IRA: (_rising and turning on him_) You get my corn? I raise this corn
for you? (_not to them--his mind now going where it is shut off from any
other mind_) If I could make the _wind_ stand still! I want to _turn the
wind around_.
MADELINE: (_going to him_) Why--father. I don't understand at all.
IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (_a curse with a sob in it_)
God damn the wind!
(_Sits down, his back to them_.)
EMIL: (_after a silence_) Well, I'll go. (_but he continues to look at_
IRA, _who is holding the sack of com shut, as if someone may take it_)
Too bad--(_stopped by a sign from_ MADELINE, _not to speak of it_) Well,
I was saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my
way back. (_confidentially_) Couldn't you telephone your uncle? He could
do something. You don't know what you're going up against. You heard
what the Hindus got, I suppose.
MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day.
EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No bail
for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going to get what
this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them a nice little
taste of prison life in America, they're going to be sent back home--to
see what India can treat them to.
MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil?
EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me--I'm just telling you. Guess you don't
know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and make a little friendly
call on your uncle. When your case comes to trial--and Judge Lenon may
be on the bench--(_whistles_) He's one fiend for Americanism. But if
your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a girl, and
didn't realize what you were saying--
MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've just
said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was what our
country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said that--and
a-plenty more--and I'll say it again!
EMIL: Well--gee, you don't know what it means.
MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a coward.
EMIL: Oh, well--Lord, you can't say everything you think. If everybody
did that, things'd be worse off than they are now.
MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you think--or hate
yourself.
EMIL: (_with a grin_) Then hate yourself.
MADELINE: (_smiling too_) No thank you; it spoils my fun.
EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun now?
You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our place, with
this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, strikin' out over the
country as if you was crazy about it? How'd you like to be where you
couldn't even see out?
MADELINE: (_a step nearer the cell_) There oughtn't to be such places.
EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that--! You can't
change the way things are.
MADELINE: (_quietly_) Why can't I?
EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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