1.
MA
Then what, Tom?
TOM
Then it don't matter. Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where--wherever you look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat , I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad--an' I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's
ready. An' when our people eat the stuff they raise, an' live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there too.
MA
(slowly)
I don't understan 'it, Tom.
TOM
(drily)
Me neither.
It's jus' stuff I been thinkin' about. Gimme you han', Ma. Good-by.
(He climbs over the fence)
MA
Good-by, Tom. Later--when it's blowed over--you'll come back? You'll try to fin' us?
TOM
Sure. Good-by.
MA
Good-by, Tommy.
2.
Ma places her hand on one of Pa's and pats it.
MA
Woman can change better'n a man. Man lives in jerks--baby born, or somebody dies, that's a jerk--gets a farm, or loses one, an' that's a jerk. With a woman it's all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that.
AL
(at the jalopy ahead)
Look at that ol' coffeepot steam!
PA
(thinking of what Ma says)
Maybe, but we shore takin' a beatin'.
MA
(chuckling)
I know. Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an' they die, an 'their kids ain't no good, an' they die out. But we keep a-comin'. We're the people that live. Can't nobody wipe us out. Can't nobody lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa. We're the people.
(She says this with a simple, unaffected conviction)
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