GRANNY MAUMEE THE RIDER OF DREAMS SIMON THE CYRENIAN [Illustration] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO Granny Maumee The Rider of Dreams Simon The Cyrenian _Plays for a Negro Theater_ BY RIDGELY TORRENCE New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1917 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY RIDGELY TORRENCE COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and printed. Published September, 1917. For permission to perform these plays application must be made to the author in care of the publishers. To O. H. D. T. GRANNY MAUMEE GRANNY MAUMEE SCENE: _Living room in an old cabin with walls blackened by age. Red cotton curtains and red covers on the chairs and table. In left corner back, an open fire smoulders in a great rough fireplace. There is a door at back leading out of doors. There are also doors left and right. A bed at left covered with a white counterpane. The room is neat and there are many growing flowers about potted in rude wooden boxes. Toward the right is an iron flower stand consisting of a basin mounted on a tripod. This stand is filled with a mass of bright red geraniums. A large chest against the wall at right is covered with red. A table near centre bears candles. Beside the table in a high-backed chair sits GRANNY MAUMEE. She is seen to be blind. She is black and thin, with white hair and a face so seared by burns that it masks her great age. Her great granddaughter PEARL, a girl of nineteen, is moving briskly about the room straightening chairs and rearranging flowers._ PEARL Seem kinder funny fer me to be fixin’ up for Sapphie. Seem like I’m wukin’ for her by the day. Mebbe she will tek’n hiah me now she’s married. Seem kinder odd to be hiahed by a blood sisteh. GRANNY Spread my fine-spun sheets on de baid. PEARL I got the nex’ bes’. GRANNY Fol’ um up an’ git out de fines’. PEARL Hit weahs um out so to wash um, an’ Sapphie an’ that man of her’n aint used to such goodness. An’ to muss um up des for one night! GRANNY