IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If only the wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? Why can't I keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make it better. I wanted it to be--the most that it could be. My father used to talk about the Indians--how our land was their land, and how we must be more than them. He had his own ideas of bein' more--well, what's that come to? The Indians lived happier than we--wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn--I'd like to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to see them side by side!--their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd I get it? Ah, by thinkin'--always tryin', changin', carin'. Plant this corn by that corn, and the pollen blows from corn to corn--the golden dust it blows, in the sunshine and of nights--blows from corn to corn like a--(_the word hurts_) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (_proudly_) corn don't stay what it is! You can make it anything--according to what you do, 'cording to the corn it's alongside. (_changing_) But that's it. I want it to stay in my field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to the Johnsons--them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, nights when I can't help myself--and in the sunshine I can see it--pollen--soft golden dust to make new life--goin' on to _them_,--and them too ignorant to know what's makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. What'd I work all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what I lost--is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand still! I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I--I'll think it out. Let me alone, I say. (_A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he shuts himself in the room at left_. MADELINE _has been standing there as if mist is parting and letting her see. And as the vision grows power grows in her. She is thus flooded with richer life when her_ AUNT _and Professor_ HOLDEN _come back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not speak_.) AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now. MADELINE: (_with the quiet of plentitude_) I'm going in with Emil Johnson. AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. (_falteringly_) We thought you'd go with us. MADELINE: No. I have to be--the most I can be. I want the wind to have something to carry. AUNT ISABEL: (_after a look at Professor_ HOLDEN, _who is looking intensely at_ MADELINE) I don't understand. MADELINE: The world is all a--moving field. (_her hands move, voice too is of a moving field_) Nothing is to itself. If America thinks so--America is like father. I don't feel alone any more. The wind has come through--wind rich from lives now gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift from a field far off. Silas Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? I'm not even afraid of being absurd! AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline--you're leaving your father?