AUGUSTA. He's quixotic.

MINNIE. If that's a compliment, you're right again.

AUGUSTA. It isn't exactly a compliment.

MINNIE. I guess you mean he's queer--but you're wrong--you're wrong!

He's the only man in Foxon Falls who knows what kind of a world we're going to live in from now on. Why? Because he's a scientist, because he's trained himself to think straight, because he understands people like you and people like me. He don't blame us for what we do--he knows why we do it.

(A pause.)

That's the reason I try not to blame you for being hard--you can't understand a girl like me. You can't understand George.

AUGUSTA (white). We'll leave my son out of the conversation, if you please. We were talking of Dr. Pindar. You seem to have some consideration for him, at least.

MINNIE. I'd go to the electric chair for him!

AUGUSTA. I'm not asking you to do that.

MINNIE. You want me to go away and get another place. I remember a lesson you gave us one day in Bible cla.s.s, "Judge not, that you be not judged,"--that was what you talked about. But you're judging me on what you think is my record,--and you'd warn people against hiring me. If everybody was a Christian like that these days, I'd starve or go on the street.

AUGUSTA. We have to pay for what we do.

MINNIE. And you make it your business to see that we pay.

(A pause.)

Well, I'll go. I didn't know how poor Dr. Jonathan was,--he never said anything about it to me. I'll disappear.

AUGUSTA. You have some good in you.

MINNIE. Don't begin talking to me about good!

(TIMOTHY FARRELL enters, right.)

TIMOTHY. Good morning, ma'am. (Looking at MINNIE and AUGUSTA). I came to fetch Minnie to pa.s.s an hour with me.

AUGUSTA (agitated and taken aback). Were--were having a little talk.

(She goes up to TIMOTHY.) I'm distressed to hear about Bert!

TIMOTHY. Thank you for your sympathy, ma'am.

(A brief silence. Enter ASHER, right.)

ASHER (surveying the group). You here, Augusta? (He goes up to TIMOTHY and presses his hand.) I wanted to see you, Timothy,--I understand how you feel. We both gave our sons in this war. You've lost yours, and I expect to lose mine.

AUGUSTA. Asher!

TIMOTHY. Don't say that, Mr. Pindar

ASHER. Why not? What right have I to believe, after what has happened in my shops today, that he'll come back?

TIMOTHY. G.o.d forbid that he should be lost, too! There's trouble enough--sorrow enough--

ASHER. Sorrow enough! But if a man has one friend left, Timothy, it's something.

TIMOTHY (surprised). Sure, I hope it's a friend I am, sir,--a friend this thirty years.

ASHER. We're both old fashioned, Timothy,--we can't help that.

TIMOTHY. I'm old fashioned enough to want to be working. And now that the strike's on, whatever will I do? Well, Bert is after giving his life for human liberty,--the only thing a great-hearted country like America would be fighting for. There's some comfort in that! I think of him as a little boy, like when he'd be carrying me dinner pail to the shops at noon, runnin' and leppin' and callin' out to me, and he only that high!

ASHER. As a little boy!

TIMOTHY. Yes, sir, it's when I like to think of him best. There's a great comfort in childher, and when they grow up we lose them anyway.

But it's fair beset I'll be now, with nothing to do but think of him.

ASHER. You can thank these scoundrels who are making this labour trouble for that.

TIMOTHY. Scoundrels, is it? Scoundrels is a hard word, Mr. Pindar.

ASHER. What else are they? Scoundrels and traitors! Don't tell me that you've gone over to them, Timothy--that you've deserted me, too! That you sympathize with these agitators who incite cla.s.s against cla.s.s!

TIMOTHY. I've heard some of them saying, sir, that if the unions gain what they're after, there'll be no cla.s.ses at all at all. And cla.s.ses is what some of us didn't expect to find in this country, but freedom.

ASHER. Freedom! They're headed for anarchy. And they haven't an ounce of patriotism.

TIMOTHY (meaningly). Don't say that, sir. Me own boy is after dying over there, and plenty have gone out of your own shops, as ye can see for yourself every time you pa.s.s under the office door with some of the stars in the flag turning to gold. And those who stays at home and works through the night is patriots, too. The unions may be no better than they should be, but the working man isn't wanting anyone to tell him whether he'd be joining them or not.

ASHER. I never expected to hear you talk like this!

TIMOTHY. Nor I, sir. But it's the sons, Mr. Pindar,--the childher that changes us. I've been thinking this morning that Bert had a union card in his pocket when he went away,--and if he died for that kind of liberty, it's good enough for his old father to live for. I see how wicked it was to be old fashioned.

ASHER. Wicked?

TIMOTHY. Isn't it the old fashioned nation we're fighting, with its kings and emperors and generals that would crush the life and freedom out of them that need life. And why wouldn't the men have the right to organize, sir, the way that they'd have a word to say about what they'd be doing?

ASHER. You--you ask me to sacrifice my principles and yield to men who are deliberately obstructing the war?

TIMOTHY. Often times principles is nothing but pride, sir. And it might be yourself that's obstructing the war, when with a simple word from you they'd go on working.

ASHER (agitatedly). I can't, I won't recognize a labour union!

TIMOTHY. Have patience, sir. I know ye've a kind heart, and that ye've always acted according to your light, the same as me. But there's more light now, sir,--it's shining through the darkness, brighter than the flashes of the cannon over there. In the moulding room just now it seems to break all around me, and me crying like a child because the boy was gone. There was things I hadn't seen before or if I saw them, it was only dim-like, to trouble me (ASHER turns away) the same as you are troubled now. And to think it's me that would pity you, Mr. Pindar! I says to myself, I'll talk to him. I ain't got no learning, I can't find the words I'm after--but maybe I can persuade him it ain't the same world we're living in.

ASHER. I was ready to recognize that. Before they came to me this morning I had made a plan to reorganize the shops, to grant many privileges.

TIMOTHY. You'll excuse me, sir, but it's what they don't want,--anyone to be granting them privileges, but to stand on their own feet, the same as you. I never rightly understood until just now,--and that because I was always looking up, while you'd be looking down, and seeing nothing but the bent backs of them. It's inside we must be looking, sir,--and G.o.d made us all the same, you and me, and Mr. George and my son Bert, and the Polak and his wife and childher. It's the strike in every one of us, sir,--and half the time we'd not know why we're striking!