Act I: In the Manner of Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
Act 2: In the Manner of Eugene O'Neill
ACT ONE
(Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews)
SCENE I
A principal street of an American city in the spring of 1918.
At the rear of the stage, representing the opposite sidewalk of the street, are gathered many people come to bid farewell to the boys of the Blankth regiment who are soon to march past on their way to France.
Extending across the "street", from footlights to "sidewalk", is a large white plaster arch, gayly decorated with the Allied colors.
On this arch is the inscription "For the Freedom of the World."
At the rising of the curtain, distant march music is heard (off stage, right); this constantly grows louder during the ensuing dialogue which takes place between three elderly women crowded together at the edge of the sidewalk. These women, although, before the war, of different stations in social rank, are now united, as are all mothers in the Allied countries, by the glorious badge which each proudly wears pinned over her heart—the service star.