MRS PETERS:  Not—­just that way.

SHERIFF:  (chuckling) Married to the law. (moves toward the other room) I just want you to come in here a minute, George.  We ought to take a look at these windows.

COUNTY ATTORNEY:  (scoffingly) Oh, windows!

SHERIFF:  We’ll be right out, Mr Hale.

(HALE goes outside.  The SHERIFF follows the COUNTY ATTORNEY into the other room.  Then MRS HALE rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at MRS PETERS, whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting MRS HALE_’s.  A moment_ MRS HALE holds her, then her own eyes point the way to where the box is concealed.  Suddenly MRS PETERS throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing.  It is too big.  She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless.  Sound of a knob turning in the other room.  MRS HALE snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat.  Enter COUNTY ATTORNEY and SHERIFF.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY:  (facetiously) Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it.  She was going to—­what is it you call it, ladies?

MRS HALE:  (her hand against her pocket) We call it—­knot it, Mr Henderson.

(CURTAIN)

THE OUTSIDE

First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights’ Theatre,
December 28, 1917.

CAPTAIN (of ‘The Bars’ Life-Saving Station)

BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)

TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)

MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)

ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)

SCENE:  A room in a house which was once a life-saving station.  Since ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a place which no one cares either to preserve or change.  It is painted the life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness.  This is one end of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the frame work from which the boat once swung.  About two thirds of the back wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the woods.  At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which form the outer uneven rim of the woods—­the only things that grow in the sand.  At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods.  This old life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes are hills and strange forms of