Our Town

EMILY: No..?

He'd been back to his college to make a speech - in western New York, at Clinton.

GEORGE: Hello, Stew, - how are you? - Good afternoon, Mrs. Slocum

Hello, George. Hello, Emily. - What'll you have? - Why, Emily Webb - what you been crying about?

HOWIE NEWSOME: Giddap, Bessie!

Here comes Howie Newsome delivering the milk. And there's Si Crowell delivering the papers like his brother before him.

STANGE MANAGER: She's up in the cemetery there now - in with a whole mess of Gibbses and Herseys - she was Julia Hersey 'fore she married Doc Gibbs in the Congregational Church over there.

In our town we like to know the facts about everybody.

GEORGE: What do you know!

That's the end of Act One. You've got ten minutes to stretch your legs.

STAGE MANAGER: The United States of America. And they went and died about it.

This here is the new part of the cemetery. Here's your friend Mrs. Gibbs. 'N let me see - Here's Mr. Stimson, organist at the Congregational Church. And Mrs. Soames who enjoyed the wedding so - you remember? Oh, and a lot of others. And Editor Webb's boy, Wallace, whose appendix burst while he was on a Boy Scout trip to Crawford Notch. Yes, an awful lot of sorrow has sort of quieted down up here.

TOP OF ACT II

Three years have gone by. Yes, the sun's come up over a thousand times. Summers and winters have cracked the mountains a little bit more and the rains have brought down some of the dirt.

GEORGE: It'll only take me a minute.

What's that? George Gibbs, do you mean to tell me --!

EMILY: ...And there's the livery stable.

Yes, it's 1899. This is fourteen years ago.

EMILY: I choose my twelfth birthday.

All right. February 11th, 1899. A Tuesday. - Do you want any special time of day?

EMILY: Yes?

And as you watch it, you see the thing that they - down there - never know. You see the future. You know what's going to happen afterwards.

STAGE MANAGER: - That's Doc Gibbs. Got that call at half past one this morning.

And there comes Joe Crowell Jr., delivering Mr. Webb's Sentinel.

EMILY: Will she?

And you remember: your father had been away for several days; he came back on the early-morning train.

GEORGE: I'll be back in five minutes.

I'll trust you ten years, George, - not a day over. - Got all over your shock, Emily?

GEORGE: Well -- prob'ly is.

Nine thirty. Most of the lights are out. No, there's Constable Warren trying a few doors on Main Street. And here comes Editor Webb, after putting his newspaper to bed.

EMILY: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?

No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe - they do some.

GEORGE: Look, here's my gold watch to keep until I come back with the money.

That's all right. Keep your watch. I'll trust you.

GEORGE: No, no Emily. Have an ice-cream soda with me. Two strawberry ice-cream sodas, Mr. Morgan.

Two strawberry ice-cream sodas, yes sir. Yes, sir. There are a hundred and twenty-five horses in Grover's Corner this minute I'm talking to you. State Inspector was in here yesterday. And now, they're bringing in these auto-mo-biles, the best thing to do is to just stay home. Why, I can remember when a dog could go to sleep all day in the middle of Main Street and nothing come along to disturb him. There they are. Enjoy 'em. Yes, Mrs. Ellis. What can I do for you?

EMILY: Oh, I want the whole day.

We'll begin at dawn. You remember it had been snowing for several days; but it had stopped the night before, and they had begun clearing the roads. The sun's coming up.

GEORGE: Everybody says Tom Huckins drives like a crazy man.

Well now! You take a drink of water, Emily. You look all shook up. I tell you, you've got to look both ways before you cross Main Street these days.

STAGE MANAGER: The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount'in. The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go -- doesn't it?

Well, I'd better show you how own town lies. Up here -- is Main Street. Way back there is the railway station; tracks go that way. Polish Town's across the tracts, and some Canuck families. Over there is the Congregational Church; across the street's the Presbyterian. Methodist and Unitarian are over there. Baptist is down in the holla' by the river. Catholic Church is over beyond the tracks. Here's the Town Hall and Post Office combined; jail's in the basement. Bryan once made a speech from these vert steps here. Along here's a row of stores. Hitching posts and horse blocks in front of them. First automobile's going to come along in about five years -- belonged to Banker Cartwright, our richest citizen... lives here in the big white house up on the hill. Here's the grocery store and Mr. Morgan's drugstore. Most everybody in town manages to look into those two stores once a day. Public School's over yonder. High School's still farther over. Quarter of nine mornings, noontimes, and three o'clock afternoons, the hull town can hear the yelling and screaming from those schoolyards. This is our doctor's house --Doc Gibbs'. This is the back door. There's some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery. This is Mrs. Gibbs' garden. Corn... peas.. beans... hollyhocks... heliotrope... and a lot of burdock. In those days our newspaper come out twice a week - the Grover's Corners Sentinel - and this is Editor Webb's house. Snd this is Mrs. Webb's garden. Just like Mrs. Gibbs', only it's got a lot of sunflowers, too. Right here's... a big butternut tree. Nice town, y'know what I mean?

EMILY: Are they inside?

Yes, your mother'll be coming downstairs in a minute to make breakfast.

EMILY: Why should that be painful?

You not only live it; but you watch yourself living it.