evasively): They should have called you in, of course.
weaver: Of course they should have. What fools they are! (Laughing suddenly.) You’ll meet all kinds up here. I set a fellow’s leg last week who thought he was a bird.
