Copyright, 1913, by Stewart & Kidd Company.
All rights reserved.
| CAST |
| A Woman, the mother. An Old Woman, the grandmother. Two Girls, the daughters. A Messenger Boy. A Neighbor. Another Neighbor. |
The Shadowed Star is reprinted from "Short Plays" by Mary MacMillan by permission of Messrs. Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. The acting rights of this play are reserved by the author. Address all correspondence to the author in regard to production.
THE SHADOWED STAR
By Mary MacMillan
[A very bare room in a tenement house, uncarpeted, the boards being much worn, and from the walls the bluish whitewash has scaled away; in the front on one side is a cooking-stove, and farther back on the same side a window; on the opposite side is a door opening into a hallway; in the middle of the room there is a round, worn dining-room table, on which stands a stunted, scraggly bit of an evergreen-tree; at the back of the room, near the window, stands an old-fashioned safe with perforated tin front; next it a door opening into an inner room, and next it in the corner a bed, on which lies a pallid woman; another woman, very old, sits in a rocking-chair in front of the stove and rocks. There is silence for a long space, the old woman rocking and the woman on the bed giving an occasional low sigh or groan. At last the old woman speaks.]
The Old Woman. David an' Michael might be kapin' the Christmas wid us to-morrow night if we hadn't left the ould counthry. They'd never be crossin' the sea—all the many weary miles o' wetness an' fog an' cold to be kapin' it wid us here in this great house o' brick walls in a place full o' strange souls. They would never be for crossin' all that weary, cold, green wather, groanin' an' tossin' like it was the grave o' sivin thousan' divils. Ah, but it would be a black night at sea! [She remains silent for a few minutes, staring at the stove and rocking slowly.] If they hadn't to cross that wet, cold sea they'd maybe come. But wouldn't they be afeard o' this great city, an' would they iver find us here? Six floors up, an' they niver off the ground in their lives. What would ye be thinkin'? [The other woman does not answer her. She then speaks petulantly.] What would ye be thinkin'? Mary, have ye gone clane to slape? [Turns her chair and peers around the back of it at the pallid woman on the bed, who sighs and answers.]
The Woman. No, I on'y wisht I could. Maybe they'll come—I don't know, but father an' Michael wasn't much for thravel. [After a pause and very wearily.] Maybe they'll not come, yet [slowly], maybe I'll be kapin' the Christmas wid them there. [The Old Woman seems not to notice this, wandering from her question back to her memories.]
The Old Woman. No, they'll niver be lavin' the ould land, the green land, the home land. I'm wishing I was there wid thim. [Another pause, while she stares at the stove.] Maybe we'd have a duck an' potatoes, an' maybe something to drink to kape us warm against the cold. An' the boys would all be dancin' an' the girls have rosy cheeks. [There is another pause, and then a knock at the door. "Come in," the two women call, in reedy, weak voices, and a thin, slatternly Irish woman enters.]