No curtain.
No scenery.
The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-tight.
Presently the STAGE MANAGER, hat on and pipe in mouth enters and begins placing a table and three chairs downstage left and a table and three chairs downstage right.
He also places a low bench at the corner of what will be the Webb house, left.
"Left" and "right" are from the point of view of the actor facing the audience. "Up" is toward the back wall.
As the house lights go down he has finished setting the stage and leaning against the right proscenium pillar watches the late arrivals in the audience.
When the auditorium is in complete darkness he speaks:
STAGE MANAGER: This play is called "Our Town." It was written by Thornton Wilder; produced and directed by A. ... (or: produced by A ; directed by B ). In it you will see Miss C ; Miss D ; Miss E ; and Mr. F ; Mr. G ; Mr. H ; and many others. The name of the town is Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire just across the Massachusetts line: latitude 42 degrees 40 minutes; longitude 70 degrees 37 minutes. The First Act shows a day in our town. The day is May 7, 1901. The time is just before dawn.
A rooster crows.
The sky is beginning to show some sneaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount’in.
The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go, doesn’t it?
He stares at it -for a moment, then goes upstage.
Well, I’d better show you how our town lies. Up here–
That is: parallel with the back wall.
is Main Street. Way back there is the railway station; tracks go that way. Polish Town’s across the tracks, and some Canuck families.
Toward the left.
Over there is the Congregational Church; across the street’s the Presbyterian.
Methodist and Unitarian are over there.
Baptist is down in the holla’ by the river.
Catholic Church is over beyond the tracks.
Here’s the Town Hall and Post Office combined; jail’s in the basement.
Bryan once made a speech from these very steps here.
Along here’s a row of stores. Hitching posts and horse blocks in front of them. First automobile’s going to come along in about five years belonged to Banker Cartwright, our richest citizen … lives in the big white house up on the hill.
Here’s the grocery store and here’s Mr. Morgan’s drugstore. Most everybody in town manages to look into those two stores once a day.
Public School’s over yonder. High School’s still farther over. Quarter of nine mornings, noontimes, and three o’clock afternoons, the hull town can hear the yelling and screaming from those schoolyards.
He approaches the table and chairs downstage right.
This is our doctor’s house, Doc Gibbs’. This is the back door.
Two arched trellises, covered with vines and flowers, are pushed out, one by each proscenium pillar.
There’s some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery.
This is Mrs. Gibbs’ garden. Corn … peas … beans … hollyhocks … heliotrope … and a lot of burdock.
Crosses the stage.
In those days our newspaper come out twice a week the Grover’s Corners Sentinel – and this is Editor Webb’s house.
And this is Mrs. Webb’s garden.
Just like Mrs. Gibbs’, only it’s got a lot of sunflowers, too.
He looks upward, center stage.
Right here’s a big butternut tree.
He returns to his place by the right proscenium pillar and looks at the audience for a minute.
Nice town, y’know what I mean?
Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know.
The earliest tombstones in the cemetery up there on the mountain say 1670-1680, they’re Grovers and Cartwrights and Gibbses and Herseys same names as are around here now.
Well, as I said: it’s about dawn.
The only lights on in town are in a cottage over by the tracks where a Polish mother’s just had twins. And in the Joe Crowell house, where Joe Junior’s getting up so as to deliver the paper. And in the depot, where Shorty Hawkins is gettin’ ready to flag the 5:45 for Boston.
A train whistle is heard. The STAGE MANAGER takes out his watch and nods.
Naturally, out in the country – all around – there’ve been lights on for some time, what with milkin’s and so on. But town people sleep late.
So – another day’s begun.
There’s Doc Gibbs comin’ down Main Street now, comin’ back from that baby case. And here’s his wife comin’ downstairs to get breakfast.
MRS. GIBBS, a plump, pleasant woman in the middle thirties, comes "downstairs" right. She pulls up an imaginary window shade in her kitchen and starts to make a fire in her stove.
Doc Gibbs died in 1930. The new hospital’s named after him.
Mrs. Gibbs died first – long time ago, in fact. She went out to visit her daughter, Rebecca, who married an insurance man in Canton, Ohio, and died there pneumonia but her body was brought back here. She’s up in the cemetery there now in with a whole mess of Gibbses and Herseys she was Julia Hersey ’fore she married Doc Gibbs in the Congregational Church over there.
In our town we like to know the facts about everybody.
There’s Mrs. Webb, coming downstairs to get her breakfast, too.
– That’s Doc Gibbs. Got that call at half past one this morning.
And there comes Joe Crowell, Jr., delivering Mr. Webb’s Sentinel.
DR. GIBBS been coming along Main Street from the left, At the point where he would turn to approach his house, sets down his – imaginary – black bag, takes off his hat and rubs his face with fatigue, using an enormous handkerchief.
MRS. WEBB thin, serious, crisp woman, has entered her left, tying on an apron. She goes through the motions of putting wood into a stove, lighting it, and preparing breakfast.
Suddenly, JOE CROWELL, JR., eleven, starts down Main Street from the right, hurling imaginary newspapers into doorways.
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Morning, Doc Gibbs.
DR. GIBBS: Morning, Joe.
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Somebody been sick, Doc?
DR. GIBBS: No. Just some twins born over in Polish Town.
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Do you want your paper now?
DR. GIBBS: Yes, I’ll take it. Anything serious goin’ on in the world since Wednesday?
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Yessir. My schoolteacher, Miss Foster, ’s getting married to a fella over in Concord.
DR. GIBBS: I declare. How do you boys feel about that?
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Well, of course, it’s none of my business but I think if a person starts out to be a teacher, she ought to stay one.
DR. GIBBS: How’s your knee, Joe?
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Fine, Doc, I never think about it at all. Only like you said, it always tells me when it’s going to rain.
DR. GIBBS: What’s it telling you today? Goin’ to rain?
JOE CROWELL, JR.: No, sir.
DR. GIBBS: Sure?
JOE CROWELL, JR.: Yessir.
DR. GIBBS: Knee ever make a mistake?
JOE CROWELL, JR.: No, sir.
JOE goes off. DR. GIBBS stands reading his paper.
STAGE MANAGER: Want to tell you something about that boy Joe Crowell there. Joe was awful bright graduated from high school here, head of his class. So he got a scholarship to Massachusetts Tech. Graduated head of his class there, too. It was all wrote up in the Boston paper at the time. Goin’ to be a great engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France. All that education for nothing.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Off left. Giddap, Bessie! What’s the matter with you today?
STAGE MANAGER: Here comes Howie Newsome, deliverin’ the milk.
HOWIE NEWSOME, about thirty in overalls, comes along Main Street from the left, walking beside an invisible horse and wagon and carrying an imaginary rack with milk bottles. The sound of clinking milk bottles is heard. He leaves same bottles at Mrs. Webb’s trellis, then, crossing the stage to Mrs. Gibbs’, he stops center to talk to Dr. Gibbs.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Morning, Doc.
DR. GIBBS: Morning, Howie.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Somebody sick?
DR. GIBBS: Pair of twins over to Mrs. Goruslawski’s.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Twins, eh? This town’s gettin’ bigger every year.
DR. GIBBS: Goin’ to rain, Howie?
HOWIE NEWSOME: No, no. Fine day that’ll burn through. Come on, Bessie.
DR. GIBBS: Hello Bessie.
He strokes the horse, which has remained up center.
How old is she, Howie?
HOWIE NEWSOME: Going on seventeen. Bessie’s all mixed up about the route ever since the Lockharts stopped takin’ their quart of milk every day. She wants to leave ’em a quart just the same keeps scolding me the hull trip,
He reaches Mrs. Gibbs' back door. She is waiting for him.
MRS. GIBBS: Good morning, Howie.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Morning, Mrs. Gibbs. Doc’s just comin’ down the street.
MRS. GIBBS: Is he? Seems like you’re late today.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Yes. Somep’n went wrong with the separator. Don’t know what ’twas.
He passes Dr. Gibbs up center. Doc!
DR. GIBBS: Howie!
MRS. GIBBS: Calling upstairs. Children! Children! Time to get up.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Come on, Bessie!
He goes off right.
MRS. GIBBS: George! Rebecca!
DR. GIBBS arrives at his back door and passes through the trellis into his house.
MRS. GIBBS: Everything all right, Frank?
DR. GIBBS: Yes. I declare easy as kittens.
MRS. GIBBS: Bacon’ll be ready in a minute. Set down and drink your coffee. You can catch a couple hours’ sleep this morning, can’t you?
DR. GIBBS: Hm! … Mrs. Wentworth’s coming at eleven. Guess I know what it’s about, too. Her stummick ain’t what it ought to be.
MRS. GIBBS: All told, you won’t get more’n three hours’ sleep. Frank Gibbs, I don’t know what’s goin’ to become of you. I do wish I could get you to go away someplace and take a rest. I think it would do you good.
MRS. WEBB: Emileeee! Time to get upl Wally! Seven o’clock!
MRS. GIBBS: I declare, you got to speak to George. Seems like something’s come over him lately. He’s no help to me at all. I can’t even get him to cut me some wood.
DR. GIBBS: Washing and drying his hands at the sink. MRS. GIBBS is busy at the stove.
Is he sassy to you?
MRS. GIBBS: No. He just whines! All he thinks about is that baseball George!
Rebecca! You’ll be late for school.
DR. GIBBS: M-m-m …
MRS. GIBBS: George!
DR. GIBBS: George, look sharp!
GEORGE’S VOICE:
Yes, Pa!
DR. GIBBS: As he goes off the stage.
Don’t you hear your mother calling you? I guess I’ll go upstairs and get forty winks*
MRS. WEBB: Walleee! Emileee! You’ll be late for school! Walleee! You wash yourself good or I’ll come up and do it myself.
REBECCA GIBBS’ VOICE:
Ma! What dress shall I wear?
MRS. GIBBS: Don’t make a noise. Your father’s been out all night and needs his sleep. I washed and ironed the blue gingham for you special.
REBECCA: Ma, I hate that dress.
MRS. GIBBS: Oh, hush-up-with-you.
REBECCA: Every day I go to school dressed like a sick turkey.
MRS. GIBBS: Now, Rebecca, you always look very nice.
REBECCA: Mama, George’s throwing soap at me.
MRS. GIBBS: I’ll come and slap the both of you, that’s what I’ll do. A factory whistle sounds.
The CHILDREN dash in and take their places at the tables. Right, GEORGE, about sixteen, and REBECCA, eleven. Left, EMILY and WALLY, same ages. They carry strapped schoolbooks.
STAGE MANAGER: We’ve got a factory in our town too – hear it? Makes blankets. Cartwrights own it and it brung ’em a fortune.
MRS. WEBB: Children! Now I won’t have it. Breakfast is just as good as any other meal and I won’t have you gobbling like wolves. It’ll stunt your growth, that’s a fact. Put away your book, Wally.
WALLY: Aw, Ma! By ten o’clock I got to know all about Canada.
MRS. WEBB: You know the rule’s well as I do no books at table. As for me, I’d rather have my children healthy than bright.
EMILY: I’m both, Mama: you know I am. I’m the brightest girl in school for my age. I have a wonderful memory.
MRS. WEBB: Eat your breakfast.
WALLY: I’m bright, too, when I’m looking at my stamp collection.
MRS. GIBBS: I’ll speak to your father about it when he’s rested. Seems to me twenty-five cents a week’s enough for a boy your age. I declare I don’t know how you spend it all.
GEORGE: Aw, Ma, I gotta lotta things to buy.
MRS. GIBBS: Strawberry phosphates that’s what you spend it on.
GEORGE: I don’t see how Rebecca comes to have so much money. She has more’n a dollar.
REBECCA: Spoon in mouthy dreamily. I’ve been saving it up gradual.
MRS. GIBBS: Well, dear, I think it’s a good thing to spend some every now and then.
REBECCA: Mama, do you know what I love most in the world do you?
Money,
MRS. GIBBS: Eat your breakfast.
THE CHILDREN: Mama, there’s first bell. I gotta hurry. I don’t want any more. I gotta hurry.
The CHILDREN rise, seize their books and dash out through the trellises. They meet, down center, and chattering, walk to Main Street, then turn left.
The STAGE MANAGER goes off, unobtrusively, right.
MRS. WEBB: Walk fast, but you don’t have to run. Wally, pull up your pants at the knee. Stand up straight, Emily.
MRS. GIBBS: Tell Miss Foster I send her my best congratulations can you remember that?
REBECCA: Yes, Ma.
MRS. GIBBS: You look real nice, Rebecca. Pick up your feet.
ALL: Good-by.
MRS GIBBS fills her apron with food for the chickens and comes down to the footlights.
MRS. GIBBS: Here, chick, chick, chick.
No, go away, you. Go away.
Here, chick, chick, chick.
What’s the matter with you? Fight, fight, fight, that’s all you do.
Hm … you don’t belong to me. Where’d you come from?
She shakes her apron.
Oh, don’t be so scared. Nobody’s going to hurt you.
MRS. WEBB is sitting on the bench by her trellis, stringing beans.
Good morning, Myrtle. How’s your cold?
MRS. WEBB: Well, I still get that tickling feeling in my throat. I told Charles I didn’t know as I’d go to choir practice tonight. Wouldn’t be any use.
MRS. GIBBS: Have you tried singing over your voice?
MRS. WEBB: Yes, but somehow I can’t do that and stay on the key. While I’m resting myself I thought I’d string some of these beans.
MRS. GIBBS: Rolling up her sleeves as she crosses the stage for a chat.
Let me help you. Beans have been good this year.
MRS. WEBB: I’ve decided to put up forty quarts if it kills me. The children say they hate ’em, but I notice they’re able to get ’em down all winter.
Pause. Brief sound of chickens cackling.
MRS. GIBBS: Now, Myrtle. I’ve got to tell you something, because if I don’t tell somebody I’ll burst.
MRS. WEBB: Why, Julia Gibbs!
MRS. GIBBS: Here, give me some more of those beans. Myrtle, did one of those secondhand-furniture men from Boston come to see you last Friday?
MRS. WEBB: No-o.
MRS. GIBBS: Well, he called on me. First I thought he was a patient wantin’ to see Dr. Gibbs. ’N he wormed his way into my parlor, and, Myrtle Webb, he offered me three hundred and fifty dollars for Grandmother Wentworth’s highboy, as I’m sitting here!
MRS. WEBB: Why, Julia Gibbs!
MRS. GIBBS: He did! That old thing! Why, it was so big I didn’t know where to put it and I almost give it to Cousin Hester Wilcox.
MRS. WEBB: Well, you’re going to take it, aren’t you?
MRS. GIBBS: I don’t know.
MRS. WEBB: You don’t know three hundred and fifty dollars! What’s come over you?
MRS. GIBBS: Well, if I could get the Doctor to take the money and go away someplace on a real trip, I’d sell it like that. Y’know, Myrtle, it’s been the dream of my life to see Paris, France. Oh, I don’t know. It sounds crazy, I suppose, but for years I’ve been promising myself that if we ever had the chance
MRS. WEBB: How does the Doctor feel about it?
MRS. GIBBS: Well, I did beat about the bush a little and said that if I got a legacy that’s the way I put it I’d make him take me somewhere,
MRS. WEBB: M-m-m … What did he say?
MRS. GIBBS: You know how he is. I haven’t heard a serious word out of him since I’ve known him. No, he said, it might make him discontented with Grover’s Corners to go traipsin’ about Europe; better let well enough alone, he says. Every two years he makes a trip to the battlefields of the Civil War and that’s enough treat for anybody, he says.
MRS. WEBB: Well, Mr. Webb just admires the way Dr. Gibbs knows everything about the Civil War. Mr. Webb’s a good mind to give up Napoleon and move over to the Civil War, only Dr. Gibbs being one of the greatest experts in the country just makes him despair.
MRS. GIBBS: It’s a fact! Dr. Gibbs is never so happy as when he’s at Antietam or Gettysburg. The times I’ve walked over those hills, Myrtle, stopping at every bush and pacing it all out, like we were going to buy it.
MRS. WEBB: Well, if that secondhand man’s really serious about buyin’ it, Julia, you sell it. And then you’ll get to see Paris, all right Just keep droppin’ hints from time to time that’s how I got to see the Atlantic Ocean, y’know.
MRS. GIBBS: Oh, I’m sorry I mentioned it. Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.
The STAGE MANAGER enters briskly from the right. He tips his hat to the ladies, who nod their heads.
STAGE MANAGER: Thank you, ladies. Thank you very much.
MRS. GIBBS and MRS. WEBB gather up their things, return into their homes and disappear. Now we’re going to skip a few hours.
But first we want a little more information about the town, kind of a scientific account, you might say.
So I’ve asked Professor Willard of our State University to sketch in a few details of our past history here. Is Professor Willard here?
PROFESSOR WILLARD, a rural savant, pince-nez on a wide satin ribbon, enters from the right with some notes in his hand.
May I introduce Professor Willard of our State University. A few brief notes, thank you, Professor, unfortunately our time is limited.
PROFESSOR WILLARD: Grover’s Corners ... let me see ... Grover’s Corners lies on the old Pleistocene granite of the Appalachian range. I may say it’s some of the oldest land in the world. We’re very proud of that. A shelf of Devonian basalt crosses it with vestiges of Mesozoic shale, and some sandstone outcroppings; but that’s all more recent: two hundred, three hundred million years old. Some highly interesting fossils have been found ... I may say: unique fossils … two miles out of town, in Silas Peckham’s cow pasture. They can be seen at the museum in our University at any time that is, at any reasonable time. Shall I read some of Professor Gruber’s notes on the meteorological situation mean precipitation, et cetera?
STAGE MANAGER: Afraid we won’t have time for that, Professor. We might have a few words on the history of man here.
PROFESSOR WILLARD: Yes … anthropological data: Early Amerindian stock. Cotahatchee tribes ... no evidence before the tenth century of this era ... hm … now entirely disappeared … possible traces in three families. Migration toward the end of the seventeenth century of English brachiocephalic blue-eyed stock ... for the most part. Since then some Slav and Mediterranean
STAGE MANAGER: And the population, Professor Willard?
PROFESSOR WILLARD: Within the town limits: 2,640.
STAGE MANAGER: Just a moment, Professor.
He whispers into the professor’s ear.
PROFESSOR WILLARD: Oh, yes, indeed? The population, at the moment, is 2,642. The Postal District brings in 507 more, making a total of 3,149. Mortality and birth rates: constant. By MacPherson’s gauge: 6.032.
STAGE MANAGER: Thank you very much, Professor. We’re all very much obliged to you, I’m sure.
PROFESSOR WILLARD: Not at all, sir; not at all.
STAGE MANAGER: This way, Professor, and thank you again.
Exit PROFESSOR WILLARD.
Now the political and social report: Editor Webb. Oh, Mr. Webb?
MRS. WEBB appears at her back door.
MRS. WEBB: He’ll be here in a minute. He just cut his hand while he was eatin’ an apple.
STAGE MANAGER: Thank you, Mrs. Webb.
MRS. WEBB: Charles! Everybody’s waitin’.
Exit MRS. WEBB.
STAGE MANAGER: Mr. Webb is Publisher and Editor of the Grover’s Corners Sentinel. That’s our local paper, y’know.
MR. WEBB enters from his house, pulling on his coat. His finger is bound in a handkerchief.
MR. WEBB: Well ... I don’t have to tell you that we’re run here by a Board of Selectmen. All males vote at the age of twenty-one. Women vote indirect. We’re lower middle class: sprinkling of professional men … ten per cent illiterate laborers. Politically, we’re eighty-six per cent Republicans; six per cent Democrats; four per cent Socialists; rest, indifferent.
Religiously, we’re eighty-five per cent Protestants; twelve per cent Catholics; rest, indifferent.
STAGE MANAGER: Have you any comments, Mr. Webb?
MR. WEBB: Very ordinary town, if you ask me. Little better behaved than most. Probably a lot duller.
But our young people here seem to like it well enough. Ninety per cent of ’em graduating from high school settle down right here to live even when they’ve been away to college.
STAGE MANAGER: Now, is there anyone in the audience who would like to ask Editor Webb anything about the town?
WOMAN IN THE BALCONY: Is there much drinking in Grover’s Corners?
MR. WEBB: Well, ma’am, I wouldn’t know what you’d call much. Satiddy nights the farmhands meet down in Ellery Greenough’s stable and holler some. We’ve got one or two town drunks, but they’re always having remorses every time an evangelist comes to town. No, ma’am, I’d say likker ain’t a regular thing in the home here, except in the medicine chest. Right good for snake bite, y’know always was.
BELLIGERENT MAN AT BACK OF AUDITORIUM: Is there no one in town aware of
STAGE MANAGER: Come forward, will you, where we can all hear you. What were you saying?
BELLIGERENT MAN: Is there no one in town aware of social injustice and industrial inequality?
MR. WEBB: Oh, yes, everybody is somethin’ terrible. Seems like they spend most of their rime talking about who’s rich and who’s poor.
BELLIGERENT MAN: Then why don’t they do something about it?
He withdraws without waiting for m answer.
MR. WEBB: Well, I dunno. ... I guess we’re all hunting like everybody else for a way the diligent and sensible can rise to the top and the lazy and quarrelsome can sink to the bottom. But it ain’t easy to find. Meanwhile, we do all we can to help those that can’t help themselves and those that can we leave alone. Are there any other questions?
LADY IN A BOX: Oh, Mr. Webb? Mr. Webb, is there any culture or love of beauty in Grover’s Corners?
MR. WEBB: Well, ma’am, there ain’t much not in the sense you mean. Come to think of it, there’s some girls that play the piano at High School Commencement; but they ain’t happy about it. No, ma’am, there isn’t much culture; but maybe this is the place to tell you that we’ve got a lot of pleasures of a kind here: we like the sun comin’ up over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds. We pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change of the seasons; yes, everybody knows about them. But those other things you’re right, ma’am, there ain’t much. Robinson Crusoe and the Bible; and Handel’s "Largo," we all know that; and Whistler’s "Mother" those are just about as far as we go.
LADY IN A BOX: So I thought. Thank you, Mr. Webb.
STAGE MANAGER: Thank you, Mr. Webb.
MR. WEBB retires.
Now, we’ll go back to the town. It’s early afternoon. All 2,642 have had their dinners and all the dishes have been washed.
MR. WEBB, having removed his coat, returns and starts pushing a lawn mower to and fro beside his house.
There’s an early-afternoon calm in our town: a buzzin’ and a hummin’ from the school buildings; only a few buggies on Main Street the horses dozing at the hitching posts; you all remember what it’s like. Doc Gibbs is in his office, tapping people and making them say "ah." Mr. Webb’s cuttin’ his lawn over there; one man in ten thinks it’s a privilege to push his own lawn mower. No, sir. It’s later than I thought. There are the children coming home from school already.
Shrill girls’ voices are heard, off left. EMILY comes along Main Street, carrying some books. There are some signs that she is imagining herself to be a lady of startling elegance.
EMILY: I can’t, Lois. I’ve got to go home and help my mother. I promised.
MR. WEBB: Emily, walk simply. Who do you think you are today?
EMILY: Papa, you’re terrible. One minute you tell me to stand up straight and the next minute you call me names. I just don’t listen to you,
She gives him an abrupt kiss.
MR. WEBB: Golly, I never got a kiss from such a great lady before.
He goes out of sight. EMILY leans over and picks some flowers by the gate of her house.
GEORGE GIBBS comes careening down Main Street. He is throttling a ball up to dizzying heights, and waiting to catch it again. This sometimes requires his taking six steps backward. He bumps into an OLD LADY invisible to us.
GEORGE: Excuse me, Mrs. Forrest.
STAGE MANAGER: (As Mrs. Forrest.) Go out and play in the fields, young man. You got no business playing baseball on Main Street.
GEORGE: Awfully sorry, Mrs. Forrest. Hello, Emily.
EMILY: H’lo.
GEORGE: You made a fine speech in class.
EMILY: Well ... I was really ready to make a speech about the Monroe Doctrine, but at the last minute Miss Corcoran made me talk about the Louisiana Purchase instead. I worked an awful long time on both of them.
GEORGE: Gee, it’s funny, Emily. From my window up there I can just see your head nights when you’re doing your homework over in your room.
EMILY: Why, can you?
GEORGE: You certainly do stick to it, Emily. I don’t see how you can sit still that long. I guess you like school.
EMILY: Well, I always feel it’s something you have to go through.
GEORGE: Yeah.
EMILY: I don’t mind it really. It passes the time.
GEORGE: Yeah. Emily, what do you think? We might work out a kinda telegraph from your window to mine; and once in a while you could give me a kinda hint or two about one of those algebra problems. I don’t mean the answers, Emily, of course not … just some little hint …
EMILY: Oh, I think hints are allowed. – So – ah – if you get stuck, George, you whistle to me; and I’ll give you some hints.
GEORGE: Emily, you’re just naturally bright, I guess.
EMILY: I figure that it’s just the way a person’s born.
GEORGE: Yeah. But, you see, I want to be a farmer, and my Uncle Luke says whenever I’m ready I can come over and work on his farm and if I’m any good I can just gradually have it
EMILY: You mean the house and everything?
Enter MRS. WEBB with a large bowl and sits on the bench by her trellis.
GEORGE: Yeah. Well, thanks ... I better be getting out to the baseball field. Thanks for the talk, Emily. Good afternoon, Mrs. Webb.
MRS. WEBB: Good afternoon, George.
GEORGE: So long, Emily.
EMILY: So long, George.
MRS. WEBB: Emily, come and help me string these beans for the winter. George Gibbs let himself have a real conversation, didn’t he? Why, he’s growing up. How old would George be?
EMILY: I don’t know.
MRS. WEBB: Let’s see. He must be almost sixteen.
EMILY: Mama, I made a speech in class today and I was very good.
MRS. WEBB: Yon must recite it to your father at supper. What was It about?
EMILY: The Louisiana Purchase. It was like silk off a spool. I’m going to make speeches all my life. – Mama, are these big enough?
MRS. WEBB: Try and get them a little bigger if you can.
EMILY: Mama, will you answer me a question, serious?
MRS. WEBB: Seriously, dear not serious.
EMILY: Seriously, will you?
MRS. WEBB: Of course, I will.
EMILY: Mama, am I good looking?
MRS. WEBB: Yes, of course you are. All my children have got good features; I’d be ashamed if they hadn’t.
EMILY: Oh, Mama, that’s not what I mean, What I mean is; am I pretty?
WEBB: I’ve already told you, yes. Now that’s enough of that. You have a nice young pretty face. I never heard of such foolishness.
EMILY: Oh, Mama, you never tell us the truth about anything.
MRS. WEBB: I am telling you the truth.
EMILY: Mama, were you pretty?
MRS. WEBB: Yes, I was, if I do say it. I was the prettiest girl in town next to Mamie Cartwright.
EMILY: But, Mama, you’ve got to say something about me. Am I pretty enough ... to get anybody ... to get people interested in me?
MRS. WEBB: Emily, you make me tired. Now stop it. You’re pretty enough for all normal purposes. Come along now and bring that bowl with you.
EMILY: Oh, Mama, you’re no help at all.
STAGE MANAGER: Thank you. Thank you! That’ll do. We’ll have to interrupt again here. Thank you, Mrs. Webb; thank you, Emily.
MRS. WEBB and EMILY withdraw.
There are some more things we want to explore about this town.
He comes to the center of the stage. During the following speech the lights gradually dim to darkness, leaving only a spot on him.
I think this is a good time to tell you that the Cartwright interests have just begun building a new bank in Grover’s Corners – had to go to Vermont for the marble, sorry to say. And they’ve asked a friend of mine what they should put in the cornerstone for people to dig up ... a thousand years from now. … Of course, they’ve put in a copy of the New York Times and a copy of Mr. Webb’s Sentinel. … We’re kind of interested in this because some scientific fellas have found a way of painting all that reading matter with a glue – a silicate glue – that’ll make it keep a thousand – two thousand years.
We’re putting in a Bible … and the Constitution of the United States – and a copy of William Shakespeare’s plays. What do you say, folks? What do you think?
Y’know – Babylon once had two million people in it, and all we know about ’em is the names of the kings and some copies of wheat contracts … and contracts for the sale of slaves. Yet every night all those families sat down to supper, and the father came home from his work, and the smoke went up the chimney, same as here. And even in Greece and Rome, all we know about the real life of the people is what we can piece together out of the joking poems and the comedies they wrote for the theatre back then.
So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight.
See what I mean?
So people a thousand years from now this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.
A chair partially concealed in the orchestra fit has begun singing "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds."
SIMON STIMSON stands directing them.
Two ladders have been pushed onto the stage; they serve as indication of the second story m the Gibbs and Webb houses. GEORGE and EMILY mount them, and apply themselves to their schoolwork.
DR. GIBBS has entered and is seated in his kitchen reading.
Well! good deal of time’s gone by. It’s evening.
You can hear choir practice going on in the Congregational Church.
The children are at home doing their schoolwork.
The day’s running down like a tired clock.
SIMON STIMSON: Now look here, everybody. Music come into the world to give pleasure. Softer! Softer! Get it out of your heads that music’s only good when it’s loud. You leave loudness to the Methodists. You couldn’t beat ’em, even if you wanted to. Now again. Tenors!
GEORGE: Hssst! Emily!
EMILY: Hello.
GEORGE: Hello!
EMILY: I can’t work at all. The moonlight’s so terrible.
GEORGE: Emily, did you get the third problem?
EMILY: Which?
GEORGE: The third?
EMILY: Why, yes, George that’s the easiest of them all.
GEORGE: I don’t see it. Emily, can you give me a hint?
EMILY: I’ll tell you one thing: the answer’s in yards,
GEORGE: ! ! ! In yards? How do you mean?
EMILY: In square yards.
GEORGE: Oh ... in square yards.
EMILY: Yes, George, don’t you see?
GEORGE: Yeah.
EMILY: In square yards of wallpaper*
GEORGE: "Wallpaper, oh, I see. Thanks a lot, Emily.
EMILY: You’re welcome. My, isn’t the moonlight terrible? And choir practice going on. I think if you hold your breath you can hear the train all the way to Contoocook. Hear it?
GEORGE: M-m-m What do you know!
EMILY: Well, I guess I better go back and try to work.
GEORGE: Good night, Emily. And thanks,
EMILY: Good night, George.
SIMON STIMSON: Before I forget it: how many of you will be able to come in Tuesday afternoon and sing at Fred Hersey’s wedding? show your hands. That’ll be fine; that’ll be right nice. We’ll do the same music we did for Jane Trowbridge’s last month. Now we’ll do: "Art Thou Weary; Art Thou Languid?" It’s a question, ladies and gentlemen, make it talk. Ready.
DR. GIBBS: Oh, George, can you come down a minute?
GEORGE: Yes, Pa.
He descends the ladder.
DR. GIBBS: Make yourself comfortable, George; I’ll only keep you a minute.
George, how old are you?
GEORGE: I? I’m sixteen, almost seventeen.
DR. GIBBS: What do you want to do after school’s over?
GEORGE: Why, you know, Pa. I want to be a farmer on Uncle Luke’s farm.
DR. GIBBS: You’ll be willing, will you, to get up early and milk and feed the stock … and you’ll be able to hoe and hay all day?
GEORGE: Sure, I will. What are you … what do you mean, Pa?
DR. GIBBS: Well, George, while I was in my office today I heard a funny sound … and what do you think it was? It was your mother chopping wood. There you see your mother getting up early; cooking meals all day long; washing and ironing; and still she has to go out in the back yard and chop wood. I suppose she just got tired of asking you. She just gave up and decided it was easier to do it herself. And you eat her meals, and put on the clothes she keeps nice for you, and you run off and play baseball, like she’s some hired girl we keep around the house but that we don’t like very much. Well, I knew all I had to do was call your attention to it. Here’s a handkerchief, son. George, I’ve decided to raise your spending money twenty-five cents a week. Not, of course, for chopping wood for your mother, because that’s a present you give her, but because you’re getting older and I imagine there are lots of things you must find to do with it
GEORGE: Thanks, Pa.
DR. GIBBS: Let’s see tomorrow’s your payday. You can count on it Hmm. Probably Rebecca’ll feel she ought to have some more too. Wonder what could have happened to your mother. Choir practice never was as late as this before.
GEORGE: It’s only half past eight, Pa.
DR. GIBBS: I don’t know why she’s in that old choir. She hasn’t any more voice than an old crow. … Traipsin’ around the streets at this hour of the night … Just about time you retired, don’t you think?
GEORGE: Yes, Pa.
GEORGE mounts to his place on the ladder.
Laughter and good nights can be heard on stage left and presently MRS. GIBBS, MRS. SOAMES and MRS. WEBB come down Main Street. When they arrive at the corner of the stage they stop.
MRS. SOAMES: Good night, Martha. Good night, Mr. Foster.
MRS. WEBB: I’ll tell Mr. Webb; I know he’ll want to put it in the paper.
MRS. GIBBS: My, it’s late!
MRS. SOAMES: Good night, Irma.
MRS. GIBBS: Real nice choir practice, wa’n’t it? Myrtle Webb! Look at that moon, will you! Tsk-tsk-tsk. Potato weather, for sure.
They are silent a moment , gazing up at the moon.
MRS. SOAMES: Naturally I didn’t want to say a word about it in front of those others, but now we’re alone really, it’s the worst scandal that ever was in this town!
MRS. GIBBS: What?
MRS. SOAMES: Simon Stimson!
MRS. GIBBS: Now, Louella!
MRS. SOAMES: But, Julia! To have the organist of a church drink and drink year after year. You know he was drunk tonight.
MRS. GIBBS: Now, Louella! We all know about Mr. Stimson, and we all know about the troubles he’s been through, and Dr. Ferguson knows too, and if Dr. Ferguson keeps him on there in his job the only thing the rest of us can do is just not to notice it.
MRS. SOAMES: Not to notice it! But it’s getting worse.
MRS. WEBB: No, it isn’t, Louella. It’s getting better. I’ve been in that choir twice as long as you have. It doesn’t happen anywhere near so often. … My, I hate to go to bed on a night like this. I better hurry. Those children’ll be sitting up rill all hours. Good night, Louella.
They all exchange good nights. She hurries downstage, enters her house and disappears.
MRS. GIBBS: Can you get home safe, Louella?
MRS. SOAMES: It’s as bright as day. I can see Mr. Soames scowling at the window now. You’d think we’d been to a dance the way the menfolk carry on.
More good nights. MRS. GIBBS arrives at her home and passes through the trellis into the kitchen.
MRS. GIBBS: Well, we had a real good time.
DR. GIBBS: You’re late enough.
MRS. GIBBS: Why, Frank, it ain’t any later ’n usuaL
DR. GIBBS: And you stopping at the corner to gossip with a lot of hens.
MRS. GIBBS: Now, Frank, don’t be grouchy. Come out and smell the heliotrope in the moonlight.
They stroll out arm in arm along the footlights.
Isn’t that wonderful? What did you do all the time I was away?
DR. GIBBS: Oh, I read as usual. What were the girls gossiping about tonight?
MRS. GIBBS: Well, believe me, Frank there is something to gossip about.
DR. GIBBS: Hmm! Simon Stimson far gone, was he?
MRS. GIBBS: Worst I’ve ever seen him. How’ll that end, Frank? Dr. Ferguson can’t forgive him forever.
DR. GIBBS: I guess I know more about Simon Stimson’s affairs than anybody in this town. Some people ain’t made for small-town life. I don’t know how that’ll end; but there’s nothing we can do but just leave it alone. Come, get in,
MRS. GIBBS: No, not yet ... Frank, I’m worried about you.
DR. GIBBS: What are you worried about?
MRS. GIBBS: I think it’s my duty to make plans for you to get a real rest and change. And if I get that legacy, well, I’m going to insist on it.
DR. GIBBS: Now, Julia, there’s no sense in going over that again.
MRS. GIBBS: Frank, you’re just unreasonable!
DR. GIBBS:Starting into the house. Come on, Julia, it’s getting late. First thing you know youll catch cold. I gave George a piece of my mind tonight. I reckon you’ll have your wood chopped for a while anyway. No, no, start getting upstairs.
MRS. GIBBS: Oh, dear. There’s always so many things to pick op, seems like. You know, Frank, Mrs. Fairchild always locks her front door every night. All those people up that part of town do.
DR. GIBBS: Blowing out the lamp. They’re all getting citified, that’s the trouble with them. They haven’t got nothing fit to burgle and everybody knows it.
They disappear.
REBECCA climbs up the ladder beside GEORGE.
GEORGE: Get out, Rebecca. There’s only room for one at this window. You’re always spoiling everything.
REBECCA: Well, let me look just a minute.
GEORGE: Use your own window.
REBECCA: I did, but there’s no moon there. … George, do you know what I think, do you? I think maybe the moon’s getting nearer and nearer and there’ll be a big ’splosion.
GEORGE: Rebecca, you don’t know anything. If the moon were getting nearer, the guys that sit up all night with telescopes would see it first and they’d tell about it, and it’d be in all the newspapers.
REBECCA: George, is the moon shining on South America, Canada and half the whole world?
GEORGE: Well prob’ly is.
The STAGE MANAGER strolls on.
Pause. The sound of crickets is heard.
STAGE MANAGER: Nine thirty. Most of the lights are out. No, there’s Constable Warren trying a few doors on Main Street. And here comes Editor Webb, after putting his newspaper to bed.
MR. WARREN, an elderly policeman, comes along Main Street from the right, MR. WEBB from the left.
MR. WEBB: Good evening, Bill.
CONSTABLE WARREN: Evenin’, Mr. Webb.
MR. WEBB: Quite a moon!
CONSTABLE WARREN: Yepp.
MR. WEBB: All quiet tonight?
CONSTABLE WARREN: Simon Stimson is rollin’ around a little. Just saw his wife movin’ out to hunt for him so I looked the other way – there he is now.
SIMON STIMSON comes down Main Street from the left, only a trace of unsteadiness in his walk.
MR. WEBB: Good evening, Simon … Town seems to have settled down for the night pretty well. …
SIMON STIMSON comes up to him and pauses a moment and stares at him, swaying slightly.
Good evening … Yes, most of the town’s settled down for the night, Simon I guess we better do the same. Can I walk along a ways with you?
SIMON STIMSON continues on his way without a word and disappears at the right.
Good night.
CONSTABLE WARREN: I don’t know how that’s goin’ to end, Mr. Webb.
MR. WEBB: Well, he’s seen a peck of trouble, one thing after another. … Oh, Bill ... if you see my boy smoking cigarettes, just give him a word, will you? He thinks a lot of you, Bill,
CONSTABLE WARREN: I don’t think he smokes no cigarettes, Mr. Webb. Leastways, not more’n two or three a year.
MR. WEBB: Hm ... I hope not. Well, good night, Bill
CONSTABLE WARREN: Good night, Mr. Webb. Exit.
MR. WEBB: Who’s that up there? Is that you, Myrtle?
EMILY: No, it’s me, Papa.
MR. WEBB: Why aren’t you in bed?
EMILY: I don’t know. I just can’t sleep yet, Papa. The moonlight’s so wonderful. And the smell of Mrs. Gibbs’ heliotrope. Can you smell it?
MR. WEBB: Hm … Yes. Haven’t any troubles on your mind, have you, Emily?
EMILY: Troubles, Papa? No.
MR. WEBB: Well, enjoy yourself, but don’t let your mother catch you. Good night, Emily.
EMILY: Good night, Papa.
MR. WEBB crosses into the house, whistling "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds" and disappears.
REBECCA: I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.
GEORGE: What’s funny about that?
REBECCA: But listen, it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God that’s what it said on the envelope.
GEORGE: What do you know!
REBECCA: And the postman brought it just the same.
GEORGE: What do you know!
STAGE MANAGER: That’s the end of the First Act, friends. You can go and smoke now, those that smoke.