Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) Read Online Free PDF Page A

on, but Shaughnessy, the tenant on that farm of yours.
MARY
    Smiling.
    That dreadful man! But he is funny.
TYRONE
    Scowling.
    He’s not so funny when you’re his landlord. He’s a wily Shanty Mick, that one. He could hide behind a corkscrew. What’s he complaining about now, Edmund—for I’m damned sure he’s complaining. I suppose he wants his rent lowered. I let him have the place for almost nothing, just to keep someone on it, and he never pays that till I threaten to evict him.
EDMUND
    No, he didn’t beef about anything. He was so pleased with life he even bought a drink, and that’s practically unheard of. He was delighted because he’d had a fight with your friend, Harker, the Standard Oil millionaire, and won a glorious victory.
MARY
    With amused dismay.
    Oh, Lord! James, you’ll really have to do something—
TYRONE
    Bad luck to Shaughnessy, anyway!
JAMIE
    Maliciously.
    I’ll bet the next time you see Harker at the Club and give him the old respectful bow, he won’t see you.
EDMUND
    Yes. Harker will think you’re no gentleman for harboring a tenant who isn’t humble in the presence of a king of America.
TYRONE
    Never mind the Socialist gabble. I don’t care to listen—
MARY
    Tactfully.
    Go on with your story, Edmund.
EDMUND
    Grins at his father provocatively.
    Well, you remember, Papa, the ice pond on Harker’s estate is right next to the farm, and you remember Shaughnessy keeps pigs. Well, it seems there’s a break in the fence and the pigs have been bathing in the millionaire’s ice pond, and Harker’s foreman told him he was sure Shaughnessy had broken the fence on purpose to give his pigs a free wallow.
MARY
    Shocked and amused.
    Good heavens!
TYRONE
    Sourly, but with a trace of admiration.
    I’m sure he did, too, the dirty scallywag. It’s like him.
EDMUND
    So Harker came in person to rebuke Shaughnessy.
    He chuckles.
    A very bonehead play! If I needed any further proof that our ruling plutocrats, especially the ones who inherited their boodle, are not mental giants, that would clinch it.
TYRONE
    With appreciation, before he thinks.
    Yes, he’d be no match for Shaughnessy.
    Then he growls.
    Keep your damned anarchist remarks to yourself. I won’t have them in my house.
    But he is full of eager anticipation.
    What happened?
EDMUND
    Harker had as much chance as I would with Jack Johnson. Shaughnessy got a few drinks under his belt and was waiting at the gate to welcome him. He told me he never gave Harker a chance to open his mouth. He began by shouting that he was no slave Standard Oil could trample on. He was a King of Ireland, if he had his rights, and scum was scum to him, no matter how much money it had stolen from the poor.
MARY
    Oh, Lord!
    But she can’t help laughing.
EDMUND
    Then he accused Harker of making his foreman break down the fence to entice the pigs into the ice pond in order to destroy them. The poor pigs, Shaughnessy yelled, had caught their death of cold. Many of them were dying of pneumonia, and several others had been taken down with cholera from drinking the poisoned water. He told Harker he was hiring a lawyer to sue him for damages. And he wound up by saying that he had to put up with poison ivy, ticks, potato bugs, snakes and skunks on his farm, but he was an honest man who drew the line somewhere, and he’d be damned if he’d stand for a Standard Oil thief trespassing. So would Harker kindly remove his dirty feet from the premises before he sicked the dog on him. And Harker did!
    He and Jamie laugh.
MARY
    Shocked but giggling.
    Heavens, what a terrible tongue that man has!
TYRONE
    Admiringly before he thinks.
    The damned old scoundrel! By God, you can’t beat him!
    He laughs—then stops abruptly and scowls.
    The dirty blackguard! He’ll get me in serious trouble yet. I hope you told him I’d be mad as hell—
EDMUND
    I told him you’d be tickled to death over the great Irish victory, and so you are. Stop faking, Papa.
TYRONE
    Well, I’m not tickled to