f her. She choked to
death in that Swede's house. They lived.

MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of
her.

IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her
after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.

MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped
to think how much she was worth.

IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you
cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My
father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my
father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what
you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always
heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here
was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens
cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I
told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough
to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe
for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm
alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I
hope they buried him--I hope they didn't just--(_tormented_)

MADELINE: Oh, father--of course not. I know they did.

IRA: How do you know? What do you care--once they got him? _He_ talked
about the world--better world--end war. Now he's in his grave--I hope he
is--and look at the front page of the paper! No such thing--war to end
war!

MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed that--so what
else could he do?

IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business.

MADELINE: No--oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life to what he
believed should be.

IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now--eyes gone--and the
world he died for all hate and war. Waste. Waste. Nothin' but waste--the
life of this house. Why, folks to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He
gave his best land for ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a
better people. What was his word? (_waits_) Aspiration. (_says it as if
it is a far-off thing_) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked
from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (_laughs_) His
'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and water! So--mind your own
business, that's all that's so in this country. (_constantly tormented
anew_) Oh, I told y