She stumbled in the rough
field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to
death in that Swede's house. They lived.
MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of
her.
IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her
after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.
MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped
to think how much she was worth.
IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you
cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My
father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my
father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what
you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always
heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here
was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens
cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I
told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough
to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe
for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm
alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm.
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