I _know_ it. I always thought a lot of her, in spite of our being relations. JANE She loved you, Ben. BEN She left me without a dollar, knowin’ I was going to State’s Prison, and what I’d be by the time I get out. JANE Maybe some day you’ll understand why she did it. BEN Because she thought you’d take better care of the money than any of the rest of us. JANE And you hate me because of that, the way all the rest of the Jordans do? BEN Sometimes. JANE (_sadly_) I suppose it’s natural. BEN But I ain’t such a fool as Henry, and the women folks. They think you took advantage and fooled her into what she did. I thought so at first, now I don’t. JANE What do you think now, Ben? BEN She’d watched you; she knew you were worth mor’n all of us in a lump. I know it, too, but some way it riles me worse than if you wasn’t. JANE That’s silly! BEN (_with growing resentment_) Don’t you suppose I know what you’ve been doin’ to me. Tryin’ to make a man of me. Tryin’ to help me. Standing up to me and fightin’ me every day, tryin’ to teach me to be decent. Workin’ over me like I was a baby, or somethin’, and you was tryin’ to teach me how to walk. Gettin’ me so upset that every time I don’t do what I ought to do, I get all het up inside; I never was so damned uncomfortable in all my life. JANE And I never was so happy. BEN I s’pose God knew what he was about when he made women. JANE Of course he did. BEN Anyhow, he gave ’em the best of it, all right. JANE You don’t mean that! You _can’t_! BEN I do. Let a man get miserable, and he is miserable. A woman ain’t really happy no other way. JANE Maybe you think I’m having an easier time right now than you are. BEN I know it. JANE They all hate me, and they all want something, all the time. I can’t say yes, and it’s hard to always say no. Then there’s the farm, big, and poor, and all worked out. The Jordans have been taking their living out of this soil for more than a hundred years, and never putting anything back. BEN Just themselves, that’s all. JANE Worked right, like they do out West, this place could be what it ought to be. How can I do that; it needs a man. BEN I been thinkin’ lately things could be done a whole lot different. JANE By a man, if he loved the old place-- You Jordans robbed this soil always. Suppose one of you tried to pay it back--it would mean work and money, for a couple of years maybe, then I guess you’d see what gratitude meant. BEN It could be done; it ought to be. JANE By you, Ben! BEN No--I guess I ain’t got the judgment. JANE You’ve got it, if you’d learn to use it. BEN Anyhow, I’ve got just a month, that’s all. JANE Maybe you’ll have more. BEN I’m as good as convicted as I sit here. I’ve only got a month. JANE