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DR. JONATHAN

By Winston Churchill


A Play in Three Acts

PREFACE




This play was written during the war. But owing to the fact that several
managers politely declined to produce it, it has not appeared on any
stage. Now, perhaps, its theme is more timely, more likely to receive
the attention it deserves, when the smoke of battle has somewhat cleared.
Even when the struggle with Germany and her allies was in progress it was
quite apparent to the discerning that the true issue of the conflict was
one quite familiar to American thought, of self-determination. On
returning from abroad toward the end of 1917 I ventured into print with
the statement that the great war had every aspect of a race with
revolution. Subliminal desires, subliminal fears, when they break down
the censor of law, are apt to inspire fanatical creeds, to wind about
their victims the flaming flag of a false martyrdom. Today it is on the
knees of the gods whether the insuppressible impulses for human freedom
that come roaring up from the subliminal chaos, fanned by hunger and
hate, are to thrash themselves out in anarchy and insanity, or to take an
ordered, intelligent and conscious course. Of the Twentieth Century,
industrial democracy is the watchword, even as political democracy was
the watchword of the two centuries that preceded it. Economic power is
at last realized to be political power. No man owns himself, no woman
owns herself if the individual is not economically free. Perhaps the
most encouraging omen of the day is the fact that many of our modern
employers, and even our modern financiers and bankers seem to be
recognizing this truth, to be growing aware of the danger to civilization
of its continued suppression. Educators and sociologists may supply the
theories; but by experiment, by trial and error,--yes, and by prayer,
--the solution must be found in the practical domain of industry.





DR. JONATHAN

ACT I

SCENE:
The library of ASHER PINDAR'S house in Foxon Falls, a New England
village of some three thousand souls, over the destinies of which
the Pindars for three generations have presided. It is a large,
dignified room, built early in the nineteenth century, with white
doors and gloss woodwork. At the rear of the stage,--which is the
front of the house,--are three high windows with small, square panes
of glass, and embrasures into which are fitted white inside
shutters. These windows reach to within a foot or so of the floor;
a person walking on the lawn or the sidewalk just beyond it may be
seen through them. The trees bordering the Common are also seen
through these windows, and through a gap in the foliage a glimpse of
the terraced steeple of the Pindar Church, the architecture of which
is of the same period as the house. Upper right, at the end of the
wall, is a glass door looking out on the lawn. There is another
door, lower right, and a door, lower left, leading into ASHER
PINDAR'S study. A marble mantel, which holds a clock and certain
ornaments, is just beyond this door. The wall spaces on the right
and left are occupied by high bookcases filled with respectable
volumes in calf and dark cloth bindings. Over the mantel is an
oil painting of the Bierstadt school, cherished by ASHER as an
inheritance from his father, a huge landscape with a self-conscious
sky, mountains, plains, rivers and waterfalls, and two small figures
of Indians--who seem to have been talking to a missionary. In the
spaces between the windows are two steel engravings, "The Death of
Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham" and "Washington Crossing the
Delaware!" The furniture, with the exception of a few heirlooms,
such as the stiff sofa, is mostly of the Richardson period of the
'80s and '90s. On a table, middle rear, are neatly spread out
several conservative magazines and periodicals, including a
religious publication.

TIME: A bright morning in October, 1917,


GEORGE PINDAR, in the uniform of a first lieutenant of the army,
enters by the doorway, upper right. He is a well set up young man
of about twenty-seven, bronzed from his life in a training camp, of
an adventurous and social nature. He glances about the room, and
then lights a cigarette.

ASHER PINDAR, his father, enters, lower right. He is a tall,
strongly built man of about sixty, with iron grey hair and beard.
His eyes are keen, shadowed by bushy brows, and his New England
features bear the stamp of inflexible "character." He wears a black
"cutaway" coat and dark striped trousers; his voice is strong and
resonant. But he is evidently preoccupied and worried, though he
smiles with affection as he perceives GEORGE. GEORGE'S fondness for
him is equally apparent.

GEORGE. Hello, dad.

ASHER. Oh, you're here, George.

GEORGE (looking, at ASHER). Something troubling you?

ASHER (attempting dissimulation). Well, you're going off to France,
they've only given you two days' leave, and I've scarcely seen anything
of you. Isn't that enough?

GEORGE. I know how busy you've been with that government contract on
your hands. I wish I could help.

ASHER. You're in the army now, my boy. You can help me again when you
come back.

GEORGE. I want to get time to go down to the shops and say goodbye to
some of the men.

ASHER. No, I shouldn't do that, George.

GEORGE (surprised). Why not? I used to be pretty chummy with them, you
know,--smoke a pipe with them occasionally in the noon hour.

ASHER. I know. But it doesn't do for an employer to be too familiar
with the hands in these days.

GEORGE. I guess I've got a vulgar streak in me somewhere, I get along
with the common people. There'll be lots of them in the trenches, dad.

ASHER. Under military discipline.

GEORGE (laughing). We're supposed to be fighting a war for democracy.
I was talking to old Bains yesterday,--he's still able to run a lathe,
and he was in the Civil War, you know. He was telling me how the boys in
his regiment stopped to pick blackberries on the way to the battle of
Bull Run.

ASHER. That's democracy! It's what we're doing right now--stopping to
pick blackberries. This country's been in the war six months, since
April, and no guns, no munitions, a handful of men in France--while the
world's burning!

GEORGE. Well, we won't sell Uncle Sam short yet. Something is bothering
you, dad.

ASHER. No--no, but the people in Washington change my specifications
every week, and Jonathan's arriving today, of all days.

GEORGE. Has Dr. Jonathan turned up?

ASHER. I haven't seen him yet. It seems he got here this morning. No
telegram, nothing. And he had his house fixed up without consulting me.
He must be queer, like his father, your great uncle, Henry Pindar.

GEORGE. Tell me about Dr. Jonathan. A scientist,--isn't he? Suddenly
decided to come back to live in the old homestead.

ASHER. On account of his health. He was delicate as a boy. He must
have been about eight or nine years old when Uncle Henry left Foxon Falls
for the west,--that was before you were born. Uncle Henry died somewhere
in Iowa. He and my father never got along. Uncle Henry had as much as
your grandfather to begin with, and let it slip through his fingers. He
managed to send Jonathan to a medical school, and it seems that he's had
some sort of a position at Johns Hopkins's--research work. I don't know
what he's got to live on.

GEORGE. Uncle Henry must have been a philanthropist.

ASHER. It's all very well to be a philanthropist when you make more than
you give away. Otherwise you're a sentimentalist.

GEORGE. Or a Christian.

ASHER. We can't take Christianity too literally.

GEORGE (smiling). That's its great advantage, as a religion.

ASHER. George, I don't like to say anything just as you're going to
fight for your country, my boy, but your attitude of religious skepticism
has troubled me, as well as your habit of intimacy with the shop hands.
I confess to you that I've been a little afraid at times that you'd take
after Jonathan's father. He never went to church, he forgot that he owed
something to his position as a Pindar. He used to have that house of his
overrun with all sorts of people, and the yard full of dirty children
eating his fruit and picking his flowers. There's such a thing as being
too democratic. I hope I'm as good an American as anybody, I believe
that any man with brains, who has thrift, ought to rise--but wait until
they do rise. You're going to command men, and when you come back here
into the business again you'll be in a position of authority. Remember
what I say, if you give these working people an inch, they'll take all
you have.

GEORGE (laying his hand on ASHER's shoulder). Something is worrying you,
dad. We've always been pretty good pals, haven't we?

ASHER. Yes, ever since you were a little shaver. Well, George, I didn't
want to bother you with it--today. It seems there's trouble in the
shops,--in our shops, of all places,--it's been going on for some time,
grumbling, dissatisfaction, and they're getting higher wages than ever
before--ruinous wages. They want me to recognize the union.

GEORGE. Well, that beats me. I thought we were above the labour-trouble
line, away up here in New England.

ASHER (grimly). Oh, I can handle them.

GEORGE. I'll bet you can. You're a regular old war horse when you get
started. It's your capital, it's your business, you've put it all at the
disposal of the government. What right have they to kick up a row now,
with this war on? I must say I haven't any sympathy with that.

ASHER (proudly). I guess you're a real Pindar after all, George.

(Enter an elderly maid, lower right.)

MAID. Timothy Farrell, the foreman's here,

(Enter, lower right, TIMOTHY, a big Irishman of about sixty, in
working clothes.)

TIMOTHY. Here I am, sir. They're after sending word you wanted me.

GEORGE (going up to TIMOTHY and shaking his hand warmly). Old Timothy!
I'm glad to get sight of you before I go.

TIMOTHY. And it's glad I am to see you, Mr. George, before you leave.
And he an officer now! Sure, I mind him as a baby being wheeled up and
down under the trees out there. My boy Bert was saying only this morning
how we'd missed the sight of him in the shops this summer. You have a
way with the men, Mr. George, of getting into their hearts, like. I was
thinking just now, if Mr. George had only been home, in the shops, maybe
we wouldn't be having all this complaint and trouble.

GEORGE. Who's at the bottom of this, Timothy? Rench? Hillman? I
thought so. Well, they're not bad chaps when you get under their skins.

(He glances at his wrist watch)

Let me go down and talk with them, dad,--I've got time, my train doesn't
leave until one thirty.

ASHER (impatiently, almost savagely). No, I'll settle this, George, this
is my job. I won't have any humoring. Come into my study, Timothy.

TIMOTHY, shaking his head, follows ASHER out of the door, left.

After a moment GEORGE goes over to the extreme left hand corner of
the room, where several articles are piled. He drags out a kit bag,
then some necessary wearing apparel, underclothes, socks, a sweater,
etc., then a large and rather luxurious lunch kit, a pin cushion.
with his monogram, a small travelling pillow with his monogram, a
linen toilet case embroidered in blue, to hang on the wall--these
last evidently presents from admiring lady friends. Finally he
brings forth a large rubber life preserving suit. He makes a show
of putting all these things in the bag, including the life-
preserving suit; and reveals a certain sentiment, not too deep, for
the pillow, the pincushion and the toilet case. At length he strews
everything over the floor, and is surveying the litter with mock
despair when a girl appears on the lawn outside, through one of the
windows. She throws into the room a small parcel wrapped in tissue
paper, and disappears. GEORGE picks up the parcel and looks
surprised, and suddenly runs out of the door, upper right. He
presently returns, dragging the girl by the wrists, she resisting.

MINNIE FARRELL is about twenty one, with black hair and an abundant
vitality. Her costume is a not wholly ineffective imitation of
those bought at a great price at certain metropolitan
establishments. A string of imitation pearls gleams against her
ruddy skin.

MINNIE. Cut it out, George! (Glancing around apprehensively.) Say, if
your mother was to find me here she'd want to send me up to the
reformatory (she frees herself).

GEORGE. Where the deuce did you blow in from? (Regarding her with
admiration.) Is this the little Minnie Farrell who left Foxon Falls two
years ago? Gee whiz! aren't we smart!

MINNIE. Do you like me? I'm making good money, since the war.

GEORGE. Do I like you? What are you doing here?

MINNIE. My brother Bert's out there--he ain't working today. Mr. Pindar
sent for father, and we walked up here with him. Where is he?

GEORGE (nodding toward the study). In there. But what are you doing,
back in Foxon Falls?

MINNIE. Oh, visiting the scenes of my childhood.

GEORGE (tearing open the tissue paper from the parcel). Did you make
these for me?
(He holds up a pair of grey woollen wristlets.)

MINNIE. Well, I wanted to do something for a soldier, and when I heard
you was going to France I thought you might as well have 'em.

GEORGE. How did you hear I was going?

MINNIE. Bert told me when I came home yesterday. They say it's cold in
the trenches, and nothing keeps the hands so warm as wristlets. I know,
because I've had 'em on winter mornings, early, when I was going to work.
Will you wear 'em, George?

GEORGE. Will I wear them! (He puts then on his wrists.) I'll never take
them off till the war's over.

MINNIE (pleased). You always were a josher!

GEORGE. Tell me, Minnie, why did you run away from me two years ago?

MINNIE. Run away from you! I left because I couldn't stand this village
any longer. It was too quiet for me.

GEORGE. You're a josher! You went off while I was away, without telling
me you were going. And then, when I found out where you were and hustled
over to Newcastle in my car, you turned me down hard.

MINNIE. You didn't have a mortgage on me. There were plenty of girls of
your own kind at that house party you went to. I guess you made love to
them, too.

GEORGE. They weren't in the same class with you. You've got the ginger.

MINNIE. I've still got the ginger, all right.

GEORGE. I thought you cared for me.

MINNIE. You always had the nerve, George.

GEORGE. You acted as if you did.

MINNIE. I'm a good actor. Say, what was there in it for me?--packing
tools in the Pindar shops, and you the son of my boss? You didn't want
nothing from me except what all men want, and you wouldn't have wanted
that long.

GEORGE. I was crazy about you.

MINNIE (her eyes falling on the travelling pillow and the pincushion;
picking theron: up in turn). I guess you told them that, too.

GEORGE (embarrassed). Oh, I'm popular enough when I'm going away. They
don't care anything about me.

MINNIE (indicating the wristlets). You don't want them,--I'll give 'em
to Bert.

GEORGE. No, you won't.

MINNIE. I was silly. But we had a good time while it lasted,--didn't
we, George?

(She evades him deftly, and picks up the life-preserving suit.)

What's this?--a full dress uniform?

GEORGE. When a submarine gets you, all you've got to do is to jump
overboard and blow this--

(He draws the siren from the pocket and starts to blow it, but she
seizes his hand.)

--and float around until a destroyer picks you up.

(Takes from another pocket a metal lunch box.)

This is for pate de foie gras sandwiches, and there's room in here--

(Indicating another pocket.)

--for a bottle of fizz. Come along with me, Minnie, ship as a Red Cross
nurse, and I'll buy you one. The Atlantic wouldn't be such a bad place,
with you,--and we wouldn't be in a hurry to blow the siren. You'd look
like a peach in a white costume, too.

MINNIE. Don't you like me in this?

GEORGE. Sure, but I'd like that better.

MINNIE. I'd make a good nurse, if I do say it myself. And I'd take good
care of you, George,--as good as any of them.

(She nods toward the pillow and pincushion.)

GEORGE. Better!

(He seizes her hands and attempts to draw her toward him.)

You used to let me!

MINNIE. That ain't any reason.

GEORGE. Just once, Minnie,--I'm going away.

MINNIE. No. I didn't mean to come in here--I just wanted to see what
you looked like in your uniform.

(She draws away from him, just as Dr. JONATHAN appears in the
doorway, lower right.)

Goodbye, George.

(She goes out through the doorway, upper right.)

(DR. JONATHAN may be almost any age,--in reality about thirty five.
His head is that of the thinker, high above the eyes. His face
bears evidence in its lines of years of labour and service, as well
as of a triumphant struggle against ill health. In his eyes is a
thoughtful yet illuminating smile, now directed toward GEORGE who,
when he perceives him, is taken aback,)

DR. JONATHAN. Hello! I was told to come in here,--I hope I'm not
intruding.

GEORGE. Not at all. How--how long have you been here?

DR. JONATHAN. Just long enough to get my bearings. I came this morning.

GEORGE. Oh! Are you--are you Dr. Jonathan?

DR. JONATHAN. I'm Jonathan. And you're George, I suppose.

GEORGE. Yes. (He goes to him and shakes hands.) I'm sorry to be leaving
just as you come.

DR. JONATHAN. I'll be here when you return.

GEORGE. I hope so (a pause). You won't find Foxon Falls a bad old town.

DR. JONATHAN. And it will be a better one when you come back.

GEORGE. Why do you say that?

DR. JONATHAN (smiling). It seems a safe conjecture.

(Dr. JONATHAN is looking at the heap of articles on the floor.)

GEORGE (grinning, and not quite at ease). You might imagine I was
embarking in the gent's furnishing business, instead of going to war.
(He picks up the life-preserving suit.) Some friend of mother's told her
about this, and she insisted upon sending for it. I don't want to hurt
her feelings, but I can't take it, of course.

(He rolls it up and thrusts it under the sofa, upper left.)

You won't give me away?

DR. JONATHAN. Never!

GEORGE. Dad ought to be here in a minute, he's in there with old Timothy
Farrell, the moulder foreman. It seems that things are in a mess at the
shops. Rotten of the men to make trouble now--don't you think?--when the
country's at war! Darned unpatriotic, I say.

DR. JONATHAN. I saw a good many stars in your service flag as I passed
the office door this morning.

GEORGE. Yes. Over four hundred of our men have enlisted. I don't
understand it.

DR. JONATHAN. Perhaps you will, George, when you come home.

GEORGE. You mean--

(GEORGE is interrupted by the entrance, lower right, of his mother,
AUGUSTA PINDAR. She is now in the fifties, and her hair is turning
grey. Her uneventful, provincial existence as ASHER'S wife has
confirmed and crystallized her traditional New England views, her
conviction that her mission is to direct for good the lives of the
less fortunate by whom she is surrounded. She carries her knitting
in her hand,--a pair of socks for GEORGE. And she goes at once to
DR. JONATHAN.)

AUGUSTA. So you are Jonathan. They told me you'd arrived--why didn't
you come to us? Do you think it's wise to live in that old house of your
father's before it's been thoroughly heated for a few days?

DR. JONATHAN (taking her hand). Oh, I'm going to live with the doors and
windows open.

AUGUSTA. Dear me! I understand you've been quite ill, and you were
never very strong as a child. I made it my business to go through the
house yesterday, and I must say it looks comfortable. But the carpenters
and plumbers have ruined the parlour, with that bench, and the sink in
the corner. What are you going to do there?

DR. JONATHAN. I'm having it made into a sort of laboratory.

AUGUSTA. You don't mean to say you intend to do any work!

DR. JONATHAN. Work ought to cure me, in this climate.

AUGUSTA. You mean to practise medicine? You ought to have consulted us.
I'm afraid you won't find it remunerative, Jonathan,--but your father was
impractical, too. Foxon Falls is still a small place, in spite of the
fact that the shops have grown. Workmen's families can't afford to pay
big fees, you know.

DR. JONATHAN (smiling). I know.

AUGUSTA. And we already have an excellent physician here, Dr. Senn.

DR. JONATHAN. I shan't interfere with Dr. Senn.

GEORGE (laying his hand on AUGUSTA's shoulder: apologetically). Mother
feels personally responsible for every man, woman and child in Foxon
Falls. I shouldn't worry about Dr. Jonathan if I were you, mother, I've
got a notion he can take care of himself.

AUGUSTA (a little baffled by DR. JONATHAN's self-command, sits down and
begins to knit). I must get these socks finished for you to take with
you, my dear. (To DR. JONATHAN) I can't realize he's going! (To GEORGE)
You haven't got all your things in your bag! Where's the life-preserving
suit I sent for?

GEORGE (glancing at DR. JONATHAN). Oh that's gone, mother.

AUGUSTA. He always took cold so easily, and that will keep him warm and
dry, if those terrible Germans sink his ship. But your presents, George!
(To DR. JONATHAN:) Made for him by sisters of his college friends.

GEORGE (amused but embarrassed). I can't fit up a section of the
trenches as a boudoir.

AUGUSTA. Such nice girls! I wish he'd marry one of them. Who made you
the wristlets? I hadn't seen them.

GEORGE (taking of the wristlets and putting them in his bag). Oh, I
can't give her away. I was--just trying them on, to see if they fitted.

AUGUSTA. When did they come?

GEORGE (glancing at DR. JONATHAN). Er--this morning.

(Enter ASHER and TIMOTHY from the study, left. ASHER is evidently
wrought up from his talk with TIMOTHY.)

ASHER. Remember, Timothy, I rely on sensible men like you to put a stop
to this nonsense.

AUGUSTA. Asher, here's Jonathan.

ASHER. Oh! (He goes up to DR. JONATHAN and takes his hand, though it is
quite evident that his mind is still on the trouble in the shops). Glad
to see you back in Foxon Falls, Jonathan. I heard you'd arrived, and
would have dropped in on you, but things are in a muddle here just now.

DR. JONATHAN. Not only here, but everywhere.

ASHER. You're right. The country's going to the dogs. I don't know
what will straighten it out.

DR. JONATHAN. Intelligence, open-mindedness, cooperation, Asher.

ASHER (arrested: looking at him). Hum!

DR. JONATHAN (leaving him and going up to TIMOTHY). You don't remember
me, Timothy?

TIMOTHY. Sure and I do, sir,--though you were only a little lad. You
mind me of your father,--your smile, like. He was the grand, simple man!
It's happy I am to see you back in Foxon Falls.

DR. JONATHAN. Yes, I've been ordered to the rear.

TIMOTHY. The rear, is it? I'm thinking we'll be fighting this war in
Foxon Falls, too.

DR. JONATHAN. Yes, much of it will be fought behind the battle lines.

AUGUSTA. You think the Germans will come over here?

DR. JONATHAN. No, but the issue is over here already.

(DR. JONATHAN picks up her ball of wool, which has fallen to the
floor.)

AUGUSTA (looking at him apprehensively: puzzled). Thank you, Jonathan.

(She turns to TIMOTHY, who has started toward the door, lower right)

Wait a moment, Timothy, I want to ask you about your children. What do
you hear from Minnie? I always took an interest in her, you know,
--especially when she was in the tool packing department of the shops,
and I had her in my Bible class. I appreciated your letting her come,
--an Irishman and a Catholic as you are.

TIMOTHY. The Church has given me up as a heathen, ma'am, when I married
your cook, and she a Protestant.

AUGUSTA. I've been worried about Minnie since she went to Newcastle.
She has so much vitality, and I'm afraid she's pleasure loving though she
seemed to take to religion with her whole soul. And where's Jamesy?

TIMOTHY. Jamesy, is it? It's gone to the bad entirely he is, with the
drink. He left the shops when the twelve-hour shifts began--wherever
he's at now. It's home Minnie came from Newcastle yesterday, ma'am, for
a visit,--she's outside there now, with Bert,--they walked along with me.

AUGUSTA. Bring them in, I want to see them,--especially Minnie. I must
say I'm surprised she should have come home without calling on me.

TIMOTHY. I'll get them, ma'am.

(He goes out of the door, upper right. GEORGE, who has been
palpably ill at ease during this conversation, now makes for the
door, lower right.)

AUGUSTA. Where are you going, my dear?

GEORGE (halting). I thought I'd look around and see if I'd forgotten
anything, mother.

AUGUSTA. Stay with us,--there's plenty of time.

(TIMOTHY returns through the doorway, upper right, with BERT, but
without MINNIE.)

TIMOTHY. It's disappeared entirely she is, ma'am,--here one minute and
there the next, the way with young people nowadays. And she's going back
to Newcastle this afternoon, to her job at the Wire Works.

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