Chapter XI

by Susan Glaspell

　　Peacefully and pleasantly one day slipped after another. Some thirty ofthem had joined their unnumbered fellows and to-morrow bade fair to passserenely as yesterday. "This, dear Queen," Katie confided to the dogstretched at her feet, "is what in vulgar parlance is known as 'nothingdoing,' and in poetic language is termed the 'simple life.'"

　　Thirty days of "nothing doing"—and yet there had been more "doing" inthose days than in all the thousands of their predecessors gaily crowdedto the brim. Those crowded days seemed days of a long sleep; these quietones, days of waking.

　　Ann was out on the links that afternoon with Captain Prescott. Fromher place on the porch Katie had a glimpse of them at that moment.Ann's white dress with its big knot of red ribbon was a vivid and apleasing spot. The olive of the Captain's uniform seemed part of thebackground of turf and trees—all of it for Ann, so live and so prettyin white and red.

　　He was seeking to correct her stroke. Both were much in earnest about it.It would seem that the whole of Ann's life hung upon that thing of betterform in her golf. Finally she made a fair drive and turned to himjubilantly. He was commending enthusiastically and Ann quite prancedunder his enthusiasm. Seeing Katie, she waved her hand and pointed off toher ball that Katie, too, might mark the triumph. Then they came along,laughing and chatting. When the ball was reached they were in about thespot where Katie had first seen Ann, thirty days before.

　　She knew how Ann felt. There was joy in the good stroke. In this othergame she had been playing in the last thirty days—this more difficultand more alluring game—she had come to know anew the exhilaration ofbunker cleared, the satisfaction of the long drive and the sure putt.

　　And Katie had played a good game. It was not strange she should haveconvinced others, for there were times when her game was so good as toconvince even herself. Though it had ever been so with Kate. The thingsin the world of "Let's play like" had always been persuasive things.Curious she was to know how often or how completely Ann was able toforget they were playing a game.

　　She had come to think of Ann, not as a hard-and-fast, all-finishedproduct, but as something fluid, certainly plastic. It was as if anythingcould be poured into Ann, making her. A dream could be woven round her,and Ann could grow into that dream. That was a new fancy to Kate; she hadalways thought of people more as made than as constantly in the making.It opened up long paths of wondering. To all sides those paths wereopening in those days—it was that that made them such eventful days.Down this path strayed the fancy how much people were made by the thingswhich surrounded them—the things expected of them. That path led to thevista that amazing responsibility might lie with the thingssurrounding—the things expected. It even made her wonder in what measureshe would have been Katie Jones, differently surrounded, differentlycalled upon. Her little trip down that path jostled both her approval ofherself and her disapproval of others.

　　It was only once or twice that the real girl had stirred in the dream.For the most part she had remained in the shadow of Katie's fancyings.She was as an actor on the stage, inarticulate save as regards her part.Katie had grown so absorbed in that part that there were times offorgetting there was a real girl behind it. Often she believed in herfriend Ann Forrest, the dear girl she had known in Florence, the poorchild who had gone through so many hard things and was so different fromthe Zelda Frasers of the world. She rejoiced with Wayne and CaptainPrescott in seeing dear Ann grow a little more plump, a little rosier, alittle more smiling. She could understand perfectly, as she had made themunderstand, why Ann did not talk more of Italy and the things of her ownlife. Life had crowded in too hard upon her, that setting of the otherdays made other days live again too acutely. Ann was taking a vacationfrom her life, she had laughingly put it to Wayne. That was why sheplayed so much with Worth and the dogs and talked so little of grown-upthings. Though one could never completely take a vacation from one'slife; that was why Ann looked that way when she was sometimes sittingvery still and did not know that any one was looking at her.

　　Persuasion was the easier as fabrication was but a fanciful dress fortruth. Imagination did not have it all to do; it only followed where Anncalled—blazing its own trail.

　　Yet there were times when the country of make-believe was swept down by awhirlwind, a whirlwind of realization which crashed through Katie'sconsciousness and knocked over the fancyings. Those whirlwinds would comeall unannounced; when Ann seemed most Ann, playing with Worth, perhapswearing one of the prettiest dresses and smilingly listening to somethingWayne was telling her had happened over at the shops. And on the heels ofthe whirlwind knocking down the country of make-believe would come thegirl from a vast unknown rushing wildly from—what? What had become ofthat girl? Would she hear from her again? It was almost as if the girlmade by reality had indeed gone down under the waters that day, and thethings the years had made her had abdicated in favor of the things Katiewould make her. And yet did the things the years had made one ever reallyabdicate? Was it because the girl of the years was too worn forassertiveness that the girl of fancy could seem the all? Was it only thatshe slumbered—and sometimes stirred a little in her sleep?—And whenshe awoke?

　　Even to each other they did not speak of that other girl, as if fearing aword might wake her. Sometimes they heard her stir; as one day soonafter Ann's coming Katie had said: "Ann, just what is it is the matterwith your vocal chords?"

　　"Why I didn't know anything was," stammered Ann.

　　"But you seem unable to pronounce my name."

　　Ann colored.

　　"It is spelled K-a-t-i-e," Kate went on, "and is pronounced K—T. Try it,

　　Ann. See if you can say it."

　　Ann looked at her. The look itself crossed the border country. "Katie—"she choked—and the country of make-believe fell palely away.

　　But they did not speak of the things they had stirred.

　　That thing of not saying it had been established the day Ann's bankaccount was opened. Katie had been "over the river," as she called goingover to the city. Upon returning she found Ann up in her room. She stoodthere unpinning her hat, telling of an automobile accident on thebridge—Katie seldom came in without some stirring tale. As she wasleaving she rummaged in her bag. "And oh yes, Ann," she said, carelessly,"here's your bank book. I presumed to draw twenty dollars for you,thinking you might need it before you could get over. Oh dear—thattelephone! And I know it's Wayne for me."

　　But she did not escape. Ann was waiting for her when she came backup stairs.

　　She held out the book, shaking her head. Her face told that she had beenpulled back.

　　"Not money," she said unsteadily. "All the rest of it is bad enough—butnot money. I'd have no—self-respect."

　　"Self-respect!" jeered Kate. "I'd have no self-respect if I didn't takemoney. Nobody can be self-respecting when broke. None of the rest of usseem to be inquiring into our sources of revenue, so why should you?"

　　As had happened that other time, in relation to the suit, the thing shotout at Ann turned back to her. It had more than once occurred that thething thrown out sparingly persisted as thing to be considered genuinely.Her browbeating of Ann—for it was a sort of tender, protectivebrowbeating—led her to reach out blindly for weapons, and once in herhand many of those weapons proved ideas.

　　"We take everything we can get," she followed it up, forcing herself frominterest in the weapon to the use of it, "from everybody we can get itfrom. We take this house from the government—and heaven only knows howmany sons of toil the government takes it from. I take this money we'reso stupidly quibbling about now from a company the papers say takes itfrom everybody in reach. Take or you will be taken from is the basis ofmodern finance. Please don't be fanatical, Ann."

　　"I can't take it," repeated Ann.

　　Katie looked worried. Then she took new ground. "Well, Ann, if you won'ttake the sane financial outlook, at least be a good sport. We're in thisgame; the money has got to be part of making it go. We'll never getanywhere at all if we're going to balk and fuss at every turn. There now,honey,"—as if to Worth—"put your book away. Don't lose it; it makesthem cross to have you lose them. And another principle of modern financewith which I am heartily in sympathy is that money should be kept incirculation. It encourages embezzlement to leave it in banks too long."Then, seeing what was gathering, she said quietly but authoritatively:"Leave it unsaid, Ann. Can't we always just leave it unsaid? Nothingmakes me so uncomfortable as to feel I'm constantly in danger of havingsomething nice said to me."

　　Perhaps Katie knew that countries of make-believe are sensitive things,that it does not do to admit you know them for that.

　　There had been that one time when the hand of reality reached savagelyinto the dream, as if the things the girl had run away from had come toclaim her. It seemed through that long night that they had claimed her,that Ann's "vacation" was over.

　　Captain Prescott had been dining with them that night and after dinnerthey were sitting out on the porch. He was humming a snatch of something.Katie heard a chair scrape and saw that Ann had moved farther into theshadow. She was all in shadow save her hand; that Katie could see wasgripping the arm of her chair.

　　He turned to Ann. "Did you see 'Daisey-Maisey'?"

　　"Ann wasn't here then," said Kate.

　　"Did you see it, Katie?"

　　"No."

　　"It was a jolly, joyous sort of thing," he laughed. "Sort of thing tomake you feel nothing matters. That was the name of that thing I washumming. No, not 'Nothing Matters,' but 'Don't You Care.' And there werethe 'Don't You Care' girls—pink dresses and big black hats. They seemedto mean what they sang. They didn't care, certainly."

　　It was Wayne who spoke. "Think not?"

　　Ann came a little way out of the shadow. She had leaned toward Wayne.

　　"Well you'd never know it if they did," laughed Prescott. He turned to

　　Wayne. "What's your theory?"

　　"Oh I have no theory. Just a wondering. Can't see how girls who havetheir living to earn could sing 'Don't You Care' with complete abandon."

　　Ann leaned forward, looking at him tensely. Then, as if afraid, shesank back into shadow. Katie could still see her hand gripping the armof her chair.

　　"But they're not the caring sort," Prescott was holding.

　　"Think not?" said Wayne again, in Wayne's queer way.

　　There was a silence, and then Ann had murmured something andslipped away.

　　Katie followed her; for hours she sat by her bed, holding her hand,trying to soothe her. It was almost morning before that other girl, thatgirl they were trying to get away from, would let Ann go to sleep.

　　Sitting beside the tortured girl that night, hearing the heart-breakinglittle moans which as sleep finally drew near replaced the sobs, KatieJones wondered whether many of the things people so serenely took forgranted were as absurd—and perhaps as tragically absurd—as CaptainPrescott's complacent conclusion that the "Don't You Care" girls weregirls who didn't care.

　　How she would love—turning it all over in her mind that afternoon—totalk some of those things over with "the man who mends the boats"!