two and a half feet at one end, three feet
at the other, and six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote
this. He gets two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he
gets. This because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another
prisoner up by the wrists.

IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better mind
yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (_with excitement_)
I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since the day my father's
father got it from the government--and it stays clear--till I'm gone. It
grows the best corn in the state--best corn in the Mississippi Valley.
Not for _anything_--you hear me?--would I mortgage this farm my father
handed down to me.

MADELINE: (_hurt_) Well, father, I'm not asking you to.

IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help
you--if you say you're sorry.

MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix.

IRA: Who will you go to then? (_pause_) Who will help you then? (_again
he waits_) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one
behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix
there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on
your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own
land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your
uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things
would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends.
You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all
that away.

MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times.
(_smooths the wrinkled paper_) I don't know anybody--unless it is
myself--loves to be out, as he does. (_she tries to look out, but
cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to
that corner closet, the same one from which_ SILAS MORTON _took the deed
to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of
chalk. On the floor she marks off_ FRED JORDAN'S _cell. Slowly, at the
end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as
against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings
it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts,
looks up_.) And one window--too high up to see out.

(_In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the
people who are in those cells_. EMIL JOHNSON _appears fr