Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-09-18
SINGLE i'AX DEPARTMENT.
UitDER THE WHEEL.
Harnlin Garlana's New Play-The Single
Tax Idea in the Drama.

tuIO the uOuSO. IeeSoS WALKS
glancing keenly at all points of the
plain.) So this is the reality of the en-
igrant's dream! The homestead in the
free West, the house beside the river
uncovered in trees!
A wide dun land where the fierce suns srnite,
And the wind is o furnace BREATH
Where the beautiful sky has sinister licht,
And the earth lies dread and dry as death;
Wktre the sod lies scorching, and the wan
grass signs,
And the hot red morning has no birds
My God! what place for my beautiful
girl-for anybody's girl-a wide walled
grave.
alice enters with glass, which she
fills and hands to him. He drinks. say
ing): In a land like this the gift of
water must mean as it does with the
Arabs, tae highest hospitality.
Alice L can't say how much I've
SHALL
Reeves quitting his arm about her)
Don't try. If I had only known your
rea; feelings-but how could l from
those letters? Cooking off left. What
in the world is that girl doing? Shes
unhitching my team! I'll stop her. (Ex.
I, talking.)
Alice (walking OUTFLOW can l let
blu ~ dlH. HAVE GlIt otiCliS Va.
But Iamust, Unjust! I can't leave father
now. at the height of his terrible strug-
gle. l must stay.
Walter (re-enters with Linnie, hold
ing her by the hands)-I suppose this is
Linnie-anybow the little witch was
unhitching my team; another minute
and she might have had runaway.
Linnie rnfully)-Runaway moth
ing! What do you take me for? Allie
and hitch up the horses and 60 out in
the fields-we pillow, and drive the har-
vester-and we help shock the wheat
don't we, Allie?
Reeves (surprised)-Do you do that?
With this hand, that used to love to
watch on the piano? o horrors! (Strokes
it, Poor bruised little hand. Kisses it.)
Linnie (goes off in mock disgust)-
Girls like me don't count. My hand can
get we'll itself FIR all you care. Wal n
SO it goes. Goes into the house,
Reeves-And you live there? point
ing at the house.)
Alice-Yes, with my people.
Reeves - Through your horrible
winters?
Alice (quietly)-Yes, and there are
days when that hut, poor as it is, seems
like a palace Last winter it seemed as
if the snow would never tire of sliding to
and fro on the plains. Days and days
we were shut up here.
Reeves deeply affected Heavens,
what prison. And yet saw dozens not
SO good as I came along.
Alice (quietly)-We lived in that sod
shanty year.
Reeves Qifting his head)-And this
is the free and glorious west Oh, it
makes me wild to think of you living
there-itS worse than the tenement
house.
Alice (irmly but sweetly)-There was
no other way. They couldn't have lived
without me. My little teaching has
kept us in groceries, and beside, there
have been days when father was too
lame to work and I have worked in the
fields and taken care of the cattle in
the barn
Reeves (seizing her hands)-Don't tell
me any more-I'll rage-Tll swear.
Affective must bear it.
Reeves (savagely)-Bear it! l won't
bear it. I'll expose the whole internal
matter in four column leader. I'll
smash the next boomer that says free
land to me. Free land! if this is free
land what the devil
Alice (stopping him)-Hush, hush!
Reeves Freeing himself}-I say. if
this is free land what in the devil would
you call high-priced land? The settler
pays for his free land all that makes
life worth living; these families have
purchased their bare and miserable
acres with blood and sweat and tears
ENran lonIt hohf fhar
has been no free land in America.
Alice Crying to be calm)-I know it,
but it only makes it worse to think OF it.
Reeves (quickly)- Forgetit then, for I've
come to take you out of it. Hush, now!
Not word. I've let you spoil five of
the best years of my life. You shan't
say world must be heard now.
Then follows struggle between Alice
and her lover, in which she refuses to
leave her parents and go with him to
the East, at the end of which he retires,
angered at her obstinacy.
The fourth scene describes the terri
BILE droughts that is destroying the crops
and reducing Edwards to despair, since
another failure will insure the fore
closure of his mortgage and leave him
without even his miserable home. The
storm ends with a terrible tornado, ac-
companied by hail, which absolutely de-
stroys the crops and wrecks the build
ings. Edwards himself receiving severe
injuries from which he barely escapes
with his life to find himself, in the end,
paralyzed. Walter Reeves, who has not
left the country, returns and successful
~ presses his suit, and the final solu-
ii 5n of the problem is that he takes the
broken old man East and cares for his
family, charity having to be called in at
last, since there is no posi- bility of find
ing place where man by mere indus
try can make way against such obstacles
as have beset Edwards. The play ends
with Edward S surrender and his discov-
cry that he is paralyzed, and closes as
follows:
Edwards (after a long pause)-I sur
render. I'm beat. I give up, but it
hurts, it hurts! I'm like an old broken
scythe, hung up, t rust in the rain; 1
amt no use to Y now, Jennie! Here's
my hand, young man; Walter, my son,
take her back t Boston where she ought
t. be, an take me back t. Derry
sha'nt be burden to v long. don't
s pose I'm with the trouble, but I'd
kindo like t. be buried back there I
hate t die out on this hot prairie with
no tree t be buried under; seems s if 1
couldn't rest, an rest is the sweetest
thing in the world FIR man like me, the
only thing lett can't lose that.