The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays | Page 9

TARPEY (_turns and sees them_). Good-morrow, Bartley Fallon;
good-morrow, Mrs. Fallon. Well, Bartley, you'll find no cause for
complaining to-day; they are all saying it was a good fair.
BARTLEY (_raising his voice_). It was not a good fair, Mrs. Tarpey. It
was a scattered sort of a fair. If we didn't expect more, we got less.
That's the way with me always: whatever I have to sell goes down and
whatever I have to buy goes up. If there's ever any misfortune coming
to this world, it's on myself it pitches, like a flock of crows on seed
potatoes.
MRS. FALLON. Leave off talking of misfortunes, and listen to Jack
Smith that is coming the way, and he singing.
(_Voice of JACK SMITH heard singing_)
I thought, my first love, There'd be but one house between you and me.
And I thought I would find Yourself coaxing my child on your knee.
Over the tide I would leap with the leap of a swan. Till I came to the
side Of the wife of the red-haired man!

(JACK SMITH _comes in; he is a red-haired man, and is carrying a
hayfork._)
MRS. TARPEY. That should be a good song if I had my hearing.
MRS. FALLON (_shouting_). It's "The Red-haired Man's Wife."
MRS. TARPEY. I know it well. That's the song that has a skin on it!
(_She turns her back to them and goes on arranging her apples._)
MRS. FALLON. Where's herself, Jack Smith?
JACK SMITH. She was delayed with her washing; bleaching the
clothes on the hedge she is, and she daren't leave them, with all the
tinkers that do be passing to the fair. It isn't to the fair I came myself,
but up to the Five-Acre Meadow I'm going, where I have a contract for
the hay. We'll get a share of it into tramps to-day.
(_He lays down hayfork and lights his pipe._)
BARTLEY. You will not get it into tramps to-day. The rain will be
down on it by evening, and on myself too. It's seldom I ever started on
a journey but the rain would come down on me before I'd find any
place of shelter.
JACK SMITH. If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is my belief you would
carry a leaky pail on your head in place of a hat, the way you'd not be
without some cause of complaining.
(_A voice heard: "Go on, now, go on out o' that. Go on, I say."_)
JACK SMITH. Look at that young mare of Pat Ryan's that is backing
into Shaughnessy's bullocks with the dint of the crowd! Don't be
daunted, Pat, I'll give you a hand with her. (_He goes out, leaving his
hayfork._)
MRS. FALLON. It's time for ourselves to be going home. I have all I
bought put in the basket. Look at there, Jack Smith's hayfork he left

after him! He'll be wanting it. (_Calls_) Jack Smith! Jack Smith!--He's
gone through the crowd; hurry after him, Bartley, he'll be wanting it.
BARTLEY. I'll do that. This is no safe place to be leaving it. (_He
takes up fork awkwardly and upsets the basket._) Look at that now! If
there is any basket in the fair upset, it must be our own basket! (_He
goes out to right._)
MRS. FALLON. Get out of that! It is your own fault, it is. Talk of
misfortunes and misfortunes will come. Glory be! Look at my new
egg-cups rolling in every part--and my two pound of sugar with the
paper broke--
MRS. TARPEY (_turning from stall_). God help us, Mrs. Fallon, what
happened your basket?
MRS. FALLON. It's himself that knocked it down, bad manners to him.
(_Putting things up_) My grand sugar that's destroyed, and he'll not
drink his tea without it. I had best go back to the shop for more, much
good may it do him!
(Enter TIM CASEY.)
TIM CASEY. Where is Bartley Fallon, Mrs. Fallon? I want a word
with him before he'll leave the fair. I was afraid he might have gone
home by this, for he's a temperate man.
MRS. FALLON. I wish he did go home! It'd be best for me if he went
home straight from the fair green, or if he never came with me at all!
Where is he, is it? He's gone up the road (_jerks elbow_) following
Jack Smith with a hayfork.
(_She goes out to left._)
TIM CASEY. Following Jack Smith with a hayfork! Did ever anyone
hear the like of that. (_Shouts_) Did you hear that news, Mrs. Tarpey?
MRS. TARPEY. I heard no news at all.

TIM CASEY. Some dispute I suppose it was that rose between Jack
Smith and Bartley Fallon, and it seems Jack made off, and Bartley is
following him with a hayfork!
MRS. TARPEY. Is