The tables and chairs of the two kitchens are still on the stage.
The ladders and the small bench have been withdrawn.
The STAGE MANAGER has been at his accustomed place watching the audience return to its seats.
STAGE MANAGER: Three years have gone by.
Yes, the sun’s come up over a thousand times.
Summers and winters have cracked the mountains a little bit more and the rains have brought down some of the dirt.
Some babies that weren’t even born before have begun talking regular sentences already; and a number of people who thought they were right young and spry have noticed that they can’t bound up a flight of stairs like they used to, without their heart fluttering a little.
All that can happen in a thousand days.
Nature’s been pushing and contriving in other ways, too: a number of young people fell in love and got married. Yes, the mountain got bit away a few fractions of an inch; millions of gallons of water went by the mill; and here and there a new home was set up under a roof.
Almost everybody in the world gets married, you know what I mean? In our town there aren’t hardly any exceptions. Most everybody in the world climbs into their graves married.
The First Act was called the Daily Life. This act is called Love and Marriage. There’s another act coming after this: I reckon you can guess what that’s about.
So:
It’s three years later. It’s 1904.
It’s July 7th, just after High School Commencement.
That’s the time most of our young people jump up and get married.
Soon as they’ve passed their last examinations in solid geometry and Cicero’s Orations, looks like they suddenly fed themselves fit to be married.
It’s early morning. Only this time it’s been raining. It’s been pouring and thundering.
Mrs. Gibbs’ garden, and Mrs. Webb’s here: drenched.
All those bean poles and pea vines: drenched.
All yesterday over there on Main Street, the rain looked like curtains being blown along.
Hm ... it may begin again any minute. There! You can hear the 5:45 for Boston.
MRS. GIBBS and MRS. WEBB enter their kitchen and start the day as in the First Act.
And there’s Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs, Webb come down to make breakfast, just as though it were an ordinary day. I don’t have to point out to the women in my audience that those ladies they see before them, both of those ladies cooked three meals a day – one of ’em for twenty years, the other for forty – and no summer vacation. They brought up two children apiece, washed, cleaned the house, – and never a nervous breakdown.
It’s like what one of those Middle West poets said: You’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life. . . It’s what they call a vicious circle.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Off stage left.
Giddap, Bessie!
STAGE MANAGER: Here comes Howie Newsome delivering the milk. And there’s Si Crowell delivering the papers like his brother before him.
SI CROWELL has entered tossing imaginary newspapers into doorways; HOWIE NEWSOME has come along Main Street with Bessie.
SI CROWELL: Morning, Howie.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Morning, Si. Anything in the papers I ought to know?
SI CROWELL: Nothing much, except we’re losing about the best baseball pitcher Grover’s Corners ever had – George Gibbs.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Reckon he is.
SI CROWELL: He could hit and run bases, too.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Yep. Mighty fine ball player. Whoa! Bessie! I guess 1 can stop and talk if I’ve a mind to!
SI CROWELL: I don’t see how he could give up a thing like that just to get married. Would you, Howie?
HOWIE NEWSOME: Can’t tell, Si. Never had no talent that way.
CONSTABLE WARREN enters. They exchange good mornings.
You’re up early, Bill
CONSTABLE WARREN: Seein’ if there’s anything I can do to prevent a flood. River’s been risin’ all night.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Si Crowell’s all worked up here about George Gibbs’ retiring from baseball.
CONSTABLE WARREN: Yes, sir; that’s the way it goes. Back in ’84 we had a player, Si – even George Gibbs couldn’t touch him. Name of Hank Todd. Went down to Maine and become a parson. Wonderful ball player. Howie, how does the weather look to you?
HOWIE NEWSOME: Oh, ’tain’t bad Think maybe it’ll clear up for good.
CONSTABLE WARREN and SI CROWELL continue on their way.
HOWIE NEWSOME brings the milk first to Mrs. Gibbs’ house. She meets him by the trellis.
MRS. GIBBS: Good morning, Howie. Do you think it’s going to rain again?
HOWIE NEWSOME: Morning, Mrs. Gibbs. It rained so heavy, I think maybe it’ll clear up.
MRS. GIBBS: Certainly hope it will.
HOWIE NEWSOME: How much did you want today?
MRS. GIBBS: I’m going to have a houseful of relations, Howie. Looks to me like I’ll need three-a-milk and two-a-cream.
HOWIE NEWSOME: My wife says to tell you we both hope they’ll be very happy,
Mrs. Gibbs, Know they wilL
MRS. GIBBS: Thanks a lot, Howie. Tell your wife I hope she gits there to the wedding.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Yes, she’ll be there; she’ll be there if she kin.
HOWIE NEWSOME crosses to Mrs. Webb’s house.
Morning, Mrs. Webb.
MRS. WEBB: Oh, good morning, Mr. Newsome. I told you four quarts of milk, but I hope you can spare me another.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Yes’m … and the two of cream,
MRS. WEBB: Will it start raining again, Mr. Newsome?
HOWIE NEWSOME: Well. Just sayin’ to Mrs. Gibbs as how it may lighten up, Mrs. Newsome told me to tell you as how we hope they’ll both be very happy, Mrs. Webb. Know they will.
MRS. WEBB: Thank you, and thank Mrs. Newsome and we’re counting on seeing you at the wedding.
HOWIE NEWSOME: Yes, Mrs. Webb. We hope to git there. Couldn’t miss that. Come on, Bessie.
Exit HOWIE NEWSOME,
DR. GIBBS descends in shirt sleeves, and sits down at his breakfast table.
DR. GIBBS: Well, Ma, the day has come. You’re losin’ one of your chicks.
MRS. GIBBS: Frank Gibbs, don’t you say another word. I feel like crying every minute. Sit down and drink your coffee.
DR. GIBBS: The groom’s up shaving himself only there ain’t an awful lot to shave. Whistling and singing, like he’s glad to leave us. Every now and then he says "I do" to the mirror, but k don’t sound convincing to me.
MRS. GIBBS: I declare, Frank, I don’t know how he’ll get along. I’ve arranged his clothes and seen to it he’s put warm things on, Frank! they’re too young. Emily won’t think of such things. He’ll catch his death of cold within a week.
DR. GIBBS: I was remembering my wedding morning, Julia.
MRS. GIBBS: Now don’t start that, Frank Gibbs.
DR. GIBBS: I was the scaredest young fella in the State of New Hampshire. I thought I’d make a mistake for sure. And when I saw you comin’ down that aisle I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but the only trouble was that I’d never seen you before. There I was in the Congregational Church marryin’ a total stranger.
MRS. GIBBS: And how do you think I felt! – Frank, weddings are perfectly awful things. Farces, – that’s what they are!
She puts a plate before him.
Here, I’ve made something for you.
DR. GIBBS: Why, Julia Hersey – French toast!
MRS. GIBBS: Tain’t hard to make and I had to do something.
Pause. DR. GIBBS pours on the syrup.
DR. GIBBS: How’d you sleep last night, Julia?
MRS. GIBBS: Well, I heard a lot of the hours struck off.
DR. GIBBS: Ye-e-s! I get a shock every time I think of George setting out to be a family man – that great gangling thing! – I tell you Julia, there’s nothing so terrifying in the world as a son. The relation of father and son is the darndest, awkwardest –
MRS. GIBBS: Well, mother and daughter’s no picnic, let me tell you.
DR. GIBBS: They’ll have a lot of troubles, I suppose, but that’s none of our business. Everybody has a right to their own troubles,
MRS. GIBBS: At the table, drinking her coffee, meditatively. Yes … people are meant to go through life two by two. Tain’t natural to be lonesome.
Pause. DR. GIBBS starts laughing.
DR. GIBBS: Julia, do you know one of the things I was scared of when I married you?
MRS. GIBBS: Oh, go along with you!
DR. GIBBS: I was afraid we wouldn’t have material for conversation more’n’d last us a few weeks.
Both laugh.
I was afraid we’d run out and eat our meals in silence, that’s a fact. Well, you and I been conversing for twenty years now without any noticeable barren spells.
MRS. GIBBS: Well, – good weather, bad weather – ’tain’t very choice, but I always find something to say.
She goes to the foot of the stairs.
Did you hear Rebecca stirring around upstairs?
DR. GIBBS: No. Only day of the year Rebecca hasn’t been managing everybody’s business up there. She’s hiding in her room. I got the impression she’s crying.
MRS. GIBBS: Lord’s sakes! – This has got to stop. – Rebecca! Rebecca! Come and get your breakfast.
GEORGE comes rattling down the stairs, very brisk.
GEORGE: Good morning, everybody. Only five more hours to live.
Makes the gesture of cutting his throat, and a loud "k-k-k"," and starts through the trellis.
MRS. GIBBS: George Gibbs, where are you going?
GEORGE: Just stepping across the grass to see my girl.
MRS. GIBBS: Now, George! You put on your overshoes. It’s raining torrents.
You don’t go out of this house without you’re prepared for it.
GEORGE: Aw, Ma. It’s just a step!
MRS. GIBBS: George! You’ll catch your death of cold and cough all through the service.
DR. GIBBS: George, do as your mother tells you!
DR. GIBBS goes upstairs.
GEORGE returns reluctantly to the kitchen and pantomimes putting on overshoes.
MRS. GIBBS: From tomorrow on you can kill yourself in all weathers, but while you’re in my house you’ll live wisely, thank you, Maybe Mrs. Webb isn’t used to callers at seven in the morning. – Here, take a cup of coffee first.
GEORGE: Be back in a minute.
He crosses the stage, leaping over the puddles.
Good morning, Mother Webb.
MRS. WEBB: Goodness! You frightened me! Now, George, you can come in a minute out of the wet, but you know I can’t ask you in.
GEORGE: Why not ?
MRS. WEBB: George, you know’s well as I do: the groom can’t see his bride on his wedding day, not until he sees her in church.
GEORGE: Aw! – that’s just a superstition. – Good morning, Mr. Webb.
Enter MR. WEBB.
MR. WEBB: Good morning, George.
GEORGE: Mr. Webb, you don’t believe in that superstition, do you?
MR. WEBB: There’s a lot of common sense in some superstitions, George,
He sits at the table, facing right.
MRS. WEBB: Millions have folla’d it, George, and you don’t want to be the first to fly in the face of custom.
GEORGE: How is Emily?
MRS. WEBB: She hasn’t waked tip yet. I haven’t heard a sound out of her.
GEORGE: Emily’s asleep!!!
MRS. WEBB: No wonder! We were up ’til all hours, sewing and packing. Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do; you set down here a minute with Mr. Webb and drink this cup of coffee; and I’ll go upstairs and see she doesn’t come down and surprise you. There’s some bacon, too; but don’t be long about it.
Exit MRS. WEBB.
Embarrassed silence.
MR. WEBB dunks doughnuts m his coffee.
More silence.
MR. WEBB: Suddenly and loudly.
Well, George, how are you?
GEORGE: Startled, choking over his coffee. Oh, fine, I’m fine.
Pause.
Mr. Webb, what sense could there be in a superstition like that?
MR. WEBB: Well, you see, – on her wedding morning a girl’s head’s apt to be full of ... clothes and one thing and another. Don’t you think that’s probably it?
GEORGE: Ye-e-s. I never thought of that.
MR. WEBB: A girl’s apt to be a mite nervous on her wedding day.
Pause.
GEORGE: I wish a fellow could get married without all that marching up and down.
MR. WEBB: Every man that’s ever lived has felt that way about it, George; but it hasn’t been any use. It’s the womenfolk who’ve built up weddings, my boy. For a while now the women have it all their own. A man looks pretty small at a wedding, George. ll those good women standing shoulder to shoulder making sure that the knot’s tied in a mighty public way.
GEORGE: But … you believe in it, don’t you, Mr. Webb?
MR. WEBB: With alacrity.
Oh, yes; oh, yes. Don’t you misunderstand me, my boy. Marriage is a wonderful thing, – wonderful thing. And don’t you forget that, George.
GEORGE: No, sir. – Mr. Webb, how old were you when you got married?
MR. WEBB: Well, you see: I’d been to college and I’d taken a little time to get settled. But Mrs. Webb she wasn’t much older than what
Emily k Oh, age hasn’t much to do with it, George, not compared with ... uh ... other things.
GEORGE: What were you going to say, Mr. Webb?
MR. WEBB: Oh, I don’t know. Was I going to say something?
Pause.
George, I was thinking the other night of some advice my father gave me when I got married. Charles, he said, Charles, start out early showing who’s boss, he said. Best thing to do is to give an order, even if it don’t make sense; just so she’ll learn to obey. And he said: if anything about your wife irritates you her conversation, or anything – just get up and leave the house. That’ll make it clear to her, he said. And, oh, yes! he said never, never let your wife know how much money you have, never.
GEORGE: Well, Mr. Webb ... I don’t think I could …
MR. WEBB: So I took the opposite of my father’s advice and I’ve been happy ever since. And let that be a lesson to you, George, never to ask advice on personal matters. – George, are you going to raise chickens on your farm?
GEORGE: What?
MR. WEBB: Are you going to raise chickens on your farm?
GEORGE: Uncle Luke’s never been much interested, but I thought –
MR. WEBB: A book came into my office the other day, George, on the Philo System of raising chickens. I want you to read it, I’m thinking of beginning in a small way in the back yard, and I’m going to put an incubator in the cellar
Enter MRS. WEBB.
MRS. WEBB: Charles, are you talking about that old incubator again? I thought you two’d be talking about things worth while.
MR. WEBB: Bitingly.
Well, Myrtle, if you want to give the boy some good advice, I’ll go upstairs and leave you alone with him.
MRS. WEBB: Pulling GEORGE up.
George, Emily’s got to come downstairs and eat her breakfast. She sends you her love but she doesn’t want to lay eyes on you. Good-by.
GEORGE: Good-by.
GEORGE crosses the stage to his own home, bewildered and crestfallen. He slowly dodges a puddle and disappears into his house.
MR. WEBB: Myrtle, I guess you don’t know about that older superstition.
MRS. WEBB: What do you mean, Charles?
MR. WEBB: Since the cave men: no bridegroom should see his father-in-law on the day of the wedding, or near it. Now remember that.
Both leave the stage.
STAGE MANAGER: Thank you very much, Mr. and Mrs. Webb. – Now I have to interrupt again here. You see, we want to know how all this began – this wedding, this plan to spend a lifetime together. I’m awfully interested in how big things like that begin.
You know how it is: you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions; then whisssh! you’re seventy: you’ve been a lawyer for fifty years, and that white-haired lady at your side has eaten over fifty thousand meals with you.
How do such things begin?
George and Emily are going to show you now the conversation they had when they first knew that … that ... as the saying goes … they were meant for one another.
But before they do it I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young.
And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking, and you didn’t quite see the street you were in, and didn’t quite hear everything that was said to you.
You’re just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?
Now they’ll be coming out of high school at three o’clock. George has just been elected President of the Junior Class, and as it’s June, that means he’ll be President of the Senior Class all next year. And Emily’s just been elected Secretary and Treasurer.
I don’t have to tell you how important that is.
He places a board across the backs of two chairs, which he takes from those at the Gibbs family’s table. He brings two high stools from the wings and places them behind the board. Persons sitting on the stools will be faring the audience. This is the counter of Mr. Morgan’s drugstore. The sounds of young people’s voices are heard off left.
Yepp, – there they are coming down Main Street now.
EMILY, carrying an armful of – imaginary – schoolbooks, comes along Main Street from the left.
EMILY: I can’t, Louise. I’ve got to go home. Good-by. Oh, Ernestine! Ernestine! Can you come over tonight and do Latin? Isn’t that Cicero the worst thing? Tell your mother you have to. G’by. G’by, Helen. G’by, Fred.
GEORGE, also carrying books, catches up with her.
GEORGE: Can I carry your books home for you, Emily?
EMILY: Coolly.
Why ... uh ... Thank you. It isn’t far.
She gives them to him.
GEORGE: Excuse me a minute, Emily. Say, Bob, if I’m a little late, start practice anyway. And give Herb some long high ones.
EMILY: Good-by, Lizzy.
GEORGE: Good-by, Lizzy. I’m awfully glad you were elected, too, Emily.
EMILY: Thank you.
They have been standing on Main Street, almost against the back wall. They take the first steps toward the audience when GEORGE stops and says:
GEORGE: Emily, why are you mad at me?
EMILY: I’m not mad at you.
GEORGE: You’ve been treating me so funny lately.
EMILY: Well, since you ask me, I might as well say it right out, George, –
She catches sight of a teacher passing.
Good-by, Miss Corcoran.
GEORGE: Good-by, Miss Corcoran. – Wha – what is it?
EMILY: Not scoldingly; finding it difficult to say.
I don’t like the whole change that’s come over you in the last year. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I’ve got to – tell the truth and shame the devil.
GEORGE: A change? – Wha – what do you mean?
EMILY: Well, up to a year ago I used to like you a lot. And I used to watch you as you did everything … because we’d been friends so long … and then you began spending all your time at baseball … and you never stopped to speak to anybody any more. Not even to your own family you didn’t … and, George, it’s a fact, you’ve got awful conceited and stuck-up, and all the girls say so. They may not say so to your face, but that’s what they say about you behind your back, and it hurts me to hear them say it, but I’ve got to agree with them a little. I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings … but I can’t be sorry I said it.
GEORGE: I ... I’m glad you said it, Emily. I never thought that such a thing was happening to me. I guess it’s hard for a fella not to have faults creep into his character.
They take a step or two in silence, then stand still in misery.
EMILY: I always expect a man to be perfect and I think he should be.
GEORGE: Oh ... I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect, Emily.
EMILY: Well, my father is, and as far as I can see your father is. There’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t be, too.
GEORGE: Well, I feel it’s the other way round. That men aren’t naturally good; but girls are.
EMILY: Well, you might as well know right now that I’m not perfect. It’s not as easy for a girl to be perfect as a man, because we girls are more – more – nervous. Now I’m sorry I said all that about you, I don’t know what made me say it.
GEORGE: Emily,
EMILY: Now I can sec it’s not the truth at all. And I suddenly feel that it isn’t important, anyway.
GEORGE: Emily would you like an ice-cream soda, or something, before you go home?
EMILY: Well, thank you … I would.
They advance toward the audience and make an abrupt right turn, opening the door of Morgan’s drugstore. Under strong emotion, EMILY keeps her face down.
GEORGE speaks to some passers-by.
GEORGE: Hello, Stew, how are you? Good afternoon, Mrs. Slocum.
The STAGE MANAGER, wearing spectacles and assuming the role of Mr. Morgan, enters abruptly from the right and stands between the audience and the counter of his soda fountain.
STAGE MANAGER: Hello, George. Hello, Emily. – What’ll you have? – Why, Emily Webb, what you been crying about?
GEORGE: He gropes for an explanation.
She … she just got an awful scare, Mr. Morgan. She almost got run over by that hardware-store wagon. Everybody says that Tom Huckins drives like a crazy man.
STAGE MANAGER: Drawing a drink of water.
Well, now! You take a drink of water, Emily. You look all shook up. I tell you, you’ve got to look both ways before you cross Main Street these days. Gets worse every year. – What’ll you have?
EMILY: I’ll have a strawberry phosphate, thank you, Mr. Morgan.
GEORGE: No, no, Emily. Have an ice-cream soda with me. Two strawberry ice-cream sodas, Mr. Morgan.
STAGE MANAGER: Working the faucets.
Two strawberry ice-cream sodas, yes sir. Yes, sir. There are a hundred and twenty-five horses in Grover’s Corners this minute I’m talking to you. State Inspector was in here yesterday. And now they’re bringing in these auto-mo-biles, the best thing to do is to just stay home. Why, I can remember when a dog could go to sleep all day in the middle of Main Street and nothing come along to disturb him.
He sets the imaginary glasses before them.
There they are. Enjoy ’em.
He sees a customer, right.
Yes, Mrs. Ellis. What can I do for you?
He goes out right.
EMILY: They’re so expensive.
GEORGE: No, no, – don’t you think of that. We’re celebrating our election.
And then do you know what else I’m celebrating?
EMILY: N-no.
GEORGE: I’m celebrating because I’ve got a friend who tells me all the things that ought to be told me.
EMILY: George, please don’t think of that. I don’t know why I said it. It’s not true. You’re –
GEORGE: No, Emily, you stick to it. I’m glad you spoke to me like you did. But you’ll see: I’m going to change so quick you bet I’m going to change. And, Emily, I want to ask you a favor.
EMILY: What?
GEORGE: Emily, if I go away to State Agriculture College next year, will you write me a letter once in a while?
EMILY: I certainly will. I certainly will, George …
Pause. They start sipping the sodas through the straws.
It certainly seems like being away three years you’d get out of touch with things. Maybe letters from Grover’s Corners wouldn’t be so interesting after a while. Grover’s Corners isn’t a very important place when you think of all – New Hampshire; but I think it’s a very nice town.
GEORGE: The day wouldn’t come when I wouldn’t want to know everything that’s happening here. I know that’s true, Emily.
EMILY: Well, I’ll try to make my letters interesting.
Pause.
GEORGE: Y’know. Emily, whenever I meet a farmer I ask him if he thinks it’s important to go to Agriculture School to be a good farmer.
EMILY: Why, George –
GEORGE: Yeah, and some of them say that it’s even a waste of time. You can get all those things, anyway, out of the pamphlets the government sends out. And Uncle Luke’s getting old, – he’s about ready for me to start in taking over his farm tomorrow, if I could.
EMILY: My!
GEORGE: And, like you say, being gone all that time ... in other places and meeting other people … Gosh, if anything like that can happen I don’t want to go away. I guess new people aren’t any better than old ones. I’ll bet they almost never are. Emily ... I feel that you’re as good a friend as I’ve got. I don’t need to go and meet the people in other towns.
EMILY: But, George, maybe it’s very important for you to go and learn all that about cattle judging and soils and those things. ... Of course, I don’t know.
GEORGE: After a pause, very seriously.
Emily, I’m going to make up my mind right now. I won’t go. I’ll tell Pa about it tonight.
EMILY: Why, George, I don’t see why you have to decide right now. It’s a whole year away.
GEORGE: Emily, I’m glad you spoke to me about that … that fault in my character. What you said was right; but there was one thing wrong in it, and that was when you said that for a year I wasn’t noticing people, and … you, for instance. Why, you say you were watching me when I did everything ... I was doing the same about you all the time. Why, sure, – I always thought about you as one of the chief people I thought about. I always made sure where you were sitting on the bleachers, and who you were with, and for three days now I’ve been trying to walk home with you; but something’s always got in the way. Yesterday I was standing over against the wall waiting for you, and you walked home with Miss Corcoran.
EMILY: George! … Life’s awful funny! How could I have known that? Why, I thought –
GEORGE: Listen, Emily, I’m going to tell you why I’m not going to Agriculture School. I think that once you’ve found a person that you’re very fond of ... I mean a person who’s fond of you, too, and likes you enough to be interested in your character … Well, I think that’s just as important as college is, and even more so. That’s what I think.
EMILY: I think it’s awfully important, too.
GEORGE: Emily.
EMILY: Y-yes, George.
GEORGE: Emily, if I do improve and make a big change … would you be ... I mean: could you be ...
EMILY: I ... I am now; I always have been.
GEORGE: Pause.
So I guess this is an important talk we’ve been having.
EMILY: Yes … yes.
GEORGE: Takes a deep breath and straightens his back.
Wait just a minute and I’ll walk you home.
With mounting alarm he digs into his pockets for the money.
The STAGE MANAGER enters, right.
GEORGE, deeply embarrassed, but direct, says to him:
Mr. Morgan, I’ll have to go home and get the money to pay you for this. It’ll only take me a minute.
STAGE MANAGER: Pretending to be affronted.
What’s that? George Gibbs, do you mean to tell me – !
GEORGE: Yes, but I had reasons, Mr. Morgan.– Look, here’s my gold watch to keep until I come back with the money.
STAGE MANAGER: That’s all right Keep your watch. I’ll trust you.
GEORGE: I’ll be back in five minutes.
STAGE MANAGER: I’ll trust you ten years, George, – not a day over. – Got all over your shock, Emily?
EMILY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Morgan. It was nothing.
GEORGE: Taking up the books from the counter.
I’m ready.
They walk in grave silence across the stage and pass through the trellis at the Webbs’ back door and disappear.
The STAGE MANAGER watches them go out, then turns to the audience^ removing his spectacles.
STAGE MANAGER: Well,
He claps his hands as a signal.
Now we’re ready to get on with the wedding.
He stands waiting while the set is prepared for the next scene.
STAGEHANDS remove the chairs, tables and trellises from the Gibbs and Webb houses.
They arrange the pews for the church in the center of the stage. The congregation will sit facing the back wall.
The aisle of the church starts at the center of the back wall and comes toward the audience.
A small platform is placed against the buck wall on which the STAGE MANAGER will stand later, playing the minister.
The image of a stained-glass window is cast from a lantern slide upon the back wall.
When all is ready the STAGE MANAGER strolls to the center of the stage, down front, and, musingly, addresses the audience.
There are a lot of things to be said about a wedding; there are a lot of thoughts that go on during a wedding.
We can’t get them all into one wedding, naturally, and especially not into a wedding at Grower’s Corners, where they’re awfully plain and short.
In this wedding I play the minister. That gives me the right to say a few more things about it.
For a while now, the play gets pretty serious.
Y’see, some churches say that marriage is a sacrament. I don’t quite know what that means* but I can guess. Like Mrs. Gibbs said a few minutes ago: People were made to live two-by-two.
This is a good wedding, but people are so put together that even at a good wedding there’s a lot of confusion way down deep in people’s minds and we thought that that ought to be in our play, too.
The real hero of this scene isn’t on the stage at all, and you know who that is. It’s like what one of those European fellas said: every child born into the world is nature’s attempt to make a perfect human being. Well, we’ve seen nature pushing and contriving for some time now. We all know that nature’s interested in quantity; but I think she’s interested in quality, too, – that’s why I’m in the ministry.
And don’t forget all the other witnesses at this wedding, the ancestors. Millions of them. Most of them set out to live two-by-two, also. Millions of them.
Well, that’s all my sermon. Twan’t very long, anyway.
The organ starts playing Handel’s "Largo" The congregation streams into the church and sits m silence.
Church bells are heard.
MRS. GIBBS sits in the front row, the first seat on the aisle, the right section; next to her are REBECCA and DR. GIBBS,
Across the aisle MRS. WEBB, WALLY and MR. WEBB. A small choir takes its place, facing the audience under the stained-glass window.
MRS. WEBB, on the way to her place, turns back and speaks to the audience.
MRS. WEBB: I don’t know why on earth I should be crying. I suppose there’s nothing to cry about. It came over me at breakfast this morning; there was Emily eating her breakfast as she’s done for seventeen years and now she’s going off to eat it in someone else’s house. I suppose that’s it.
And Emily! She suddenly said: I can’t eat another mouthful, and she put her head down on the table and she cried.
She starts toward her seat in the church, but turns back and adds:
Oh, I’ve got to say it: you know, there’s something downright cruel about sending our girls out into marriage this way. I hope some of her girl friends have told her a thing or two. It’s cruel, I know, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I went into it blind as a bat myself.
In half-amused exasperation.
The whole world’s wrong, that’s what’s the matter. There they come.
She hurries to her place in the pew.
GEORGE starts to come down the right aisle of the theatre, through the audience.
Suddenly THREE MEMBERS of his baseball team appear by the right proscenium pillar and start whistling and catcalling to him. They are dressed for the ball field.
THE BASEBALL PLAYERS: Eh, George, George! Hast – yaow! Look at him, fellas he looks scared to death. Yaow! George, don’t look so innocent, you old geezer. We know what you’re thinking. Don’t disgrace the team, big boy. Whoo-oo-oo.
STAGE MANAGER: All right! All right! That’ll do. That’s enough of that.
Smiling, he pushes them off the stage. They lean back to shout a few more catcalls.
There used to be an awful lot of that kind of thing at weddings in the old days, – Rome, and later. We’re more civilized now, so they say.
The choir starts singing "Love Divine, All Love Excelling –."
GEORGE has reached the stage. He stares at the congregation a moment, then takes a few steps of withdrawal, toward the right proscenium pillar. His mother, from the front row, seems to have felt his confusion. She leaves her seat and comes down the aisle quickly to him.
MRS. GIBBS: George! George! What’s the matter?
GEORGE: Ma, I don’t want to grow old. Why’s everybody pushing me so?
MRS. GIBBS: Why, George … you wanted it.
GEORGE: No, Ma, listen to me –
MRS. GIBBS: No, no, George, – you’re a man now.
GEORGE: Listen, Ma, – for the last time I ask you … All I want to do is to be a fella –
MRS. GIBBS: George! If anyone should hear you! Now stop. Why, I’m ashamed of you!
GEORGE: He comes to himself and looks over the scene.
What? Where’s Emily?
MRS. GIBBS: Relieved.
George! You gave me such a turn.
GEORGE: Cheer up, Ma. I’m getting married.
MRS. GIBBS: Let me catch my breath a minute.
GEORGE: Comforting her.
Now, Ma, you save Thursday nights. Emily and I are coming over to dinner every Thursday night … you’ll see. Ma, what are you crying for? Come on; we’ve got to get ready for this.
MRS. GIBBS, mastering her emotion, fixes his tie and whispers to him.
In the meantime, EMILY, hi white md wearing her wedding veil, has come through the audience and mounted onto the stage. She too draws back frightened, when she sees the congregation in the church. The choir begins: "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds."
EMILY: I never felt so alone in my whole life. And George over there, looking so … ! I hate him. I wish I were dead. Papa! Papa!
MR. WEBB: Leaves his seat in the pews and comes toward her anxiously.
Emily! Emily! Now don’t get upset. …
EMILY: But, Papa, I don’t want to get married. …
MR. WEBB: Sh – sh – Emily. Everything’s all right.
EMILY: Why can’t I stay for a while just as I am? Let’s go away, –
MR. WEBB: No, no, Emily. Now stop and think a minute.
EMILY: Don’t you remember that you used to say, – all the time you used to say – all the rime: that I was your girl! There must be lots of places we can go to. I’ll work for you. I could keep house.
MR. WEBB: Sh … You mustn’t think of such things. You’re just nervous, Emily.
He turns and calls:
George! George! Will you come here a minute?
He leads her toward George.
Why you’re marrying the best young fellow in the world. George is a fine fellow.
EMILY: But Papa, –
MRS. GIBBS returns unobtrusively to her seat.
MR. WEBB has one arm around his daughter. He places his hand on GEORGE’S shoulder.
MR. WEBB: I’m giving away my daughter, George. Do you think you can take care of her?
GEORGE: Mr. Webb, I want to ... I want to try. Emily, I’m going to do my best. I love you, Emily. I need you.
EMILY: Well, if you love me, help me. All I want is someone to love me.
GEORGE: I will, Emily. Emily, I’ll try.
EMILY: And I mean for ever. Do you hear? For ever and ever.
They fall into each others arms.
The March from Lohengrin is heard.
The STAGE MANAGER, as CLERGYMAN, stands on the box, up center.
MR. WEBB: Come, they’re waiting for us. Now you know it’ll be all right.
Come, quick.
GEORGE slips away and takes his place beside the STAGE MANAGER-CLERGYMAN.
EMILY proceeds up the aisle cm her fathers arm.
STAGE MANAGER: Do you, George, take this woman, Emily, to be your wedded wife, to have …
MRS. SOAMES has been sitting in the last row of the congregation.
She now turns to her neighbors and speaks in a shrill voice. Her chatter drowns out the rest of the clergyman’s words.
MRS. SOAMES: Perfectly lovely wedding! Loveliest wedding I ever saw. Oh, I do love a good wedding, don’t you? Doesn’t she make a lovely bride?
GEORGE: I do.
STAGE MANAGER: Do you, Emily, take this man, George, to be your wedded husband, –
Again his further words are covered by those of MRS. SOAMES.
MRS. SOAMES: Don’t know when I’ve seen such a lovely wedding. But I always cry. Don’t know why it is, but I always cry. I just like to see young people happy, don’t you? Oh, I think it’s lovely.
The ring.
The kiss.
The stage is suddenly arrested into silent tableau.
The STAGE MANAGER,his eyes on the distance, as though to himself:
STAGE MANAGER: I’ve married over two hundred couples in my day.
Do I believe in it?
I don’t know,
M … marries N … millions of them.
The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday-afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will,
He now looks at the audience for the first time, with a warm smile that removes any sense of cynicism from the next line.
Once in a thousand times it’s interesting.
–Well, let’s have Mendelssohn’s "Wedding March"!
The organ picks up the March.
The BRIDE and GROOM come down the aisle, radiant, but trying to be very dignified.
MRS. SOAMES: Aren’t they a lovely couple? Oh, I’ve never been to such a nice wedding. I’m sure they’ll be happy. I always say: happiness, that’s the great thing! The important thing is to be happy.
The BRIDE and GROOM reach the steps leading into the audience. A bright light is thrown upon them. They descend into the auditorium and run up the aisle joyously.
STAGE MANAGER: That’s all the Second Act, folks. Ten minutes’ intermission.