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Two Mothers

Chapter 7: TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
By John G. Neihardt
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About This Book

A short domestic drama unfolds in a humble household when a young woman takes in a weary stranger, prompting her parents to respond with suspicion and practical anxiety as a hidden hoard of money is discovered. The action centers on domestic tasks and charged conversations that reveal tensions between compassion and survival, youthful idealism and hardened pragmatism. Religious imagery and songs punctuate intimate scenes, while debates over charity, reputation, and economic necessity drive moral ambiguity. The piece emphasizes character reactions and ethical dilemmas over plot development, exploring how poverty, maternal protectiveness, and social judgment influence choices about generosity and trust.

Nina
No,
My Queen.
Agrippina
Yet you are winsome.
Nina
Lovers go
Like wind, as lovers come; I am unwed.
Agrippina
How lonely shall you be among the dead
Where hearts remember, but are lorn of hope!
Poor girl! No dream of tiny hands that grope,
And coaxing, hunting little mouths shall throw
Brief glories ‘round you!
Nina, I would go
Like any brazen bawd along the street,
Hailing the first stout carter I should meet,
Ere I would perish childless! Though we nurse
The cooing thing that some day hurls the curse,
Forge from our hearts the matricidal sword,
The act of loving is its own reward.
We mothers need no pity!
‘Twill be said,
When this brief war is done, and I am dead,
That I was wanton, shameless—be it so!
Unto the swarm of insect scribes I throw
The puffed-up purple carcass of my name
For them to feast on! Pointed keen with shame,
How shall each busy little stylus bite
A thing that feels not! I have fought my fight!
That mine were but the weapons of the foe,
Too well the ragged scars I bear can show.
Oh, I have triumphed, and am ripe to die!
About my going shall the trumpets cry
Forever and forever!
I can thread
The twilit under-regions of the dead
A radiant shadow with a heart that sings!
Before the myriad mothers of great kings
I shall lift up each livid spirit hand
Spotted with blood—and they shall understand
How small the price was!
Nina
Hark!

(The tramp of soldiery and the clatter of arms are heard from without. Nina, panic-stricken, runs to window, peers out, shrinks back, and, turning, flees by a side door.)

Agrippina
Why do you flee?
Did I not say my son would come to me?
‘Tis Nero—Nero Caesar, Lord of Rome!
My little boy grown tall is coming home!

(She goes to window, peers out, shrinks back, then turns toward the door and sees three armed men standing there—Anicetus, the Captain of a Galley and a Centurion of the Navy. The men stare at her without moving.)

Why come you here?

(Silence.)

To know my health?—Go tell
My son, your master, I am very well—
And happy—

(The men make no reply. Agrippina straightens her body haughtily.)

—If like cowards in the night
You come to stab a woman—
Anicetus

(Drawing his sword and speaking to Captain.)

Snuff the light!

(The men spring forward with drawn swords. Agrippina does not move. The light is stricken out.)

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Added missing period to many stage directions to conform with majority practice in book.
  2. Changed 'faneless' to 'faceless' on p. 54.
  3. Silently corrected typographical errors.
  4. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.