SCENE: The living-room in the Mather home in Boston.
TIME: About 1700, an evening in early autumn.
The stage represents the living-room of the Mather home. A large colonial fireplace is seen down-stage left, within which stand huge brass andirons. To one side hangs the bellows, with the tongs near by, while above, underneath the mantelpiece, is suspended an old flint-lock rifle. On both ends of the mantel are brass candlesticks, and hanging directly above is an old-fashioned portrait of Betty's mother. There are two doors, one leading into the hall at centre left, the other, communicating with the rest of the house, up-stage right. A straight high-backed settee is down-stage right, while in the centre back towers an old grandfather's clock.[K] To the left of the clock is the window, cross-barred and draped with flowered chintz. An old-fashioned table occupies the corner between the window and the hall door. Here and there are various straight-backed chairs of Dutch origin. Rag rugs cover the floor.
As the curtain rises Cotton Mather is seated in a large armchair by the fire, with Betty on a stool at his feet, with her knitting.
Cotton, his hair already touched with the whitening frost of many a severe New England winter, is grave and sedate. Very much exercised with the perils of this life, and serenely contemplative of the life to come, he takes himself and the world about him very seriously.
Not so with Mistress Betty. Outwardly demure, yet inwardly rebellious against the straitened conventions of the times, she dimples over with roguish merriment upon the slightest provocation.
As we first see them Cotton is giving Betty some timely advice.
COTTON. But you must understand that marriage, my daughter, is a most reverend and serious matter which should be approached in a manner fittingly considerate of its grave responsibility.
BETTY. [Thoughtfully.] Truly reverend and most serious, father [looking up roguishly], but I like not so much of the grave about it.
COTTON. [Continuing.] I fear thou lookest upon the matter too lightly. It is not seemly to treat such a momentous occasion thus flippantly.