4E COPPERHEAD 
 
 USTUS THOMAS 
 
 FRENCHSFWNDARD UBRARY EDITION 
 
 SAMUEL FRENCH, 25 West 45th St., New York
 
 THE BAT 
 
 A mystery play in 3 acts. By Mary Roberts Rinehart 
 and Avery Hopwood. Produced originally at the Morosco 
 Theatre, New York. 7 males, 3 females. 2 interior scenes. 
 Modern costumes. 
 
 Miss Cornelia Van Gorder, a maiden lady of sixty, has leased as a 
 restorative for frayed nerves, a Long Island country house. It had 
 been the property of a New York financier who had disappeared 
 coincidentally with the looting of his bank. His cashier, who is 
 secretly engaged to marry Miss Van Gorder's niece, is suspected of 
 the defalcation and is a fugitive. The new occupants believe the 
 place to be haunted. Strange sounds and manifestations first strengthen 
 this conviction but presently lead them to suspect that the happen- 
 ings are mysteriously connected with the bank robbery. Any sensible 
 woman would have moved to the nearest neighbors for the night and 
 returned to the city next day. But Miss Van Gorder decided to re- 
 main and solve the mystery. She sends for detectives and then things 
 begin to happen. At one time or another every member of the house- 
 hold is suspected of the theft. The audience is kept running up blind 
 alleys, falling into hidden pitfalls, and darting around treacherous 
 corners. A genuine thriller guaranteed to divert any audience. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS. 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 Comedy in 3 acts. By Owen Davis. Produced originally 
 at the George M. Cohan Theatre, New York. 8 males, 
 3 females, i interior. Modern costumes. 
 
 A newly married couple arrive to spend their honeymoon in a 
 summer cottage owned by the girl's father, who has begged them 
 nor to go there, because he claims the house is haunted. Almost 
 immediately after their arrival, strange sounds are heard in the house. 
 The bride leaves the room for a few moments and when she re- 
 turns, her husband is talking very confidentially to a young woman, 
 who he claims has had trouble with her automobile down the road, 
 and he goes out to assist her. But when he comes back, his wife's 
 suspicions force him to confess that the girl is an ild sweetheart of 
 his. The girl is subsequently reported murdered, and the bride be- 
 lieves her husband has committed the crime. A neighbor, who is an 
 author of detective stories, attempts to solve the murder, meantime 
 calling in a prominent New York detective who is vacationing in 
 the town. As they proceed, everyone in the action becomes involved. 
 But the whole thing terminates in a laugh, with the most uproarious 
 and unexpected conclusion imaginable. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS.
 
 The Copperhead 
 
 (From "THE GLORY OF HIS COUNTRY," a Story 
 by Hon. Frederick Landis) 
 
 A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS 
 
 BY 
 AUGUSTUS THOMAS 
 
 Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 
 
 Author of: Alaoama, In Mizzoura, Arizona, The Other 
 Girl, Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots, The Earl of Paw- 
 tucket, The Witching Hour, As a Man 
 Thinks, etc. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY AUGUSTUS THOMAS 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND 
 
 COMPANY, INC. 
 In a volume "Longer Plays by Modern Authors" 
 
 CAUTION. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that 
 "THE COPPERHEAD," being fully protected under the Copy- 
 right Laws of the United States of America, is subject to a 
 royalty and anyone presenting the play without the consent of 
 the owners or their authorized agents will be liable to the 
 penalties by law provided. Applications for the Professional and 
 Amateur acting rights must be made to Samuel French, 25 West 
 45th Street, New York, N. Y. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 SAMUEL FRENCH 
 
 PUBLISHED 
 25 WEST 4STH STREET 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAMUEL FRENCH, LTD. 
 
 26 SOUTHAMPTON STREET 
 
 STRAND
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Especial notice should be taken that the possession of 
 this book without a valid contract for production first 
 having been obtained from the publisher, confers no right 
 or license to professionals or amateurs to produce the play 
 publicly or in private for gain or charity. 
 
 In its present form this play is dedicated to the reading 
 public only, and no performance, representation, produc- 
 tion, recitation, or public reading, or radio broadcasting 
 may be given except by special arrangement with Samuel 
 French, 25 West 45th Street, New York. 
 
 This play may be presented by amateurs upon payment 
 of a royalty of Twenty-Five Dollars for each perform- 
 ance, payable to Samuel French, 25 West 45th Street, 
 New York, one week before the date when the play is 
 given. 
 
 Whenever the play is produced the following notice must 
 appear on all programs, printing and advertising for the 
 play: "Produced by special arrangement with Samuel 
 French of New York." 
 
 Attention is called to the penalty provided by law for 
 any infringement of the author's rights, as follows. 
 
 "SECTION 4966: Any person publicly performing or rep- 
 resenting any dramatic or musical composition for which 
 copyright has been obtained, without the consent of the 
 proprietor of said dramatic or musical composition, or his 
 heirs and assigns, shall be liable for damages thereof, such 
 damages, in all cases to be assessed at such sum, not less 
 than one hundred dollars for the first and fifty dollars for 
 every subsequent performance, as to the court shall appear 
 to be just If the unlawful performance and representation 
 be wilful and for profit, such person or persons shall be 
 guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be im- 
 prisoned for a period not exceeding one year." rU. S. 
 Revised Statutes : Title 60, Chap.. 3.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 To six of my published plays I have written 
 prefaces. These were in a series designed as each of 
 them endeavored to state to help rather indirectly 
 younger men than myself embarking upon the busi- 
 ness of play writing. They dealt in turn with the 
 problems first of writing a drama that should ex- 
 ploit a theory; next to write a play fitting a par- 
 ticular star; a third making use of bits of material 
 that come to a writer's notice and for the moment 
 seem irrelevant to his work; the fourth dealt with 
 writing a play around an historic character; the 
 fifth was of a comedy where a man played himself ; 
 the sixth was to write for two men already coupled 
 in the public attention. This preface will tell of 
 writing a play that started as a dramatization of a 
 story but resulted in something more than that. 
 
 The Glory of His Country, a short book by the 
 Hon. Frederick Landis of Indiana, told of an 
 old man, the keeper of a country turnpike, 
 living most of the time alone, and who for the last 
 forty years of his life had been a social outcast 
 among his loyal neighbors because he was supposed 
 to have sympathized with the South during the Civil 
 War, whereas his neighbors in this northern district 
 were fighting for the Federal Union. Under this 
 ostracism the old man's mind had partly given way. 
 His only interest in life was a granddaughter, his 
 sole surviving relative. His activity in the story was 
 an optimistic interest in the Congressional canvass of 
 a young man who had become interested in this 
 
 3
 
 4 PREFACE 
 
 granddaughter. The story ends with the old man's 
 dying and under that melancholy set of circum- 
 stances his disclosure to the neighbors assembled of 
 a letter from President Lincoln thanking him for 
 his services during the war in which he had been 
 a spy. To have told this fact in the earlier days of 
 his ostracism might have been perilous as there still 
 lived enough men who would have felt themselves 
 betrayed and perhaps sought vengeance! Later the 
 habit of silence had settled upon him and his isola- 
 tion had grown. 
 
 The characters in Mr. Landis' book were the 
 quaint people of an Illinois town. The incidents 
 were those growing out of the simple social inter- 
 changes of that community; the girl's occasional 
 visits to the lonely grandfather, the country barbe- 
 cue, and the like. None of them especially dramatic, 
 not any one of them sufficient to invite a dramatist, 
 but the poignantly tragic position of the old man in 
 this lifetime 6f martyrdom was so effective that it 
 justified any effort to properly present it in the 
 theatre. There must have been about the story a 
 considerable conviction, too, in its simple use of 
 local color, because in addressing myself to 
 making the play from it I never thought outside 
 of its conception. The play had not been an easy 
 one to write in its first draft: the three act form. 
 I had scenes about the country hotel and in the 
 street. I tried to make the dramatic machinery 
 move by the young lawyer's political canvass and 
 the attempts of his unscrupulous political opponents 
 to hamper him. I made the simple old man the dis- 
 coverer of these machinations. When I was done 
 I had a tolerable country play exploiting an eccentric 
 old man. Mr. Landis and I both liked it but we 
 were prejudiced. The managers to whom I offered 
 the manuscript cared nothing for it. The three acts
 
 PREFACE 5 
 
 began to look like deadwood and the time put in on 
 their production like a total loss. 
 
 One day my boy who was beginning playwright 
 and had a libretto in collaboration to his credit as 
 well as the precepts of many tiresome talks from his 
 father as part of his equipment, came home from 
 the Texas border where he had been with the New 
 York calvary in Squadron A. I asked him to read 
 the play and tell me what was the matter with it. 
 He was properly modest in advancing his opinion, 
 but characteristically youthful in its expression. His 
 first line was : "It seems to me you ought to con- 
 sume some of your own smoke." We talk some- 
 what cryptically but that speech was unintelligible. 
 "I mean," he added, "you ought to follow some of 
 the rules you have given me. You've always said, 
 'in playwriting, don't talk about it, do it.' Now all 
 the interesting things, or at least the things that stir 
 me in that play are things that you talk about, things 
 that happened forty years before in the Civil War. 
 I don't know enough about the game to advise you 
 in any retaliating fashion, but if the theatre will 
 stand for a division of that play into two epochs, 
 one during the Civil War, and the other at the time 
 of Landis' book, I think it would make a drama." 
 
 Being a parent for a long time cultivates one's 
 self-control. I gave the boy no intimation that his 
 suggestion had any value, but it fell into the sluggish 
 waters of my own intellectual pool like a sizzling 
 aerolite. I could hardly wait for him to get out of 
 the study and let me tackle the manuscript. The re- 
 sult was the four act version that is offered here- 
 with in which the Civil War period is treated in the 
 first two acts and the last two acts are devoted to 
 the time after an interval of forty years. The won- 
 derful advantage of the suggestion the reader who is 
 at all technical will immediately see. The first epoch
 
 6 PREFACE 
 
 would be what in the theatre we call "period." IV 
 would justifiably have all the color, picturesqueness 
 and the character quality of that early stir when the 
 country was getting ready for war and was em- 
 barked upon it. 
 
 The tragic element in Shanks' life was in the fact 
 that both his boy who died at Vicksburg and the 
 wife who died of grief following the son's death had 
 gone believing him to be a Copperhead and a traitor 
 to his country. To show this son at the time of life 
 when he was a boy of sixteen years and big 
 enough to join the Army made Shanks himself 
 thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old at the begin- 
 ning of the play. His surroundings were the simple 
 country scenes of primitive Illinois with which I was 
 somewhat familiar in recollection, and the atmos- 
 phere and events were also those that I remembered 
 with great vividness, the bitterness between the 
 neighbors on that border line of the two sections ; 
 the activity of the women helping the men with their 
 equipment at a time when there were no large 
 clothing manufactories, and when much of the cloth 
 that the men wore in their civil life was home-spun ; 
 when the women cut and sewed uniforms in their 
 volunteer societies ; the young boys molded minnie 
 balls, and made cartridges for the muzzle loading 
 rifles. There was Lincoln's call for volunteers and 
 the hurried response from all parts of the north, 
 and when the wounded began to come home there 
 were sanitary fairs, so called, at which money was 
 raised for hospital equipment both there and in the 
 field. All of this associated with the simple and 
 direct speech of the people of that time was in my 
 memory. When it came to characters I did not have 
 to go outside of my own household for those most 
 typical. The militant grandmother, a sacrificing, 
 patient mother, a father who had been to the Mexi-
 
 PREFACE 7 
 
 can War and was qualified by experience for the 
 hurried organizations, the babies that had to be 
 looked after while the men were away, the house- 
 hold and the other duties present ; the uncertain news 
 from the front and the acrid criticism of the anxious 
 women who were uninformed but positive in their 
 opinions. 
 
 To hold the two sections of the play together it 
 was essential that those in early manhood in the 
 first period should reappear as aged and veteran in 
 the second half of the play. For the leading char- 
 acter and. some of his associates this would offer to 
 each what would be called an actor's opportunity, 
 and for the girl who would play the drudge mother 
 of the Civil War time there would be the double to 
 her own granddaughter in the period of 1900. Com- 
 ing as the demand for the story did just when 
 America was going into the great World War and 
 with the non-resistance and other reluctant elements 
 in America at that time, the parallel was so close 
 that the historic conditions of '61 seemed to be 
 almost repertorial accounts of 1917, and the fact that 
 the story was in terms of that earlier period gave it 
 a symbolic force that would have been lost by ap- 
 pearing partisan if written in modern terms. The 
 very timeliness of it, however, made the writing of 
 the two acts comparatively easy. 
 
 The whole purpose of the story being to show the 
 life-long martyrdom of the man, Shanks, it was of 
 course essential in devising incidents and issues for 
 the second part of the story that they should be 
 affected by the false attitude in which his silent sac- 
 rifice had placed him, and of course they would be 
 more effective if their consequences fell upon those 
 to whom he was attached in the younger generation. 
 Beginning in the third act what was practically a 
 new play with a large proportion of new questions.
 
 8 PREFACE 
 
 the real task confronting a playwright was to hold 
 this second half up to the first part by the surviving 
 characters and their memories. The success in 
 meeting that problem was a question for the text 
 itself to determine. If we may rest upon the ver- 
 dict of the public and the effect of the play in the 
 skillful hand? that presented it one should feel 
 content. To give these characters and memories 
 something upon which they might impinge and func- 
 tion, I introduced the love of the young people, 
 Shanks' granddaughter and the young Congress- 
 man, the anxiety of the Congressman's mother to 
 get a fitting wife for him, and the little contest that 
 grew out of the application of the girl herself for 
 an engagement as local school teacher wherein she 
 was opposed by a less able girl but one of loyal 
 antecedents. 
 
 The big note in Mr. Landis' book had been old 
 Milt's recital of his interview with Abraham Lin- 
 coln at the White House. A narrative that is con- 
 vincing and permissible in a book is often difficult 
 to sustain and project in the theatre. As I was 
 struggling with this difficulty one night in my own 
 library I caught sight of the well-known life mask 
 of Lincoln, a plaster copy of which was hanging 
 over the fireplace. This particular copy had been 
 given to me by Mr. Douglas Volk, the eminent por- 
 trait painter. The original had been taken by his 
 father, Mr. Leonard Volk, the sculptor, immediately 
 after Lincoln's election in 1860 and before his inau- 
 guration. The painter had repeated to me his 
 father's story of getting the mask, told me how Lin- 
 coln sat in a kitchen chair while the soft plaster was 
 thrown on his face in order to make the mold and 
 told me also how a piece of wood was needed in 
 order to keep the right hand steady while the cast 
 of that was taken. Lincoln had got this by sawing
 
 PREFACE 9 
 
 the end from Mrs. Lincoln's broom handle. Mr. 
 Volk gave me also a copy of this cast of the 
 hand with the broom handle in it. In the plaster 
 are the marks of the saw that Lincoln used. 
 As two of the characters of Mr. Landis' had 
 been neighbors of Lincoln there was stage license in 
 reporting them present at this kitchen interview with 
 the sculptor. To put that mask and the hand that 
 signed the proclamation of Emancipation into the 
 last act was very simple. When old Milt told his 
 story of his interview in the White House this re- 
 cital was incorporated ; the old mask was taken from 
 his own mantlepiece and put under the lamp. The 
 plaster hand was exhibited in contrast to his own. 
 "A bigger man," Milt says, "bigger man'n me every 
 way." The effect was startling. The spirit of the 
 martyred President seemed to be in the room. 
 
 The element of timeliness made it essential to 
 produce the play promptly, and in the summer of 
 1918, I went with Mr. Richard Bennett to California 
 where it was planned to try the piece in a stock 
 engagement which he had arranged. After a read- 
 ing of the play and two rehearsals, the managers of 
 the theatre thought it of so little value that it was 
 discarded notwithstanding the expense attached to 
 trans-continental travel and the like. In the fall, 
 however, Mr. John D. Williams, the manager, inter- 
 ested Lionel Barrymore in the project. Nothing 
 could equal the enthusiasm of that young actor over 
 a mere reading of the 'script. Something had re- 
 cently interested him in the life of John Moseby 
 and all of the border conflict that made the back- 
 ground of the first half of the play was more vivid 
 in his own mind than it was in mine. If I had been 
 a younger author I would have been spoiled by his 
 finding esoteric meanings in nearly every 
 line; and the task of giving the two characteriza-
 
 io PREFACE 
 
 tions, that of the young Milt and a second of the 
 old man was one that appealed to him from every 
 point of view. 
 
 It is a characteristic of most authors to want an 
 elaborate preparation of their material. But Lionel 
 Barrymore's desire for that quite exceeded my own 
 demands and really taxed the patience of his asso- 
 ciates. The result, however, was one of the most 
 convincing performances that the American theatre 
 has ever had, and the consequence after he had fin- 
 ished the play was his equal triumph in an English 
 version of Bernstein's play, The Claw, carrying a 
 similar old man. 
 
 AUGUSTUS THOMAS.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 New York, February 18, 1918. 
 
 CAST OF CHARACTERS 
 
 (In the order of their appearance) 
 
 FIRST EPOCH 
 
 JOEY SHANKS Raymond Hackett 
 
 GRANDMA PERLEY Eugenie Woodward 
 
 MA SHANKS Doris Rankin 
 
 CAPTAIN HARDY Albert Phillips 
 
 MILT SHANKS Lionel Barrytnore 
 
 MRS. BATES Evelyn Archer 
 
 SUE PERLEY , Gladys Burgette 
 
 LEM TOLLARD Ethelbert Hales 
 
 NEWT GILLESPIE William C. Norton 
 
 ANDREWS , Harry Had field 
 
 SAM CARTER Chester Morris 
 
 ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS IN SECOND 
 EPOCH 
 
 MADELINE KING Doris Rankin 
 
 PHILIP MANNING Thomas Corrigan 
 
 MRS MANNING , Grace Reals 
 
 DR. RANDALL Hay den Stevenson 
 
 ii
 
 SYNOPSIS 
 
 FIRST EPOCH 1861-63. 
 
 ACT I. The dooryard of Milton Shanks. 
 
 ACT II. The Same. Two years later 
 SECOND EPOCH Forty years later. 
 
 ACT III. The dooryard of Milton Shanks. 
 
 ACT IV. The living room. 
 
 Scene laid in southern Illinois. 
 
 CHARACTERS IN PART ONE 
 JOEY SHANKS ......................... Aged 16 
 
 GRANDMA PERLEY 
 MA (MRS. SHANKS) 
 CAPTAIN HARDY 
 MILT SHANKS . 
 
 MRS. BATES 30 
 
 SUE PERLEY , 
 
 LEM TOLLARD 
 
 NEWT GILLESPIE 
 
 ANDREWS, a minister . 
 
 38 
 
 30 
 60 
 SAM CARTER , 24 
 
 76 
 34 
 36 
 36
 
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 The Copper Head 
 
 PART I 
 ACT I 
 
 SCENE : The dooryard on the Illinois farm of MIL- 
 TON SHANKS. 
 
 At the stage, right, is a porch raised six inches 
 from ground attached to the lean-to kitchen of 
 SHANKS' house, the roof of which disappears 
 to the right. Under the porch down stage is a 
 window with a door in second entrance. Behind 
 the porch a rail or other rough fence straggles 
 across stage. The back drop shows a half hilly 
 country with the wet stubbly earth of early 
 spring. Painted on the center of this drop is a 
 sycamore tree sufficiently distinctive to help 
 identify the same drop under July color and 
 vegetation in Act Two. 
 
 On the stage at the corner of the house up 
 right is a small lilac bush which shows three 
 years advance in Act Two, and is a good lilac 
 tree of forty odd years of age in the last two 
 acts. To the left of stage in second plane is 
 rough log curb to well fitted with bucket on a 
 long sweep with a fulcrum at the side of well 
 and tail of sweep running off to the left. Above 
 this well is a young apple tree, bare, to be in 
 foliage and fruit in Act Two, and to be a stal-
 
 14 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 wart, old, gnarly apple tree in the last two acts. 
 The wings at the left are bushes. The whole 
 dooryard is filled with a litter of neglected farm 
 material, such as grindstones, plow, bits of 
 harness, a broken wheel, the running gear of a 
 wagon, and the like. 
 
 DISCOVERED : JOEY, a boy of sixteen. He is dressed 
 like the son of a poor farmer of 1861. Joey is 
 molding minnie balls over a charcoal fire, using 
 one mold as a second one cools, and dropping 
 the finished product into a bucket. He is im- 
 patient and fretful. 
 
 After a mold or two, GRANDMA PERLEY en- 
 ters from the road. GRANDMA is seventy-six 
 a farmer's woman of the time. She smokes a 
 crock pipe with a reed stem. 
 
 GRANDMA. Is that you, Joey ? 
 
 JOEY. Yes'm. 
 
 GRANDMA. Where's your ma ? 
 
 JOEY. Sewing inside. 
 
 GRANDMA. You seem cross about sumpin*. 
 
 JOEY. I want to be drillin' and they detailed me 
 doin' this. 
 
 GRANDMA. Drillin' ! 
 
 JOEY. Yes. 
 
 GRANDMA. "Detailed" ye. Have you volun- 
 teered ? 
 
 JOEY. You bet I've volunteered. 
 
 GRANDMA. (In approval) Well, then, you go 
 drill I'll do that for you. 
 
 JOEY. Maybe you wouldn't know how, Mrs. Per- 
 ley. 
 
 GRANDMA. Yes, I would. 
 
 JOEY. (Explaining) This is hot lead. A drop of
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 15 
 
 it'll burn right thro' yer shoe before you kin kick 
 it off. 
 
 GRANDMA. I know. 
 
 JOEY. You pour it in these holes with this iron 
 spoon. 
 
 GRANDMA. Lord, boy, don't teach yer gran'- 
 mother how to suck aigs! I molded bullets fer 
 Andrew Jackson. Where's yer knife to trim 'em ? 
 
 JOEY. (With sample) But these ain't exactly 
 bullets. They're minnie balls. That ring around 
 'em is to fasten the paper cottridge onto. Here's 
 one with the cottridge on it. 
 
 GRANDMA. I know all about it. And the ring 
 holds mutton taller that turns into verdy grease 
 an* you can't volunteer unless ye got front teeth ter 
 tear the cottridge paper to let the powder out when 
 you ram the cottridge home. 
 
 JOEY. That's right, grandma. 
 
 GRANDMA. In 1812 every man had a powder- 
 horn. This idear of the powder fastened right on 
 the bullet is twice as quick. 
 
 JOEY. And the sharp nose on the bullet makes 
 'em go further. 
 
 GRANDMA. Let a Yankee alone for inventions. 
 Go on and drill, my boy. 
 
 JOEY. Thank you, grandma. (Enter MA. She is 
 a beautiful, dark-haired drudge, aged thirty-four. 
 She carries a coat.) 
 
 MA. Where you goin', Joey ? 
 
 JOEY. Ter drill. 
 
 MA. I want you. 
 
 JOEY. (Going) They ain't time, ma, now 
 honest they ain't. (Exits. He runs off behind the 
 house.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Let him alone, Mrs. Shanks. I told 
 him I'd spell him at these molds. It's wimmen's 
 work, anyhow, at war times.
 
 16 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MA. You're spoilin' him. 
 
 GRANDMA. A boy 'at wants ter volunteer has a 
 right ter be spoiled some. 
 
 MA. (Hesitating) I wanted to match these but- 
 ton-holes but I 'spose I kin measure 'em from the 
 bottom. 
 
 GRANDMA. (Rising) Why, I'll try it on fur yer. 
 
 MA. Will that do it? 
 
 GRANDMA. Why not? Kain't tell from my 
 shoulders whether I'm wearin' breeches or not, kin 
 you? An* anyhow, I'm smokin' a pipe man fashion. 
 (They try on the coat.) 
 
 MA. I hate ter see a coat pucker when it's but- 
 toned. 
 
 GRANDMA. No need to have it pucker. 
 
 MA. (Kneeling) I'll jest put a pin at each place. 
 (Does so) Joey hed no right to unload that work 
 onto you. 
 
 GRANDMA. I molded bullets before they ever in- 
 vented a shot-tower. I was only twenty-five years 
 old at Fort Dearborn and we wimmen all molded 
 'em big and little. Jim Madison had let the Eng- 
 lish set the red-skins onto us and thet meant more 
 to the wimmen I tell ye than it did to any man. 
 
 MA. (Finishing) Thank you, grandma. 
 
 GRANDMA. (Resuming work with the bullet-mold) 
 Any war will always mean more to the wimmen. 
 It's easy enough to fight, and easy enough to die. 
 Stayin' behind with yer stummick empty an' yer 
 hands tied an' yer hearts a-breakin', is the perfect 
 torment. 
 
 MA. We kin hope and pray this won't be a real 
 war. 
 
 GRANDMA. (Shakes head) No fool's paradise, 
 Martha. Men that own niggers ain't a gonta git 
 skeered 'cause Mr. Lincoln jumps at 'em and hollers 
 "Boo." He's got a bigger job than Jim Madison
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 17 
 
 bed, and thet lasted two years. These hellions are 
 right on the ground in the very midst of us some 
 of em's livin' right here in our own state, an' to git 
 'em out'll be like bugs in a rope bedstid. 
 
 MA. (Going toward house) Two years ! Joey '11 
 be eighteen before then. 
 
 GRANDMA. Yes if he lives. 
 
 MA. (Turning, alarmed) If he lives! Why, 
 Grandma Perley! 
 
 GRANDMA. An' I'H be sevinty-six if / live. 
 
 MA. (On porch) Come in and hev some tea, 
 won't you ? 
 
 GRANDMA. No, thank you. I've got my pipe and 
 this hot lead brings back old times a bit. (Enter 
 HARDY, in captain's uniform. A soldier follows, 
 without uniform.) 
 
 HARDY. Good-afternoon. Is Milt at home? 
 
 MA. Good-afternoon, Captain. He's inside. 
 (Calls) Milt here's Captain Hardy. 
 
 HARDY. Good-afternoon, Mrs. Perley. 
 
 GRANDMA. How de do, Captain. 
 
 HARDY. (Goes to well curb) Doing your share, 
 I see. 
 
 GRANDMA. Tryin' to, Captain an' I'll keep the 
 wimmen o' this neighborhood at sumpin' as long as 
 the trouble lasts. (Enter SHANKS, with baby, which 
 MA takes. SHANKS is a farmer of thirty-six.) 
 
 SHANKS. Afternoon, Captain Tom. 
 
 HARDY. You've got a wagon and two horses, 
 Milt? 
 
 SHANKS. I hev yes. 
 
 HARDY. My company's got orders to move. The 
 ammunition and supplies will need four wagons to 
 carry them. 
 
 SHANKS. Well, I kain't stop yer takin' mine, if 
 you mean that.
 
 i8 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 HARDY. I don't want to take it. We'll hire it 
 and we'll pay you for your time, too. 
 
 SHANKS. (Shakes head) I couldn't go myself. 
 
 MA. Why not, Milt? 
 
 SHANKS. I don't hold fur this coercin' of South- 
 ern people I don't. 
 
 HARDY. You hold for the North defending itself 
 when the South begins shooting, don't you? 
 
 SHANKS. I don't really know as I do. They 
 haven't come into our territory any yitf 
 
 HARDY. They're threatening the arsenal at St. 
 Louis. 
 
 SHANKS. Well, Missouri's a slave State, ain't it? 
 
 HARDY. (Impatient) I can't do your thinking 
 for you now. I want your team. 
 
 SHANKS. (Hands up) Well, you've got the 
 power. 
 
 HARDY. Can't you persuade him, Mrs. Shanks ? 
 
 MA. I'm afraid, Captain, that his head's turned 
 with these secession sympathizers. He's wearin' one 
 of their copper buttons. 
 
 GRANDMA. The Tories tried that "sympathizin' " 
 business in 1812. We burnt one o' their newspaper 
 offices and run some o' them theirselves over the line 
 ter Canada. 
 
 HARDY. (Writing) I'll take your team, Milt 
 but I'll give you a Government warrant that'll get 
 you the money for it. 
 
 SHANKS. Make it in ma's name, Captain. In 
 my eyes, it'd be blood money. 
 
 MA. Will you eat the provisions I buy with the 
 blood money? 
 
 SHANKS. Not if you keep 'em separated from 
 what I bring in, I won't. 
 
 HARDY. There, Mrs. Shanks. 'Tisn't their value, 
 perhaps, but that's the Government rate. 
 
 MA. Thank you.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 19 
 
 HARDY. (To SHANKS j Show us your team. 
 
 MA. Oh, Captain, these buttons does it matter 
 if I sew clear through the facin's ? I kain't pick up 
 one piece, tailor-fashion. 
 
 HARDY. Not a bit. Tie them on, if you want to. 
 Come, Milt? (Exits with SHANKS and soldier.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Hardy's more tender with Milt than 
 Nathan Heald would a been. 
 
 MA. Who? 
 
 GRANDMA. Captain Nathan Heald commanded at 
 Dearborn. A militia man talked meal-mouthed like 
 Milt done jest now, and Nathan Heald took his 
 sword hilt butt end and knocked out all his teeth. 
 (Enter MRS. BATES from road back of house, carry- 
 ing a blue coat she works on.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. Ain't that Captain Hardy? 
 
 MA. Yes. What's the matter? 
 
 MRS. BATES. I forget which side of a man's coat 
 the button-holes go on. 
 
 MA. Why, the left side. 
 
 MRS. BATES. Air you sure? 
 
 GRANDMA. Ain't you never made no clothes fur 
 yer own men folks ? 
 
 MRS. BATES. Not soldier clothes, I ain't. 
 
 GRANDMA. Well, the left side fur button-holes 
 right side fur buttons. Men are all one-handed. 
 Wimmen's clothes button with the left hand so they 
 can have their right arm to carry a baby. 
 
 MRS. BATES. Jim said I was wrong. I've sewed 
 this button-hole slip the tailor gave us, on the wrong 
 side. 
 
 GRANDMA. Rip it off. 
 
 MRS. BATES. I've cut thro' the cloth that's over it. 
 
 GRANDMA. Never mind. They'll find some left- 
 handed man. (Enter SUE, a girl of fourteen.) 
 
 SUE. Oh, Mrs. Shanks ! 
 
 MA. What is it, Sue?
 
 20 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 SUE. The men are going away. 
 
 GRANDMA. Why ain't you at the church pickin' 
 lint? 
 
 SUE. My bundle's all done. They're going right 
 away. 
 
 MRS. BATES. They'll have to wait for this coat, 
 I reckon. 
 
 GRANDMA. (Rising) You sure? (To SUE.) 
 
 SUE. Yes, Grandma. 
 
 GRANDMA. Then they better have what's done of 
 these. (Begins to trim the bullets and collect them. ) 
 
 SUE. Oh, Grandma ! Bullets ! (Re-enter SHANKS.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Yes, bullets. 
 
 SUE. That don't seem like woman's work. 
 
 GRANDMA. In a real war, everything's woman's 
 work, from bringin' 'em into the world right up to 
 closin' their eyes. 
 
 MA. (Shocked) Oh, Mrs. Perley! (MRS. 
 BATES also shrinks and exclaims.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Oh, you wimmen with yer "faint an' 
 fall in it" high falutin's are what's makin' the fool 
 peace talk amongst the men. (Goes to gate with 
 bucket.) "Close their eyes" yes. A man plows 
 and threshes and grinds hisself to death in sixty 
 years and ye call it the Lord's will. I don't. It's 
 what he dies fur that tells the tale. I lost a husband 
 at Fort Dearborn, and a father at Detroit, and a 
 brother on Lake Erie different ages then, but equal 
 now, 'cause they died fur Freedom fur Liberty. 
 (Exits.) 
 
 SUE. Gramma ought a been a man. (Exits.) 
 
 MA. Take this child ; I gotta finish these buttons. 
 (SHANKS takes baby to house.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. What's Milt so downcast about? 
 
 MA. The army has took our team. (Points off 
 left.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. Oh there comes Lem Tollard.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 21 
 
 MA. (Going) Yes. Another rebel sympathizer. 
 Will you come inside? 
 
 MRS. BATES. No ; I'll go home and fix this coat 
 if I kin. (Exit MA in house. LEM TOLLARD 
 enters left at back. He is a tough Illinois farmer of 
 1 86 1, with scowl and under jaw, easily dressed and 
 about thirty-eight years old. MRS. BATES, going, 
 looks at him. He touches his hat. MRS. BATES 
 exit. LEM looks cautiously over fence and comes 
 into yard; reconnoiters house and whistles signal 
 toward porch. Evidently gets attention inside and 
 beckons. SHANKS comes from house, sees LEM, 
 looks back into house, meets LEM left center.) 
 
 SHANKS. What'd you find out? 
 
 LEM. These fellers air gonta march in a day or 
 two, from the looks o' things ! 
 
 SHANKS. Whereto? 
 
 LEM. Missouri, I'd say. That visitin' member of 
 our Lodge that's here from Indiana understands 
 telegraphin' kin read it by ear. 
 
 SHANKS. By ear? 
 
 LEM. You bet ! He kin jest lean against a depot 
 an' tell nearly every word the machine's a sayin'. He 
 picked up "Camp Jackson" and "St. Louis" and 
 "Government troops from Quincy" goin' to the 
 Arsenal there in St. Louis. Company from here is 
 goin' to Quincy. Now, what's our move? 
 
 SHANKS. Why do we have to do anything? 
 
 LEM. Why, Camp Jackson's our people. 
 
 SHANKS. Air they? 
 
 LEM. Yes, at St. Louis. 
 
 SHANKS. Why, then, we oughta git word to 'em, 
 I suppose but, jeemunently how? 
 
 LEM. I've been to St. Louis in my time, with 
 hides and taller. 
 
 SHANKS. Then you're the man to go, I'd say.
 
 22 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 LEM. I'm ready to go, but it entitles me to rail- 
 road tickets and my keep while I'm away. 
 
 SHANKS. Naturally. 
 
 LEM. An' no use callin' a meetin' if you gimme 
 your word fur it that the circle makes it up to me 
 when I git back. 
 
 SHANKS. I give you my word fur it, Lem. 
 
 LEM. All right. (Starts off; stops; returns.) 
 An' see here, Milt, your boy Joe 
 
 SHANKS. What about him? 
 
 LEM. He's still drillin' with Newt Gillespie's out- 
 fit like I said he was. 
 
 SHANKS. Why not, if it amuses him? No guns, 
 and Joe's only sixteen and a little over. 
 
 LEM. Every man or boy we keep out of it, the 
 better. 
 
 SHANKS. Besides, Joe's drillin' and cheerin' 
 keeps suspicion off o' me. Lord, his mother's sewin' 
 uniforms for Hardy's Company! What do we 
 care? 
 
 LEM. (Not convinced) You may be right. 
 (Pause.) An' if any suspicion falls on me fur this 
 St. Louis trip, you're my witness that I went there 
 on business o' some kind fur you. 
 
 SHANKS. You did. There's a mule auction there, 
 I've heard. 
 
 LEM. There is Tenth and Biddle Street. 
 
 SHANKS. Well, how's this? These troops has 
 took my team, and you went there to buy another 
 team fur me? 
 
 LEM. Why didn't I get 'em? 
 
 SHANKS. The army's buyin' 'em. That's a good 
 reason. Price went up. Everything is goin' up, 
 ain't it? 
 
 LEM. (Pause) I'll write you a letter about 'em 
 through the post-office sayin' that, and you keep 
 it. 

 
 THE COPPERHEAD 23 
 
 SHANKS. 'Nuf said. (Enter MA.) 
 
 MA. (On porch) Well, Lem, what is it? 
 
 LEM. Good- mornin'. 
 
 MA. The President's called fur seventy-five thou- 
 sand volunteers. Did you see it ? 
 
 LEM. I'm thirty-eight years old. 
 
 MA. So's Captain Hardy. 
 
 LEM. (Fishing) And my insteps ain't strong. 
 
 MA. Your insteps air all right, ain't they, Milt? 
 
 SHANKS. They air, thank Gawd, but not fur any 
 unholy cause like an army against our own country- 
 men. 
 
 MA. (To LEM,) I see you're wearin' one o' them 
 copperheads in yer button-hole, too. 
 
 LEM. (Regarding button) The Goddess of Lib- 
 erty yes. 
 
 MA. Liberty, is it? I notice that every brute 
 that's ever turned a dog loose after a poor black 
 slave runnin' past here from the Ohio River, is 
 wearin' one of 'em. 
 
 SHANKS. Oh, politics ain't fur women, Ma! 
 
 MA. They always have been in this house until 
 Fort Sumter was fired on an' I never looked for 
 you to eat yer own words, Milt Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. I ain't eatin' my words. I'm fur peace, 
 that's all peace. I've got two children ter support. 
 
 MA. Ye hed one when the Mexican War broke 
 out, an' yer was devil bent to go to that. 
 
 SHANKS. Mexicans is different but not our own 
 countrymen. (Turns.) Don't mind her, Lem. 
 
 MA. An' as fur protectin' yer children, that's 
 what I'm askin' yer ter do. It's the shame of it 
 that's drivin' Joey into the volunteers the shame of 
 it. 
 
 LEM. (Contradicting) No, no. Just boys' ways, 
 Mrs. Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. They don't want men as old as us.
 
 24 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MA. Then why don't you say jes' that, and stop 
 yer peace hyprocrisy and throw away that copper- 
 head off o' yer button-hole? 
 
 LEM. That shows we're united, too, Mrs. Shanks. 
 The lovers of liberty air united. 
 
 MA. We understand round here that you owned 
 a nigger yerself 'fore you left Kentucky. 
 
 LEM. In Kentucky everybody owned 'em 'at could 
 afford it. 
 
 MA. That's a lie, Lem Tollard. 
 
 SHANKS. Ma, how kin you know ? 
 
 MA. I've heard Abraham Lincoln say it was. 
 (To LEMJ An' I call you mighty poor company, 
 even fur Milt Shanks. (Enter GILLESPIE and AN- 
 DREWS, a preacher. Both carry some new uniforms.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. Sorry to rush you, Mrs. Shanks 
 
 MA. What is it, Mr. Gillespie? Good afternoon, 
 Brother Andrews. 
 
 ANDREWS. Sister Shanks. 
 
 GILLESPIE Got to have everything that's finished. 
 
 ANDREWS. The Company has orders to march. 
 
 MA. Thank God that temptation's goin' away 
 from Joey at last. They're done, Newt. Only bast- 
 in' threads to take out. (Exits.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. Don't stop fur that. Any feller they 
 fit kin pick out the threads. 
 
 SHANKS. Where air you goin'? 
 
 GILLESPIE. What the hell's that to you? Excuse 
 me, Brother Andrews. (To SHANKS) Git a gun an' 
 fall in, like you oughta, and you'll find out. 
 
 LEM. Don't answer him. Milt. (Exit.) 
 
 ANDREWS. The military men are not permitted 
 to give information of that character. Mr. Shanks. 
 
 GILLESPIE. He knows that well enough and we 
 wouldn't give it to the enemy if we did. (Re-enter 
 MA with two suits, of blue.)
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 25 
 
 MA. (Handing clothes) Nothin' to brag on, 
 Newt, fur looks but they won't blow apart. 
 
 GILLESPIE. You oughta have a right ter wear 'em 
 yerself, 'stead o' sech as him. 
 
 MA. That spot'll wash out. It's only a little 
 curdled milk stummick teeth. I had to take her 
 up a while when I was sewin' last night. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Fur stummick teeth and curdlin', my 
 woman gives 'em lime water. (Enter HARDY.; 
 
 HARDY. Make haste, Gillespie. 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Salutes) Jest foldin' 'em, Captain. 
 Come on, Brother Andrews. 
 
 ANDREWS. (To HARDY; I'd go with you, Cap- 
 tain, if I were young enough. 
 
 HARDY. I'm sure you would, sir. (To GILLESPIE,) 
 Where's the rest of your squad ? 
 
 GILLESPIE. All over town. 
 
 ANDREWS. Twenty ladies been sewin'. fGiL- 
 LESPIE salutes. Exit with clothes, on run. AN- 
 DREWS follows.) 
 
 HARDY. Thank you, Mrs. Shanks. 
 
 MA. God bless you, Tom Hardy ! 
 
 HARDY. (Pauses and pleads) Come on, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. 'Taint possible, Tom. (HARDY looks at 
 
 MA.; 
 
 MA. I've told him I'd git on Joey's as good at 
 sixteen as a man twenty-one. (The baby cries off 
 right. Exit MA.; 
 
 HARDY. You wanted to go with me in '47. 
 
 SHANKS. That was different, Tom. 
 
 HARDY. And you wanted to go to West Point 
 when I did. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 HARDY. I wish you had gone. (Pause.) Did 
 you hear Colonel Grant muster in our Company last 
 week ?
 
 26 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 SHANKS. (Shakes head) I wasn't there. 
 
 HARDY. He said a dead rebel would be envied 
 compared to the man on the Northern side who 
 stayed home and gave comfort to the enemy. 
 (Pause.) They tell me, Milt, you've been making 
 that mistake yourself comfort to the enemy. 
 
 SHANKS. I don't know as I have. 
 
 HARDY. That button shows it. 
 
 SHANKS. It stands fur peace and the liberty our 
 fathers won. 
 
 HARDY. How did our fathers win their liberty? 
 
 SHANKS. Why fightin'. 
 
 HARDY. Exactly ! And the fight isn't over. Come 
 on! Remember who's calling our own candidate 
 our own neighbor our own friend Lincoln. 
 
 SHANKS. Lincoln wasn't fur war when we elect- 
 ed him. He's lettin' 'em make him jest an instru- 
 ment in the devil's hands. (Enter MA with baby.) 
 
 HARDY. (Hand to SHANKS' throat) Stop! 
 (Pause.) I'd shoot another man that said that. 
 (MA exclaims. Pause.) I'm sorry, Mrs. Shanks 
 sorry. 
 
 MA. (Pause) Fm sorry, Captain. (Enter JOEY.) 
 
 JOEY. Mother mother 
 
 MA. Well, Joey? 
 
 JOEY. You gave Newt Gillespie my uniform. 
 
 MA. 'T wasn't yours, dear. 
 
 JOEY. Why, you made it to fit me didn't you ? 
 
 MA. I tried it on you, boy, to get it straight; 
 that's all. 
 
 JOEY. Captain Hardy, 'tain't fair! I'm as good 
 in the drill as any man in your company. 
 
 HARDY. You're only sixteen, Joe. 
 
 JOEY. Coin' on seventeen. I'm in the same class 
 at school with Sam Perley and Jim Evers and Henry 
 Bates. They're goin'. 7 cut wood and swing a 
 scythe and lift a bag of oats with any of 'em.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 27- 
 
 HARDY. Well, there'll still be wood to cut, Joey, 
 and farm work to do back here. 
 
 JOEY. And the uniform fits me my own mother 
 made it. 
 
 MA. For the army, Joey not for you. 
 
 JOEY. Why, Mother, you put yer hands on my 
 face and said : "Don't ever disgrace it, boy." 
 
 MA. Yes like I'd say fur the flag. (HARDY 
 starts.) 
 
 JOEY. Don't go, Captain. If she says yes? Say 
 yes, Mother say yes ! 
 
 MA. Why, Joey, me and Elsie needs somebody. 
 I ain't despaired yit of yer father goin'. 
 
 JOEY. Why (Pause.) Has he changed his 
 mind ? (Pause.) Dad ? 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause) I can't go I can't knowin' 
 everything as I do. 
 
 HARDY. (To MA^ Good-by. (Goes quickly. 
 JOEY throws himself on the well curb in tears. After 
 a pause MA walks to him and puts her hand on his 
 shoulder. JOEY turns at her touch and buries his 
 face in her lap as he kneels. With the baby in her 
 arms, the three make an effective group.) 
 
 MA. (Pause) Joey Joey (The boy looks up.) 
 I used ter carry you this way, dearie. 
 
 JOEY. (Rising) Well, I kud carry you, now. 
 
 (Re-enter GRANDMA, without her pipe.) 
 
 MA. That's what I'm askin' you ter do, son. 
 
 JOEY. But not tied ter yer apron-strings, ma. All 
 the fellers that air goin' air doin' it fur their folks 
 at home defendin' them. 
 
 GRANDMA. Gimme that child. Yer plumb tuck- 
 ered out. (Takes baby.) 
 
 MA. Kain't you say nothin', Milt Shanks? 
 
 SHANKS. I'm fur peace. I've said that time and
 
 28 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 agin. Joey's heered me. (Exit GRANDMA with baby 
 to house.) 
 
 JOEY. 7 ain't fur peace when they're shootin' at 
 the flag ! 
 
 SHANKS. But I understand a boy's feelin's, too. 
 When I was sixteen, I'd o' felt jest the way Joey 
 does. 
 
 MA. Yer urgin' him to go? 
 
 SHANKS. No, by God, I ain't urgin' him! He 
 don't seem ter need it. I only say it's natural, and 
 
 as long as I live (Pause.) I'll remember that 
 
 my boy (Pause and control.) I'll remember he 
 
 was natural and manful. 
 
 JOEY. Kain't yer see / got ter do it? 
 
 MA. Yer only sixteen, Joey. 
 
 JOEY. I'm strong as twenty an' a blamed sight 
 quicker. 
 
 MA. Yer might git wounded. 
 
 JOEY. I been wounded by a pitchfork and Per- 
 ley's dog bit me. I "heal up" quicker'n a feller o' 
 twenty ! 
 
 MA. Some boys will git killed, Joey. I kain't let 
 you go at sixteen. 
 
 JOEY. If I hang round till I'm older, you'll only 
 git fonder of me, an' if a feller is gona be killed, 
 what's the difference sixteen or twenty? 
 
 MA. (To SHANKS,) Yer see how he's a-strainin" 
 
 ter git away, Milt. I ain't sendin' either of yer 
 
 (To JOEYJ But you won't go, Joey, if yer father 
 goes, will you? (Watches SHANKS anxiously.) 
 
 JOEY. We couldn't both leave you and Elsie, of 
 course. 
 
 MA. There, Milt. (SHANKS shakes head.) 
 
 JOEY. (In a burst) God A'mighty, Ma, let me 
 have one parent I kin look up to ! Quick ! Please, 
 'cause some other feller'll git my uniform in a 
 minute.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 29 
 
 MA. It's big enough f er yer father. You git it 
 and we'll see about who goes with the Company. 
 
 JOEY. Aha! Bully! (Exit; runs off back of 
 house. MA watches him out of sight, her hand to 
 her lips. Then turns.) 
 
 MA. I know Captain Hardy will send him back, 
 an' then then you'll jest hev ter take his place, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. God bless you, Ma. Yer like the won- 
 derful women that put the stars in the flag, an' I 
 ain't worthy ter undo the latchets o' yer shoes but 
 I kain't go inter this army. 
 
 MA. "The stars in the flag!" (Pause.) I stud 
 here by this well with my arms round yer neck, Milt, 
 when Joey was only three holdin' yer back that 
 time from Mexico, and yer talked about "the stars 
 in the flag" then. I thought you wuz the handsom- 
 est thing in the whole State of Illinois and I prayed 
 God to make our boy hev some of your spirit instead 
 of mine when he growed up to be a man. 
 
 SHANKS. Sorry I talked about 'em agin but it's 
 kind o' the same subject, after all. 
 
 MA. We ain't hed riches, and I've hed some sick- 
 ness, but I've kind o' lived on my respect and trust 
 in you, Milt. Don't tell me that everything I loved 
 you fur is dead in you. 
 
 SHANKS. I've loved yer, too, Martha. 
 
 MA. I think you hev. 
 
 SHANKS. An' I still do. 
 
 MA. Well, I'm tryin', Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. I still do. Fur time and eternity 
 (Pause) an' without wantin' ter harp on the same 
 subject jest as sure as the stars air in the flag, 
 you'll look inter my face some time, an' admit I was 
 right. 
 
 MA. Never never! (Exit to house. SHANKS 
 lifts his hands to Heaven in protest, pulls himself 
 together and cleans up the charcoal furnace outfit.)
 
 30 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 (Enter LEM quickly.) 
 
 LEM. Milt ! 
 
 SHANKS. Hello ! 
 
 LEM. (Excited) They're gonta march to-day 
 not to-morrow. 
 
 SHANKS. Air they? 
 
 LEM. Yes. I got to git out on to-night's train 
 fur St. Louis. 
 
 SHANKS. I 'spose yer hev really. 
 
 LEM. No chance to see anybody. How much 
 money you got on you ? 
 
 SHANKS. (Counting) I'll see. Six bits. 
 
 LEM. Great Scott! Well, give it to me. If you 
 can scrape up any more, bring it to me at the depot. 
 (Starts, stops.) An' remember yer obligation "a 
 brother Knight's wife or parents, or any dependent 
 on him." (Holds up right hand as taking oath.) 
 
 SHANKS. (With same sign) "Or any dependent 
 on him." 
 
 LEM. Look in at my place now and agin. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes I will. 
 
 LEM. Here's Gillespie, runnin'. I told you! 
 
 (Enter GILLESPIE on a run.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. Any ammunition here? 
 SHANKS. Ammunition ? 
 
 (Exit LEM significantly.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. Minnie balls. Your Joey was moldin' 
 'em. 
 
 (Enter ANDREWS, evidently following GILLESPIE. ) 
 
 SHANKS. Oh, Mrs. Perley took them. (Calls) 
 Mrs. Perley Mrs. Perley!
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 31 
 
 GILLESPIE. Where to? 
 SHANKS. She'll tell you. 
 
 (Enter GRANDMA.^ 
 
 GRANDMA. What is it? 
 
 GILLESPIE. Minnie balls Joe Shanks was mak- 
 in'. 
 
 GRANDMA. Why, you tarnation idiot I gave 'em 
 to you yerself ! 
 
 GILLESPIE. When ? 
 
 GRANDMA. In that horse bucket. 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Going) Hell's bells ! I packed 'em 
 with the harness. (Exit.) 
 
 GRANDMA. (Calling after) Two bullet molds 
 layin' on top of 'em. (Going.) Ye'd think the rebels 
 was ambushin' 'em. (Exit after GILLESPIE.J 
 
 SHANKS. They're gettin' ready. 
 
 ANDREWS. Yes. 
 
 SHANKS. Brother Andrews see here. (Comes 
 down excitedly and with caution.) You brought me 
 a letter in March. 
 
 ANDREWS. Yes, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. (Looks off after LEMJ Callin' me 
 East! ('ANDREWS nods.) I don't know if you 
 guessed what was wanted of me, and my wife ain't 
 nur Joey, nur anybody. Yer mustn't hint it if you 
 do not even to me. (Pause. ANDREWS nods.) 
 But I was told down there that, in a pinch, I could 
 turn ter you, and you'd take orders from me. ( AN- 
 DREWS nods.) Lem Tollard's gittin' the evenin' 
 train fur St. Louis ter give warnin' ter rebel troops 
 there in Camp Jackson, that Union reinforcements is 
 comin'. You kin beat him by buggy or horseback to 
 Mattoon and the regular Express from there on. 
 
 ANDREWS. I understand. 
 
 SHANKS. At the St. Louis Arsenal, the Union
 
 32 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 troops air under Captain Lyon L-y-o-n. Git ter 
 him personal. He'll know what ter do whether ter 
 move faster hisself or jes' ter head off Lem. 
 
 ANDREWS. Do I say you told me? 
 
 SHANKS. (Nods) A farmer by the name of 
 Shanks. (Impressively. A bugle blows assembly.) 
 
 ANDREWS. I'll follow instructions minutely. 
 
 (Re-enter SuE.J 
 
 SUE. Mr. Shanks Mr. Shanks! 
 SHANKS. (Turning) Yes, Sue. 
 SUE. Joey wants his other shirt and a pair of sox. 
 SHANKS. What's the matter? 
 SUE. The Company's going. He's going with 
 'em. 
 
 (ANDREWS exit.) 
 
 SHANKS. His shirt and sox. Ma Ma! (Anx- 
 iously toward house. Re-enter GRANDMA. A drum 
 heard in distance. SHANKS stops and listens.) 
 
 SUE. That's them. 
 
 GRANDMA. (Heroically) We're comin', Father 
 Abraham, a hundred thousand strong. 
 
 SHANKS. God A'mighty! (Exit.) 
 
 (SuE runs to fence. Enter MRS. BATES. ) 
 
 MRS. BATES. Where's Mrs. Shanks? 
 
 SUE. Inside. I've told 'em, Mrs. Bates. 
 
 MRS. BATES. My Henry's in the Company, and 
 they're goin' without supper. (Enter MA.) 
 
 MA. They're just drillin', ain't they? 
 
 SUE. No'm, they're really going, Mrs. Shanks. 
 Joey sent me. (Enter SHANKS with small bundle.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. Here they come. (Fife and drum
 
 "THE COPPERHEAD" See page 29 
 
 MA: "Don't tell me everything I loved you fur is dead in you?"
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 33 
 
 effect, increasing with scene until it finishes in song.) 
 MA. Where's Joey ? He can't be with 'em ! 
 SUE. I can see him, Mrs. Shanks. I see Joey. 
 He's with 'em. (SHANKS goes into road and looks. 
 MA comes down right, excitedly.) 
 
 MA. God! Dear God! (Raises her hands.) 
 GRANDMA. (With her) Yer his mother. Don't 
 fergit that. Let him see you givin' courage to him 
 as he goes by. (SHANKS comes down from road 
 and gives SUE the bundle for JOEY; then exit left 
 rather haunted. Chorus of approaching Company 
 breaks into "John Brown's Body.") You nursed 
 him an' you brought him into the world. Come, 
 keep up his heart ! (Takes MA up. GRANDMA goes 
 into road and meets Company. The women and 
 SUE indicate approach of Company. The Company, 
 in rather irregular uniforms, swings by, singing; 
 GRANDMA waves her apron, leading them in an in- 
 spired and symbolic manner. SHANKS sneaks on 
 above well and hides in bushes. Presently JOEY 
 passes; he slips from line a moment and kisses MA, 
 then runs and catches up his place. MA leans against 
 the fence and the women fan her. The scene may 
 be enlivened by old men and children trailers.) 
 
 (CURTAIN ON SONG.)
 
 ACT II 
 
 SCENE: Same set as Act One, but over two years 
 later. A lilac bush at upper corner of house is 
 two years larger but without bloom. The month 
 is July. The back drop shows same topography 
 as Act One but the field is of ripening corn. 
 On the post of the porch a cardboard shield of 
 the U. S. Arms is tacked in lieu of a flag. 
 
 TIME: Twilight, fading into moonlight; Friday, 
 July 3, 1863. 
 
 DISCOVERED: MA ironing by the charcoal furnace. 
 Her ironing board is laid on the backs of two 
 kitchen chairs. There is a basket of damp linen 
 and a pile of ironed nearly dry. The baby EL- 
 SIE, now some three years old, is on an im- 
 provised bed of chairs, on porch, with a piece 
 of "quadrille" mosquito net over her. GRAND- 
 MA sits by knitting sox. 
 
 MA. About time fur her medicine, ain't it ? 
 
 GRANDMA. I'll see. 
 
 MA. You set still ; I'll see. (Steps to door.) Yes, 
 after time. 
 
 GRANDMA. I'll give it to her. (Takes up from 
 floor a tumbler covered with a plate, holding a 
 spoon.) 
 
 34
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 35 
 
 MA. (Bending over bed) How is mammy's pre- 
 cious now ? Don't wake up, darling Grandma Per- 
 ley's just gonta give it a nice spoonful of the cool 
 water 
 
 GRANDMA. Open mouffy (Gives medicine.) 
 The angel ! 
 
 MA. Now, lay down, dear, and mammy'll make 
 the beautiful house again. Keep out the nasty flies 
 and skeeters. (Fixes net.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Seems easier. 
 
 MA. (Resuming work) Yes. 
 
 GRANDMA. Beats me ; six little sugar pills melted 
 in a tumbler o' water (Shakes head.) 
 
 MA. There's sumpin' about 'em. 
 
 GRANDMA. Don't allow 'em in the army. 
 
 MA. Might be better if they did. I hear they're 
 dyin' like flies in the hospitals. 
 
 GRANDMA. Kain't believe all we hear, Martha. 
 They said Stonewall Jackson was killed early in 
 May. 
 
 MA. Well, wasn't he? 
 
 GRANDMA. I doubt it. Six weeks has gone by 
 and Joe Hooker has hed to fall back; looks to me 
 like that yarn about Jackson was jest to throw our 
 folks off their guard and "shot by his own men." 
 
 MA. May be 
 
 GRANDMA. Sounds fishy. An' where's all the help 
 we was gonta git from the four million niggers? 
 'mancipation's been out six months. 
 
 MA. Maybe the niggers didn't git it most of 
 'em kain't read, an' the Rebs wouldn't tell 'em, would 
 they? 
 
 GRANDMA. P'raps not (Pause) and Grant! 
 Why ain't he stirrin' hisself? Sometimes I think 
 them yarns about his drinkin's more truth than 
 poetry. Lord if I'd only been a man !
 
 36 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MA. Well, it's a siege, Joey says in his letters 
 if a man's ever been a drinkin' man, seems ter me 
 that'd drive him to it agin jest settin' an' settin' 
 outside the city waitin' an' waitin' day in day 
 out even hotter'n this place, too. 
 
 GRANDMA. Lord pity 'em! 
 
 MA. 'Cause that's the real South Vicksburg is. 
 
 GRANDMA. Oughta be some breeze from the river, 
 I'd think. 
 
 MA. Joey don't speak of it. 
 
 GRANDMA. How long's it been fur Joey? 
 
 MA. Two years and two months since he marched 
 past that gate. 
 
 GRANDMA. I mean at Vicksburg? 
 
 MA. Oh! 'Bout six weeks now since the siege 
 begun. (Pause; going.) I kin tell exactly by his 
 letters. (Exit.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Six weeks is near enough. (Calls) 
 Lord ! I ain't timin bread in the oven by it. (MA 
 returns with bunch of letters from the house.) 
 
 MA. I think this is the one. (Opens letter. Reads 
 in bitter silence a moment.) 
 
 GRANDMA. (Pause) What's the matter now ? 
 
 MA. (Pause; shakes head) 'Bout his father. 
 
 GRANDMA. Well, don't let's git on that subject 
 agin. 
 
 MA. (Studying letter and biting lip.) When the 
 news of it got into the army some o' the men from 
 
 here had papers with the trial in 'em (Looks 
 
 up in agony.) Joey's father ! My baby's father 
 
 GRANDMA. Evil company kin bring any man 
 down, but I'll stake my hope o' salvation that Milt 
 Shanks didn't do the murder. 
 
 MA. Not his fault if he didn't. He'd fired two 
 shots his revolver showed that at the trial. 
 
 GRANDMA. I don't know. They didn't hang him 
 at any rate.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 37 
 
 MA. What comfort kin Joey git from that ? The 
 verdict was hangin', and they'd a hung him only the 
 governor committed all o' their sentences ter life in 
 the penitentiary life life in the penitentiary. We 
 knowed about it comin' from day to day but it was 
 a thunderbolt to Joey. He says (Reads) "If I 
 could jes' put my arms around you, mammy " 
 
 GRANDMA. (Going to her) Now, quit that, Mar- 
 tha. You started to find out when Vicksburg com- 
 menced. Lord, we've all got troubles. 
 
 MA. (Bracing up) I know (With other letter.) 
 It's a lead pencil, and I can't make out the writin' 
 now it's gittin' so dark, besides. 
 
 GRANDMA. An' yer tuckered out with yer ironin'. 
 
 MA. Only my back it'll ease up when I lay 
 down. 
 
 (Enter MRS. BATES and SUE to back of fence.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. (Calling) Good evening. (MA 
 runs to bed and sings lullaby "Old Dog Tray") 
 
 GRANDMA. (Signals silence) The child's asleep. 
 
 MRS. BATES. Sorry. 
 
 GRANDMA. All right, I guess. (Enter MRS. BATES 
 to yard. Enter SUE; she carries a tin lantern, un- 
 lighted.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. I brought some rennet fur her. 
 (MA nods thanks.) 
 
 GRANDMA. That's good. 
 
 SUE. We're goin' down to the church. 
 
 GRANDMA. Why ? 
 
 MRS. BATES. Fixin' the booths fur to-morrow. 
 
 MA. (Joining them) I'm so sorry I can't go 
 along and help. 
 
 MRS. BATES. Lord knows you got yer hands full. 
 
 GRANDMA. Ain't hed her supper. 
 
 MRS. BATES. What!
 
 38 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MA. It's too hot fur supper. 
 
 GRANDMA. (To MA) Where's yer tea kettle? 
 
 MA. I've got cold tea. 
 
 SUE. Let me git it, Mrs. Shanks. 
 
 MA. It's in the well I'll get some glasses. 
 (Starts.) 
 
 GRANDMA. You'll set still. I'll git the glasses. 
 (Puts her in chair. Exit. SUE goes to well. A 
 little cry from the bed.) 
 
 MA. (Resigned) I guess she's waking. (Gets 
 ELSIE. ) 
 
 SUE. Did we wake her, do you 'spose ? 
 
 MA. She's slept a good while, anyway. (Re- 
 enter GRANDMA with glasses, glass sugar bowl, 
 brown sugar and spoons.) 
 
 MA. Come, dearie, Auntie Bates brought Elsie, 
 oh, such good supper. Mother'll hold her little girl 
 on her lap while she eats it. (MA sits at ironing 
 board and feeds ELSIE. MRS. BATES stands. SUE 
 brings tea from well.) 
 
 GRANDMA. (Slyly indicating' ELSIEJ It's a good 
 plan to change the subject now we git on better 
 
 when you don't notice us How many booths 
 
 you got? (Pours tea.) 
 
 MRS. BATES. Oh, a dozen, I should think. 
 
 SUE. If we can get dolls enough by to-morrow 
 we're going to have the old woman that lived in a 
 shoe. 
 
 GRANDMA. Have what? 
 
 MRS. BATES. The S'Louis papers say at their fair 
 Nellie Grant, the Gineral's little dotter, was the old 
 woman a shoe as big as Elsie's bed for her house 
 and dozens of dolls all over it. 
 
 GRANDMA. How old's Grant's dotter? 
 
 MRS. BATES. Only three or four. 
 
 GRANDMA. Well, don't that beat the Dutch. I'll 
 bet it took like hot cakes.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 39 
 
 MA. (Coaxingly) Not here, dearie that's way 
 off where the sun goes to bed and hot cakes ain't 
 near so nice as Auntie Bates' custard. 
 
 GRANDMA. Little pitchers have big ears. 
 
 (Enter ANDREWS from left at back.) 
 
 MA. There's Brother Andrews. 
 
 GRANDMA. A minute later'n he'd a caught me 
 smokin'. 
 
 MRS. BATES. Good evening. 
 
 ANDREWS. Good evening may I come in? 
 
 MA. Of course yer always welcome, Mr. An- 
 drews. (ANDREWS enters yard. He shows elation.) 
 
 ANDREWS. There's some wonderful news on the 
 telegraph wires. 
 
 GRANDMA. What is it? (M\ and MRS. BATES 
 chorus "Tell us" and "Good news?") 
 
 ANDREWS. Vicksburg's surrendered. 
 
 SUE. I fHooray ! 
 
 MA. > ( Together) W Thank God ! 
 
 MRS. BATES. J (.Oh, Mr. Andrews ! 
 
 (The twilight goes into moonlight.) 
 
 GRANDMA. God bless ole Grant. 
 
 ANDREWS. (Fervently) Amen amen, Sister 
 Perley. 
 
 MA. (Pause) And Joey, too 
 
 ANDREWS. Yes, Joey, too, and all our brave boys 
 in blue. The news comes pretty direct altho* it 
 hasn't been officially confirmed. 
 
 GRANDMA. Then hold on, don't count your 
 chickens too soon. 
 
 ANDREWS. Oh, I believe it's true true. 
 
 MRS. BATES. Why, Brother Andrews? 
 
 ANDREWS. I've expected it right along. The 
 prisoners that have been passing through here give 
 awful reports of their starvation in Vicksburg
 
 40 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 eating dogs anything and just to think of the 
 glorious way it comes to-morrow will be the Fourth 
 of July and, praise be to God, we've our bell for 
 the meeting house. 
 
 GRANDMA. The bell's come? 
 
 ANDREWS. Come? Why, it's up in the belfry, 
 Sister Perley. Some folks want us to ring it every 
 day for twelve o'clock, but we'll begin with the 
 Sunday service and the Wednesday prayer meetings, 
 except, of course, if this surrender's true we'll ring 
 in the glorious Fourth. 
 
 MA. And maybe Joey kin git a furlough now. 
 
 ANDREWS. Of course he'll git a furlough. 
 
 MA. (To ELSIEJ Buvver Joey comin' home to 
 Elsie and Muzzer. 
 
 GRANDMA. The news makes us all fergit our 
 manners will you hev some cold tea, Brother An- 
 drews ? 
 
 ANDREWS. (Hesitates) Why 
 
 SUE. Right out of the well awfully good. 
 
 ANDREWS. Thank you yes. 
 
 MA. You're sure they'll let him come ? 
 
 ANDREWS. Positive. After that splendid brav- 
 ery in recovering the flag. 
 
 GRANDMA. What was that, Brother Andrews? 
 
 ANDREWS. In one of the Rebels' attempts to 
 break through a Union color bearer was struck 
 Joey not only supported the man but kept the flag 
 flying, too Didn't you know of it? 
 
 MA. Well, not so fine as that one o' Joey's let- 
 ters said "Jim Evers was hit with a bay'net while 
 he was carryin' our flag and I was so close to him 
 
 that I caught him when he fell over " That's 
 
 jes' seemed natural kindness. 
 
 ANDREWS. Caught him! Why, Joe fought like 
 a wildcat. 
 
 SUE. Joey !
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 41 
 
 MRS. BATES. Well! Well! 
 
 GRANDMA. I'm ready to believe it, 'cause at Fort 
 Dearborn the dare devils was always the boys. 
 
 MA. Who told you about it, Brother Andrews? 
 
 ANDREWS. Why well it's a little embarrassing 
 but Joey's father told me. 
 
 MA. His father? 
 
 GRANDMA. ('Discounting it) Oh ! (MRS. BATES 
 and SUE relax also.) 
 
 MA. (Pause) I thought maybe you'd got it 
 straighter'n that. I guess Joey's letter's about right. 
 
 ANDREWS. And then again when General Grant 
 was holding a council of war with Admiral Porter 
 on a gunboat in the river the Rebels knew it some- 
 how and made a sally. Joey swam out to the boat 
 and carried the news to Grant Grant hustled back 
 in his skiff and rallied our men, who were retreating. 
 Grant sent for Joey the next day and made a world 
 of fuss over him Yes, indeed. 
 
 MA. Did you git all that from his father, too ? 
 
 ANDREWS. Well yes. 
 
 GRANDMA. 'M. (The women again go cold.) 
 
 SUE. (Pause) Well, Joey's spunky, jest the 
 same. 
 
 MRS. BATES. (Pause) Sue and I were just goin' 
 down to the church are there many there? 
 
 ANDREWS. Oh, yes. 
 
 SUE. (Suddenly) Oh we've settled about the 
 rebel states, Mrs. Shanks. 
 
 GRANDMA. How ! 
 
 SUE. Well, you see, I'm on the platform as the 
 Goddess of Liberty and I say like this : (Recites) 
 
 "Within the field of blue a cloud I see, 
 The lightnings threaten over Liberty, 
 My daughters, come ! Ye thirteen brave I bore 
 And come, ye younger, making thirty-four." 
 (Breaks.)
 
 42 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 'Cause there's thirty- four states altogether then 
 these dear little girls thirteen walkin' two and two 
 six couples an' then single that cute baby of Mrs. 
 Ransom's, hardly bigger'n Elsie she's Rhode Is- 
 land. Then the other states accordin' to their dates 
 of admission, all with blue sashes, except the rebel 
 states, wherever they are, have red sashes and 
 don't you think this is too beautiful? heavy bands 
 of smoke-colored tulle blindfoldin' their eyes, mean- 
 in' error. These darlin's ! None of 'em over ten ! 
 Why, I jest cried at rehearsal. 
 
 GRANDMA. Well I'm comin' to see you if I'm 
 
 able to walk. You git me a ticket What are 
 
 they, Mrs. Bates? 
 
 MRS. BATES. Two bits. (GRANDMA gets shin 
 plaster pocketbook and produces twenty-five cents.) 
 Thank you. (Stows the paper in similar book.) 
 Come, Sue, we're awfully late now. 
 
 MA. Elsie thanks you for her supper, Auntie 
 Bates. 
 
 MRS. BATES. She shall have more to-morrow 
 
 Good-by. ( Exit with SUE.) 
 
 GRANDMA. Good-night. 
 
 MA. Why do yo' 'spose Milt wanted ter make up 
 that ridiculous stuff about Joey? 
 
 ANDREWS. It's true every word of it. Grant 
 wanted to know what he could do for Joey well, 
 one way and another the dear boy told him every- 
 thing and on Joey's account Milt has been par- 
 doned, Mrs. Shanks. 
 
 MA. (Pause) Pardoned ! 
 
 ANDREWS. Pardoned 
 
 MA. (Prompting) You mean from hangin' to 
 penitentiary for life. 
 
 ANDREWS. (Shakes head) That was done at the 
 time of their conviction for the whole band but 
 Milt has been set free.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 43 
 
 MA. How do you know who told you? 
 
 ANDREWS. Milt told me. 
 
 MA. In the prison? 
 
 ANDREWS. Here Milt's back in town. 
 
 MA. He's foolin' you. He's broke out, ain't he? 
 
 ANDREWS. Pardoned by the Governor I've 
 seen his papers. (MA gives ELSIE to GRANDMA.,) 
 
 MA. In town? (ANDREWS nods. MA gets up 
 walks nervously stops. Pause.) It's time Elsie 
 was in bed will you undress her, Mrs. Perley I've 
 got to talk to Brother Andrews alone. 
 
 GRANDMA. Come with grandma, darlin', an' she'll 
 tell you about the fairies. (Takes ELSIE to porch.) 
 
 MA. I'll bring her medicine when it's time. (Exit 
 GRANDMA with ELSIE. Pause.) Where is he 
 
 now 
 
 ANDREWS. Waiting for me. 
 
 MA. Why? 
 
 ANDREWS. For some message from his wife. 
 
 MA. Am I his wife in the eyes o' Gawd? 
 
 ANDREWS. Aren't you ? For better for worse 
 
 MA. It's the law in Illinois when a man's con- 
 victed of murder it sets his wife free. 
 
 ANDREWS. Do you ask to be free ? 
 
 MA. I don't ask anything any more fur myself, 
 Brother Andrews. (A candle is lighted inside the 
 house.) 
 
 ANDREWS. Well, it won't help Milt to cast him 
 off, will it? 
 
 MA. I'm thinkin' about the children and I ask 
 
 ANDREWS. If you ask me you'll send word to 
 your husband to come home. 
 
 MA. (Pause) Home (Pause.) What if 
 
 Joey's here on his furlough? What then? 
 
 ANDREWS. I wish you might have seen Milt's 
 face when he told me of Joey's bravery.
 
 44 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MA. I'm thinkin' what Joey's face must a 
 been when he wrote me the letters after his father's 
 
 trial reached the army (Shakes head.) I know 
 
 why Joey was willin' to swim out to a gunboat or 
 foller Jim Evers and his flag in the front ranks 
 his letter says "Don't you never shed a tear fur 
 me, mammy if it comes to me." My Gawd! 
 Think of a boy of nineteen writin' that-a-way! 
 
 ANDREWS. He'll feel different, now, when he 
 comes to know that his heroism gives his father an- 
 other chance at life let me tell Milt to come home. 
 
 MA. (Pause) I'll see him. 
 
 ANDREWS. Good. 
 
 MA. But I'll have to git used to the notion of it 
 some before I'll say jest what I will do one way 
 or the other (Pause.) I'm gonna kneel down by 
 my baby's bed an' ask Gawd. (Distant gun. MA 
 sits on the ironing chair, with her head bent to her 
 knees, and buries her face in her hands. A country 
 band strikes up in the distance, "Rally Round the 
 Flag.") 
 
 ANDREWS. (Pause) The news is confirmed, I 
 guess. (Goes to MA.) Come, Martha God's doing 
 it all his way we can't be downhearted about any- 
 thing. (MA rises and, slowly nodding, exit. AN- 
 DREWS watches her off, then wipes his forehead and 
 puts on his hat. He slowly turns to go. The vil- 
 lage band still plays. He stops at sight of somebody. 
 It is SHANKS. SHANKS enters, left, behind fence. 
 SHANKS shows more than three years' added age 
 his hair is perceptibly gray and he is more worn in 
 body.) 
 
 SHANKS. Well? 
 
 ANDREWS. She'll see you. (SHANKS crosses to- 
 ward house. Pause.) 
 
 SHANKS. She's kneelin' by the bed.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 45 
 
 ANDREWS. One minute. (Looks down the road 
 cautiously. Returns.) I've a letter for you. 
 
 SHANKS. From her? 
 
 ANDREWS. From Washington I didn't even 
 mention it to you in the village because it didn't 
 seem safe. (Hands letter.) 
 
 SHANKS. You might jes' stand at the gate. (AN- 
 DREWS stands watch. SHANKS opens letter and reads 
 by the light from the door. He puts letter in pocket. 
 ANDREWS returns.) I'm ordered to Pennsylvania. 
 (Pause.) What's been going on there? we didn't 
 git much news in Joliet. 
 
 ANDREWS. Hooker has succeeded Rosecrans in 
 
 command but Lee's driven him back (Pause.) 
 
 Harper's Ferry's been taken by Lee things gener- 
 ally pretty gloomy. 
 
 SHANKS. My letter hints there's some under- 
 ground leak through this crowd I'm with. (Hand 
 goes to lapel.) They took our buttons away from 
 us in jail. 
 
 ANDREWS. (Ominously) 'Twouldn't be safe to 
 wear one now. 
 
 SHANKS. I reckon not I didn't feel very safe 
 even without mine down there to-night. 
 
 ANDREWS. The county is very bitter. 
 
 SHANKS. Whata they say about me bein' par- 
 doned and Lem Tollard kept in for life? 
 
 ANDREWS. Very few of them know it yet. 
 
 SHANKS. It's gonna make it hard in Pennsyl- 
 vania, I cahilate. 
 
 ANDREWS. Joey's good work should explain it. 
 
 SHANKS. Maybe. (Pause.) Tollard ain't a mur- 
 derer in heart fa'ct none of 'em jes' wrong-headed 
 an' war's war (Pause.) If anything happens to 
 me Brother Andrews I mean permanent 
 
 ANDREWS. I understand, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. Why, then I'd like her to really
 
 46 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 know (ANDREWS nods.) She's fine. (Pause.) 
 
 Mighty fine like the wonderful women that 
 
 (Pause chews wipes nose.) An' the back wash 
 of it when she knows why and every thing'll be 
 twice as hard 'cause she's awful tender-hearted so 
 make her understand that I sensed all of it and was 
 proud she done her part this way 
 
 ANDREWS. I shall. 
 
 SHANKS. Show her that ef she hadn't suffered 
 and suffered plenty my work wouldn't a looked 
 gen-u-ine. 
 
 ANDREWS. She'll know. 
 
 SHANKS. And Joey (ANDREWS nods.) Tell 
 
 her 'twas really me that got word to Grant at Co- 
 lumbus, Kentucky, that Van Dorn was behind him, 
 an' saved thousands o' Union lives like as not 
 Joey's amongst the lot. (M.A comes from house 
 peering into the lesser light.) 
 
 ANDREWS. Well, good-night. 
 
 MA. You, Brother Andrews? 
 
 ANDREWS. Yes, Martha. 
 
 SHANKS. An' me. (General pause.) 
 
 ANDREWS. I'm just going Good-night, Milt. 
 (Affectionately pats his shoulder and goes. At in- 
 tervals from now on a small cannon fires salutes.) 
 
 MA. (Pause) Yer pardoned? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes by the Governor. 
 
 MA. (Points after ANDREWS j He says 'count 
 o' Joey. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 MA. Well Don't that mortify you com- 
 pletely? 
 
 SHANKS. 'Twould if I didn't believe Joey'd un- 
 derstand my side of it some day. 
 
 MA. Your side was Peace wasn't it ? 
 
 SHANKS. As fur as I could make it yes.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 47 
 
 MA. Yer empty revolver showed two of the shots 
 was by you. 
 
 SHANKS. I pinted over their heads besides, I 
 know I didn't hit anybody. 
 
 MA. You didn't tell that at yer trial, did ye? 
 
 SHANKS. What use? And then I couldn't strive 
 to throw all the blame onto Lem and the others. 
 
 MA. Yer doin' it now, ain't you? 
 
 SHANKS. I reckon I am come to think of it 
 but (Pause.) 
 
 MA. (Pause) But what? Ef you've got any- 
 thing to say fur yerself fur Gawd's sake, Milt 
 
 SHANKS. I'm doin' it now 'cause I care more fur 
 what you think about my bein* a murderer, Martha 
 ' than what the law court thought 
 
 MA. I'd like ter believe ye, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. If ye could it'd be mighty fine. 
 
 MA. Ye've been untruthful so often. 
 
 SHANKS. Ter you, Martha? 
 
 MA. Yes, to me about nearly every trip you 
 made after you turned copperhead somethin' didn't 
 gee. Where was you and Lem Tollard an' yer 
 crowd takin' them stolen horses? 
 
 SHANKS. Kentucky. 
 
 MA. For rebel guerrillas, if the truth's known, 
 wasn't it? 
 
 SHANKS. (Nods) Confederate cavalry yes. 
 
 MA. And when the Sheriff's posse headed you off 
 you killed two of 'em. 
 
 SHANKS. (Shakes head) Our crowd not me. 
 
 MA. Am I to try an' make neighbors believe 
 that? 
 
 SHANKS. My God no no (Pause.) I ain't 
 
 talkin' fur the neighbors besides, they won't be 
 neighbors o' mine. 
 
 MA. They won't 
 
 SHANKS. I cahilate ter go East in a day or so
 
 48 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 an' git work when the harvestin' begins the war's 
 made farm hands scarce folks say. 
 
 MA. East? (SHANKS nods.) Fur good? 
 
 SHANKS. Well while the war's on, anyway. 
 
 MA. And after the war? 
 
 SHANKS. I hope ter be near you (Pause) and 
 the children ef I kin. 
 
 MA. (Pause) Have you hed yer supper ? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes, thank you. I'd like a drink, 
 though. (Moves to well.) 
 
 MA. Here's tea and it's been cold. 
 
 SHANKS. Thank you. (Returns, takes tea.) 
 How's Elsie? 
 
 MA. Ailin' some the heat and the flies but she 
 made a good supper and is sleepin'. 
 
 SHANKS. Would it wake her if I looked at her? 
 
 MA. No talkin' would an' ye better wait till 
 Grandma Perley comes out. 
 
 SHANKS. What d'ye hear from Joey ? 
 
 MA. Here's his letters (Sorts them.) 
 
 'Twould do you no good to read these (Lays 
 
 them aside.) 
 
 SHANKS. Where's the last one? 
 
 MA. (Handing letter) I'll get Grandma Perley 
 out the other way. (Exit. SHANKS watches her 
 off drinks tea from bucket opens a letter and 
 reads. The village bell tolls distantly. SHANKS 
 adjusts himself to the novelty and resumes reading. 
 The sound of a cantering horse approaches MILT 
 moves from light to shadow. SAM CARTER, a sol- 
 dier, rides on and stops back of fence, pauses, dis- 
 mounts and ties. Soldier enters yard to light calls 
 into house.) 
 
 SAM. (Calls) Hello ! 
 
 SHANKS. (Speaks) Good-evening. 
 
 SAM. (Inquiring) Shanks?
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 49 
 
 SHANKS. (Into light again) Hello, Sam. (A 
 distant gun.) 
 
 SAM. (Pause nodding off) That's fur Vicks- 
 burg's surrender. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 SAM. What are you doin' round here? 
 
 SHANKS. Well I have been away, but 
 
 SAM. (Pause) In trouble we heard, in the 
 army. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes considerable but, somehow 
 'count Joey doin' so well I I was released 
 
 SAM. He did do well (Awkwardly.) Come 
 
 up by the gate. (They go up.) Whoa, boy Whoa ! 
 (Goes to horse.) 
 
 SHANKS. Where air you from now ? 
 
 SAM. Vicksburg but I left there two days ago 
 with some prisoners and wounded steamer Forest 
 Queen to Cairo. When did you hear from Joe? 
 
 SHANKS. (Down with letter to light) Last week. 
 
 SAM. How was Joe? 
 
 SHANKS. (Reading) All right an' mighty 
 hopeful about Grant's winnin'. 
 
 SAM. Joe Joe's dead. 
 
 SHANKS. Dead ! (Looks slowly at letter and 
 back.) 
 
 SAM. Yes awful sorry. 
 
 SHANKS. Who told you so? 
 
 SAM. I saw him. 
 
 SHANKS. Saw him killed? 
 
 SAM. No but afterwards in his coffin. 
 
 SHANKS. You mean they buried him? 
 
 SAM. We fetched his body home on our boat to 
 Cairo and box car over here. 
 
 SHANKS. Kain't be no mistake? Joseph Taylor 
 Shanks ? 
 
 SAM. (Nods) Son o' Milton Shanks.
 
 50 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 SHANKS. (Nods helplessly) That's right. (Re- 
 enter MA.) 
 
 MA. Yer kin come in now, but walk on yer toes. 
 
 SHANKS. Sam Carter's here 
 
 MA. Oh How are you, Sam? 
 
 SAM. Good-evening. 
 
 SHANKS. with bad news, Martha. 
 
 MA. (Quickly) Bad news! From Joey? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 MA. Give me the letter. (Takes letter quickly 
 from MILT.) 
 
 SHANKS. That's the one you gave me Joey 
 
 couldn't write hisself My God, Martha, it's 
 
 terrible (Cannon bell. The village band plays 
 
 "When Johnnie comes Marching Home") 
 
 MA. Terrible? Hurt bad? 
 
 SAM. He's dead, Mrs. Shanks. 
 
 MA. Oh, Gawd! Oh, Gawd! (Crosses, in 
 
 agony to corner of well falls, kneeling on it she 
 sobs a bit, then, realising that JOEY had that place 
 before he went away, she caresses the curb and 
 -weeps.) 
 
 SAM. (After pause) Yer oughta say somethin' 
 to her. 
 
 SHANKS. Joey wouldn't want ye ter do that, Ma. 
 (Bends over her.) 
 
 MA. (Shrinking from him) Fer Gawd's sake, 
 Milt Shanks don't tetch me yer unclean yer un- 
 clean (She rises. She presses JOE'S letter 
 
 against her face and so, sobbing, crosses to ironing 
 board, gets other letters, and exit.) 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause) You said in a box car. 
 
 SAM. Unloaded in the depot now. 
 
 SHANKS. I'll go there. (Starts.) 
 
 SAM. (Interposes) I wouldn't, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. Why not?
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 51 
 
 SAM. Newt Gillespie's with it he's wounded, 
 himself, slightly. 
 
 SHANKS. Well 'twont hurt fur me to be there, 
 too by his coffin 
 
 SAM. 'T won't be pleasant, 'cause that's one rea- 
 son Newt come along. 'Fore he died, Joe said, 
 "Don't let my father see me even in my coffin." 
 Boy was kinda feverish but Newt takes it serious 
 and Newt wouldn't 'low you even if you went there. 
 (He mounts.) My advice is to take it comfortable 
 as you kin. (SAM rides off. SHANKS watches him 
 off looks at sky comes into light looks painfully 
 into house stands irresolute goes into road with 
 intention of going to JOEY feels the pull of the 
 stricken wife stops returns into light and is look- 
 ing into house. In distance, "Johnny Comes March- 
 ing Home.") 
 
 (CURTAIN.)
 
 CHARACTERS IN PART TWO 
 
 MILTON SHANKS Aged 78 
 
 MADELINE KING, his granddaughter 22 
 
 PHILIP MANNING 28 
 
 MRS. MANNING , 48 
 
 COL. HARDY 76 
 
 DR. RANDALL , 34 
 
 NEWT GILLESPIE 78 
 
 LEM TOLLARD , . . 78
 
 PART II 
 ACT III 
 
 SCENE: Set same as preceding acts but showing 
 lapse of forty years and some improvement by 
 money. The lilac bush is now tall as the house 
 and is in bloom spring flowers in beds. The 
 ground cloth has become a lawn. The well- 
 sweep is replaced by super-structure and pulley 
 wheel. Small trees are big. Vines cover the 
 porch. The cornfield suggests Villa acreage in- 
 stead. There is a picket fence where the rails 
 were. Lawn furniture. 
 
 DISCOVERED: Empty stage. Piano heard. Enter 
 SHANKS aged seventy-six white-haired and 
 bowed. He is in his shirt sleeves. He crosses 
 up to gate goes outside, and examines R.F.D. 
 box. Opens letter to himself, reads. Consults 
 watch. The song stops. 
 
 SHANKS. (Calls) Some letters fur you, dearie. 
 
 MADELINE. (Off) From Boston? 
 
 SHANKS. One is. (Enter MADELINE. This part 
 is for the same actress who does MA in Acts One 
 and Two but with complete change of character 
 from drudge woman to bright girl and from dark 
 hair to blonde.) 
 
 MADELINE. Big envelope? 
 
 SHANKS. (Hands mail) Yes. 
 53
 
 54 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MADELINE. (Showing contents of letter) A copy 
 of my certificate, Grandpa. 
 
 SHANKS. (Brightly) From the Normal? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes. That ought to satisfy the board, 
 hadn't it? 
 
 SHANKS. (Smiles) Some. 
 
 MADELINE. What's the best way to present it? 
 
 SHANKS. One way's ter send it or take it to 
 their meetin' to-night other way is take it round 
 this afternoon to the separate members. 
 
 MADELINE. I could do both. 
 
 SHANKS. 'Course ye could. 
 
 MADELINE. (In delight) Oh ! If I get it, Grand- 
 pa 
 
 SHANKS. You ain't jes* sayin' that 'cause it 
 tickles me air ye? 
 
 MADELINE. No, indeed why, look around us 
 no grain elevators no noisy railroad yards no cob- 
 ble stones and sixty dollars a month, here, is as 
 good as eighty in the city and maybe I'd get some 
 singing, too. 
 
 SHANKS. Wouldn't count on that for money. 
 Lemme see yer certificate (Takes it MADE- 
 LINE opens other letters is earnest over one. 
 Pause.) I've got to go to the village I kin show 
 this to some of 'em. 
 
 MADELINE. The village ? Why ? 
 
 SHANKS. There's a man I want ter see comin' in 
 on the train or you could go along, too. 
 
 MADELINE. (Shakes head) My doctor's coming. 
 
 SHANKS. Yer doctor? 
 
 MADELINE. The specialist that treated my throat 
 last winter. 
 
 SHANKS. (Frightened) Why, darlin' ye ain't 
 ailin' agin? 
 
 MADELINE. (Affectionately. Lavghs and pets
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 55 
 
 him.) No, Grandpa a friendly visit. He's down 
 this way on another call, he says. 
 
 SHANKS. Doctors unsettle me. An' I don't want 
 any o' their blamed experiments on th' only treasure 
 God A'mighty's spared me no. 
 
 MADELINE. I don't need one I never will down 
 here. It's only the soft coal in the city ! 
 
 SHANKS. (With certificate) I'll go in Philip 
 Manning's office with this and ask him to tell his 
 mother about it. 
 
 MADELINE. We can wait until the meeting for 
 Mrs. Manning she's for me, of course. 
 
 SHANKS. But maybe this'll give her a chance to 
 pull some wires this afternoon. 
 
 MADELINE. That's so. 
 
 SHANKS. And give Philip a chance. He ain't on 
 the board, but he's a power jest the same. 
 
 MADELINE. You bet. 
 
 SHANKS. You know, Maddy, I sicked Philip into 
 politics. 
 
 MADELINE. Yes, I know. 
 
 SHANKS. D' I ever tell you that? 
 
 MADELINE. Often, Grandpa, yes. 
 
 SHANKS. Years ago, in a town meetin' he stud 
 up and said sumpin' I fergit what it was an' I 
 
 sent fur him Jest a slip of a boy no older than 
 
 yer Uncle Joey was. I said "Young man, if you 
 take an' ole feller's advice you'll go inter politicks 
 you got everything fur it voice and hair blue 
 eyes" an' now, by Jim-min-nee, he's in the legisla- 
 ture I know it (Enter PHILIP and MRS. MAN- 
 NING, left, behind fence.) 
 
 PHILIP. Good-afternoon. 
 
 MADELINE. (Very pleased) Oh How-de- 
 do. 
 
 SHANKS. Why, Philip jest talkin' about you 
 afternoon, Mrs. Manning.
 
 56 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Good-afternoon, Mr. Shanks. 
 
 MADELINE. My certificate has come from Boston. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Good. 
 
 MADELINE. Come in. 
 
 PHILIP. We're on our way to Colonel Hardy's. 
 
 MADELINE. Just a minute your coat, Grandpa. 
 
 PHILIP. Nonsense never mind your coat, Mr. 
 Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. (On porch) Got to go to the village, 
 anyway. (Exit. MRS. MANNING and PHILIP come 
 through gate.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. (With certificate) This com- 
 pletes our hand. I'll make a motion that applicants 
 for the position of teacher must show a normal 
 school certificate. That will dispose of Mrs. Simp- 
 son. 
 
 PHILIP. Yes, mother, if the motion passes but 
 we want to be sure. Hardy's our man to see. (Re- 
 enter SHANKS with coat on.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Why Colonel Hardy so import- 
 antly ? He isn't on the board. 
 
 PHILIP. But as president of the village he ap- 
 points the board and the majority will want to 
 please him. Politics every time. 
 
 SHANKS. Hardy Hardy's a stiff-necked feller 
 allers was. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Don't you like Colonel Hardy, 
 Mr. Shanks? 
 
 SHANKS. I do but Hardy ain't very friendly. 
 
 PHILIP. Then all the more reason for us to see 
 him. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Do you think he'd favor Mrs. 
 Simpson for the place ? 
 
 SHANKS. Well, you see she's a widder and her 
 father's a Grand Army man Hardy's a Grand 
 Army man, too. 
 
 PHILIP. That's so.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 57 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Her old father's one of my ob- 
 jections to Mrs. Simpson. I'm a great believer in 
 heredity myself. 
 
 SHANKS. We got a little heredity ourselves. Ma- 
 deline's Uncle Joey was in Hardy's company. Ef 
 he'd a lived he'd a been a Gran' Army hisself. 
 
 PHILIP. That's a good point for Hardy. 
 
 SHANKS. Oh, he ain't forgot it. Hardy ain't the 
 forgettin' kind. (Consults watch.) I hope you'll 
 excuse me ; I got ter meet a man at the train. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Certainly. 
 
 SHANKS. (Going) Madeline Icin make ye feel 
 more at home than I kin, anyway. (Exit.) 
 
 MADELINE. Please sit down. (They sit.) 
 
 PHILIP. Now let's hold a council of war. We're 
 going to get you that teacher job if I have to set 
 fire to the school house. What strings can we pull ? 
 
 MRS. MANNING. There are only five votes 
 three men and Mrs. Voorhees and myself. One 
 comfort, my dear, the women are for you. 
 
 PHILIP. Tompkins is a regular crony of Gilles- 
 pie's sure for Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. So's Wheeler. Our only hope 
 is the third man, Baumer. 
 
 PHILIP. What's his line of goods ? 
 
 MRS. MANNING. He gives Swedish massage and 
 tunes pianos. 
 
 PHILIP. Tunes pianos? Probably recommends 
 some make on commission, doesn't he? 
 
 MRS. MANNING. I think he does. 
 
 PHILIP. (Rising) Good. I'll consult him about 
 a piano this afternoon. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. (Shakes head) He knows I 
 have one. 
 
 PHILIP. Not for you some friend of mine get- 
 ting married. And then (Indicates MADELINE,)
 
 58 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 and let's see I wonder if he knows you sing? 
 ('MADELINE shrugs.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. He must. The whole village is 
 talking of your singing last Sunday the first morn- 
 ing service I've missed in months. 
 
 PHILIP. Well, there's another drag brother ar- 
 tist and I'll tell him if we can get you to live here 
 there'll be regular concerts you'll want a new piano 
 the best he can find, and for every concert it'll 
 have^ to be freshly tuned and massaged and every- 
 thing. Oh, I'll get Baumer. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. They're raving about your voice. 
 
 MADELINE. How lovely ! 
 
 PHILIP. And they've never really heard it. I 
 was at church Sunday morning. Come in and sing 
 one of those lovely ballads for mother, now, and 
 we'll go on about our campaigning. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. (Rising) Please. 
 
 MADELINE. (As they start toward house) It's 
 pleasanter out of doors, and you'll hear just as well. 
 (Exit.) 
 
 PHILIP. (On porch) Personally, I enjoy seeing 
 it done. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Don't embarrass her, Philip. 
 
 PHILIP. (Returns) Girls aren't embarrassed 
 nowadays, Mother, because men like to look at them. 
 (With lover's fervor.) Isn't she adorable ? (Song 
 begins.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Sh (After a few bars of 
 
 song COLONEL HARDY enters, left, back of fence. 
 He is the CAPTAIN HARDY of the first part of play, 
 and now about seventy-five years old.) 
 
 PHILIP. (Seeing HARDY j There's Colonel Hardy ! 
 (Calls.) Colonel ! (HARDY, who has crossed, stops 
 up right. MRS. MANNING rises.) 
 
 PHILIP. (In tone intended not to interrupt singer) 
 Mother and I were just going to see you, Colonel,
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 59 
 
 HARDY. (Lifting hat) Mrs. Manning (MRS. 
 
 MANNING gives hand.) 
 
 PHILIP. (Nodding to house) That's Miss King 
 singing. Have you met her? 
 
 HARDY. No. 
 
 PHILIP. (Opening gate) Come in'. 
 
 HARDY. No, thank you. 
 
 PHILIP. Business Colonel for the village 
 
 MRS. MANNING. (Persuading) Yes. 
 
 HARDY. (Indicates yard) It's forty years, Mrs. 
 Manning, since I set foot on that ground. 
 
 PHILIP. (Playfully) But Miss King's only about 
 twenty aren't visiting the third generation with the 
 sins of others are you, Colonel ? You know that's 
 a divine prerogative. 
 
 HARDY. I refuse to speak to Mr. Milton 
 
 Shank (Song stops. MRS. MANNING turns 
 
 back to porch.) 
 
 PHILIP. He's gone to the village. 
 
 HARDY. No? (Re-enter MADELINE. ) 
 
 MADELINE. (Laughing) It's a very sentimental 
 
 selection, but (Slows down as she sees the 
 
 stranger.) Philip is rather partial to it. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Miss King I want Colonel 
 Hardy, our village president, to meet you. 
 
 MADELINE. (Coming on) You're very good. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Miss Madeline King, Colonel 
 Hardy. 
 
 HARDY. ('Lifting hat) Miss King! 
 
 MADELINE. Won't you come in, Colonel ? You're 
 one of my story book heroes. 
 
 HARDY. (Reserved, but pleased by her) Indeed ? 
 
 MADELINE. Colonel Hardy's a name as large as 
 George Washington in our household an uncle of 
 mine was in your regiment. Do come in a moment. 
 ('HARDY enters. Chairs are readjusted.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Colonel Hardy heard some of
 
 60 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 your song. (To HARDY. ) This is Miss King's cer- 
 tificate from the Normal School Boston 
 
 HARDY. I won't sit down, thank you I'm on my 
 way home. (With certificate.) Oh, yes. Well, 
 you've evidently been very industrious, Miss King. 
 
 MADELINE. Very fortunate, Colonel ... so far. 
 My ambition now is to be allowed to stay here. 
 
 HARDY. (Attempting humor) Well I've some 
 influence with the police. 
 
 MADELINE. They haven't bothered me yet. 
 
 PHILIP. They may ! 
 
 HARDY. Yes. They're both young. 
 
 MADELINE. (Shakes head) It's the shop-keepers. 
 I've got work in Chicago but I can't coax grandpa 
 away from this place and I'd rather come to him 
 I do know how to teach school. 
 
 HARDY. (Musing, and studying her) 'M. (Pause) 
 Your grandfather likes it here? 
 
 MADELINE. Adores it. I had an awful time get- 
 ting that picket fence the old rails had been there 
 when Captain Tom Hardy leaned on them Sam 
 somebody tied his horse there, when Vicksburg sur- 
 rendered. 
 
 HARDY. (Pause) The other candidate before the 
 school board has lived here always. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Exactly she'll perpetuate every 
 local blemish. 
 
 HARDY. Her father has lived here 
 
 MADELINE. Well, my grandfather and grand- 
 mother until Vicksburg "came along," as grandpa 
 says 
 
 HARDY. I knew your grandmother, and it's a 
 pleasure to meet you. The school board matter is 
 mere gossip with me : I'm not a member. (Extends 
 hand.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Philip and I will walk with you 
 a ways and elaborate the gossip.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 61 
 
 HARDY. Delighted. 
 
 PHILIP. I'll follow, mother, and relieve you in 
 a few minutes. I'm a terrible muff at gossip. 
 
 HARDY. He's boasting. 
 
 PHILIP. And the sidewalks in your man's town, 
 Colonel, aren't organized for three. . . . 
 
 HARDY. (At gate) My dear Philip that's what 
 recommends them. Come, Mrs. Manning. (Exeunt 
 MRS. MANNING and COLONEL. J 
 
 PHILIP. (Easily) No school like the old school. 
 
 MADELINE. I think your mother's wonderful. 
 
 PHILIP. Father was all right, too (Pause and 
 smile) and the further back you go the better we 
 get. 
 
 MADELINE. (Smiling) I wasn't thinking in that 
 direction. 
 
 PHILIP. Fine! Let's talk about me. (Sits.) 
 
 MADELINE. You should hear grandpa. He thinks 
 he put you into the legislature. 
 
 PHILIP. I think so, too. 
 
 MADELINE. And in his mind and heart he's got 
 you all nominated next fall for Congress. 
 
 PHILIP. (Seriously) Really! ('MADELINE nods 
 and smiles.) Funny, but Hardy's been putting that 
 congressional bee into my bonnet, too. 
 
 MADELINE. Why not? 
 
 PHILIP. Oh, I'm in favor of it but I might get 
 a glorious licking and be assigned to go on in very 
 private and depressing obscurity here. 
 
 MADELINE. (Reproving) One doesn't win by 
 feeling that way, Mr. Candidate. 
 
 PHILIP. I got in the legislature feeling that way. 
 
 MADELINE. (Pause) You said "depressing ob- 
 scurity !" 
 
 PHILIP. Well? 
 
 MADELINE. Do you mean the life in this place? 
 
 PHILIP. Principally.
 
 62 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 MADELINE. I don't call it depressing. I think 
 it's beautiful. I love every minute that I can stay 
 here. 
 
 PHILIP. You're not a man with ambition. 
 
 MADELINE. Lincoln was. He lived only a few 
 miles over that way. 
 
 PHILIP. But Lincoln wanted to go to Washington. 
 
 MADELINE. I don't believe he did very much. 
 Grandpa says he didn't. And just a few miles fur- 
 ther over that way is Whitcomb Riley. " 'Long the 
 banks of Deer Crick's good enough for him." 
 
 PHILIP. I'm not a poet. 
 
 MADELINE. Grandpa says you are. 
 
 PHILIP. Does he? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes. 
 
 PHILIP. Did he mean it for a knock or a boost? 
 
 MADELINE. Boost, I hope. 
 
 PHILIP. Good (Pause. Earnestly.) I've 
 
 got a notion to tell you something, Madeline King. 
 
 MADELINE. Poetry ? 
 
 PHILIP. (Nods) The first day I saw you after 
 you came back from Boston this same time two 
 years ago I was to make the Decoration Day speech 
 at the soldiers' monument next day and I was scared 
 blue I didn't have a single idea but I drifted by 
 here on the other side of the road. You were stand- 
 ing near the gate (MADELINE nods) that big lilac 
 
 bush behind you There'd been a shower and 
 
 "the sun had come out with a flagon of amber and 
 drenched the whole world in ambrosial wine." 
 
 MADELINE. (In real appreciation) Oh, that's 
 wonderful. 
 
 PHILIP. It seemed a vision. A symbol of the 
 beauty that must be eternal and I had my 
 speech (Smiles relaxes.) 
 
 MADELINE. We heard you make it. That's When 
 grandpa decided you were a poet. You said some-
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 63 
 
 thing about the sadness of the flowers fading, but 
 the unbearable thing would be if the Spirit of Spring 
 itself should pass from the world. Then about 
 those young people there growing old, but there 
 would always be on earth the spirit of youth and 
 from that to the soldiers dying but forever the spirit 
 of Liberty living and so on didn't you? 
 
 PHILIP. Yes but all the time I was thinking of 
 you and that lilac and the golden sunlight over you 
 and, dog-gone it, Madeline, it's haunted me in 
 committee rooms and courts and railroad trains. Do 
 you know, I jumped up to Chicago from Springfield 
 last session and went to church just to look at you 
 singing. 
 
 MADELINE. When? 
 
 PHILIP. In February. 
 
 MADELINE. Why didn't you speak to me? 
 
 PHILIP. When it was over the aisle was crowded 
 and before I could get to you you went out the 
 stage entrance. 
 
 MADELINE. (Solemnly, shaking head) That isn't 
 what we call the side door of a church. 
 
 PHILIP. I want you to get this teacher job if you 
 want it but whether you do or don't I've just got 
 to have you with me, Madeline 
 
 MADELINE. (Pause) Of course (Pause.) 
 
 Any woman would be complimented, Mr. Man- 
 ning 
 
 PHILIP. Would she, Miss King? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes, Philip (PHILIP nods sol- 
 emnly.) Complimented by your your atten- 
 tion 
 
 PHILIP. I'm asking you to marry me, you know. 
 
 MADELINE. (Pause) I couldn't (Pause) 
 quite leave grandpa now. 
 
 PHILIP. Don't leave him if the place is good
 
 64 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 enough for Lincoln and Whitcomb Riley, I'll stand 
 for it. Say yes. 
 
 MADELINE. (Regarding him) You're a funny 
 creature. 
 
 PHILIP. Well, I'll throw that in along with the 
 poetry but principally I want you to think about 
 my law position and my general health. You're just 
 playing the mischief with both of 'em. . . . (Pause. 
 He puts out his hand. MADELINE studies him; then 
 quietly lays her hand in his.) It's a bet, is it? 
 
 MADELINE. (Hushed) Yes it's a bet! (He 
 kisses her hand. Then with a better idea, goes to 
 fence and looks right and left returns. Rising.) 
 No. 
 
 PHILIP. Not a God's soul in sight but one 
 stranger, and he's a block away. (Embraces and 
 kisses her.) 
 
 MADELINE. Don't any more don't (Breaks 
 away) but I'm awfully happy. 
 
 PHILIP. (Pause) I can think of about a million 
 things in my life I wish I hadn't done. 
 
 MADELINE. Stage doors? 
 
 PHILIP. No mostly stupid things, like thinking 
 there wasn't a God. (Laughs tenderly.) 
 
 (Enter, from right back, DOCTOR RANDALL. RAN- 
 DALL looks over the fence as though to identify 
 the place sees MADELINE.,) 
 
 RANDALL. Why ! Miss King ! (MADELINE goes 
 to gate.) 
 
 MADELINE. Doctor Randall this is wonderful. 
 (Shakes hands.) 
 
 RANDALL. Yes. (She brings him through the 
 gate.) 
 
 MADELINE. Mr. Manning let me introduce Doc- 
 tor Randall, of Chicago.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 65 
 
 PHILIP. Pleased to meet you, sir. 
 
 RANDALL. Mr. Manning. (Shaking hands.) 
 Haven't we met before? 
 
 MADELINE. Mr. Manning is our member of the 
 legislature. 
 
 RANDALL. Judiciary Committee? 
 
 PHILIP. Yes. 
 
 RANDALL. That's it I'm on the Pardon Board. 
 
 PHILIP. Of course. Stupid not to remember you. 
 
 MADELINE. Sit down. 
 
 PHILIP. I promised to follow mother, you know. 
 (To RANDALL.,) Honoring our metropolis by any 
 lengthy visit, Doctor? 
 
 RANDALL. Leaving to-night. 
 
 PHILIP. Oh may see you later at that. (Smiles 
 to MADELINE.,) Good-by. (Exit right.) 
 
 MADELINE. Awfully good of you to think of me. 
 
 RANDALL. I had a professional call at Moline 
 this forenoon seemed a crime to be so near and not 
 see you and this amusing coincidence of your 
 address. 
 
 MADELINE. What? 
 
 RANDALL. The name "care of Mr. Milton 
 Shanks" 
 
 MADELINE. My grandfather. 
 
 RANDALL. I thought likely we're old acquaint- 
 ances. 
 
 MADELINE. Grandpa and you? 
 
 RANDALL. Yes. Had half a dozen conferences at 
 Springfield since I've been on the Pardon Board. 
 
 MADELINE. What about? 
 
 RANDALL. Some old fellow he's interested in. 
 But isn't it strange that in all our talks about him 
 you never mentioned his name? 
 
 MADELINE. I don't know. He's gone to the 
 station now to meet someone.
 
 66 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 RANDALL. That's me, I fancy. I wrote him by 
 the same mail. 
 
 MADELINE. Yes ? 
 
 RANDALL. I got off at the crossing. Brakeman 
 said I'd save time. (Indicates bag.) Nothing to 
 carry. 
 
 MADELINE. Then your visit isn't mine, after all? 
 
 RANDALL. Entirely yours grandfather is just 
 An excuse. 
 
 MADELINE. Did you need an excuse? 
 
 RANDALL. A man's self-respect needs one, when 
 a girl's turned him down annually for years. 
 
 MADELINE. (Smiles) I've known you only two 
 years, Doctor. 
 
 RANDALL. (Pause) Really? (She nods.) Those 
 refusals seemed a year apart. 
 
 MADELINE. That's better. 
 
 RANDALL. How's the voice? 
 
 MADELINE. Fine, thank you. 
 
 RANDALL. You know, I don't want to talk physi- 
 ology to you, but even a great voice is sometimes 
 improved by marriage. 
 
 MADELINE. That's the most expensive treatment 
 you've ever recommended. 
 
 RANDALL. I offer it free. 
 
 MADELINE. 'Twouldn't be fair. 
 
 RANDALL. To you ? 
 
 MADELINE. To either of us. 
 
 RANDALL. I wouldn't ask you to give up your 
 work. 
 
 MADELINE. I can't do things by halves. 
 
 RANDALL. Not even better halves ? 
 
 MADELINE. Not even better halves. I love the 
 Church work and the City now, but when I marry 
 I'll want something more like this (Stretches out 
 her arms) the sky to the ground all about me.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 67 
 
 RANDALL. (In coaxing cadence) Suburbs 
 
 MADELINE. (Shuddering) Ugh ! 
 
 RANDALL. (Pause) The lake front would give 
 us an horizon view half way round. 
 
 MADELINE. (Pause. Shakes head) I'm sorry. 
 (Pause. Maternally.) Dear Doctor (Puts hand 
 on his arm) I haven't told anyone about it not 
 even grandpa but I'm engaged to be married now. 
 
 RANDALL. (Pause) Afraid to tell grandpa? 
 
 MADELINE. No. (Pause.) I haven't seen him 
 since it happened. (^RANDALL looks at her looks 
 off looks at her pause nods off inquiringly after 
 PHILIP MADELINE slowly nods "yes.") 
 
 RANDALL. Ten minutes too late. 
 
 MADELINE. No, dear Doctor; I've been in love 
 with him over a year. (A pause. RANDALL gets a 
 railroad yellow time-table from his pocket and be- 
 gins to consult it. MADELINE covers the time-table.) 
 Please wait and see grandpa. I do want your opin- 
 ion about him. 
 
 RANDALL. 'Tisn't my specialty but I get a bit 
 of it. 
 
 MADELINE. It seems to be only the Civil War 
 and that's all right, too, except the siege of Vicks- 
 burg. 
 
 RANDALL. Was he at Vicksburg ? 
 
 MADELINE. (Shakes head) His boy my uncle 
 on my mother's side was killed there. 
 
 RANDALL. Union army ? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes; and some of the explanation 
 may be there. Grandpa wasn't in the Confederate 
 army, but a sympathizer. Folks well, not so much 
 now but they used to blame him for it kinda 
 cruelly. 
 
 RANDALL. I see. (Pause. Re-enter SHANKS.^ 
 
 MADELINE. (Going to him) Grandpa, I'm glad
 
 68 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 you're back. This is my good friend, Doctor Ran- 
 dall, of Chicago. 
 
 SHANKS. When you had your sore throat? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes. 
 
 SHANKS. Madeline never told me the name, or 
 I'd known it. How'd I miss you? 
 
 RANDALL. I got off at the crossing. 
 
 SHANKS. Sit down, Doctor. How do you think 
 Madeline's looking? 
 
 RANDALL. Looking? Why, heart-breakingly 
 happy, sir. 
 
 SHANKS. Heart-breaking? 
 
 MADELINE. He's laughing at me, Grandpa, be- 
 cause I've been foolish enough to tell him a secret 
 but I'll not let him laugh at you, too. I'm engaged, 
 Grandpa. 
 
 SHANKS. (Unhappy at the idea that the man is 
 RANDALL.^ Why 
 
 MADELINE. To Philip Manning. 
 
 SHANKS. To Philip well, I'm happy, too. That 
 (To RANDALLJ that'll keep her here (To MA- 
 DELINE,) unless you go to Washington. (To RAN- 
 DALL.J The young man's in the legislature. 'Fact, 
 you've heard him talk at your commission. 
 
 RANDALL. (Nodding) We met here to-day. 
 
 SHANKS. Engaged. So you don't care anything 
 about the teacher's position, then? 
 
 MADELINE. Oh, but I do all the more. I've got 
 to be perfectly independent so Philip shan't feel 
 too sure about it. (All laugh.) 
 
 SHANKS. I reckon you've seen her more'n her 
 grandfather has livin' in Chicago. 
 
 MADELINE. Not quite, Grandpa. 
 
 RANDALL. It must be fairly lonely by yourself. 
 What do you do here, Mr. Shanks, when she's away ? 
 
 SHANKS. Well I read. (Pause.) An' I think
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 69 
 
 considerable an' I cook some besides, a good deal 
 of it's habit. 
 
 RANDALL. Yes ; these machines of ours are very 
 adjustable things. 
 
 SHANKS. Machines ? 
 
 RANDALL. Our bodies. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes, but I cahilate it's more a man's 
 ideas how he thinks. Automobiles go along that 
 road now, but I've seen calvary ridin' by in the 
 sixties an' cannons four horses to 'em. General 
 Logan "Fightin' John," they called him, rested his- 
 self in that chair yer sittin' in Madeline's grand- 
 mother give him a drink o' water. (Conscious of 
 the well.) Automobiles go by here now, but some- 
 times I kin see Logan and the calvary plainer. How 
 do you account for that? 
 
 RANDALL. Deeper impressions. 
 
 SHANKS. Madeline's mother played roun' under 
 them lilac bushes Madeline played under 'em. 
 Somehow I see the mother cl'arest an' along in 
 May, when the smell of 'em comes in the winder 
 'bout sundown why, I can't say it makes me down- 
 hearted 'xactly but if I was a woman, by thunder, 
 I'd jes' cry, I reckon. (Smiles.) 
 
 MADELINE. (Going to him) Dear Grandpa I 
 won't leave you alone so much any more. 
 
 SHANKS. Nonsense why, she's spent years in 
 Boston preparin' herself. (To MADELINE.) Don't 
 you fret about me. 
 
 RANDALL. You say Logan sat in this chair? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes ; Fightin' John. 
 
 RANDALL. Was your son with Logan? 
 
 SHANKS. With Grant. 
 
 RANDALL. Killed at Vicksburg. 
 
 SHANKS. You heard of Joey? (RANDALL looks 
 at MADELINE.^ 
 
 MADELINE. Yes, Grandpa.
 
 70 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 SHANKS. Oh! (Muses.) Yes, Vicksburg. (In 
 low undertone.) 
 
 RANDALL. A hard siege, I believe. 
 
 SHANKS. (Annoyed) Grant didn't push it. 
 
 RANDALL. Didn't eh? 
 
 SHANKS. No. 
 
 RANDALL. Tell me about it. 
 
 SHANKS. It's all as fresh as yesterday. You see. 
 the country'd been waitin' for Grant ter do sumpin'. 
 (As the glint of madness comes in SHANKS' eyes 
 MADELINE puts her hands together in distress. RAN- 
 DALL gestures silence.) 
 
 RANDALL. Waiting for Grant 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. So I went down there myself. I 
 sez to him, "What's the delay, General ?" I recollec' 
 he was settin* on a camp stool smokin', and 
 
 MADELINE. (Goes to him) Grandpa. 
 
 SHANKS. (Feeling her touch) Yes, dear. 
 
 MADELINE. You were here when they brought 
 Uncle Joey's body home, weren't you? Here with 
 gramma. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes, here. 
 
 MADELINE. Then you couldn't have been at Vicks- 
 burg, could you ? (Brushes his hair back.) That's 
 just the dream again, Grandpa the dream. 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause. To RANDALL) Ever have a 
 dream that way? Takes hold o' you perfect till 
 sumpin' brings you out of it. 
 
 RANDALL. I know about them, a little. Yes. 
 
 SHANKS. It's all right, dearie. Excuse me; I'll 
 be all right in a minute. (Goes up left fence.) 
 
 MADELINE. I had to interrupt him. It hurts me 
 so when that delusion comes over him. 
 
 RANDALL. Ever violent with it? 
 
 MADELINE. Never excited a little in telling it 
 I used to believe him when I was a child.
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 71 
 
 RANDALL. The son's death was a blow, of course, 
 but 
 
 MADELINE. And his wife at the same time. 
 
 RANDALL. Wife died? f MADELINE nods.) Oh! 
 
 MADELINE. And neighbors hostile because of his 
 politics. 
 
 RANDALL. I see. 
 
 MADELINE. Joey his son enlisted on the Union 
 side and wouldn't even speak to grandpa. 
 
 RANDALL. Well, that was pressure enough, God 
 knows. 
 
 MADELINE. Take a walk with me. (SHANKS re- 
 turns.) 
 
 RANDALL. Yes if you wish it. 
 
 MADELINE. I'll get a hat. (Exit to house.) 
 
 SHANKS. And yer letter, Doctor kind o' excited 
 me some brought back old times. 
 
 RANDALL. Made you happy, I hope. 
 
 SHANKS. I can't tell you how much. The pore 
 feller's been in there thirty-eight long years and 
 night and day I've thought about him been workin' 
 on his case thirty years fifteen different legisla- 
 tures. 
 
 RANDALL. Still his first sentence was "Death." 
 
 SHANKS. War times, Doctor and war-time hate. 
 If he'd just had on a different suit of clothes when 
 we got inter that fight he'd a been a prisoner o' 
 war and set free in two years jist as Philip Man- 
 ning said ter yer board. 
 
 RANDALL. Does Tollard find any of his old 
 friends living? 
 
 SHANKS. He ain't been here, to my knowledge. 
 
 RANDALL. Hasn't ? 
 
 SHANKS. (Shakes head) Your letter was the 
 first hint I had he was free. 
 
 RANDALL. It must have startled you. 
 
 SHANKS. Don't tell her. 
 
 RANDALL. I won't.
 
 72 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 SHANKS. She knows the folks here have been 
 aginst me purty hard but I've kept all that prison 
 talk and sentence o' death business out of her life 
 and I'm gonna see him first an' tell him not ter 
 talk, 'cause if he ain't got any place else to go, I 
 plan ter take him in here yes, sir. 
 
 RANDALL. (Gives hand) You're a Christian gen- 
 tleman, Mr. Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. (Shakes hand) Some back-slidin' I 
 used horrible language durin' the war. (Enter GIL- 
 LESPIE in Grand Army uniform, back left.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. (Turns pauses) Well, Newt? 
 
 GILLESPIE. Busy ? 
 
 SHANKS. I've got a friend visitin' here. (Enter 
 MADELINE.^ 
 
 MADELINE. I'm going to walk up and meet Mrs. 
 Manning, Grandpa. (Sees GILLESPIE. ) 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Pause) That's her ain't it? 
 
 SHANKS. Madeline this is Mr. Newt Gillespie. 
 
 MADELINE. How do you do, sir? 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Pause) Elsie's dotter? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 GILLESPIE. I knowed yer grandmother, young 
 woman. 
 
 MADELINE. I never saw her. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Well, anybody 'at ever did would a 
 knowed she was your grandmother. Don't lemme 
 keep you because us men has some business. 
 
 MADELINE. We'll go, then come, Doctor. (DOC- 
 TOR opens gate, exit with MADELINE.,) 
 
 GILLESPIE. I don't call on you very of'en, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. No. 
 
 GILLESPIE. But I ain't Hardy I ain't tongue- 
 tied. 
 
 SHANKS. You said business, Newt 
 
 GILLESPIE. The school board votes to-night for
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 73 
 
 a new teacher my dotter has earned the place by 
 years o' primer school work and she's substituted 
 satisfactory in this job the old settlers here ain't 
 gonna be patient with any move to outflank her. 
 
 SHANKS. I think it's gone too far ter do any- 
 thing but leave it ter the board. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Tain't gone too far fur your girl ter 
 withdraw. 
 
 SHANKS. I kain't ask her to do that. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Oh, yes, ye kin. 
 
 SHANKS. Well (Pause.) I won't. 
 
 GILLESPIE. You will, Milt. 
 
 SHANKS. Well, just remember, Newt I didn't 
 gee and haw about it. I tell you once for all flat- 
 footed no. 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Pause) Grover Cleveland's been 
 president twict an' I ain't aimin' ter dig up the 
 bloody shirt agin, but when little children air under 
 a teacher's influence murder ain't a nice subject to 
 have in their minds. This'll be my argument ter the 
 school board to-night if you compel me. 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause) I respect that coat ye got on, 
 Newt, and that cord round yer hat. Them are nay- 
 tionat but it's a mystery ter me sometimes how the 
 war ever was won with souls as little as yours is 
 behind the guns. 
 
 GILLESPIE. I'll tell ye, Milt an' yer welcome to 
 repeat it. It's 'cause the souls on the other side 
 was the size o' yourn. (Pause.) Now yer kin go 
 ter yer church Sunday and sing "Fur sech a worm 
 as I" but Elsie's dotter withdraws. 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause) Twasn't murder, and you 
 know it. They wair shootin' on both sides fast as 
 any pitched battle. 
 
 GILLESPIE. That's all been adjudicated by the 
 courts an' one of yer gang is still servin' a life 
 sentence fur it at Joliet.
 
 74 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 SHANKS. No he's pardoned now. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Lem Tollard? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Who contrived that? 
 
 SHANKS. The unanimous pardon board that 
 gentleman walkin' with Madeline is a member of it. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Pardoned? ('SHANKS nods.) Well 
 -v-that don't hurt my argument. (Chews excitedly.) 
 
 On the contrary (Pause.) An' it'll jes' set 
 
 tongues a waggin' I don't hev to be personal at 
 all it'll be only foresighted fur the board to shun 
 it in the school house. Ye've jist histed yerself with 
 yer own pattard I told you you'd withdraw. 
 
 (Enter LEM, right. He is seventy-eight but a fierce 
 and burning seventy-eight sullen and patient.) 
 
 LEM. (Inquiring) Gillespie? 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Pause) That's my name. 
 
 LEM. You know me, don't you? (To SHANKS.^ 
 
 SHANKS. Yes 'cause I been expectin' you but 
 we're both changed a heap come in. (Extends 
 hand.) 
 
 LEM. (Refuses hand but enters) Expectin' me? 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 LEM. Why? 
 
 SHANKS. Well you lived here 
 
 LEM. Not for thirty-eight years, I ain't by God ! 
 
 SHANKS. I've kept count of 'em and I went be- 
 fore every legislature we've had an' ter every gov- 
 ernor up to this time. 
 
 LEM. I knew some bastard must a been at work 
 ter keep me there. (Pause.) Ye didn't stay inside 
 there long yourself, did you? 
 
 SHANKS. Sorry yer bitter about it, Lem but I 
 ain't found much to choose between outside or in 
 except the last year or so
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 75 
 
 LEM. You expected me 'cause I lived here. 
 
 SHANKS. Yes. 
 
 LEM. Listen ter this, Gillespie 'cause it's gonna 
 
 be important and short (Pause.) I've come 
 
 'cause you live here 'cause I've figured out who 
 fixed it so the cavalry was in them especial bushes 
 waitin' for us I've figured why I was invited ter 
 the arsenal in St. Louis and shet up till Camp Jack- 
 son was captured I've figured why several plans of 
 ours come out the little end o' the horn figured 
 it Listenin', Gillespie? 
 
 GILLESPIE. I am. 
 
 LEM. Now listen and watch, too when I hand 
 you what's comin' to you, Milt it's gonna be in the 
 guts. (Enter PHILIP and MADELINE. ) Why? Be- 
 cause there it ain't immediate and you have time, 
 God damn you, to suffer and be sorry. (Draws gun. 
 PHILIP has been ready from word "guts" and grabs 
 LEM from back.) 
 
 MADELINE. Grandpa (Runs to SHANKS.,) 
 
 PHILIP. Give that to me ! (Quickly gets gun and 
 throws LEM from him to ground. Enter RANDALL 
 and MRS. MANNING.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Philip Philip what's the mat- 
 ter? 
 
 RANDALL. Tollard what's this mean your par- 
 don's conditional on good behavior. Now go. (TOL- 
 LARD goes out gate; waits for GILLESPIE.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. I've heard his case (To SHANKS.) 
 and he ought a killed you by God ! You're more 
 a murderer than he is you was sentenced to be 
 hung and they ought a hung you forty years ago. 
 (To MRS. MANNING.) School board! This is the 
 kind o' scandals you're tryin' to introduce with your 
 Boston idears 
 
 MADELINE. To be hanged why, Grandpa 
 Philip
 
 76 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 GILLESPIE. Damned ole jailbird firebrand and 
 horse thief and copperhead! Once a copperhead 
 always a copperhead. (Exit.) 
 
 SHANKS, Maddy Maddy, dear it had to come 
 some time you got ter gimme a minute ter collect 
 my idears. I ain't afraid o' death, Philip but I 
 couldn't leave her this way ! 
 
 (CURTAIN.)
 
 ACT IV 
 
 SCENE: Cheap Illinois rural interior but neat. The 
 room is rectangular except that upper left cor- 
 ner is obliqued for a chimney-piece and cheap 
 wood mantel of a low ivory in color. The back 
 wall has an exterior door, right, and window, 
 left. A second window is up, right, in side wall. 
 
 A door to kitchen is down, left. The wall- 
 paper is neutral. There are hartshorn blinds 
 and cheap muslin curtains looped back. A 
 much worn rug or ingrain carpet preferably 
 rug covers entire floor. 
 
 Combined bookcase and' desk, right. Desk is 
 open and full of the accumulated scraps of 
 years. Chair at desk. Leaf table, center, closed 
 and covered with faded red cloth. Piano be- 
 tween door and window. Two mid-Victorian 
 hair chairs at table. Rocker above fireplace. 
 Black walnut buffet, left. Cheaply furnished. 
 The mantelpiece carries a Rogers' group and 
 some China peasants. The fireplace has a wall- 
 paper screen in it f a rusty iron fender is in place, 
 and blowers. In upper right corner is a fur- 
 nished "whatnot." The pictures on wall are 
 framed prints of sentimental stuff. An oval 
 frame of walnut molding over fireplace holds 
 photo of boy of sixteen in Federal uniform. 
 Center table has a lamp. V oik's life mask of 
 Lincoln hangs on mantel panel over fire opening
 
 78 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 Lincoln's hand is in bookcase desk. Through 
 back door is seen ceiling of porch, which may be 
 a small piece hung to about height of door. The 
 back drop beyond gives an oblique of left side 
 of first set adjusted to angle of that set house. 
 
 DISCOVERED: MADELINE putting away the supper 
 dishes on dresser. She takes off apron and 
 brings writing material from desk to table. 
 Lights lamp. 
 
 ( MADELINE turns at sound of step on porch. PHILIP 
 appears.) 
 
 PHILIP. (Pause) Good-evening. 
 
 MADELINE. (With restraint) Good-evening. 
 
 PHILIP. May I come in ? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes. 
 
 PHILIP. (Enters) Well that's something. 
 (Pause.) Shake hands? (Extends hand.) 
 
 MADELINE. Yes. 
 
 PHILIP. Feeling better? 
 
 MADELINE. Seeing better, I think. 
 
 PHILIP. Couldn't be looking better unless per- 
 haps you'd consent to smile. 
 
 MADELINE. (Bitterly) Not in this place. When 
 I've got him away from these people who can carry 
 hatred for a lifetime got him safe with me in the 
 city perhaps. 
 
 PHILIP. Only two old geezers in their dotage 
 ignorant and primitive. One of them just turned 
 loose from jail. Why care about them ? 
 
 MADELINE. (Shakes head) Colonel Hardy, the 
 biggest man in the town, hasn't spoken to him in 
 nearly forty years. And to think I was ignorant of 
 the martyrdom he was suffering ! 
 
 PHILIP. But it's over now, isn't it?
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 79 
 
 MADELINE. Is it? Who's been here to see him 
 since it happened? The afternoon's gone by and 
 only the string of morbid gossips gaping past the 
 house. 
 
 PHILIP. I've been here. 
 
 MADELINE. Your mother hasn't. 
 
 PHILIP. Well, mother's peculiar mother be- 
 lieves 
 
 MADELINE. (Pause) In heredity. 
 
 PHILIP. Mother believes there are times when 
 people want to be alone besides, to tell you the 
 truth, that shindy of ours rather shook mother's 
 nerves. She never saw anybody pull a gun before 
 and 
 
 MADELINE. Nor heard any one called a mur. 
 derer. 
 
 PHILIP. I fancy not. But mother's all right. 
 She said: "My heart just aches for poor little 
 Madeline." ( MADELINE sits and covers eyes.) I 
 told her 'twasn't best to pull much of that and 
 you see I'm right. Don't cry, dear, unless it com- 
 forts you. (Pause.) Must be a deuce of a strain. 
 (Arm about her.) 
 
 MADELINE. (Moves away) Please don't do that. 
 
 PHILIP. We're engaged, aren't we? (MADELINE 
 shakes her head. Pause.) Well, I am and I've 
 got a witness. That Doctor friend of yours con- 
 gratulated me said you'd told him. 
 
 MADELINE. Did your mother congratulate you? 
 
 PHILIP. Not yet but she will. 
 
 MADELINE. Did you tell her ? 
 
 PHILIP. (Pauses shakes head) She heard the 
 Doctor. (MADELINE looks at him. Pause.) I was 
 planning to cushion it even if that scrap hadn't 
 have happened. 
 
 MADELINE. Naturally 
 
 PHILIP. I mean for any girl. When a fellow's
 
 80 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 an only child and his mother's a widow, she 
 
 (Shakes head.) Well, for a thing like this you got 
 to kind o' blindfold 'em and back 'em into it. Mother 
 thinks now that I don't love her (Shakes head) 
 and I kind o' hoped I'd bring up my average with 
 you. 
 
 MADELINE. (Pause) You may tell her she has 
 nothing to fear. 
 
 PHILIP. Ha ! You don't know my mother. When 
 I tell her that you're making her conduct an excuse 
 for throwing me over, she'll be in here asking you 
 what you mean by it. I want you to marry me 
 because you love me and appreciate me, and not 
 just to get rid of mother. 
 
 MADELINE. (Smiles) Oh, Philip! 
 
 PHILIP. (Pleased with smile) That's the girl 
 I'm going to marry. 
 
 MADELINE. (Tasting her tears) That's the girl 
 that's breaking her heart because you're not. 
 
 PHILIP. (Pause) Why, Madeline, I'd insist on 
 your keeping your contract with me if you'd been 
 in jail. You can't cancel it because this story turns 
 up about your grandfather. 
 
 MADELINE. I saw the horror on your mother's 
 face when grandpa couldn't deny the stories cop- 
 perhead and horse thief and murder and peniten- 
 tiary 
 
 PHILIP. But, Madeline, some of our best families 
 can't stand a show-down on grandfathers. Why 
 
 MADELINE. No, no I love him and I'll take him 
 away and protect him but I won't burden your 
 career with that a public man just starting his 
 success a 
 
 PHILIP. Where is your grandfather now? 
 
 MADELINE. In town somewhere. 
 
 PHILIP. I've got a car out here. Come with me. 
 We'll pick him up and a ride will do you both
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 81 
 
 good. (MADELINE shakes her head, A step is heard. 
 They turn. Enter RANDALL.^ 
 
 RANDALL. Good-evening. 
 
 PHILIP. How are you? 
 
 RANDALL. I don't mean to intrude, but I've an 
 appointment here with Mr. Shanks. (Consults 
 watch.) 
 
 PHILIP. I'm glad not to leave Madeline alone, 
 Doctor. (Pause.) That engagement on which you 
 congratulated me is disturbing her just at present. 
 I wish you'd tell her that in politics a man's father 
 cuts very little ice and when it comes to grand- 
 fathers, that most of the voters never had any. (To 
 MADELINE.,) He'll tell you I'm right about it. 
 (Exit.) 
 
 MADELINE. Where did you leave grandpa? 
 
 RANDALL. On his way to Colonel Hardy's if 
 that's the name. 
 
 MADELINE. Why there? 
 
 RANDALL. (Shakes head) Something about an 
 election to-night. 
 
 MADELINE. At the school board? 
 
 RANDALL. I think so. 
 
 MADELINE. Poor grandpa. He mustn't be hu- 
 miliated by that. Oh, dear ! 
 
 RANDALL. What is it? 
 
 MADELINE. I'd applied for the appointment as 
 school teacher, but I don't want it now and I wish 
 grandpa wouldn't say any more about it. 
 
 RANDALL. (Pause) Our friend (Nods off) 
 says your engagement is disturbing you some way. 
 What does he mean? 
 
 MADELINE. I've broken it. 
 
 RANDALL. On account of this trouble to-day? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes. 
 
 RANDALL. (Pause) 'M! (Pause.) Why, as I
 
 82 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 remember it, Mr. Manning behaved rather sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 MADELINE. His mother didn't. 
 
 RANDALL. Well (Pause) it's hard for me to 
 be an enthusiastic advocate, but maybe it's just as 
 unfair to blame him for mother as it would be to 
 blame you for grandfather. 
 
 MADELINE. She's never liked grandpa. I was 
 only twelve when she took me away from him. 
 
 RANDALL. She took you? 
 
 MADELINE. Well, sent me. 
 
 RANDALL. Why ? 
 
 MADELINE. School and music lessons in Bos- 
 
 n. Their family comes from there. 
 
 RANDALL. What was her reason? 
 
 MADELINE. She heard me singing in here as I 
 was washing dishes one day. I must have been 
 bawling, because she stopped her carriage and turned 
 back and then came in. 
 
 RANDALL. Did she have her son with her? 
 
 MADELINE. No. 
 
 RANDALL. Carriage? ('MADELINE nods.) By 
 taking you away from your grandfather, you mean 
 that she financed your school period? 
 
 MADELINE. Yes and that's one of the things 
 I'm going to repay. That must have hurt grandpa, 
 too because he's awfully fine and delicate about 
 such things but what's a girl of twelve know? 
 Can't you go to Colonel Hardy's and find grandpa? 
 
 RANDALL. Yes, but let's be sure that's what we 
 want to do. Don't you think that unpleasantly sug- 
 gests a lack of responsibility and 
 
 MADELINE. Yes of course you mustn't go. 
 
 RANDALL. (Pause) This this indebtedness you 
 imply to Mrs. Manning was that did that influ- 
 ence you in entering into this engagement with her 
 son?
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 83 
 
 MADELINE. Rather the other way but that's 
 over now. She's been against the other woman who 
 is applying for the teacher's place against her be- 
 cause her father, Mr. Gillespie, is rather ordinary 
 but grandpa's education isn't any better and I 
 couldn't (Shakes head.) with this this new talk 
 
 about him. No, it's over over all of that 
 
 (Throws it from her.) 
 
 RANDALL. I'm not going to be so gauche as to 
 urge my interest again at a moment like this but 
 I want you to be conscious of me as a kind of rainy 
 day proposition one of those consolation back- 
 grounds like an accident policy when one feels the 
 automobile skidding. 
 
 MADELINE. Dear Doctor, your proposals are all 
 so so 
 
 RANDALL. Indefinite? 
 
 MADELINE. Practical to improve my voice, or 
 live on the lake front, or guard against skidding 
 but I do like you. 
 
 RANDALL. And my dear mother is buried in 
 Ann Arbor. 
 
 (Enter GILLESPIE.J 
 
 GILLESPIE. Where is Mr. Milton Shanks? 
 
 MADELINE. He's not at home, and I wouldn't let 
 you see him if he were. 
 
 GILLESPIE. He left word at my house that if I 
 wasn't a coward, to come here soon as I got home. 
 
 MADELINE. Doctor 
 
 RANDALL. Well, we'll tell him you called. 
 
 GILLESPIE. I won't trouble you, stranger. I'll 
 wait for him. 
 
 MADELINE. Not in here, Mr. Gillespie. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Sidewalk suits me unless it's just 
 another copperhead trick ter keep me away from
 
 84 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 the school board. I'll stay right out here till that 
 meets and then I'll be back agin when it adjourns 
 at the gate. (Exit.) 
 
 MADELINE. Doctor 
 
 RANDALL. Nothing to fear, Madeline. An old 
 fellow like that! Why, his wind goes at the first 
 
 real exertion. Besides (Voices outside. PHILIP 
 
 and GILLESPIE.J 
 
 MADELINE. Mr. Manning again. 
 
 GILLESPIE. (Outside) Half a dozen fellers 
 heered him. By God, I never tuk a dare from a 
 copperhead in the army times. 
 
 RANDALL. Your grandfather isn't there. Come 
 away. 
 
 MADELINE. I can't stand any more fuss. (PHILIP 
 and MRS. MANNING appear.) 
 
 PHILIP. Here's mother, Madeline. I'll be right 
 back myself. (Exit. MRS. MANNING enters.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Madeline! 
 
 MADELINE. Mrs. Manning 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Dear Madeline, you don't doubt 
 my affection for you ? 
 
 MADELINE. 'Tisn't a question of that, Mrs. Man- 
 ning. I know your pride, too. I'm not going to 
 shame it. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Philip wants us to go on as 
 though nothing had happened and wants us not 
 to let this business stampede our meeting to-night. 
 The whole matter can be put over a week. Philip's 
 a lawyer and 
 
 MADELINE. What can a week change, if it's all 
 true? 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Perhaps it isn't. 
 
 MADELINE. Perhaps it is. Grandpa hasn't denied 
 it. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. He hasn't? 
 
 MADELINE. No. (Voices outside.)
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 85 
 
 SHANKS. (Voice emerging) Yes, I said so. 
 Come in, Philip. 
 
 RANDALL. That's Mr. Shanks. ('SHANKS and 
 PHILIP appear.) 
 
 SHANKS. Inside, Gillespie. (PHILIP enters and 
 goes to MADELINE, who avoids him down left.) 
 Inside. (Enters. GILLESPIE enters. SHANKS looks 
 about at others hesitates.) 
 
 GILLESPIE. If I wasn't a coward, I'd come. Well, 
 I'm here. 
 
 SHANKS. I've asked Colonel Hardy to come 
 here. 
 
 PHILIP. Mr. Shanks! 
 
 SHANKS. Yes, Philip. 
 
 PHILIP. (Impulsively) There's my hand, sir. 
 
 SHANKS. (Taking hand) Yes. 
 
 PHILIP. (Pause) You can tell whether I like 
 you or not, can't you? 
 
 SHANKS. (In pain of grasp) Yes, Philip I kin 
 but don't keep it up any longer'n you haf to. 
 (Straightens his cramped fingers.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. I've just got to be straightfor- 
 ward with you, Mr. Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. Best way allers if ye kin straight- 
 forward ! 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Were you ever convicted on a 
 criminal charge? 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause. Nods) Once. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. That man said the penitentiary. 
 
 GILLESPIE. An' I said so, too. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. I hate to add a moment to your 
 unhappiness, Mr. Shanks. (Pause, during which 
 SHANKS suffers quietly.) I'm perfectly willing to 
 concede that there was some mistake about it that 
 you were probably innocent of the charge, but 
 
 SHANKS. (Shakes head) No, I took 'em me 
 and some other fellers workin' for the South. Them
 
 86 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 was war times, recollec', an' they wanted the horse* 
 fur John Moseby in Kentucky. 'F I'd been in the 
 army, it'd been all right, but I was I wasn't in the 
 army. (Pause.) So (Throws up his hands.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. You must believe I haven't 
 meant to hurt you, Mr. Shanks ! 
 
 SHANKS. Course. Yer jist thinkin* about yer 
 boy. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. That's all. 
 
 PHILIP. Never mind about me. 
 
 SHANKS. That's all 'at matters now. I don't 
 care about myself. Two other fellers was convicted 
 'long- with me. One of 'em's gone now; you saw 
 the other one to-day so I don't have to say any- 
 thing fur them. But I would Folks called 
 
 'em "copperheads," but they thought they was work- 
 in' fur their country, same as folks on the other side. 
 Grant understood. He gave every feller his side- 
 arms and his boss at Appomattox. Grant said: 
 "You'll need the bosses, boys, to plant yer crops." 
 
 That's what Abe Lincoln would o' said, too. Er 
 
 (Pause.) Sorry, Philip (Pause.) awful sorry. 
 
 PHILIP. (Hands on SHANKS' shoulders) Over 
 fifty years ago, Mr. Shanks. It's a damned shame 
 to dig it up now. There's a moral statute of limita- 
 tions and I hope that in fifty years I'll have as clean 
 a heart. (Strikes SHANKS on breast.) 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause and tender regard) Taller'n 
 me. He he used to put his hands on my shoulders. 
 I wish Hardy'd come but there's somethin' we kin 
 do while we're waitin'. (He goes to desk gets old 
 revolver in paper, unwraps it. There is a tag which 
 his grasp hides.) 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Is that loaded? 
 
 SHANKS. Four barrels yes. 
 
 GILLESPIE. I didn't bring any gun. 
 
 SHANKS. You kin have this one, Newt. (To
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 87 
 
 MADELINE.,) Dearie, git the corkscrew for me. 
 (MADELINE goes for old folding corkscrew in buf- 
 fet ) Philip. 
 
 PHILIP. Mr. Shanks. 
 
 SHANKS. At my trial, this was marked Exhibit 
 B. Two barrels fired. The rest are just as we left 
 'em. Take that corkscrew, Philip, and pull out the 
 wads and the powder, 'cause they never was any bul- 
 lets in 'em. I didn't say that at the trial, 'cause I 
 didn't want to lay the blame all on the others but 
 I ain't a murderer, Madeline. 
 
 MADELINE. Of course you aren't, dear. 
 
 GILLESPIE. You've had thirty-eig-ht years ter git 
 out the bullets yerself. 
 
 SHANKS. That's so and I only want to convince 
 Madeline about that. I've never told her a story. 
 
 PHILIP. I believe you, too. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Well, I don't and it's time fur your 
 school board meetin', Mrs. Manning. 
 
 (Enter HARDY. J 
 
 SHANKS. Come in, Colonel Hardy, come in, sir. 
 Sit down, Mrs. Manning. A short horse is soon 
 curried, and my business won't keep the men stand- 
 in' long. (HARDY comes down, bowing to company.) 
 Sit down, Maddy, dear you kin stan' by her, Philip. 
 (Pause as group arranges itself.) Doctor Randall. 
 (Pause.) Philip. (Pause. Defers to MRS. MAN- 
 NING slightly.) Colonel Hardy and me was boys 
 together. Our Congressman give me an appoint- 
 ment to West Point, but Tom Hardy ought a o' had 
 it. Besides, 'twasn't convenient for me to go to 
 West Point jest then, so I resigned it fur him. 'Fore 
 that, we went together to a school where Abe Lin- 
 coln come and talked to us. We both knowed him
 
 88 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 from that time on until he was elected President > 
 ain't that so, Colonel Hardy? 
 
 HARDY. (Severely) Yes. 
 
 SHANKS. (Gets mask from mantel, blows dust 
 from it.) Lincoln! We was together at his house, 
 'fore he started for Washington. A sculpture man 
 was there to take a plaster Paris model of his face. 
 Most folks think this is a after death thing-, but 
 Colonel Hardy and me saw it took jes' throwed 
 the soft plaster on his face and let it git hard. Lin- 
 coln sittin' in a armchair, like you are. (To MRS. 
 MANNING. ) In this box (Gets it from desk.) 
 where I have my letters and keepsakes is a model 
 of Lincoln's hand the hand that wrote the emanci- 
 pation of slavery. (Pause.) The sculpture man 
 sent me these hisself, so they're genuine. That 
 stick's a piece of broom handle Lincoln sawed off 
 while Volk (Reads name on cast.) that was the 
 sculpture feller's name while Volk was mixin' 
 plaster in a washbowl. (Shows hand by his own.) 
 Bigger man'n me, every way. (Pause.) All of the 
 statues of Lincoln nowadays is copied from this 
 (Pause.) so, you see, we knowed him. (Pause.) 
 Then the war broke out. Hardy tuk a vow to sup- 
 port his country, I took one to destroy it. Hardy's 
 company marched oft" my Joey, only sixteen, along 
 with 'em. His mother leant agin the fence an' the 
 women fanned her an', my God he looked like a 
 soldier! (Regards picture suggests march. To 
 PHILIP. ) You was probably thinner at sixteen yer- 
 self. 
 
 PHILIP. Yes I was. 
 
 SHANKS. I was peekin' from some bushes cud 
 o' almost teched him as they marched by (Pause.) 
 
 blue eyes (To MRS. MANNING. Pause.) 
 
 His mother never said a word cried quite a spell. 
 Well, us Knights o' the Golden Circle
 
 THE COPPERHEAD 89 
 
 GILLESPIE. Copperheads. 
 
 SHANKS. (Pause) Golden Circle we sent help 
 to the South all we could and we pizened cattle, 
 and I went to Richmond Virginy twict. Time 
 went on an' Vicksburg come and one night a feller 
 galloped into town hyar and hitched. "When'd you 
 hear from Joe ?" sez he. "Last week," I sez. "How 
 was he?" sez he, a-foolin' round tightenin' up his 
 girth. "All right," sez I, and he sez : "Joe's dead." 
 (Pause. To MADELINE, j I kin see yer gramma yet, 
 a-cryin' by the well, pettin' the corner of it where 
 Joey'd been. Bym' by, I leant over to tech her, but 
 she drawed away, a-tremblin' and a-sayin : "For 
 Gawd's sake, Milt Shanks, yer unclean !" (Pause. 
 To MRS. MANNING.J His mother (Pause) two 
 or three days she was pinin' with her face agin the 
 
 letters he'd wrote home, and then (Pause.) 
 
 At the church instead of the trouble I expected 
 from the neighbors, they was all strange-like an' 
 kind, 'cept when I went to look in the black coffin 
 under the flag, where Joey was. Newt Gillespie 
 
 took me by the arm and (Pause.) You tell 
 
 'em, Newt, what you said to me. 
 
 GILLESPIE. I hev told 'em more'n once. 
 
 SHANKS. Tell her. She never heered it. 
 
 GILLESPIE. I'd give my word 'fore he died. 
 
 SHANKS. (To MADELINE. ) His word to Joey. 
 
 GILLESPIE. Yes. He said : "If you take me back, 
 don't let him see me. If he on'y fought on the other 
 side, I'd o' been proud, even if he'd been the one 
 that shot me but no copperhead." An' I did. Right 
 in the church, I jes' tuk him by the arm and said : 
 
 "It was his particular last request " quiet-like, 
 
 as I'm talkin' now, and led him out o' the church. 
 An', by God, I'd do it agin ! 
 
 MADELINE. Oh, Grandpa! 
 
 SHANKS. That left only little Elsie, yer ma an' 
 she was so little I couldn't leave her alone, and I 

 
 90 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 was carryin' her on my arm. Newt Gillespie was 
 the only man 'at spoke to me and in the whole 
 United States yes, in the whole world only one 
 man wrote to me. (Pause) I kep' his letter nat- 
 ural (Gets letter from box.) I'm gonna ask 
 
 Colonel Hardy ter read it. (Takes letter from old 
 flag and hands it, open, to HARDY, j Careful, Col- 
 onel. It's a keepsake with me. An' then that's all 
 I've got to say. If 'twasn't fur Madeline and Philip 
 and I know they're lovin' each other and sep- 
 aratin' 
 
 HARDY. My God! Who's crazy you or I 
 Milt Shanks! Milt Shanks! 
 
 RANDALL. What is it, Colonel? 
 
 SHANKS. Read it, Colonel Hardy. 
 
 HARDY. (Reads) "Executive Mansion, Wash- 
 ington, April nth, 1865. Mr. Milton Shanks, Mill- 
 ville. Dear Milt: Lee's surrender ends it all. I 
 cannot think of you without a sense of guilt, but it 
 had to be. I alone knew what you did and, even 
 more, what you endured. I cannot reward you 
 man cannot reward anything worth while there is 
 only One who can. I send you a flag handkerchief. 
 (SHANKS unconsciously touches the flag.) It is not 
 new, but you will prize it the more for that. I hope 
 to shake your hand some time. Your friend, A. 
 Lincoln." 
 
 SHANKS. Colonel, do you recollec' the time you 
 druv me to the train in March o' sixty-one? 
 
 HARDY. Very well. You went to look at cattle. 
 
 SHANKS. That's what I told you. I wuz called 
 to Washington by Lincoln, an' two days later, at 
 night, in his library White House he walked over 
 to'erd a winder, and, without turnin' round, he says : 
 
 "Milt " (Pause.) Funny I remember a clock 
 
 tickin' on the mantelpiece (Pause.) I sez: 
 
 "Mr. President " (Pause.) "Milt, how much 
 
 do you love yer country?" (Pause.) "I cahilate 
 

 
 THE COPPERHEAD 91 
 
 I'd die for it," I sez. (Shakes head.) /"Thousands 
 o' boys is a-cryin to do that." Then he turned 
 round. "Would you give up sumpin' more'n life?" 
 (Pause.) "Try me," I sez. The President run his 
 hands through his hair an' went on : "It means to be 
 odious in the eyes of men and women ter eat yer 
 heart out alone fur you can't tell yer wife ner 
 chile ner friend." (Pause.) "Go on," I sez. 
 (Pause.) "The Southern sympathizers are organiz- 
 ing in our State really worse than the soldiers. I 
 want you ter jine them Knights o' the Golden Circle 
 ter be one of them their leader, if you kin. I 
 need you, Milt. Yer country needs you." (Pause.) 
 Hadn't been two minutes since he was laffin', but he 
 lifted his hands, and it seemed we wuz the only 
 folks in the world (Pause.) and that clock 
 (Pause.) funny I remember that. (Pause.) "I'll 
 do it," I sez. (Pause.) He tuk a little flag out o' 
 his pocket like as not this very one put it on the 
 table like I'm puttin' it. (Pause.) "As Chief 
 Magistrate of the nation, I'll muster you inter the 
 nation's service," he said. He laid my hand where 
 the blue is and all the stars, and put his hand over 
 mine. (Business suggested with cast.) Only open, 
 of course (Uses his own hand.) and said nothin' 
 (Pause. Nods.) jes' looked in my eyes an' 
 
 looked (Pause.) Well, I jined 'em. (Pause.) 
 
 It was terrible, when I couldn't tell my boy (Looks 
 at PHILIP,) when he marched off. (To MRS. MAN- 
 NING. ) Sixteen, you know blue eyes (Pause. 
 
 MADELINE takes his hand and kisses it. The action 
 startles him a little.) It ruined the Governor that 
 pardoned me out o' Joliet, where -I was convicted to 
 but I've allers figured he had his orders from 
 Washington same as me an' couldn't talk about 
 it. An even when Vicksburg come, and Joey was 
 dead, why, the war wasn't over.
 
 92 THE COPPERHEAD 
 
 HARDY. But, damn it, in all these years we've 
 despised you, why haven't you told? 
 
 SHANKS. Told who? Couldn't tell Joey or his 
 mother, and, with them gone tellin' anybody seemed 
 so so useless. Only now, when it's separatin' her 
 an* Philip an' spoilin' her election in the school 
 board 
 
 HARDY. Her election ! Why, damn it, that story'd 
 elect a wooden Indian ! (GILLESPIE grabs SHANKS' 
 coat.) 
 
 RANDALL. What are you doing? 
 
 GILLESPIE. Take that off. This coat don't belong 
 on me. 
 
 SHANKS. Newt not yer Grand Army coat? 
 
 GILLESPIE. Git in it ! Here's the hat. (Goes to 
 door, carrying SHANKS' coat.) Bring him to that 
 meetin'. I'm a damn fool, but, by God, I ain't no 
 skunk ! (Exit.) 
 
 MADELINE. Oh, Grandpa! 
 
 SHANKS. (Loving the coat) The blue 
 
 RANDALL. The hat, Mr. Shanks! 
 
 SHANKS. An' a cord round it. If they was only 
 a lookin' glass. 
 
 MRS. MANNING. Come, Colonel. (HARDY crosses 
 to SHANKS returns the letter. The two men join 
 hands in speechless emotion a moment.) 
 
 SHANKS. (Forviving) Tom! (HARDY pats 
 SHANKS' shoulder and moves on. With flag.) All 
 right, now, to carry this, ain't it? 
 
 PHILIP. I should say it was ! 
 
 SHANKS. God! It's wonderful (Pauses and 
 inhales) to hev friends agin ! (Goes. PHILIP takes 
 MADELINE in his arms MRS. MANNING watching 
 them from right.)' 
 
 (CURTAIN.)
 
 THE CHARM SCHOOL 
 
 Comedy in 3 acts. By Alice Duer Miller and Robert 
 Milton. Produced originally at the Bijou Theatre in New 
 York. 6 males, 10 females. (May be played by j males 
 and 3 females). Any number of school girls may be used 
 in the ensembles. 2 interior scenes. Modern costumes. 
 
 The story of "The Charm School" is familiar to Mrs. Miller's 
 readers. It relates the adventures of a handsome young automobile 
 salesman scarcely out of his 'teens who, upon inheriting a girls' 
 boarding school from a maiden aunt, insists on running it himself, 
 according to his own ideas, chief of which is, by the way, that the 
 dominant feature in the education of the young girl of today 
 should be CHARM. 
 
 The situations that arise are teeming with humor clean, whole- 
 some humor. In the end the young man gives up the school and 
 promises to wait until the most precocious of his pupils reaches a 
 marriageable age. The freshness of youth, the charm of originality, 
 and the wholesome pleasant entertainment embodied in this play 
 make it one of the most popular on our list. We strongly recommend 
 it for high school production. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS. 
 
 CLARENCE 
 
 A comedy in 4 acts. By Booth Tarkington. 5 males, 5 
 females. ^ interior scenes. Modern costumes. 
 
 Clarence has no medals, no shoulder bars, no great accomplish- 
 ment. One of the "five million," he served where he was sent 
 though it was no further than Texas. As an entomologist he found 
 on this side of the ocean no field for his specialty in the great 
 war. So they set him to driving mules. 
 
 Now, reduced to civil life and seeking a job, he finds a position 
 in the home of one Wheeler, a wealthy Englewood man with a 
 family. And because he'd "been in the army" he becomes guide, 
 philosopher and friend to the members of the same agitated and 
 distracted family group. Clarence's position is an anomalous one. He 
 mends the bathroom plumbing, he tunes the piano, he types off 
 stage he plays the saxophone. And around him revolves such a 
 group of characters as only Booth Tarkington could offer. It is a 
 real American comedy; and the audience ripples with appreciative 
 and delighted laughter. 
 
 "It is as American as 'Huckleberry Finn" or pumpkin pie." N. Y. 
 Times. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS.
 
 A CHURCH MOUSE 
 
 A comedy in 3 acts. By Ladislaus Fodor. Produced 
 originally by William A. Brady, Ltd., at the Playhouse, 
 New York, y males, 2 females. 2 interior scenes. Modern 
 costumes. 
 
 This sparkling, tender and entirely captivating little comedy is one 
 of the most delightful items that we hare added to our list in a long 
 time. As Robert Garland, in reviewing the New York production for 
 the New York World-Telegram, puts it "it spoofed big business and 
 went as far as to laugh out loud in the face of the depression." There 
 is enough good clean laughter in this play to make it a welcome 
 visitor at any theatre. 
 
 The story is concerned with the manner in which a plain, but very 
 efficient, stenographer first gets a position as the secretary to a great 
 Viennese bank president, and how finally she becomes his wife. To 
 bring this about she discards her plain office clothes, adorns herself 
 in a becoming evening dress and decides to make her employer realize 
 that she is more than a writing machine. Her change of costume 
 effects so complete a transformation that everyone who sees her hails 
 her as ravishing and exquisite; so much so that the bank president 
 asks her little Susie Sachs to become his wife the Baroness voa 
 Ullrich, if you please. A captivating and refreshing comedy, ideal for 
 amateur and little theatre production. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PUCE 75 CENTS. 
 
 POLLY WITH A PAST 
 
 Comedy in 3 acts. By George Middleton and Guy 
 Bolton. 7 males, 5 females. 2 interiors. Modern costumes. 
 
 "Polly" is one of the most successful comedies of recent years. 
 Produced by David Belasco, with Ina Claire in the leading role, 
 it ran a whole season at the Belasco Theatre, New York, as well 
 as in London. The play has to do with the clever efforts of a girl to 
 manufacture for herself a picturesque past in order to make herself 
 more interesting and attractive. The little deceit gets many persons 
 into trouble, but Polly and her friends eventually turn the trouble to 
 good account, and Polly finds herself after the secret is divulged 
 even more interesting and attractive than before, despite her desperate 
 confession to being the daughter of a Baptist clergyman. Exceedingly 
 good fun, with just enough sophistication. 
 
 Your audience will find here an entertainment that is dainty, 
 sparkling and diverting. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 7j CENTS.
 
 COME OUT OF THE KITCHEN 
 
 A charming comedy in 3 acts. Adapted by A. E. 
 Thomas from the story of the same name by Alice Duer 
 Miller. Produced originally by Henry Miller at the Cohan 
 Theatre, New York. 6 males, j females. 3 interior scenes. 
 Modern costumes. 
 
 The story is written around a Virginia family of the old aristoc- 
 racy, who, finding themselves temporarily embarrassed, decide to 
 rent their home to a rich Yankee. The lease stipulated that a competent 
 staff of white servants should be engaged, and one of the daughters of 
 the family conceives the mad-cap idea that she, her sister and their 
 two brothers shall act as the domestic staff. Olivia who is the ring- 
 leader in the merry scheme, elects to preside over the destinies of the 
 kitchen. When Burton Crane arrives from the North, accompanied 
 by Mrs. Falkener, her daughter and Crane's attorney, Tucker, they 
 find the staff of servants to possess so many methods of behavior out 
 of the ordinary that amusing complications begin to arise immediately. 
 Olivia's charm and beauty impress Crane above everything else and 
 the merry story continues through a maze of delightful incidents 
 until the real identity of the heroine is finally disclosed, but not 
 until Crane has professed his love for his charming cook, and the 
 play ends with the brightest prospects of happiness for these two 
 young people. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS. 
 
 JONESY 
 
 Comedy in 3 acts. By Anne Morrison and John Peter 
 Toohey. Produced originally by Earl Boothe at the Bijou 
 Theatre, New York. 8 males, 5 females, i interior. Mod- 
 ern costumes. 
 
 The "Jonesy" of the title is Wilbur Jones, who comes home 
 from college bringing a fraternity brother with him. Engaged to 
 the girl next door, his vagrant fancy is attracted by the ingenue 
 of the local stock company. His father and mother assume that 
 he is trying to elope with the actress, and try to save him. Before 
 they discover that the girl is the niece of their most influential 
 townsman, the man from whom senior Jones hopes to get a good 
 job, they have let themselves in for many embarrassing complica- 
 tions. With this matter reasonably adjusted, they make the further 
 discovery that their son has sold the family car to pay his poker 
 debts and when the father attempts to recover the car he gets him- 
 self arrested. Many humorous complications arise that unravel them- 
 selves into a happy ending. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 7; CENTS.
 
 THE MIDDLE WATCH 
 
 A farcical comedy in 3 acts. By Ian Hay and Stephen 
 King-Hall. Produced originally at the Times Square 
 Theatre, New York. 9 males, 6 females. Modern costumes 
 and naval uniforms. 2 interior scenes. 
 
 During a reception on board H. M. S. "Falcon," a cruiser on the 
 China Station, Captain Randall of the Marines has become engaged to 
 Fay Eaton, and in his enthusiasm induces her to stay and have dinner 
 in his cabin. This is met with stern disapproval by Fay's chaperon, 
 Charlotte Hopkinson, who insists that they leave at once. Charlotte, 
 however, gets shut up in the compass room, and a gay young Ameri- 
 can widow accepts the offer to take her place, both girls intending 
 to go back to shore in the late evening. Of course, things go wrong, 
 and they have to remain aboard all night. By this time the Captain 
 has to be told, because his cabin contains the only possible accommo- 
 dations, and he enters into the conspiracy without signalling the Ad- 
 miral's flagship. Then the "Falcon" is suddenly ordered to sea, and 
 the Admiral decides to sail with her. This also makes necessary the 
 turning over to him of the Captain's quarters. The presence of the 
 ladies now becomes positively embarrassing. The girls are bundled into 
 one cabin just opposite that occupied by the Admiral. The game of 
 "general-post" with a marine sentry in stockinged feet is very funny, 
 and so are the attempts to explain matters to the "Old Man" next 
 morning. After this everything ends both romantically and happily. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS. 
 
 NANCY'S PRIVATE AFFAIR 
 
 A comedy in 3 acts. By Myron C. Pagan. Produced 
 originally at the Vanderbilt Theatre, New York. 4 males, 
 5 females. 2 interior scenes. Modern costumes. 
 
 Nothing is really private any more not even pajamas and bedtime 
 stories. No one will object to Nancy's private affair being made public, 
 and it would be impossible to interest the theatre public in a more 
 ingenious plot. Nancy is one of those smart, sophisticated society 
 women who wants to win back her husband from a baby vamp. Just 
 how this is accomplished makes for an exceptionally pleasant evening. 
 Laying aside her horn-rimmed spectacles, she pretends indifference and 
 affects a mysterious interest in other men. Nancy baits her rival with 
 a bogus diamond ring, makes love to her former husband's best friend, 
 and finally tricks the dastardly rival into a marriage with someone 
 else. 
 
 Mr. Fagan has studded his story with jokes and retorts that will 
 keep anv audience in a constant uproar. 
 
 (Royalty, twenty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS.
 
 000 108 185 o 
 
 THE GH{j& j. JLWJLAJLI 
 
 A mystery thriller in 3 acts. By Arnold Ridley. Pro- 
 duced originally at the Eltinge Theatre, New York. 7 
 males, 4 females, i interior scene. Modern costumes. 
 
 The story is laid in a peaceful village in Maine where there lives 
 a superstition of twenty years standing about a ghost train which 
 flashes by in the dead of night, swinging the scythe of death. Rum- 
 runners use this superstition to their own advantage in the transporta- 
 tion of liquor from Canada. As the night train draws into the small 
 station, some passengers get off and the train moves on. These 
 passengers are compelled to wait all night, for they have missed con- 
 nections. And what a night they spend. When the decrepit old 
 station-master tells them about the terrifying "Ghost Train," bring- 
 ing death to all who observe it, they just poo-pooh the idea. But 
 everything happens as forecast. The station-master is stricken dead 
 mysteriously. The signal bell rings. The engine whistles. The train 
 roars through the junction and one who rashly gazes upon it appar- 
 ently succumbs. Lovers of mystery plays will find here a piece to 
 their liking. 
 
 "If you want a hair-raising, seat-gripping ride, buy your tickets 
 early for 'The Ghost Train.'" New York Mirror. 
 
 (Royalty, thirty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS. 
 
 THE SPIDER 
 
 A mystery play in 3 acts. By Fulton Oursler and Lowell 
 Brentano. Produced originally at Channin's Forty-Sixth 
 Street Theatre in New York. 21 males, 3 females. 5 in- 
 terior scenes. Modern costumes. 
 
 Here is a novelty, if there ever was one, replete with chills and 
 fevers. The authors have represented the dastardly murder of Carring- 
 ton, not on the stage, but in the audience. While Alexander, assistant 
 to Chatrand the Great, is reading the initials on your watch the 
 lights go out, a shot is fired and when the lights go up again Car- 
 rington is discovered mortally wounded on a runway over the 
 orchestra pit and immediately the theatre is loud with excitement. 
 Who fired the shot? As the play goes on through the succeeding 
 scenes, bringing doctors and policemen up the aisles, bidding the 
 audience to remain seated, and posting officers at every exit to pre- 
 vent escape, suspicion rests on the magician, the girl and others. 
 Shots bark here and there. House lights go on and off. Ghastly 
 objects swing across the darkness; strange faces and eerie voices. 
 And all in good time the slippery scoundrel is discovered. 
 
 (Royalty, thirty-five dollars.) PRICE 75 CENTS.
 
 FRENCH'S 
 
 Standard Library Edition 
 
 Includes 
 
 Philip Barry 
 
 Sidney Howard 
 
 George Kaufman 
 
 Harley Oranville-Barker 
 
 The Capeks 
 
 Phil Dunning 
 
 George Abbott 
 
 Dorothy Parker 
 
 Perenc Molnar 
 
 Hatcher Hughes 
 
 A very Hop woo J 
 
 Ring Lardner 
 
 Tom Gushing 
 
 Elmer Rice 
 
 Maxwell Andersen 
 
 The Quinteros 
 
 Lynn Riggs 
 
 Susan Glaspell 
 
 Rose Pranken 
 
 John van Druten 
 
 Benn W. Levy 
 
 Martha Stanley 
 
 John Golden 
 
 Don Marquis 
 
 Beulah Marie Dlx 
 
 Zona Gale 
 
 Alfred Kreymborg 
 
 P. Q. Wodehouse 
 
 Noel Coward 
 
 Ian Hay 
 
 J. B. Prleatly 
 
 Mary Robert* R In chart 
 
 Ashley Dukes 
 
 George M. Cohan 
 
 Augustus Thomas 
 
 Winchell Smith 
 
 William Gillette 
 
 Frank Craven 
 
 Owen Davis 
 
 Austin Strong 
 
 A. A. Milne 
 
 Harriet Ford 
 
 Paul Green 
 
 James Montgomery 
 
 Edward Childs Carpenter 
 
 Arthur Richman 
 
 George Middleton 
 
 Cbannlng Pollock 
 
 George Kaufman 
 
 Martin Flavin 
 
 Victor Mapes 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 
 Roi Cooper Megrue 
 
 Jean Webster 
 
 George Broadhurst 
 
 Madeline Lucette Ryley 
 
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 Laurence Housnun 
 
 Israel Zangwill 
 
 Walter Hackett 
 
 A. E. Thomas 
 
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 Justin Huntley McCarthy 
 
 Frederick Lonsdale 
 
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 Booth Tarkington 
 
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 Edith Ellis 
 
 Harold Brighouse 
 
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 Clare Kumraer 
 
 James Forbes 
 
 William C. DeMllfe 
 
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 Guy Bolton 
 
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 Lynn Starling 
 
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 Thomas Broadhurst 
 
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 Bayard Veiller 
 
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 Salisbury Field 
 
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 Adelaide Matthews 
 
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