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CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?

BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.

CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?

BRADFORD: (With a sheepish laugh) Force of habit, I guess. We brought so many of 'em back up here, (looks around the room) And then it was kind of unfriendly down where he was—the wind spittin' the sea onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore.

TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch.

BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live here. Allie Mayo—they're both crazy—had that door open sweepin' out, and when we come along she backs off and stands lookin' at us, lookin'—Lord, I just wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot and got him away. If he did have any notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. (More genially) I wouldn't.

CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?

BRADFORD: I never saw him before.

CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore there.

BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the best night for a dory. (To TONY, boastfully) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can't. That boy's dead, Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.

BRADFORD: This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony?

TONY: I never was here before.

BRADFORD: Well, I was here before. And the old man—(Nodding toward the CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven years. Lord, the things that happened here. There've been dead ones carried through that door. Lord—the ones I've carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and—huh! 'sall over now. You ain't seen no wrecks. Don't ever think you have. I was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. There was a wreck. We got the boat that stood here down that bank. Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' station, a lady takes it for a summer residence—and then spends the winter. She's a cheerful one.

TONY: A woman—she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a woman live. On the floor there is nothing—on the wall there is nothing. Things—(trying to express it with his hands) do not hang on other things.

BRADFORD: (Imitating TONY's gesture) No—things do not hang on other things. In my opinion the woman's crazy—sittin' over there on the sand—what's she lookin' at? There ain't nothin' to see. And I know the woman that works for her's crazy—Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once, but—

(MRS PATRICK comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she is excited and angry.)

MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station any more. Just because it used to be—I don't see why you should think—This is my house! And—I want my house to myself!

CAPTAIN: Well I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving station when the sea had sent a man to it.

MRS PATRICK: I don't want him here! I— I must have my house to myself!

CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in this house, Mrs Patrick—I believe that's your name—and if there's any chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me!

MRS PATRICK: (In a thin wild way) I must have my house to myself.

CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman!

MRS PATRICK: I—I don't want them here! I must—

(But suddenly she retreats, and is gone.)

BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want folks to die? A crazy fish—that's what I call the woman. I've seen her—day after day—settin' over there where the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. I believe she likes to see the sand slippin' down on the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess. Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no. It might make somebody feel better. Want me now, Capt'n?

CAPTAIN: No.

BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.

Citation: Susan Glaspell, The Outside, Public domain, 1917.

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