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Shepherd 1 Home Page Essays Memoirs Fiction Plays Poetry References
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(Lights
are on at the homestead.) Aunt
Mollie: Land sakes, if it ain’t
Sammy Lane. How are you honey? Sammy:
I am all right, I’ve come over to stop with you tonight; Dad’s away
again. Aunt
Mollie: It’s about time you was
comin’ over, I was a-tellin’ the menfolks this mornin’ that you hadn’t
been nigh the whole blessed week. Mr. Matthews ‘lowed maybe you was sick. Sammy:
(with a laugh) I was never sick
a minute in my life that anybody ever heard tell.
I’m powerful hungry, though. You’d
better put in another pan of cornbread. Aunt
Mollie: Seems like you are always
hungry. Well, let the men take your horse; I’ll right soon have something to
fill you up. Sammy:
(turning to young Matt)
I’ve been a-lookin’ for you over.
My Daddy and I hoped you’d stop by. Young
Matt: I’m mighty sorry. I had lots of things to do. I’ll take care of your
horse. (Young
Matt leaves; Sammy remains with Matt
and Mollie on the porch) (Daniel
Howitt enters from rear of audience, down one of the aisles.) Dad
Howitt: I’m afraid it is getting
late, and I must find some place to lodge for the evening.
Might I impose on you good people? Matt:
No imposition at all, stranger. Come
join us. We were about to eat supper. I ‘spect you’re about as hungry as we
are, and we’d be proud if you’d share with us. Mollie and Sammy were just
now going to get it fixed. Dad
Howitt: I thank you kindly, sir.
(Mollie
and Sammy leave to go to the kitchen. Matt
and the stranger remain on the porch.) Dan
Howitt: My name is Howitt, Daniel Howitt. You have two remarkable children, sir.
That boy is the finest specimen of manhood I have ever seen, and the girl
is remarkable -- remarkable, sir. You
will pardon me, I am sure, but I am an enthusiastic lover of my kind, and I
certainly have never seen such a pair. Matt:
You’re mistaken, mister; the boy’s mine all right, an’ he’s all
that you say, an’ more, I reckon. I
doubt if there’s a man in the hills can match him today. But the girl is a
daughter of a neighbor, and no kin at all. Dad
Howitt: Indeed!
You have only one child, then? Matt:
(sadly and slowly) There was six boys,
sir. This one, Grant, is the
youngest. The others lie over
there. (Point to the distance) Dad
Howitt: I had only two; a boy and a
girl. The girl and her mother have been gone these twenty years.
The boy grew to be a man, and now he has left me too. Pardon me, sir, for
speaking of this, but my lad was so like your boy there.
He was all I had, and now -- now -- I am very lonely, sir. (Long pause) I
wish that my dear ones had a resting place like this.
In the crowded city cemetery the ground is always shaken by the trampling
of funeral processions. (Bury face in
hands.) (pause) I came away from it all because they said I must, and
because I was hungry for this. This
is good for me; it somehow seems to help me know how big God is.
One could find peace here surely, sir, one could find it here -- peace
and strength. Matt:
Seems that way, mister, to them that don’t know.
But many’s the time I’ve wished to God I’d never seen these here
Ozarks. I used to feel like you do,
but I can’t no more. They ‘mind
me now of him that blackened my life; he used to take on powerful about the
beauty of the country and all the time he was a-turning it into a hell for them
that had to stay here after he was gone.
(Anger and hatred had been growing; now Matt calmed down, and said)
You can’t see much of the country this evening, though, ‘count of the
mists. It’ll fair up by morning,
I reckon. You can see a long way from here, of a clear day, mister. Dad
Howitt: Yes, indeed.
One could see far from here, I am sure.,
We who live in the cities see but a little farther than across the
street. We spend our days looking
at the work of our own and our neighbors’ hands.
Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in
touch with so little that God has made. Matt:
You live in the city, then, when you are at home? Dad
Howitt: I did, when I had a home.
I cannot say that I live anywhere now. Matt:
Mr. Howitt, you’ve got education.
It’s easy to see that. I’ve
always wanted to ask somebody like you, do you believe in hants?
Do you reckon folks ever come back once they’re dead and gone? Dad
Howitt: No, I do not believe in
such things, Mr. Matthews; but if it should be true, I do not see why we should
fear the dead. Matt:
I don’t know -- I don’t know., sir.
I always said I didn’t believe, but some things is mighty queer. Dad
Howitt: Oh? Matt:
We see shapes -- forms. As if a
person is there. But then that
person disappears. I can’t figure it. (Young
Matt reenters) Young
Matt: Dad, we’ve just naturally
got to find somebody to stay with them sheep. There ain’t nobody there
tonight, and as near as I can make out there’s three ewes and their lambs
missing. There ain’t a bit of use in us trying to depend on Pete. Dad
Howitt: You find it hard to get
help on the ranch? Matt:
Yes, sir, we do. We had a couple of men, but they didn’t last long Dad
Howitt: Is the work so difficult? Matt:
Difficult, no; there ain’t nothing to do but tendin’ to the sheep.
But the man has to stay at the ranch of nights, though. Dad
Howitt: Oh? Matt:
And as I said, there’s strange things happening.
Forms, and shapes, and noises. People
just don’t like that. They leave. Narrator:
Just then, from out of the darkness and the mists, came a strange sound; a sound
as if someone were singing a song without words.
So wild and weird was the melody; so passionately sweet the voice, it
seemed impossible that the music should come from human lips. (Mrs.
Matthews and Sammy come on stage. All
listen. Mollie stands by her husband’s side.
Young Matt rose to his feet and moved closer to Sammy. The stranger alone
keeps his seat. All face the same back-stage area) Narrator:
Finally the music died out (Matt
regains his seat) Matt:
Poor boy, poor boy. Sammy,
(calling out):
O--h--h, Pete. O--h--h
Pete Mollie:
It’s no use, honey, It just ain’t no use Narrator:
The next morning the valley was still wrapped in its gray blanket, But shortly
the sun climbed above the ridge, and, save for a long, loosely twisted rope of
fog that hung above the distant river, the mists disappeared. (Lights
on the Matthews homestead) Matt:
We’ve all been a-talkin about you this morning, Mr. Howitt, and we’d like
mighty well to have you stop with us for a spell.
If I understood right, you’re just out for your health anyway, and
you’ll go a long ways, sir, before you find a healthier place than this right
here. We ain’t got much such as
you’re used to, I know, but what we have is yourn, and we’d be proud to have
you make yourself to home for as long as you’d like to stay.
You see it’s been a good while since we met up with anybody like you,
and we count it a real favor to have you. Dan
Howitt: I thank you kindly, sir. I
assure you, it is I who will most benefit. I accept your kind offer. And I shall
do my best to serve you however possible. (Aunt
Mollie and Sammy enter) Sammy:
I’d like the best in the world to stay, Aunt Mollie, but you know there
is no one to feed the stock. Aunt
Mollie: (arm
around the girl as they walk to the door) You must come over real often,
now, honey; you know it won’t be long ‘til you’ll be a-leavin’ us for
good. How do you reckon you’ll like bein’ a fine lady, and livin’ in the
city with them big folks? Sammy:
I don’t know, Aunt Mollie; I ain’t never seen a sure ‘nough fine lady.
I reckon them city folks are a heap different from us, but I recon’
they’re just as human. It would
be nice to have lots of money and pretties, but somehow I feel like there’s a
heap more than that to think about. Anyhow,
I ain’t goin’ for quite a spell yet, and you know Preachin’ Bill says,
‘There ain’t no use to worry ‘bout the choppin’ ‘til the dogs has
treed the coon.’ I’ll sure come over every day. (Sammy
leaves) Aunt
Mollie: (turning to Dan Howitt)
I declare I don’t know what we’ll do without Sammy.
I just can’t bear to think of her goin’ away. Dan
Howitt: Is the family moving from
the neighborhood? Aunt
Mollie: No, sir, there ain’t no
family to move. Just Sammy and her
Pa. You see, Ollie Stewart’s
uncle, his father’s brother it is, ain’t got no children of his own, and he
wrote for Ollie to come and live with him in the city.
He’s to go to school and learn the business, foundry and machine shops,
or something like that it is; and if the boy does what’s right, he’s to get
it all some day. Ollie and Sammy
has been promised ever since the talk first began about his goin’; but
they’ll wait now until he gets through his schoolin’. It’ll be mighty nice
for Sammy, marryin’ Ollie, but we’ll miss her awful; the whole country will
miss her, too. She’s just the
life of the neighborhood, and everybody ‘lows there never was another girl
like her. I tell you, sir, these
hills is pretty to look at, but there ain’t much here for a girl like Sammy,
and I don’t blame her a mite for wantin’ to leave.
It’s a mighty hard place to live, Mr. Howitt, and dangerous, too,
sometimes. Dan
Howitt: Do you ever talk of going
back to your old home? Aunt
Mollie: No, sir, not now. We used
to think we’d go back sometime; then the children come, and every time we laid
one of them over there I thought less about leavin’, until now we never talk
about it no more. Then there was
our girl, too, Mr. Howitt. No, sir, we won’t never leave these hills now. Dan
Howitt: Oh, you had a daughter, too? I
understood from Mr. Matthews that your children were all boys. Aunt
Mollie: (after
a pause) Yes, sir, there was a girl; she’s buried under that biggest pine
you see off there a little to one side. We
-- we -- don’t never talk about her. Seems like Mr. Matthews ain’t never
been the same since -- since -- it happened. (Lights
out) Narrator:
After the midday meal, Mr. Howitt walked about the place, and found a well-worn
path leading him to the group of pines not far from the house, where five rough
headstones marked the five mounds placed side by side.
A little apart from these was another mound, alone. Mr. Howitt returned
from the graves, and seated himself on the front steps of the homestead cabin. (Lights
on the homestead). Narrator:
Below and far away the stranger saw the low hills, rolling ridge on ridge
like the waves of a great sea, until in the blue distance they were so lost in
the sky that he could not say which was mountain and which was cloud.
His heart was stirred at sight of the vast reaches of the forest all
shifting light and shadows; the cool depths of the nearby woods with the
sunlight filtering through the leafy arches in streaks and patches of gold on
green; and the wide, wide sky with fleets of cloud ships sailing to unseen ports
below the hills.
Then, from somewhere among the trees, came a lightly built boy; a bit
tall for his age, perhaps, but perfectly erect; and his every movement was one
of indescribable grace, while he managed, somehow, to wear his rough backwoods
garments with an air of distinction. (Pete
enters, hesitantly, and approaches Mr. Howitt) Dan
Howitt: (standing,
and moving forward) Howard!
Howard! Pete:
That ain’t his name, mister. His
name’s Pete. But Pete likes you, and the tree things like you too; and the
flowers, the little flower things that know everything; they’re all a-singin’
to Pete ‘cause you’ve come. Dan
Howitt: (sitting) Howard, the perfect
image. Howard! Pete:
That ain’t his name, mister; his name’s Pete! Pete seen you yesterday over on Dewey, and Pete he heard the
big hills and the woods a-singin’ when you talked. And Pete went with you
along the Old Trail. Course, though, you didn’t know.
Do you like Pete’s people, mister?
Do you like Pete’s friends? Dan
Howitt: Yes, indeed, I like your
friends. And I would like to be your friend too, if you will let me.
What is your other name? Pete:
Not me; not me. Do you like Pete? Dan
Howitt: Are you not Pete? Pete:
No, no, no. I’m not Pete; Pete, he lives in here (Pete touches his chest) I am -- I am -- I don’t know who I am;
I’m jest nobody. Nobody can’t
have no name, can he? But Pete he knows, mister, ask Pete Dan
Howitt: Who is your father, my boy? Pete:
I ain’t got no father, mister; I ain’t me; Nobody can’t have no
father, can he? Dan
Howitt: But Pete had a father; who
was Pete’s father? Pete:
Sure, mister, Pete’s got a father; don’t you know?
Everybody knows that. Look! (Pointing
upward to a break in the trees) He lives in them white hills, up there.
See him mister? Sometimes he takes Pete with him up through the sky, and
course I go along. We sail, and sail, and sail, with the big bird things up
there, while the sky things sing. Pete says he’ll take me away up there where
the star things live, some day, and we won’t never come back again; and I
won’t be nobody no more. Course, I’d hate mighty much to go away from Uncle
Matt and Aunt Mollie and Matt and Sammy, ‘cause they’re mighty good to me;
but I jest got to go where Pete goes, you see, ‘cause I ain’t nobody, and
nobody can’t be nothin’, can he? Dan
Howitt: Has Pete a mother too? Pete:
(pointing toward the graves and the
trees) That’s Pete’s mother Dan
Howitt: You mean she sleeps in that
grave? Pete:
No, no, not there. Up there,
in the tree. (points up) She never
sleeps; don’t you hear her? She wants somebody. Hear her callin’, callin’, callin’? He’ll sure come someday, mister; he sure will.
I hope you’ll stay, mister. I’m
going to tell Uncle Matt that he should ask you to stay.
You could take care of the sheep. Pete would like that. (Pete
leaves) Matt:
well, sir, I reckon you think some things you seen and heard since you
come last night are mighty queer. If it weren’t for what you said last night
makin’ me feel like I wanted to talk to you, and Pete a-takin’ up with you
the way he has, I wouldn’t be a-tellin’ you what I am goin’ to now.
There’s some trails, Mr. Howitt, that ain’t pleasant to go back over.
I didn’t ‘low to ever go over this one again.
We’ve had our ups and downs like most folks, sir, and sometimes it
looked like they was mostly downs; but we got along, and last fall I bought in
the ranch down there in the Hollow. The
boy was just eighteen and we thought then that he’d be makin’ his home there
some day. I don’t know how that’ll be now.
There was five other boys, as I told you last night.
The oldest two would have been men now.
The girl (voice breaking) the girl she come third; she was twenty when we
buried her over there. That was
fifteen year ago come the middle of next month.
Everybody ‘lowed she was a mighty pretty baby, and, bein’ the only
girl, I reckon we made more of her than we did of the boys.
She growed up into a mighty fine young woman too; strong, and full of
fire and go, like Sammy Lane.
She didn’t seem to care nothin’ at all for none of the neighbor boys
like most girls do; she’d go with them and have a good time all right, but
that was all.
Well, one day, when we was out on the range a ridin’ for stock --
she’d often go with me that way -- we met a stranger over there at the deer
lick in the big low gap, coming along the Old Trail.
He was as fine a lookin’ man as you ever see, sir; big and grand like,
with litish hair, kind of wavy, and a big mustache like his hair, and fine white
teeth showing when he smiled. He was sure good lookin’, damn him! And with his
fine store clothes and a smooth easy way of talkin’ and actin’ he had,
‘tain’t no wonder she took up with him.
We all did. I used to think
God never made a finer body for a man. I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you his name;
there ain’t no call to, as I can see. But he was one of these here artist
fellows and had come into the hills to paint, he said. Dan
Howitt: (smothered
voice) Oh, my God! Matt:
He sure did make a lot of pictures and they seemed might nice to us,
though of course we didn’t know nothin’ about such things.
He took an old cabin at the foot of the hill near where the sheep corral
is now, and fixed it up to work in. We never thought nothin’ about her bein’
with him so much. Country folks is
that way, Mr. Howitt, though we ought to knowed better; we sure ought to knowed
better.
Well, he stopped with us all that summer, and then one day he went out as
usual and didn’t come back. We hunted the hills out for signs, thinkin’
maybe he met up with trouble.
The girl was nigh about wild and rode with me all during the hunt. Then
one afternoon when we were down yonder in the Hollow, she says, all of a sudden
like, “Daddy, it ain’t no use a-riding no more. He ain’t met up with no
trouble. He’s left all the trouble with us.”
She looked so piqued and her eyes were so big and starin’ that it come
over me in a flash what she meant.
She just kept a-gettin’ worse and worse, Mr. Howitt; ‘peared to fade
away like, like I watched them big glade lilies do when the hot weather comes.
Then one day, a letter come. Pretty soon, I heard a scream and then a laugh.
“Fore God, sir, that laugh’s a-ringin’ in my ears yet. She was ravin’
mad when I got to her, a-laughin’, and a-screechin’, and tryin’ to hurt
herself, all the while callin’ for him to come.
I read the letter afterward. It
told over and over how he loved her and how no woman could ever be to him what
she was; said they was made for each other, and all that. And then it went on to
say how he couldn’t never see her again; and told about what a grand old
family his was, and how his father was so proud and expected such great things
from him, that he didn’t dare tell, them bein’ the last of this here old
family, and her bein’ a backwoods girl, without any schoolin’ or nothin’. Dan
Howitt: My God! O my God! Matt:
The girl quieted down after a spell, but her mind never come back.
She’d stand out there by the gate for hours at a time, watchin’ the Old
Trail and talkin’ low to herself. Dan
Howitt:
(pacing to side of stage, and then moving off stage) My boy -- my
boy. Mine!
To do such a thing as that! Howard -- Howard!
O Christ! That I should live
to be glad that you are dead! (Lights
out at homestead.) |