Welcomeby Richard Stuart Dixon
© Richard Stuart Dixon, 2002
(Note: Performance of this play requires the author’s permission. Please contact Good School Plays for details.)
Production Notes:
• running time: approx. 50 minutes.
• style: ensemble presentation
• suitable for general audiences
• 21 characters (10 female, 11 male)
• black-box staging (no set required)
In the Gleneagle Secondary School production, the entire cast was on stage at all times, at various levels, in ensemble. They maintained perfect stillness unless in direct action or reaction. Gunshots were made from offstage by hitting a wooden board hard with a pair of hammers. Songs were sung or hummed at various points:
“Praise to the Lord”……sung at the beginning of the play…first verse by Salome and Delilah, second verse by all the female cast, third verse by entire cast. First verse sung by entire cast after last line was spoken by Reverend Dearborn.
“Early One Morning”….hummed by Salome
“The River is Wide”…hummed by Salome
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”…hummed by Salome and Delilah
“The Minstrel Boy”…hummed by Salome
“Barbara Allen”…hummed by Salome
“Drink to Me Only” hummed by Salome and Delilah
Summary of Script Content:
• “Shiloh” is set in a small town during the American Civil War. A Rebel deserter hides in the forest near the town, and falls in love with the widow of a Union soldier killed at the Battle of Shiloh.
(This play was first performed in March, 2002, at Gleneagle Secondary School in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada.)
Go to:
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
Scene 7
Scene 8
Scene 9
Scene 10
Scene 11
Scene 12
Scene 13
Scene 14
Scene 15
Scene 16
CHARACTERS:
Amelia Beauchamps, war widow
Judith Nazareth, war widow
Rachel Fern, war widow
Elija Bottle, a farmer
Phebiola Bottle, wife of Elija Bottle
Michael Levi, owner of a general store
Theresa Levi, wife of Michael Levi
Salome Levi, daughter of Michael and Theresa Levi
Samuel Comfort, a blind veteran
Hannah Comfort, farmer, wife of Samuel Comfort
Alistair Carp, a blacksmith
Delilah Carp, daughter of Alistair Carp
Euphrates Sharp, a hunter
Martha Prayer, an old healer
Malachai Torgrimson, mayor of Seven Angels
Reverend Joseph Dearborn, minister of Seven Angels Church
Zebediah Parrot, a banker
Daniel Lamb, a deserter
Jennings Beauchamps, a dead soldier
Thomas Nazareth, a dead soldier
Jack Fern, a dead soldier.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 1:
(A meeting house in the town of Seven Angels in 1862. The living and the dead are gathered in a ritual of expiation.)
DANIEL LAMB
Stinking gunpowder clouds boil and billow, bullets smack the earth. Screaming gut shot man I know rages with crimson hands. Shell tossed clods whack, muskets crack…my hands are soft flesh, my eyes soft grapes, my brain grey mush served by army cooks at breakfast. A horse…blood pumps from its neck searching for the head that’s gone…a river to nothing…we are gathered at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river.
SAMUEL COMFORT
At the Battle of Bull Run, my eyes got stabbed by jagged iron.
HANNAH COMFORT
Tiny hateful daggers of hot iron burning out his farmer’s eyes.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Samuel Comfort. Soft grape eyes poked out by war.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Samuel Comfort. Struck blind by war and made useless.
SAMUEL COMFORT
I’m good for nothing now. Can’t farm.
HANNAH COMFORT
He sits in the shade while I plow the field.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Hannah Comfort’s sharp steel is a shining plow that makes things grow.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Sam can’t help her. The war took his eyes.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
The Lord shall smite thee with madness,
and blindness,
and astonishment of heart.
CAST
Why sleepest thou, O Lord?
Arise, cast us not off forever.
Wherefore hidest thou thy face,
and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
JACK FERN
For thy sake are we killed all the day long;
we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
RACHEL FERN
My husband Jack, killed stone dead in a peach orchard at Shiloh. Twenty-two years old and just married, thrown smack on his back on the battlefield dirt, his arms thrown up like a man trying to grab hold of God, dead blue eyes staring at heaven, a thousand times more blind than Sam Comfort who came home.
SALOME LEVI
Under the tree by the cabin I saw a soldier boy in Confederate Gray, handsome and young, his eyes staring at me while I blushed.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
For God doth know that in the day you eat the fruit of the tree,
then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
CAST
And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked.
DELILAH CARP
Daddy said no, he would not go to war.
ALISTAIR CARP
Got no use for killing other men.
EUPHRATES SHARP
Alistair Carp wouldn’t kill a fly. Won’t even butcher his own livestock. I got to do it for him. My knife’s meant for hunting, but it can kill a pig quick and clean, its blood caught in a pail.
THOMAS NAZARETH
Alistair Carp’s a fine blacksmith. He can conjure hot metal into a knife blade as straight and shiny as the road to glory. When the Rebs came through Sarah Bell’s orchard, yelling like the Devil, I was wishing to god my bayonet was made from Alistair Carp’s steel.
JACK FERN
We was lined up shoulder to shoulder like a soft wall of flesh. I remembered my mother cutting the pits out of ripe peaches on Sunday. That’s us, I thought, all nice and soft, waiting to be carved.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
Them Rebs came yelling through the peach trees and the sergeant yells to fire and my Springfield kicks back against my shoulder but I don’t hear a thing. Not a damn thing. There was so much noise it was silent.
DELILAH CARP
Daddy walked through the silent trees out back of the house and swore at God for making a war.
ALISTAIR CARP
Don’t want no one but God to hear me cuss and see me spit into the wind.
MARTHA PRAYER
Alistair Carp’s as stubborn as a lame mule, and that’s why he’s not dead. I can heal a mule with a busted leg, but I can’t make a dead man live.
ZEBEDIAH PARROT
And he pays his mortgage on time. Comes into the bank and puts down the cash, not a scratch on his body from the bullets that killed Rachel Fern’s husband Jack, who still owes me three hundred dollars.
ALISTAIR CARP
I pay my bills on time. Can’t do that if I’m dead from a bullet fired by a man I don’t even know.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Now that’s a fact. And bills have got to be paid. All kinds of bills.
JUDITH NAZARETH
An unpaid bill is an open wound that won’t heal. A bill’s got to be paid in full.
THERESA LEVI
Paid in full, Elija Bottle. Did you hear that?
ELIJA BOTTLE
I pay your husband on time, Theresa Levi. And I’m alive to do it.
MICHAEL LEVI
She’s not talking about groceries and hardware, Elija.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Then just what is she talking about, Mr. Levi?
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Phebiola Bottle, sitting there like she’s got nothing to do with it.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Like she and her dirt farmer husband got nothing to feel guilty about.
ELIJA BOTTLE
You so clean and clear, Judith Nazareth? You so free from blood, steel, and fire that you can tell me to feel guilty?
JUDITH NAZARETH
Don’t you start preaching at me, Elija Bottle, with your hard little eyes staring like two lead bullets.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Your conscience clear, Amelia Beauchamps?
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Clear and calm as the cool water sitting in the horse trough in front of this meeting house, Phebiola Bottle.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
God can tolerate anything, but his love is sorely tested when neighbours fight. The war has come home to Seven Angels, bringing fire and death into our town.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
Reverend Dearborn is saying what’s needed to be said. We’ve been bleeding our life’s work into the gutter of hate. But now the season of healing is come upon us.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
CAST
A time to rend, and a time to sew.
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate.
A time of war, and a time of peace.
End of Scene 1.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 2:
DANIEL LAMB
Panic. Can’t breathe. A shell slams into the earth and blows me off my feet. Am I dead? Henry’s arm is gone but his eyes blaze life in his grey face. I’m rolling away, rolling, scuffling through smoke, dirt, splintered trees, a smashed gun carriage. I find my footing, get up, stagger away. An officer jumps at me, screaming, grabs my tunic, drives his fist into my face. I shove him away and run. And run. Running. You know you’re alive when you run. And the preacher’s voice rings in my head, the accusation, the condemnation.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
“What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood.”
(SALOME LEVI and DELILAH CARP move downstage.)
SALOME LEVI
Delilah took me to see him. Up near the trapper’s cabin. She told me it was a secret.
DELILAH CARP
I found him. Under a tree. He was asleep. He looked like a fallen angel.
SALOME LEVI
His eyes fell upon me, and I became still in the light of his attention, the blood rising to my cheeks.
DELILAH CARP
We took him to the cabin, and brought him food. He had run away from the rebel army, from the guns and the blood.
SALOME LEVI
I became still, the blood rising to my cheeks.
DELILAH CARP
He had a piece of metal lodged in his upper arm. Salome and I went to see old Martha Prayer who knows how to heal.
(MARTHA PRAYER move downstage.)
DELILAH CARP
Mrs. Prayer, why do men make war?
MARTHA PRAYER
Men fight wars because they’re frightened, and women let them do it, Delilah Carp.
SALOME LEVI
What are they afraid of, Mrs. Prayer?
MARTHA PRAYER
They’re afraid of love, Salome Levi. Fear of love makes them dangerous. It makes them kill.
DELILAH CARP
Men aren’t afraid to love women.
MARTHA PRAYER
That’s not love, Delilah. That’s nature. And nature’s pure but cold.
SALOME LEVI
What is love, Mrs. Prayer?
MARTHA PRAYER
Love is kindness, Salome. That’s all.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
She openeth her mouth with wisdom;
and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
DELILAH CARP
Mrs. Prayer, there’s a rebel deserter up in Euphrates Sharp’s trapper cabin. He’s got a piece of steel in his arm. Will you help him?
MARTHA PRAYER
A deserter?
SALOME LEVI
He ran from the guns, Mrs. Prayer. He came to me…I mean us, Delilah and me…
DELILAH CARP
He’s just a boy…
MARTHA PRAYER
Take me to him.
(They return to the tableau.)
JOSEPH DEARBORN
Heal the broken and the weak, laugh not a lame man to scorn, defend the maimed, and let the blind man come into the sight of my clearness.
CAST
For of the most High cometh healing,
and she shall receive the honours of the king.
End of Scene 2.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 3:
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
(going downstage)
Jennings moved like a restless cat in a cage, all grace and energy and frustration. He would take me down by the river and I would watch him pace back and forth on the bank with that ‘cap and ball’ revolver of his daddy’s. He’d send me upstream with six chunks of deadfall which I would throw out onto the river, and he would shoot six times real quick. Those pieces of deadfall would split and shatter and Jennings would howl like a wildcat, his eyes all feral and shining. He’d call me over to him and I would go like an obedient kitten and he’d say, “Amelia, the river don’t ever quit running and by-and-by I got to go run with the river.” And then one day the great red river of war tore Jennings clear out of my arms
(JUDITH NAZARETH goes downstage.)
JUDITH NAZARETH
Amelia…Jennings and Thomas have enlisted.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Enlisted?
JUDITH NAZARETH
Rachel Fern just told me. Two Union recruiters rode into Seven Angels wearing fancy uniforms, waving the flag and giving away whiskey. Jack’s gone, too.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Enlisted. When will they leave?
JUDITH NAZARETH
Tonight. They’ve gone, Amelia. Gone to war.
(AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS and JUDITH NAZARETH return to the tableau and RACHEL FERN goes downstage.)
RACHEL FERN
I knew Jack was dead. I woke up from my sleeping and heard him say my name, though he was at Shiloh, far far away. I am not one who cries and I am not afraid of dying. But I carry inside me a hard knot of pain that came to me that night and has never left me. I would sit and look out my window at the hills with the leaves dying on the trees. And one clear cold day I saw those two girls going up toward Euphrates Sharp’s cabin, and the pain grew inside me. I could see in the way they moved that they were in love. And one night, I went to the cabin and found the soldier.
(She returns to the tableau.)
JOSEPH DEARBORN
And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.
CAST
Let him go and return unto his house,
Lest he die in the battle
And another man take her.
End of Scene 3.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 4:
(JACK FERN, JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS, SAMUEL COMFORT, and THOMAS NAZARETH go downstage.)
THOMAS NAZARETH
Sergeant says there’s Rebs coming through the orchard.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
That’s what we’re here for, ain’t it?
JACK FERN
Remember old Sam Comfort who come home blind from Bull Run?
THOMAS NAZARETH
Old Sam’s back with his wife, safe and warm.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
Rather be dead than blind.
JACK FERN
Rachel kept silent the day we left. Wouldn’t say nothing. Just stared at me all cold.
THOMAS NAZARETH
Judith weren’t too pleased neither, but she give me a send-off to remember. Said it’d be the last time, so we might as well make it a good time.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
Amelia come at me with the skillet, yelling about God and the Devil, and telling me I could follow the river clear to hell, for all she cared.
JACK FERN
I ain’t going to make it. I can feel that bullet right now.
THOMAS NAZARETH
There’s worse places to die than a peach orchard at blossom time.
JENNING BEAUCHAMPS
Blossoms falling like snow.
JACK FERN
And its Sunday. The Lord’s day.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the Lord, because he cometh to judge the earth.
(EUPHRATES SHARP comes downstage, takes a musket from one of the “frozen” soldiers.)
EUPHRATES SHARP
A Springfield rifled musket can kill at a range of 800 yards. I got me one last year for $20. It spits out a lead bullet called a minie ball, shoots straight, hits hard. A trained man can fire three shots in a minute, but a good hunter like me needs only one shot to bring down a deer. At Shiloh, the minie balls was flying so thick they called it “the hornets’ nest”.
SAMUEL COMFORT
The Lord thy God will send the hornets among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed.
MICHAEL LEVI
I got that Springfield for Euphrates Sharp. Took some work to do it…the army was buying up every Springfield the factory could make. She was fit to be tied when someone stole it.
EUPHRATES SHARP
One night I was feeling out of sorts, so I went out back of my house to scrape hides. While I was out there, someone stole my Springfield. I never thought I’d find it beside two folks lying dead in each other’s arms.
(She places the musket back in the hands of the frozen soldier, then all return to the tableau.)
JOSEPH DEARBORN
Thou shalt not steal.
CAST
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
End of Scene 4.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 5:
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
The mayor of Seven Angels carries the burden of the town’s building grief in his helpless heart.
ZEBEDIAH PARROT
The man who runs the bank in Seven Angels carries the unpaid debts of the dead.
MICHAEL LEVI
The merchant in Seven Angels trades with the hollow-eyed widows who beg for credit.
THERESA LEVI
And the wife of the merchant smiles in her fine clothes on Sunday.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
I could feel this trouble coming, Zebediah.
ZEBEDIAH PARROT
There’s bound to be trouble when men who owe money march off to war and get killed.
MICHAEL LEVI
My own daughter mixed up in this, my own little Salome.
THERESA LEVI
Salome running wild with that Delilah Carp, a blacksmith’s daughter…ye shall be known by the company ye keep.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
(moving downstage)
One cold night in Seven Angels I had a dream, and in the dream the people of Seven Angels were gathered in a crowd. A soldier boy in Confederate Gray walked between them, and they parted like the Red Sea. And on one side, the crowd became angels, and the on other they became devils. And the angels shone with the hot brilliance of the sun, and the devils burned with the hot fire of hell, and the boy burst into flame and was gone.
DANIEL LAMB
I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
THERESA LEVI
The remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.
(ELIJA and PHEBIOLA BOTTLE, move downstage.)
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Does it grieve your heart that we are childless, Elija?
ELIJA BOTTLE Any child we might have had would be of an age to go to war, Phebiola, and be killed like the others from Seven Angels.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE I wonder if the mothers of dead soldiers wish their sons had never been born?
JOSEPH DEARBORN A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother’s womb, till the day that they return to the mother of all things.
ELIJA BOTTLE When a soldier dies, they say he calls for his mother.
CAST And his mother said unto him, “Upon me be thy curse, my son.”
(MARTHA PRAYER moves downstage.)
MARTHA PRAYER
Delilah Carp and Salome Levi have found a Confederate deserter. They have hidden him in Euphrates Sharp’s cabin. I went there, and pulled a piece of metal from his arm.
DANIEL LAMB
So the angel that was come to talk with me held me, comforted me, and set me up upon my feet.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Why do you speak of this, Martha?
ELIJA BOTTLE
Why bring trouble upon us, Martha Prayer?
MARTHA PRAYER
Those two girls are in love with the boy.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Delilah and Salome are not our children. Elija and I have no children.
MARTHA PRAYER
The boy, the Confederate boy, can he not become your child?
ELIJA BOTTLE
Our child?
MARTHA PRAYER
Someone has to help him. But those two girls will lead him, and all of us, to ruin. He is a good boy, a very good boy. And you owe me this favour, Elija Bottle. When you lay dying on that bed over there, I came and nursed you back to health.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
How can he be our child? How can we be parents to a strange man, our enemy?
MARTHA PRAYER
A man is a man. An enemy is an idea.
ELIJA BOTTLE
How can we help him?
MARTHA PRAYER
When the boy is fit to work, he can help you on your farm. Give him some of your clothes, Elija, and no one will know he’s a deserter. You two are old…you need a young man’s help.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
But his manner of speaking…his appearance from nowhere…won’t that rouse suspicion?
MARTHA PRAYER
I will say he is my nephew. He will not speak. He will play the deaf mute. He must remain silent until the war ends. He must remain silent.
DANIEL LAMB
I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.
ELIJA BOTTLE
But what of Salome and Delilah?
MARTHA PRAYER
The soldier must make them swear to keep the secret. The three of them are bound to one another by a dangerous and capricious alliance. He must be clever and careful, or that alliance will be his undoing.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Come, Martha…let me give you some coffee, and we will speak further of this.
(They return to the tableau.)
JOSEPH DEARBORN
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
CAST
Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
End of Scene 5.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 6:
(HANNAH COMFORT and SAMUEL COMFORT move downstage.)
HANNAH COMFORT
The nights are colder now, Sam, but there’s less work for me to do on the farm.
SAMUEL COMFORT
I can’t remember what the farm looks like, Hannah.
HANNAH COMFORT
Remember the trees on the ridge, Sam? The leaves touched with gold at harvest time? And the river, full from the fall rains and snaking down past the cornfield?
SAMUEL COMFORT
I remember Jennings Beauchamp, Thomas Nazareth, and Jack Fern, cut down in an orchard by the Tennessee River, the trees ripped by artillery fire and the river full of gunboats bringing more farmboy soldiers to die. I can see Shiloh in my mind sharper than I can see my own farm. Peach blossoms falling on a harvest of dead boys.
RACHEL FERN
In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
HANNAH COMFORT
Why do your words paint pictures of Shiloh, Sam? Why don’t you speak of your own battle at Bull Run?
SAMUEL COMFORT
When I came home blind, folks here were sorry for me, but the war was a long way off. When those three boys were killed at Shiloh, the war rolled into Seven Angels like a great wheel of fire. It’s been here ever since, smouldering and smoking and stinging the eyes of those who still see.
(ALISTAIR CARP comes downstage.)
ALISTAIR CARP
Hannah, you seen Delilah?
HANNAH COMFORT
No, Alistair. I haven’t seen Delilah for days.
SAMUEL COMFORT
Your daughter run off on you, Alistair?
ALISTAIR CARP
The girl’s been up to something. Hangs around home daydreaming, and then goes off with Salome Levi. Comes home after dark sometimes. Won’t tell me nothing.
HANNAH COMFORT
Girls their age like to be on their own.
SAMUEL COMFORT
Nothing wrong with young folks going off by themselves. There’s precious little to be had from us.
ALISTAIR CARP
Maybe so. But I got a feeling this ain’t so innocent. Since you was blinded and those boys was killed at Shiloh, the whole town’s been wound up tight by the war, and now my daughter’s gotten caught up in some kind of fever that’s taken her away from me.
HANNAH COMFORT
Maybe you should talk to Salome’s folks.
ALISTAIR CARP
I can’t stand that mealy mouthed merchant and his high-stepping wife.
SAMUEL COMFORT
Damn it, Alistair, it makes sense that Delilah don’t want to hang around a grumpy old man who’s got nothing good to say about his neighbours.
ALISTAIR CARP
If you see the girl, let me know.
HANNAH COMFORT
Of course we will, Alistair. Of course we will.
(ALISTAIR CARP returns to the tableau.)
SAMUEL COMFORT
Good thing he’s a blacksmith. Hammering hot metal all day gives him something to do with his anger, his slow smouldering fire.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
The Lord saith: “Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.”
CAST
For ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.
End of Scene 6.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 7:
DANIEL LAMB
Running. No sense of direction. Don’t even know I’m wounded. Stumble in a creek. Night comes. I crawl in some bushes and sleep. Cold gray dawn. Smoke in the distance. I walk northwards…can’t go back to the Confederacy. Eat some food from my haversack…keep clear of farmhouses. Come to a landing by the river in the dark…jump and hide on a steamer pulling away from shore. The fire burns in the belly of the boat and on and on the great wheel churns the water, first downstream, then up…a town comes in sight, so I slide overboard, somehow swim with my one good arm to shore and stumble into the forest. Exhausted. I fall asleep under a tree. When I wake up, two angels are looking down on me.
(DELILAH and SALOME move downstage and stand over DANIEL LAMB.)
DELILAH CARP
You all right, mister?
SALOME LEVI
You sick?
DANIEL LAMB
Yes…yes, I’m sick…I…
DELILAH CARP
You a Rebel?
SALOME LEVI
Delilah, we better go…
DANIEL LAMB
No, don’t go…please…I was a Rebel, now I’m no one.
DELILAH CARP
What do you mean you’re no one? You got a name?
SALOME LEVI
Delilah….
DANIEL LAMB
Lamb. Daniel Lamb…
DELILAH CARP
Lamb. What’s wrong with your arm?
DANIEL LAMB
I’m wounded. Piece of steel in my arm.
SALOME LEVI
You gonna die?
DANIEL LAMB
Maybe…I don’t know…
DELILAH CARP
You better come with us, mister.
(They freeze.)
DANIEL LAMB
They took me to a cabin deeper in the forest. They brought me food, and an old woman who took the metal out of my arm.
MARTHA PRAYER
A small piece of iron like a seed from the orchard of war.
SALOME LEVI
I’d never been in love before.
DELILAH CARP
Martha Prayer said that love between a man and woman is nature, pure and cold.
SALOME LEVI
The blood rose to my cheeks like fire.
SAMUEL COMFORT
A slow, smouldering fire.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.
(SALOME and Delilah return to the tableau.)
End of Scene 7.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 8:
(RACHEL FERN goes downstage.)
RACHEL FERN
In the cold night I walk the forest paths to Euphrates Sharps’ cabin. Under my shawl I carry Jack’s Colt revolver. The cabin is silent and dark. I creep quietly to the door. I can hear a man whispering prayers, in the quiet night.
DANIEL LAMB
I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.
RACHEL FERN
And I took Jack’s Colt revolver out from under my shawl, and went through the door. And he said my name.
DANIEL LAMB
Rachel.
RACHEL FERN
You know my name.
DANIEL LAMB
I…I thought you were my wife.
RACHEL FERN
Your wife?
DANIEL LAMB
I thought, your silhouette in the doorway, I thought you were Rachel.
RACHEL FERN
My name is Rachel. I can’t see you.
DANIEL LAMB
My wife can’t see me…she’s dead…from typhoid fever. There was a siege. She drank bad water.
RACHEL FERN
Jack’s dead…my husband…killed at Shiloh near a pond red with blood.
DANIEL LAMB
My brother Ethan died at Shiloh. That’s why I joined the army. But I ran off…a deserter.
RACHEL FERN
You’re alive.
DANIEL LAMB
Yes. Shoot me.
RACHEL FERN
What?
DANIEL LAMB
Shoot me.
RACHEL FERN
Why?
DANIEL LAMB
Because of your voice, and your shape there in the doorway. Because I’m remembering love, cold and pure and relentless.
RACHEL FERN
I didn’t know what he meant. I couldn’t see him in the dark. I lowered Jack’s Colt, and felt ashamed for holding it there in my hand. He came towards me…I could hear him moving…his hand touched my cheek. I began to cry.
DANIEL LAMB
She shuddered and cried with a grief as deep as my own. The Colt slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. I was ashamed for holding her there in my arms.
RACHEL FERN
Love. I love you.
DANIEL LAMB
Love. I love you.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?
JOSEPH DEARBORN
Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
O Lord, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
(RACHEL FERN returns to the tableau.)
End of Scene 8.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 9:
JUDITH NAZARETH
My husband Thomas loved horses, and though we were poor he gave me an auburn Tennessee quarter horse called Sunrise. He was a wild and spirited horse and one day when we were riding, Sunrise twisted and bucked and threw me hard onto the forest floor. I was unconscious for a time, and when I awoke, Thomas was holding me and crying. I could see Sunrise lying under the trees dead. Thomas had shot him. I grabbed the pistol out of Thomas’ shaking hand and fired three shots into Sunrise’s body. “There,” I said, “You don’t have to cry. If you hadn’t of done it, I’d have shot that son-of-a-bitch myself!” And Thomas broke into a laugh and hugged me and said, “Judith Nazareth, you are a wilful, hard-headed woman. I guess that’s why that fall didn’t break your neck.” When Thomas died in that peach orchard at Shiloh, I thought to myself, “That Tennessee quarter horse must be having a good laugh at us from up in horse heaven.”
(JENNINGS and AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS and THOMAS NAZARETH go downstage.)
THOMAS NAZARETH
I got to fight the Rebs, Judith. You want them to come marching through Seven Angels, looting and burning?
JUDITH NAZARETH
I want you to defend me right here, Thomas Nazareth. You won’t be any use to me lying dead on some battlefield.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
The war’s pulling at me, Amelia…
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
The war is a whore, Jennings Beauchamps…you’re leaving me for a whore.
JACK FERN
(moving downstage)
Come on, boys, it’s time to leave.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
(attempting to embrace Amelia)
I got to go, Amelia…
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
(pushing him away)
Go then, go to your whore, you bastard!
THOMAS NAZARETH
So long, Judith…so long, you hard-headed old gal.
JUDITH NAZARETH
(embraces him)
Go on, then…go on…
(THOMAS, JENNINGS, and JACK go back to the tableau.)
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
They’re not coming back, Judith.
JUDITH NAZARETH
If ever I see a Confederate soldier, I will kill him stone dead for starting all this.
ZEBEDIAH PARROT
I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.
End of Scene 9.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 10:
(ALISTAIR and DELILAH CARP and MICHAEL, THERESA, and SALOME LEVI move downstage.)
MICHAEL LEVI
Salome, Mr. Carp and your mother and I want to know where you and Delilah are sneaking off to every day.
SALOME LEVI
We’re not sneaking anywhere. We just go down along the river is all.
ALISTAIR CARP
Now, Salome, Delilah won’t tell me nothing. But you’re the daughter of the town merchant and you got to play the part.
THERESA LEVI
Mr. Carp’s right, Salome…it just won’t do for you to be keeping secrets from us. You’ve been acting very strangely of late, and so has Delilah. You don’t eat or sleep properly, and it seems the two of you just don’t want to do anything but run off together.
DELILAH CARP
Mrs. Levi, we aren’t doing anything wrong. We just go down along the river and throw rocks in the water and talk. We got lots to talk about, don’t we, Salome?
SALOME LEVI
Delilah’s the only girl in Seven Angels who’s of an age to be my friend. We need to be alone to talk, that’s all.
ALISTAIR CARP
You and Salome can talk in the house while I’m out working in the forge, Delilah. You don’t got to go running off into the forest every goddamned day with the merchant’s daughter!…Excuse me, Mrs. Levi, I don’t mean to curse, but I’m about ready to take the belt to Delilah.
THERESA LEVI
That won’t be necessary, Mr. Carp. Now, Salome and Delilah, you both have better things to do than spend your days daydreaming down along the river. So we’ve decided that you’re not to see each other for a time. Salome, you’re to stay home and apply yourself to your studies.
ALISTAIR CARP
And Delilah, you’re to help me in the forge. It’ll do you good to do some honest labour instead of running around like the Devil’s whore leading Mr. and Mrs. Levi’s daughter astray.
MICHAEL LEVI
Now, Alistair, that’s not…
DELILAH CARP
You can’t make us do nothing! When a girl’s old enough to get pregnant, ain’t no one but God himself can tell her where to go and what to do. Come on, Salome.
(They run back to the tableau.)
ALISTAIR CARP
Delilah, damn you!
(He begins to go after her.)
THERESA LEVI
(restraining him)
Let them go, Mr. Carp. They’ll be back. This is their time of sorrow and grief, their time of learning a woman’s place. I was wild and headstrong when I was a girl, but it didn’t last.
ALISTAIR CARP
Her mother would have set her straight. But she’s been dead this past eight years.
MICHAEL LEVI
You`ve done what a father can, Alistair, and that`s all any man knows to do.
(They return to the tableau.)
ZEBEDIAH PARROT
Bow down her neck while she is young, and beat her on the sides while she is a child, lest she grow stubborn, and be disobedient unto thee, and so bring sorrow to thine heart.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
O, Lord God, thou hast given their wives for a prey, and their daughters to be captives.
End of Scene 10.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 11:
DANIEL LAMB
Salome and Delilah bring me food and drink, and every few days late in the night Rachel comes to me, bringing me love. Then one day the old woman who healed me takes me away from the cabin. She leads me to a farm. An old man and his wife take me in and give me food, clothes, and work. I pretend to be a deaf mute. I never speak, not even to them. And sometimes at night, I go back to the cabin.
(MARTHA PRAYER, ELIJA and PHEBIOLA BOTTLE go downstage.)
MARTHA PRAYER
Where does he sleep?
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Out in the stable.
MARTHA PRAYER
Does he work hard for you?
ELIJA BOTTLE
He’s not very strong yet, but he works like the Devil.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
He’s a good boy. Polite. Doesn’t want any trouble.
MARTHA PRAYER
Salome and Delilah show their faces round here?
ELIJA BOTTLE
We can’t stop them from coming round. They watch the boy work every day, though he speaks not a word to them or us.
MARTHA PRAYER
Anyone else been around?
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
No, but he goes off on his own into the forest sometimes.
ELIJA BOTTLE
I followed him for a ways one night. He was headed towards Euphrates Sharp’s cabin.
MARTHA PRAYER
Do Salome and Delilah know he goes there?
ELIJA BOTTLE
Well that’s just it. He went off tonight, and they came looking for him. They was all stirred up about something.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
When they saw he wasn’t here, they started off toward the cabin.
MARTHA PRAYER
There’s something bad going to happen.
ELIJA BOTTLE
What do you mean, Martha?
MARTHA PRAYER
Something’s been set in motion that none of us can stop. If the boy makes it back here, you’ve got to make him leave.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Leave? Where to?
MARTHA PRAYER
Away from Seven Angels. We can’t do anything more for him.
(She returns to the tableau.)
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
She said he’d be our son, Elija…she’s making us send our son away.
ELIJA BOTTLE
It`s the war, Phebiola. The war`s not done with the boy.
(He and Phebiola return to the tableau.)
SAMUEL COMFORT He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
End of Scene 11.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 12:
(EUPHRATES SHARP moves downstage.)
EUPHRATES SHARP
I don’t use my trapper’s cabin until the deep of winter. But the fall rains were hard, so I went up there to see if the roof was tight and dry. There were signs of someone having lived there, so I waited in the forest on a hunch, and as night settled in, a man and a woman came and went inside. I’m a hunter, and I’m patient with my prey, so I waited some more. Then two girls came up the trail, as silent as deer. They went up to the door, pushed it open, and ran off as quick as the Devil. The man came out of the cabin calling their names…Salome and Delilah…but they were gone. And the woman joined the man, and the moon came out and I saw it was Rachel Fern. I stayed still and quiet and they just stood there looking lost and forlorn. I slipped off deeper into the forest. I knew I had no business there, even if it was my cabin. Whatever was going to happen wasn’t none of my business.
(She returns to the tableau.)
JOSEPH DEARBORN
Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?
CAST
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
End of Scene 12.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 13:
(SALOME LEVI and DELILAH CARP move downstage.)
DELILAH CARP
Rachel Fern has taken him from us, Salome.
SALOME LEVI
I don’t understand. We saved him. She didn’t. He shouldn’t love her…how could he love her?
DELILAH CARP
We’re alone now, Salome. Our parents are against us, and he’s betrayed us.
SALOME LEVI
What can we do, Delilah?
DELILAH CARP
Something to make everyone know they can’t make fools of us.
SALOME LEVI
Do you hate him now, Delilah?
DELILAH CARP
What do you think? Are you still in love with him, after seeing him and Rachel Fern doing what they was doing?
SALOME LEVI
Like animals. I would never have been that way with him.
DELILAH CARP
Come on, we’re going to see Amelia Beauchamps.
(They return to the tableau.)
HANNAH COMFORT
As for a wound, it may be bound up; and after reviling there may be reconcilement: but she that betrayeth secrets is without hope.
MARTHA PRAYER
For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness, being horribly astonished, and troubled with strange apparitions.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
Exalt not thyself, lest thou fall, and bring dishonour upon thy soul, and so God discover thy secrets, and cast thee down in the midst of the congregation.
End of Scene 13.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 14:
(AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS and JUDITH NAZARETH move downstage.)
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
So now we know what Rachel Fern’s been doing all these long lonely nights while you and me were dreaming nightmares about Shiloh.
JUDITH NAZARETH
How could she make love to a damned rebel? It’s the worst sin I can think of…Her husband’s dead with a Confederate bullet through his forehead and she’s giving herself to one of the men that killed him.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
A deserter. A man who wanted to kill Yankees, and then ran off when it weren’t so easy as he thought. Salome and Delilah are two foolish girls who didn’t know no better, but Rachel Fern knows pure and true what she’s doing.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Elija and Phebiola Bottle and Martha Prayer are in it just as pure and true, harbouring an enemy, giving him sustenance and treating him like royalty while you and I go deeper and deeper in debt with the bank and Michael Levi’s store.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
I know how to load and fire a musket. Jennings taught me.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Euphrates Sharp’s Springfield is the best gun in Seven Angels.
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
I saw her out back of her place scraping hides when I was walking over here.
JUDITH NAZARETH
Amelia, let’s do what’s got to be done and do it quick before the mayor gets wind of this.
(She and JUDITH return to the tableau.)
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
EUPHRATES SHARP
I am a hunter. I knew who had taken my Springfield as soon as I smelled the scent of Judith Nazareth and Amelia Beauchamps in my house. And I followed them to the cabin, and saw the act that brings us here.
End of Scene 14.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 15:
(JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS, JACK FERN, and THOMAS NAZARETH move downstage.)
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
The Rebs are going to come right through those trees over yonder.
THOMAS NAZARETH
Wonder what they’ll look like?
JACK FERN
There’s a bullet coming for me, straight from the muzzle of a rebel musket.
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
It don’t do no good to talk that way, Jack. It’s bad luck.
JACK FERN
I’m sorry, Rachel.
(He is hit right in the forehead by a minie ball, and falls dead on the spot.)
THOMAS NAZARETH
Jesus…Jack…what the hell?
(He is hit in the heart and falls dead.)
JENNINGS BEAUCHAMPS
(moving toward his two friends)
God, Thomas…Jack…
(He is hit twice, once in the side, and once in the head, and falls across his friends).
(RACHEL FERN and DANIEL LAMB move downstage.)
DANIEL LAMB
Our time together is nearly over, Rachel.
RACHEL FERN
I know, Daniel.
DANIEL LAMB
I don’t know how to say goodbye to you, Rachel.
RACHEL FERN
Then don’t.
(They embrace and a single shot rings out, killing them both. AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS and JUDITH NAZARETH approach DANIEL and RACHEL.)
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
Clean and quick. One bullet, and they’re both gone.
JUDITH NAZARETH
That’s all they were worth…one bullet.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
When an arrow is shot at a mark, it parteth the air, which immediately cometh together again, so that a man cannot know where it went through.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
We in like manner, as soon as we are born, begin to draw to our end and have no sign of virtue to show; but are consumed in our own wickedness.
(Amelia puts the musket on the bodies of Daniel and Rachel, and she and Judith go back to the tableau.)
End of Scene 15.
Shiloh by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Scene 16:
ELIJA BOTTLE
We have spoken all that we know of the events that led to these deaths.
PHEBIOLA BOTTLE
Elija and I kept faith with our consciences. We acted in the spirit of Christian love.
THERESA LEVI
My daughter Salome will be sent from here to Philadelphia to live with her uncle, my husband’s brother.
MICHAEL LEVI
She is our only child, but she cannot remain with us. I cannot tell you how much it saddens my heart that she was party to this catastrophe.
ALISTAIR CARP
I’m leaving Seven Angels, and taking Delilah with me. I’ll take her north across the border, where there is no war.
SAMUEL COMFORT
God has left me blind and stumbling in the shadows of human treachery. The song of my neighbours gives me no peace and I am forever haunted by the war.
HANNAH COMFORT
Samuel, just as the sun rises warm upon your blind face, so glows peace on a distant horizon. Rachel Fern and the rebel soldier were her envoys, come to bring us tidings of redemption.
MARTHA PRAYER
There is beyond the loveless quarrels of men and the bitter revenge of women a benison that heals all things, a blessing greater than the sum total of all our strivings.
ZEBEDIAH PARROT
There has been an accounting here that cannot be easily balanced. A banker can manage columns of numbers, but the algebraic complications of the human heart are a mystery to me.
EUPHRATES SHARP
I am a woman who knows nothing of peace and war, though I hunt the animals of the forest. But I know something of nature, and you must understand that nature is everything. All that has happened and will happen is as natural as the river over yonder.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
The healing cannot begin without painful parting. The parting cannot begin without painful healing. That is why we have met here.
MALACHAI TORGRIMSON
Amelia Beauchamps and Judith Nazareth, you shall be taken to the county seat, along with the depositions made here, and there be tried by a jury of your peers.
JUDITH NAZARETH
My husband Thomas lies dead at Shiloh. Who will stand trial for that?
AMELIA BEAUCHAMPS
If Judith and I must be tried, so then should all this nation be tried by God for the injuries it is visiting upon itself. A Union soldier who kills a Confederate soldier to avenge the death of his comrades is called a hero. A woman who avenges the death of her husband by killing a rebel deserter and his Yankee whore is called a murderer. Where there’s judgment, there’s injustice.
JOSEPH DEARBORN
There are no heroes and no murderers. There are only the living and the dead. The living fall prey to all manner of joys and sorrows, only to become the dead, and the dead become nothing. At Shiloh, the peach blossoms covered the dead boys in a shroud of whiteness. Who among us can torment the dead with judgment? And so those few of us who are the living must confine ourselves to acts of loving kindness, for judgment is the burden of the living, not the dead.
END OF PLAY.