By Ch. Morley

Christopher Morley (1890-1957), an American author, received unusual recog­nition early in his career. Among his widely known novels are "Kitty Foyk"and "The Trojan Horse". In his popular short play "Thursday Evening", Christopher Morley opposes the common mother-in-law stereotype with two very likable and charming women.

The scene is set in the small kitchen of the modest suburban home of Mr and Mrs Gordon Johns. A meal has recently been cooked, as is shown by a general confusion of pots and pans and dishcloths.

Laura, who is an attractive little woman aged about twenty-three, is in that slight­ly tense condition of a young hostess who has had a long and trying day with house and baby, and has also cooked and served a dinner for four as both the grandmothers are visiting.

Both husband and wife are washing up. They are in good humour at first but every time one or the other refers to his or her mother the atmosphere becomes tense. Gordon, more than his wife Laura, takes pains to avoid a quarrel and changes the subject whenever he is aware of danger.

While scraping portions of food off the soiled plates Gordon picks out several large pieces of meat, lettuce, butter, etc., which he puts on one plate at one side. Later his wife sees the plate of odds and ends and scrapes its contents into the gar­bage pail.

Among other things Gordon says that he's a little worried about his mother as she hardly ate any of her salad. This time, it is Laura who tries honourably to avert the gathering storm by mentioning that Junior' drank out of a cup the first time. But even this seemingly encouraging event puts the two on the break of a quarrel. Gordon feels slighted because the cup used was the one Laura's mother had used, not his mother's.

¹ Junior: the younger, especially of two brothers or a father and son with the same first name. Gordon Johns's son is also named Gordon, he will be called Gordon Johns Junior. The parents simply call him Junior.

Though he's been trying to tide over the mutually realized danger point, when Gordon begins hunting for the plate with "a lot of perfectly good stuff' he saved, a fierce quarrel breaks out.

Laura: Well, if you think I'm going to keep a lot of half-eaten salad your mother picked over —

Gordon (seizes garbage pail, lifts it up to the sink and begins to ex­plore its contents. His fuse also is rapidly shortening); My Lord, it's no wonder we never have any money to spend if we chuck half of it away in waste. (Picking out various selections.) Waste! Look at that piece of cheese, and those potatoes. You could take those things, and some of this meat, and make a nice economical hash for lunch —

Laura: It's a wonder you wouldn't get a job as a scavenger, I never heard of a husband like you, rummaging through the gar­bage pail.

Gordon (blows up): Do you know what the one unforgivable sin is? It's waste! It makes me wild to think of working and working like a dog, and half of what I earn just thrown away. Look at this, just look at it! (Displays a grisly object.) There's enough meat on that bone to make soup. Oh, ye gods, about half a dozen slices of bread. What's the matter with them, I'd like to know.

Laura: I think it's the most disgusting thing I ever heard of. To go picking over the garbage pail like that. You attend to your affairs and I'll attend to mine.

Gordon: I guess throwing away good, hard-earned money is my affair, isn't it?

Laura: You're always quick enough to find fault. You don't seem to know when you're lucky. You come back at night and find your home well cared for and me slaving over a hot dinner, and do you ever say a word of thanks? No, all you can think of is finding fault. I can't imag­ine how you were brought up. Your mother —

Gordon: Just leave my mother out of it. I guess she didn't spoil me the way yours did you. Of course, I wasn't an only daughter —

Laura: I wish you had been. Then I wouldn't have married you.

Gordon: I suppose you think that if you'd married Jack Davis or some other of those jokers you'd never have had to see the inside of a kitchen —

Laura: If Junior grows up with your disposition, all I can say is I hope he'll never get married.

Gordon: If he gets married, I hope it'll be to some girl who under­stands something about economy —

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30. Laura: If he gets married, I hope he'll be man enough not to be always finding fault —

31. Gordon: Well, he won't get married! I'll put him wise to what mar­riage means, fussing like this all the time —

32. Laura: Yes, he will get married. He shall get married!

33. Gordon: Oh, this is too absurd —

34. Laura: He shall get married, just to be a humiliating example to his father. I'll bring him up the way a husband ought to be.

35. Gordon: In handcuffs, I suppose —

36. Laura: And his wife won't have to sit and listen to perpetual crit­icism from his mother —

37. Gordon: If you're so down on mothers-in-law, it's queer you're anx­ious to be one yourself. The expectant mother-in-law!

38. Laura: All right, be vulgar, I dare say you can't help it.

39. Gordon: Great Scott, what did you think marriage was like, any­way? Did you expect to go through life having everything done for you, without a little hard work to make it interesting?

40. Laura: Is it necessary to shout?

41. Gordon: Now let me tell you something. Let's see if you can ratify it from your extensive observation of life. Is there anything in the world so cruel as bringing up a girl in absolute ignorance of house­work? Marriage ought not to be performed before an altar, but before a kitchen sink.

42. Laura {furiously): I ought to have known that oil and water won't mix. I ought to have known that a vulgar, selfish, conceited man couldn't make a girl happy who was brought up in a refined family. You're too common, too ordinary, to know when you're lucky. You get a charming, aristocratic wife and expect her to grub along like a washerwoman. You try to crush all the life and spirit out of her. You ought to have married an icebox — that's the only thing in this house you're really attentive to.

43. Gordon: Now listen —

44. Laura {will not be checked): Talk about being spoiled — why, your mother babies you so, you think you're the only man on earth. {Sarcas­tically) Her poor, overworked boy, who tries so hard and gets all fagged out in the office and struggles so nobly to support his family! I wonder how you'd like to run this house and bear a child and take care of it and cook a big dinner and be sneered at and never a word of praise. All you can think of is picking over the garbage pail and finding fault —

45. Gordon {like a foot): I didn't find fault! I found some good food being wasted.

46. Laura: All right, if you love the garbage pail better than you do your wife, you can live with it. {Flings her dish towel on the floor and exits into dining-room.)

47. {Gordon stands irresolutely at the sink, and makes a few gloomy motions among the unfinished dishes. He glares at the garbage can. Then he carefully gathers those portions of food that he has chosen as being still usable, then puts them on a plate and, after some hesitation, puts the plate in the icebox. He is about to do some other things but then a sudden fit of anger seizes him, he tears off apron, throws it on the floor, and goes out, slamming door.

48. After a brief pause, Mrs Sheffield and later Mrs Johns enter the kitch­en. They begin putting things to rights. They work like automatons. For perhaps two minutes not a word is said, and the two seem, by searching side glances, to be probing each other's mood.)

49. Mrs Johns: If it wasn't so tragic I'd laugh. {A pause, during which they work busily.)

50. Mrs Sheffield: If it wasn't so comic I'd cry. {Anotherpause.) I guess it's my fault. Poor Laura, I'm afraid I have spoiled her.

51. Mrs Johns: My fault, I think. Two mothers-in-law at once is too much for any young couple. I didn't know you were here, or I wouldn't have come.

52. Mrs Sheffield: Laura is so dreadfully sensitive, poor child—

53. Mrs Johns: Gordon works so hard at the office. You know he's try­ing to get promoted to the sales department, and I suppose it tells on

54. his nerves —

55. Mrs Sheffield: If Laura could afford to have a nurse to help her with the baby, she wouldn't get so exhausted-Mrs Johns: Gordon says he wants to take out some more insur­ance, that's why he worries so about economy. It isn't for himself; he's really very unselfish —

56. Mrs Sheffield {a little tartly): Still, I do think that sometimes — {They pause and look at each other quickty.) My gracious, we'll be at it ourselves if we don't look out! {She goes to the clothes-horse and rear­ranges the garments on it. She holds up a Lilliputian shirt, and they both

57. smile.)

58. Mrs Johns: That darling baby! I hope he won't have poor Gordon's quick temper. It runs in the Johns family, I'm afraid. You know Gor­don's father used to say that Adam and Eve didn't know when they were well off. He said that was why they called it the Garden of Eden.

59. Mrs Sheffield: Why?

60. Mrs Johns: Because there was no mother-in-law there.

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64. Mrs Sheffield: Poor children, they have such a lot to learn! I really feel ashamed, Mrs Johns, because Laura is an undisciplined little thing, and I'm afraid I've always petted her too much. She had such a lot of attention before she met Gordon, and was made so much of, it gave her wrong ideas.

65. Mrs Johns: I wish Gordon was a little younger; I'd like to turn him up and spank him. He's dreadfully stubborn and tactless —

66. Mrs Sheffield: But I'm afraid I did make a mistake. Laura was hav­ing such a good time as a girl, I was always afraid she'd have a hard awakening when she married. But Mr Sheffield had a good deal of money at that time, and he used to say, "She's only young once. Let her enjoy herself!"

67. Mrsjohns: My husband was shortsighted, too. He had had to skimp so that he brought up Gordon to have a terror of wasting a nickel.

68. Mrs Sheffield: Very sensible. I wish Mr Sheffield had had a little more of that terror. I shall have to tell him what his policy has result­ed in. But really, you know, when I heard them at it, I could hardly help admiring them. It brings back old times!

69. Mrsjohns: So it does! (A pause.) But we can't let them go on like this. A little vigorous quarrelling is good for everybody. It's a kind of spiritual laxative. But they carry it too far.

70. Mrs Sheffield: They're awfully ingenious. They were even bicker­ing about Junior's future mother-in-law. I suppose she's still in school, whoever she may be!

71. Mrsjohns: Being a mother-in-law is almost as painful as being a mother.

72. Mrs Sheffield: I think every marriage ought to be preceded by a treaty of peace between the two mothers. If they understand each other, everything will work out all right.

73. Mrsjohns: You're right. When each one takes sides with her own child, it's fatal.

74. Mrs Sheffield {lowering her voice): Look here, I think I know how we can make them ashamed of themselves. Where are they now?

75. Mrsjohns (goes cautiously to dining-room door, and peeps through): Laura is lying on the couch in the living-room. I think she's crying — her face is buried in the cushions.

76. Mrs Sheffield: Splendid. That means she's listening with all her ears. (Tiptoes to window.) I can't see Gordon, but I think he's walking around the garden —

77. Mrsjohns (quietly): If we were to talk a little louder he'd sit on the back steps to hear it —

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79. Mrs Sheffield: Exactly. Now listen! (They put their heads together and whisper; the audience does not hear what is said.)

80. Mrsjohns: Fine! Oh, that's fine! (Mrs Sheffield whispers again, in-audibly.) But wait a moment Don't you think it would be better if I praise Laura and you praise Gordon? They won't expect that, and it might shame them —

81. Mrs Sheffield: No, no! Don't you see — ( Whispers again, inaudibly.)

82. Mrsjohns: You're right. Cunning as serpents and harmless as doves — (They carefully set both doors ajar.)

83. Mrs Sheffield: I only hope we won't wake the baby —

84. (They return to the task of cleaning up, and talk very loudly, in pre­tended quarrel. Then each one begins praising her own child and criti­cizing the other. Their last words are):

85. Mrs Sheffield: Yes, as Laura's mother I can't let her go on like this. A husband, a home, and a baby — it's enough to ruin any woman.

86. Mrsjohns: It's only fair to both sides to end it all. I never heard of such brutal hardships. Gordon can't fight against these things any longer. Throwing away a soupbone and three slices of bread! I won­der he doesn't go mad.

87. Mrs Sheffield: We've saved them just in time.

88. (They look at each other knowingly, with the air of those who have done a sound bit of work. Then they stealthily open the door at the rear, and exeunt¹ up the back stairs.

89. There is a brief pause; then the dining-room door opens like an ex­plosion, and Laura bursts in. She stands for a moment, wild-eyed, stamps her foot in a passion. Then she seizes one of the baby shirts fmm the rack, and drops into the chair by the table, crying. She buries her head in her arms, concealing the shirt. Enters Gordon, from porch. He stands uncertainly, evidently feeling like a fool.)

90. Gordon: I'm sorry, I — I left my pipe in here. (Finds it by the sink.)

91. Laura (her face still hidden): Oh, Gordie, was it all a mistake?

92. Gordon (troubled, pats her shoulder tentatively): Now listen, Crea­ture, don't. You'll make yourself sick.

93. Laura: I never thought I'd hear such things — from my own mother.

94. Gordon: I never heard such rot. They must be mad, both of them.

95. Laura: Then you were listening, too —

96. Gordon: Yes. Why, they're deliberately trying to set us against each other.

97. Laura: They wouldn't have dared speak like that if they had known we could hear. Gordon, I don't think it's legal —

98. ' exeunt (Fr.) — stage direction (leave stage).

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