The Gardener's Son (4 page)

D
R
P
ERCEVAL
We have every confidence of success, Mam. During the late war I removed over one thousand limbs. I was called in on the most difficult cases. . . .

Interior. Inside door of Robert McEvoy's room. The door opens and the doctor enters, leaving his assistant Willis framed in the doorway. The assistant is a huge and solemn black. They begin setting up their equipment, the black fitting the pump for the carbolic spray. Mrs Gregg comes to the door. The doctor and his man are donning butchers aprons. Robert McEvoy turns his face to the wall. The doctor's assistant approaches him with a bottle of chloroform arid a pad. He dampens the pad and claps it over the boys mouth and nose. The boy struggles and flails. The doctor helps to hold him and after a while he is still. Mrs Gregg's face is a curious expression of concern touched with a morbid if not salacious curiosity. The doctor lays out his surgical instruments and they glitter in the lamplight as he places them in an enameled pan of dilute carbolic acid.

Interior. Martha McEvoy is standing in the kitchen door at the end of the hall. The door to Robert's room opens and the black emerges and goes down the hall with the boy's leg wrapped in a sheet under his arm. Mrs Gregg comes from the room and sees the girl standing there. They stare at each other.

Exterior. Day. A church bell tolling. Mrs Gregg in mourning is helped into her carriage by her son James and they set out behind the horsedrawn hearse up the dirt street through the middle of the town. The way is lined with townspeople. They pass the McEvoy house where Robert watches from a window. He looks pale and wasted and he watches the funeral with no expression at all.

Exterior. The Graniteville cemetery. The body of William Gregg lies in its casket beside a new dug grave. Flowers surround. People are taking their places and whispering and a large man in a black suit is standing by with his hands crossed at his waist waiting to begin. When all are settled he addresses the crowd:

S
PEAKER
Friends. Neighbors. We are gathered together here today at a most solemn and sad occasion. The man whose earthly remains lie here, and whose spirit we commend to a just God, has been a guiding force in the lives of nearly every one of us.

William Gregg was all his life an example of the virtue of hard work. He was himself born in indigent circumstances and was thrown upon his own resources at an early age. By force of his own character, by the habits of energy and industry and perseverance, he acquired for himself a fair share of the world’s wealth and some of its honors. But the crowning glory of his life and the true benefactors of his labors are here in the community which he established.

There are many among us today who can remember what life held in the way of promise before this man came among us. Too many of us were raised in hunger and poverty to ever forget. To see what he has wrought, the neat homes, the churches and schools, the gardens and the lovely grounds and last but not least the massive factory structure with its beautiful and perfect machinery, these things seem created almost by magic.

Mr Gregg was not the millionaire that common rumor made him. He was too good a citizen not to have lost heavily in the great disaster which has befallen our land. When a man works as he did for the common good the results of his labor will not be found in hoarded wealth, but in that increased prosperity and usefulness of those among whom he lived, which shall continue to bear fruit for generations after the first laborer himself has passed away.

Exterior. Dawn. The town, row of houses coming to life, lamps being lit, the windows projected onto the near dark in yellow squares, roosters crowing. A dog yaps. Doors open and shut. People's voices. The mill bell tolls. People are moving through the streets. Young girls, small children.

Interior. The mill. A man goes along the aisles of machinery lighting lamps with a long torch. The great wheel that turns the spindles stirs sluggishly, the belts slither and turn, the overhead shafts begin to revolve, the spindles turn. Young girls and children are taking their place at their machines. Close up of Martha McEvoy. Two young boys roughhouse at their tasks. Robert McEvoy comes down the long row through pools of lamplight and enters the office door at the end of the mill. He has a crude crutch and he moves with great grace and agility. He shuts the door and goes through into the office of the timekeeper who sits at his desk with a green eye shade and gaitered sleeves and sorts papers and sips coffee from a huge porcelain mug. When he sees McEvoy he swivels about in his chair and regards him. McEvoy leans on his crutch and looks at the timekeeper with a sort of disinterested malignity, something other than disdain.

T
IMEKEEPER
Well I reckon you’re the boy.

Robert McEvoy doesnt answer.

T
IMEKEEPER
McEvoy. That it? McEvoy?

R
OBERT
That’s it.

The timekeeper raises an eyebrow.

T
IMEKEEPER
That’s it?

McEvoy doesnt answer.

T
IMEKEEPER
Did they not learn you to sir at your home?

R
OBERT
Sir.

T
IMEKEEPER
If Mr Gregg was to hear that he’d flop in his grave like a fish, God rest his soul. Good manners are never out of place. What he used to say. Well. Tell you what. You can start in by cleanin this here place up some. Right yonder through that door and on the right is a closet and you’ll find a broom in it if I’m not bad mistaken. We’d best get the heaviest dirt out fore cotton starts to volunteer in here. Little as the roof leaks it never would grow noway.

He starts to turn back to his desk, then turns and looks at the boy again.

T
IMEKEEPER
Can you ... I mean, you can manage a broom all right caint ye? I never thought about. . .

R
OBERT
I can do anything anybody else can.

The timekeeper watches him swing through and out the door.

Interior. James Gregg's office. He looks up to see the new office boy go past his door. After a while he rises and goes out to the outer office. There is a confrontation taking place between the timekeeper and a ragged man at the door.

T
IMEKEEPER
I dont care what they told you. We are not takin on any hands.

R
AGGED
M
AN
Well they done paid our fare down here on the train to go to work.

T
IMEKEEPER
Your friends and neighbors did. Took up a contribution.

R
AGGED
M
AN
Yessir.

T
IMEKEEPER
They wont get up no purse to get you back though, will they?

R
AGGED
M
AN
I dont know.

T
IMEKEEPER
Well I do.

R
AGGED
M
AN
We never allowed we’d be goin back. They said we could come down here and go to work—put the young’uns to work. And the girls. Said we’d get a sealed house and a garden patch.

J
AMES
G
REEG
How many of you are there?

R
AGGED
M
AN
Well now, there’s at least eighteen hands. They ain’t but two of them youngerns under twelve year old. Some of them is slight for they age but I guarantee em to turn in a day’s work.

J
AMES
G
REEG
How many fares?

R
AGGED
M
AN
Fares?

J
AMES
G
REGG
We’ll need to know how many half fares and how many whole.

R
AGGED
M
AN
We was paid our fares come down here.

J
AMES
G
REEG
How many all together?

R
AGGED
M
AN
They was twenty-six of us come down.

T
IMEKEEPER
In one family?

R
AGGED
M
AN
Lord God no, not in no one family. They aint but five in my family. They’s three families of us. Some of us is cross kin.

James Gregg goes past the man to the door and looks out. Standing along the edge of the road are a band of filthy and ragged people with bales of bedding and sorry household effects, nearly all barefooted, some appearing to be albinos, a couple of emaciated hound dogs, a few crates of chickens. They are staring hungrily toward the office.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Mr Giles.

T
IMEKEEPER
Yessir.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Find out how many fares are here and make arrangements for their tickets back to wherever the hell they came from.

T
IMEKEEPER
It’s a damned outrage, Cap’n Gregg.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Well what would you do with them?

T
IMEKEEPER
I know. But it’s still a damned outrage.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Send up to the church and see if they can get them some dinner.

R
AGGED
M
AN
We aint even had no breakfast.

J
AMES
G
REGG
And get them out of here on the afternoon train.

Robert McEvoy is sweeping the floor behind them. He has left his crutch and he alternately leans on the broom to hop forward and sweeps with the broom while standing on one leg.

R
AGGED
M
AN
Cap’n you sure you aint got no place for us? We come a long way to be turned back. I mean, they showed us a dodger, said to come on.

J
AMES
G
REGG
The last bill we put out was four years ago. Mr Giles.

T
IMEKEEPER
Mrs Cornish will go crazy when she sees this lot. She said the last time she wouldnt put up with it no more.

J
AMES
G
REGG
That’s what she said the time before. Tell her some of God’s seed has fallen on barren ground.

T
IMEKEEPER
Let’s go.

Time keeper and Ragged Man go out. James Gregg watches them, then shakes his head and turns and goes back into his office past McEvoy, not looking at him. McEvoy sweeps to the door and stands leaning on the broom watching the procession of derelicts wend up the road.

Evening. Exterior of factory. Factory bell tolls the end of the day. The sound of the machinery grinds to a halt and some workers appear at the door.

Interior. The office. Martha McEvoy enters and looks about the office for Bobby. She looks into James Gregg's office and he looks up from his desk and sees her.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Can I help you?

Martha turns. She is somewhat flustered.

M
ARTHA
I was a huntin my brother.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Your brother?

M
ARTHA
Yessir.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Well come in. I mean, I dont have him, but we can talk about it.

M
ARTHA
Well, if he aint here . . .

J
AMES
G
REGG
Come on in. I wont bite. At least not hard.

Martha comes into the office. She stands nervously on the far side of the desk.

J
AMES
G
REGG
Where do they keep you hid at? I dont believe I’ve seen you before.