IRA:  The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now—­eyes gone—­and the world he died for all hate and war.  Waste.  Waste.  Nothin’ but waste—­the life of this house.  Why, folks to-day’d laugh to hear my father talk.  He gave his best land for ideas to live.  Thought was going to make us a better people.  What was his word? (waits) Aspiration. (says it as if it is a far-off thing) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan.  Kicked from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (laughs) His ‘aspiration’ puts him in a hole on bread and water!  So—­mind your own business, that’s all that’s so in this country. (constantly tormented anew) Oh, I told your brother all that—­the night I tried to keep him.  Told him about his mother—­to show what come of running to other folks.  And he said—­standing right there—­(pointing) eyes all bright, he said, ‘Golly, I think that’s great!’ And then he—­walked out of this house. (fear takes him) Madeline! (she stoops over him, her arm around him) Don’t you leave me—­all alone in this house—­where so many was once.  What’s Hindus—­alongside your own father—­and him needing you?  It won’t be long.  After a little I’ll be dead—­or crazy—­or something.  But not here alone where so many was once.

MADELINE:  Oh—­father.  I don’t know what to do.

IRA:  Nothing stays at home.  Not even the corn stays at home.  If only the wind wouldn’t blow!  Why can’t I have my field to myself?  Why can’t I keep what’s mine?  All these years I’ve worked to make it better.  I wanted it to be—­the most that it could be.  My father used to talk about the Indians—­how our land was their land, and how we must be more than them.  He had his own ideas of bein’ more—­well, what’s that come to?  The Indians lived happier than we—­wars, strikes, prisons.  But I’ve made the corn more!  This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn—­I’d like to have the Indians see my corn!  I’d like to see them side by side!—­their Indian maize, my corn.  And how’d I get it?  Ah, by thinkin’—­always tryin’, changin’, carin’.  Plant this corn by that corn, and the pollen blows from corn to corn—­the golden dust it blows, in the sunshine and of nights—­blows from corn to corn like a—­(the word hurts) gift.  No, you don’t understand it, but (proudly) corn don’t stay what it is!  You can make it anything—­according to what you do, ’cording to the corn it’s alongside. (changing) But that’s it.  I want it to stay in my field.  It goes away.  The prevailin’ wind takes it on to the Johnsons—­them Swedes that took my Madeline!  I hear it!  Oh, nights when I can’t help myself—­and in the sunshine I can see it—­pollen—­soft golden dust to make new life—­goin’ on to them,—­and them too ignorant to know what’s makin’ their corn better!  I want my field to myself.  What’d I work all my life for?  Work that’s had to take the place o’ what I lost—­is that to go to Emil Johnson?  No!  The wind shall stand still!  I’ll make it.  I’ll find a way.  Let me alone and I—­I’ll think it out.  Let me alone, I say.