SMITH: Yes, seems all right.
(SILAS _stands in the doorway and looks off at the hill_.)
GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas?
SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine--to celebrate Felix and me being here instead of farther south--I'd like to tell you what I want for the hill. (_to_ FEJEVARY _rather bashfully_) I've been wanting to tell you.
FEJEVARY: I want to know.
SILAS: (_getting the wine from the closet_) Just a little something to show our gratitude with.
(_Goes off right for glasses_.)
GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the hill--while they're anxious.
FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it.
GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him something.
Silas has worked--all the days of his life.
FEJEVARY: I know.
GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. (_rather to herself_) Know too well to think about it.
GRANDMOTHER: (_as_ SILAS _returns_) I'll get more cookies.
SILAS: I'll get them, mother.
GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her own cookies.
SILAS: (_seeing how hard it is for her_) I wish mother would let us do things for her.
FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's a great thing for us to have her,--this touch with the life behind us.
SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you--who can see those things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I hadn't had what you've seen.
FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be generous.
SILAS: I'm not generous. _I'm_ seeing something now. Something about you. I've been thinking of it a good deal lately--it's got something to do with--with the hill. I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these years to have a family like yours next place to. They did something pretty nice for the corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary.
Funny--how things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins don't end. It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own country--and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to do--
FEJEVARY: No.
SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off.
FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country.
SILAS: (_brusquely_) Where's your left arm--may I be so bold as to inquire? Though your left arm's nothing alongside--what can't be measured.
FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man--it seems to me my life has failed.
SILAS: (_raising his glass_) Well, if your life's failed--I like failure.
(GRANDMOTHER MORTON _returns with her cookies_.)
GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds--Mr Fejevary. These have seeds in 'em.
FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first.
SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine?
GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine.
SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it.
GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to war.
FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that.
GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's cold.
(FEJEVARY _brings it to her, and the cookies_) The Indians used to like cookies. I was talking to that young whippersnapper about the Indians.
One time I saw an Indian watching me from a bush, (_points_) Right out there. I was never afraid of Indians when you could see the whole of 'em--but when you could see nothin' but their bright eyes--movin'
through leaves--I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there an hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, Red or White, a man's a man--I'll take him some cookies.
FEJEVARY: It succeeded?
GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy.
SILAS: Probably we killed him.
GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians.
SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us.
GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is.
SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to school--
GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters you went to school.
SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so.
But I knew it was so! But I mean school--the way Mr Fejevary went to school. He went to universities. In his own countries--in other countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest things men have thought since first they began to think--all that was put before them.
FEJEVARY: (_with a gentle smile_) I fear I left a good deal of it untouched.
SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes something of men--learning. A house that's full of books makes a different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just to show off.
GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house.