Sherwood Anderson:Mother

Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941, Mother Electronic Edition by Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., 2011 . ? Sherwood Anderson, 1937. Also published in Plays: Winesburg and Others, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, NY, 1937. [Author Information] [Bibliographic Details] [Character Information] [1937] [PL033497]

Characters

Mary Horton, the Mother George Horton, the Father Mabel Clark, a Dressmaker Fizzy Fry, a Hotel Clerk

Act

The action takes place in MARY HORTON'S room in a shabby little hotel, in a Middle Western American town. It is Sunday afternoon. The room is a rather large one. The wallpaper is faded and streaked but MARY HORTON has made an effort to save the room from complete ugliness. There are a few cheap prints and pictures on the wall and clean lace curtains at the windows. There is a bed in the room and the bed covering is worn but clean. Beside the bed there is a cheap dresser on which is a lamp with a crinkly red tissue paper lamp shade. There are a few chairs, one of which is a rocker. There are doors left and right and two windows at back looking into an alleyway

MARY HORTON is a sick-looking woman of forty. She is somewhat thin and faded but there is still fire in her. The impression should be given of a woman who has had a good deal of illness. AT RISE she is sitting in a rocking chair near one of the windows and is dressed in a plain worn black dress with white lace at the neck and sleeves. She sits tense and nervous in the chair

Outside in the alleyway voices are heard. Boys are playing ball and there is the sound of a thrown ball striking on a catcher's mit. A WOMAN'S VOICE is heard

WOMAN'S VOICE

Sharply Will and Fred, you come in here. I won't have you playing ball on Sunday.

-- 3 --

BOY'S VOICE Oh, Maw. O Gee!

WOMAN'S VOICE Come in here, I say.

New voices are heard just back of the wall of MARY HORTON'S room. Two men are walking along a hallway

A MAN'S VOICE Here it is, Fred. This is my hole. Some hotel to be stuck in on Sunday.

SECOND MAN'S VOICE Hell, yes. I wanted to get into Chicago. I've got a woman there. I slept too late and missed the morning

train. I'm going to take another sleep now.

FIRST MAN'S VOICE Might as well. Say, Fred, suppose we can pick up a couple of skirts in this burg tonight?

SECOND MAN'S VOICE I don't know, Al. We can try.

FIRST MAN'S VOICE All right. See you later. So long.

There is the sound of a slammed door and of another man's footsteps dying away in a hallway. MARY HORTON gets up out of her chair and moves hurriedly and nervously about the room. She goes to a glass over the dresser and adjusts the lace at her neck and sleeves and then suddenly, tearing a little piece off the red paper lamp shade, wets it with her tongue and tries to rouge her checks with it. She smiles and shrugs her shoulders, looking at herself in the glass, as though to say, \the use?\Again she hears footsteps outside the door, left, and goes quickly over toward the rocking-chair by the window, but before she has reached it, the door, left, opens and her husband GEORGE HORTON enters. She looks quickly over her shoulder and sees who it is

-- 4 --

MARY HORTON Oh, it's only you.

She goes to the chair and, sitting, closes her eyes for a moment. She does not look at her husband. GEORGE HORTON is a man of forty-five or fifty, a little fat and unhealthy looking. He is annoyed and angry. He shuts the door with a bang and stands near it looking at his wife

GEORGE HORTON Only me, eh? Just your husband, that's all.

MARY HORTON

She sits in the chair with her eyes closed, not looking at him. She speaks quietly but sharply

Well, did you do what I asked you? I sent for you but couldn't find you. So I told your clerk, Fizzy, what I wanted. Did he tell you? Have you done it?

GEORGE HORTON

Angrily

Hell, no. What do you think I am? Do you expect me to stay around here, always, at your beck and call? Fizzy told me what you were up to, sending for that woman. Of course I didn't do it. What do you think I am, an errand boy? I told Fizzy he could go for her if he wanted to but that's why I came up here. I wanted to tell you what I thought of this scheme of yours.