The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays Part 25

_Second Boy_

You's nutty. You can't smell in a dream.

(_They listen, and finally yield to the music, swaying their bodies, moving their arms, and beginning to dance as the music goes on._)

_Jack_

I've been here fourteen years, since I was a boy. It ain't a place for a man. It's too black. You get black outside and inside. Why, they say your lungs get black from breathing this dust. And your soul gets black.

The place for an honest man to work is out in the white light, on your ocean or in your woods, or on the roads and railways, and in the big buildings. This kind of work is work with punishment added to it. A little of it would be all right for men who go wrong, or for some as needs discipline. Then some day they'll get machines to do the rest.

Ah--there's the whistle. Come on, boys, to work again!

(_A whistle sounds and all start to work as before._)

(CURTAIN FALLS)

FINAL SCENE: _Curtain rises on final scene. Same as first, with music as before, and with the mother and father and children among the apple-trees._ CHO-CHO _appears, right, and says: "Here they come!"_ EVERYCHILD _enters, right, bringing with her a number of children, who follow her and then scatter under the trees._

_Everychild_

Oh, mother, I went everywhere, and we've brought all who could come!

But there were some in holes in the ground that I couldn't reach, though we danced and danced, and called and called. They were too far down.

And there were some ill and crippled, in hospitals, that couldn't walk, and some hidden away in great buildings called factories--and some in tenements, where there was no sun, and no green gra.s.s to walk on.

Mother, what shall we do? It was so hard to leave them. Won't you go back with me, and help me?

_Mother_

Yes, Everychild. We must all go. Not one must be left down there.

_Father_

Yes, we cannot go on up the Morning Mountains until they come.

_Mother_

We will start at once, all of us, down through the highways and valleys and cities of the world, and bring them here. Come, children, let us go.

(_They gather about her and start down, right, singing as they go._ CHO-CHO _lingers behind for a few moments and p.r.o.nounces an epilogue._)

EPILOGUE

Not all here yet-- But they must come To this suns.h.i.+ne-- To these mountains-- To these birds and trees-- To the music-- To the Land of Health, The Land of Happiness-- They may be gay _there_-- Sometimes-- Sometimes-- But _that_ is a fool's Paradise-- My old Kingdom-- And I must lead them up To this new land Of hope and joy.

(CURTAIN FALLS)

TWO DOCTORS AT AKRAGAS

BY

FREDERICK PETERSON

CHARACTERS

AKRON EMPEDOCLES PANTHEIA

TWO DOCTORS AT AKRAGAS

[_Atlantic Monthly_, 1911.]

_Akron_

She has been dead these thirty days.

_Empedocles_

How say you, thirty days! and there is no feature of corruption?

_Akron_

None. She has the marble signature of death writ in her whole fair frame. She lies upon her ivory bed, robed in the soft stuffs of Tyre, as if new-cut from Pentelikon by Phidias, or spread upon the wood by the magic brush of Zeuxis, seeming as much alive as this, no more, no less.

There is no beat of heart nor slightest heave of breast.

_Empedocles_

And have you made the tests of death?

_Akron_

There is no bleeding to the p.r.i.c.k, nor film of breath upon the bronze mirror. They have had the best of the faculty in Akragas, Gela, and Syracuse, all save you; and I am sent by the dazed parents to beseech you to leave for a time the affairs of state and the great problems of philosophy, to essay your ancient skill in this strange mystery of life in death and death in life.

_Empedocles_