 Family Theater presents Jane Powell and Parley Baer. Action with Family Theater presents Parley Baer as Old Judge Priest in quality folks by Urban S. Cobb. To introduce the drama, your hostess, Jane Powell. Thank you very much, Gene Baker. A few weeks ago, Family Theater presented one of Urban S. Cobb's favorite characters, Old Judge Priest. The reaction of our audience was so gratifying, and we have a number of requests for another story, so numerous, that we are happy to reintroduce Old Judge Priest to you again. It is with a great deal of pleasure, with a deep bow to you for your letters, that we bring you Parley Baer as Judge William Pittman Priest, and Ruby Dandridge as Aunt Charley in Urban S. Cobb's quality folks. Judge Priest, as was his custom, had allowed his considerable bulk to settle down in an old leather rocker on his front porch on Clay Street. He started out of his drows as he heard the latch on the front gate gear and the hinges sag open. He brushed a hand across his eyes and smiled happily. One of his cronies was coming through the gate, after nearly three years soldiering in Florida, and to old men, three years is a long, long time. Well, do like I do declare, I am glad to see you. Judge, it's sure good to see you. When did you get back, son? Just last night, Billy. I would have come over then, but it was late when that old train puffed in. Three whole years you've been gone, ain't it, Lou? Yes, sir. Three years. I've missed you, son. I ain't had a decent game of croquet since you left. I declare I am glad to see you. And are you, Billy? Considerable number of things have happened in three years, I take it. Grab a seat on the swing there, Lou, and rest your hands and feet. Yep, I don't mind if I do. I don't mind if I do. I've been expecting you to come banging back here, but I had to do what I did. I had to act on my own judgment, seeing as you was nowhere as about. I got an announcement, Billy, a born in announcement. Yep, a born in announcement. Yeah, suspicion, that's what brought you high-tailing. A thing like that's never happened before, judge, not down here in the south particularly. And or anywhere else, neither, for as I can recollect, but that ain't no reason why it shouldn't. But, then, me, Lou, Billy, our own personal war. Now, now, hold on, Lou, hold on. Lots of folks is bearing the names they are, because somebody else had them first. Take Wadsworth, Jr.'s Courtney, a squire, attorney at law, for instance. His boy, and general fact totem, who sweeps out the office for him, his name is Wadsworth, Jr.'s Courtney Jones. Well, that's only natural, Billy. His mammy named him that with special intent to do honor to her right-indulgent employer. Yes, and you recollect Rowena Hill guard telling him 12 months after her Christian, there was four more Rowena Hill guards in our fair city. I know, Billy, but that's common occurrence with our people. But you'll have to admit this is the first time a white baby's been dubbed with the name of her mammy, and with due knowledge of the fact and with deliberate intent. Well, that ain't so bad, is it, Lou? It seems to me, in your official capacity, you could have prevented it. I reckon it could have. Had I had the desire, then maybe I couldn't either. Now, look, Lou, maybe you better hear the whole story right from the onset. First of all, it all started about two years ago. For more years, and either you or me, there's, remember, there's been certain people known for certain things in this town. Main most among them has been old Aunt Charlotte Helm and the loudest, most discordant voice in our town. And it was that foghorn voice going full blast one hot afternoon that sort of started bringing matters to a head. You've seen her yourself, Lou, gallivanting back and forth from the Dabney House to the store, wearing a spotless white cloth around her head and a man's battered straw hat teetering jaundedly on top of it. She'd up in a voice that could crack a window to everything about her. Her gait, despite its limp, her pose or figure, there was something masterful, something dominating, something tremendously proud, Lou. Slowly she crossed the yard and let herself out the side gate. She went out of sight, and strangely enough, even out of here and down the side street in the hot sunshine of the late afternoon. The well-rested young man, feeling a good bit of relief, settled back in the hammock he was stretched out in behind the thick screen of vines that covered the wide front porch of the Dabney House. The estimable Aunt Charlotte appears to be an excellent voice and spirits today, Miss Emmylou. It's perfectly awful. I know it. I don't know that I ever heard her when her top notes carried farther than they did just now. If Mildred and I have asked her once not to carry on like that here at the front of the house, we've asked her a hundred times. It's bad enough to have her whooping like a wild Indian in the kitchen. But it never seems to do any good. Why don't you try getting rid of her altogether as a remedy? Get rid of Aunt Charlotte? Why, how of it? Mr. Winslow, we couldn't do that. Why not? Why, Aunt Charlotte's always been in our family. Why, she's just like one of us. Just like our own flesh and blood. Why, she used to belong to my grandmother Helm before the Great War. Why... I see. She used to belong to your grandmother and now you belong to her. Tell me, Miss Emmylou, how does it feel to be a human chattel with no prospect of emancipation? Why, Mr. Winslow, don't... Never mind. You're the sweetest lilo slave girl I've ever met. Mr. Winslow. And besides, she's gone. She won't be back for a half hour or so. Oh, now, don't hit your chair away from me. I've got something very important that I want to tell you. It concerns you and somebody else. It concerns me and somebody else. And yet only two persons are concerned of it. Emm has a way of fleeting when two young people are in love. And it didn't seem like no time at all to Emmylou and young Mr. Winslow till... I'm back. Yes, Aunt Charley, we know. Huh. Your hands stopped aching? What? It seemed like Mr. Winslow rubbed it right smart. Quite the folks just don't do that. Make her go away, Miss Emmylou. I'll try. Is that you, Aunt Charley? Who else should suppose it is? Well, hadn't you better be seeing about supper? Now, never you mind about supper. I'm tending to the supper. I bet the supper will be ready for you two babies ready to eat it. You see how it is? And he's so set in her ways. Yeah, she's set in that rocking chair, too. Emmylou, please try again. Go on yourself and speak to her. This is your house, isn't it? Yours and your sister's? Of course, Harvey. I thought Southerners could handle their servants. So if you can handle this one, suppose you give me proof of the fact right now. Well, I'll try. I'll try. Aunt Charley, won't you please... Now, Miss Emmylou, you might just as well hush up and save your breath. Because you know and I know, even if he don't know it, that it ain't proper for no young man to be coatin' no young lady right out on the front porch without no shaper owner being close by. Probably the folks just don't do such as that. But we aren't doin' anything. That's just why I takin' my foot in my hand and come hurryin' back from that grocery store when I saw your sister drinkin' ice cream soda with a lot of young folks in Mr. B Wilder's candy store. And by that I realized that I'd left you alone in this house with a young man that's a stranger here. But do you have to sit right here? Here I am, honey, and here I stay. But Aunt Charley, Mr. Winslow objects he... Oh, he does, does he? Well, just let him object. That's his privilege. Just let him keep on objectin'. That ain't gonna influence me not. Aunt Charley, Mr. Winslow will hear ya. I don't care if he do hear me. Maybe it might do him some good if he hears me. He'll do him good too if he hears me. Later that. Please, Aunt Charley. No, sorry, honey. I ain't gonna stand there and inch from here until your sister gets back here. Now run along back out there and learn that young man from the know some manners as we see him. Did... did you hear what she said, Harvey? I imagine the people in the next block heard it too. She just can't seem to understand that Mildred and I have grown up. She still wants to boss us just as she did when we were children. Yes, and I, poor, benighted Yankee that I am, came down here with a great and burning sympathy for the poor downtrodden Southerners. I know she loves us with every drop of blood in her veins. She'd work her fingers to the bone for us. Why, she'd die in her tracks fighting for us. We try to remember that now that she's old and fussy and unreasonable and all crippled up with rheumatism. Well, yes, you do have a problem. But it's almost unbearable to have her playing the noisy old tyrant day in and day out. I get awful out of patience with her, but you know, Harvey, in spite of everything, I think Annie likes you. Don't survive. Oh, it's Aunt Charley again. Honestly, Mild, she was absolutely unbearable this evening. I don't know what sort of people her... Mr. Winslow thinks we must be. I know. You should have heard what she said to me down at Wheels Ice Cream Parlor. Oh, it must have been just perfectly, awfully horrible for you two, Aunt. It was. And she gets worse all the time. Quality folks, quality folks. She's always preaching about our being quality folks. I'm sick and tired of the words. And I'm not gonna stand for it. Do she think we're still babies? Why should we be so... Nothing's ready. You children come right in. Eat it while it's hot. Yes, Aunt Charley. The cat's got everybody's tongue right in it. If folks don't like it, so much is the worst for them. Prayers will come and they're not accepted. There. That's my say and I'd understand it. Mildred sat in her nightgowns on the side of Emily's bed and tried the case of spinster Charlotte Helm, colored in the scales of their own youthful judgments. Oh. There are some many, many fine things to say for Amel. Mm-hmm. If she'd only let us get her some help for around the house. But she won't. Or if we could only get it to go and live in that little house that father left her in his will. She won't do that either. Well, we've been growing up. Aunt Charley's been growing old. Remember, Amel, when Aunt Charley dressed us for our first party? Our first real party. Remember how she skimped and scrimped to run the house after Mother died? When father's investment sighed on us? Yes, I do. And it's a good thing they turned out all right in the long run. And how she insisted we go to the same school that Mother had attended? Even though we wanted to go to an Eastern school? We would have, too, if Judge Priest and Lou Lake hadn't sided in with her. And remember when... It was on a certain moonlit, fragrant night not long after this that two happy young people agreed that thereafter these twins should be one. In obedience to a feeling that told her aunt Charley should be the first next only to her own sister to share with her the happiness that had come into her life, Amelieau sought out the old woman just before breakfast time. Isn't it just too, too wonderful, Aunt Charley? Huh. You chose too young to know your own mind. Now, you like Harvey, you know you do. Flying over the first young gentleman to come along from nobody knows what. But Lou at prayer meeting on Wednesday night at the Zion Colored Baptist Church Aunt Charley belied her muttered complaints with an air of triumph and haughtiness which sorely irked her fellow members. But if young Mr. Winslow had been the cause of her prideful department before her own people, it was likewise Mr. Winslow who was shortly to be the instrument for humbling old Aunt Charley into the very dust. It was a stand he took with regard to the future status of Aunt Charley in the household of which he was to become a member and of which he meant to be the head. Amelieau took her sister with her on the afternoon she invaded the kitchen to break the news. I have something I want to say to you. I'm listening, Charles. Well, it's this way, Auntie. We think... I mean, we're afraid you're getting along so in life, getting so old. Who says I'm getting old? We both think so. I mean, we all think so. Who do you mean by we all? You mean that young Mr. Winslow, Esquire, late over the North? Well... Uh-huh. I might have come putting such notions of them in you children's heads. Well, ma'am, and what prayer do he want? Well, he thinks, in fact, we all three do, that because you are getting along in years, you know you are, Auntie, that, well, perhaps we should make a change in the running of the house. So... So what? Now, I see here, if you're fixing to bring up the subject of I let an arrogant one of these young, flight-headed, flippant to give it the gas come work on this place, you might as well say you're better now and hereafter. Because as long as I'm able to drag one fridge to share a kitchen. Well, it isn't that exactly, Auntie. You see, after we're married, Harvey and I are going to live here, and Mildred too, and with one more coming into the household and everything, the added work will be too heavy for you to undertake, and, uh... My own child said whatever to you. So we decided that perhaps it would be better if you left here altogether and went to live in that nice little house that Papa left you in his will. Do it all me and then, that after all these years, you're trying to get a share of me? Trying to throw me aside like an old, worn-out broom? Your wages will go on just the same. Harvey insists on that just as much as we do. Your life will be so much easier. You can come and see us, and we'll come and see you every day if you want us to. It isn't as if you were going clean out of our lives. You'll be ever so much happier. You can work in your little garden and... Well, I ain't gonna go, not narrow as them. Think I'm gonna sit quiet while I'm pulled up by the roots and transported away from the house where I spent putting out a hole in my enduring life? Well, I won't go. The aunt Charlie they knew or we would have known who waited on them that night at supper. Rather, it was her ghost. A ghost with a dusky mask of tragedy for her face. It wasn't until after they'd risen from their places that Aunt Charlie spoke to them across the threshold of the door at the back of their dining room. You know nobody... It's about the story, Lou. Being as dressed up, it happened mighty fast. Yes, it wasn't more than a week after that that Emmy Lou come to see me herself. May I come in, Judge Priest? Well, hello, honey. You're quiet on them dainty little feet of yours. Never heard you coming at all. Sit down in that cherry under there where I can look at you whilst we visit. I'd rather sit here on the sofa beside you if you don't mind. Shoot yourself, honey. It... It's about Aunt Charlie, Judge Priest. It is, huh? Well, I had a visit from her here the other day. What other day? Oh, must have been a matter three weeks ago. She wanted to know what I know about this here young Yankee, Mr. Winslow. She wanted to know if he was the kind of man fitting to be getting himself engaged to a member of the Dabney family. I don't know if he was quality folks. She...she did? Of course, I was able to reassure a child having took the responsibility of doing a little inquiring round about that young man myself. Oh, Judge Priest. Of course, we both know you and me, what was in the back of Aunt Charlie's old kinky head. When I got done telling her, she went down the street from here singing. You could have heard her a mile off, I reckon. I never guessed it. I know now better than ever how much she really loves me. And it's going to make it all harder for me to...toot. Suppose you just start at the beginning, honey, and give me all the facts in the matter. All right, Judge Priest. But you must believe me. We aren't ungrateful for everything she's done. It's only that she's old now. Aunt Charlie won't budge an inch, Judge Priest and Harvey won't budge an inch. Oh, what am I going to do? Here, here, here. Here's my kerchief, honey. Now, now, tell me one thing, Emily, just to satisfy my own curiosity. You met this young man of yours whilst you and little Mildred were off at an old wood seminary. Is that so, Raine? What? Yes, sir. That's true. My child, what would you say, or more important, what would you do? If I was to tell you that if it hadn't been for old Aunt Charlie, you never would have known Mr. Harvey Winslow in the first place. Why, Judge Priest, how could that be? Emily, in telling you what I'm going to tell you, I'm breaking a solemn pledge. And that's the thing that I ain't much given to do. Yes, Judge. Now, in the first few years following the time your mother left us, the estate was sort of snarled up. Bigly, Judge. Well, it was snarled up a lot worse than you children had any idea of. It was only by Aunt Charlie's careful managing that you was even able to eat decent. I never knew things was that bad. Well, just about that time Aunt Charlie come to see me in Lou Lake, and she told us that you children had grown up with the idea that you'd go off to boarding school somewhere. But, Judge, we... Of course, we had to tell her just how things stood that there wasn't enough money and that you couldn't go. Well, I reckon you can guess for yourself what that old woman done then. She just rared right up and showed all her teeth. But, Judge, we went to the school for two whole years. If what you say is true... Your Aunt Charlie was right, Emily, when she told you that she couldn't leave your household, that she can't go to live in that little house your father left it. Because taint her is no more. Over five years ago, she sold it outright. She took the money she got for it, added to it what she'd saved up as the fruits of a lifetime of toil spent in your service and the service of your people before you. That was the money. Her money, ever sent of it, which paid for your two years at college. Aunt Charlie will skin me alive most like for telling to. Why did you and Dr. Lake ever let it do it? Well, honey, we did try to discourage her from the notion, but pretty soon we seen he just wouldn't know we used to try. And then somehow we didn't want to try. Because there's some impulses in this world it's too noble to be interfered with or hampered. Judge, may I have kept this a secret for all these years? It isn't going to be a secret any longer. Everybody in this whole town is going to know because I'm going to tell them. And Aunt Charlie stays. What do you suppose your young man from the North can have say about that? If he doesn't like it, he can find some other girl in the Marriam. Gives this young woman to this young man in holy matrimony. I do. Felly gets out of touch when he's been away for three years. Yep, out of touch. Now, about that... that born-in announcement that sent you high-tailing way back up here from Florida, Lou. Oh, yes, there's a mighty interesting document. Then I suppose you already got one. I made the arrangements for having it printed, son. Yep. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Winslow take pleasure in announcing the birth of a daughter, Charlotte Helm Winslow. Born June 19th, 1905. Can you know something, Lou? Already, folks is beginning to call that little pink knight little Charlotte. Can you know something else? It was Mr. Harvey Winslow, late of the North, who suggested that name. Factors in tonight's play were quality folks. They were trying to do something for each other to make life a little happier for those around them. And we know what a difference that kind of attitude can make in a home, in a family. Even your home, you're trying to put yourself out to do little things for mother, father, for brother or sister. Your family must have a spirit of happiness and contentment. This is what everyone wants in their family. And we know that you will learn, as thousands of other families have learned, that this spirit of helping each other, of working together, is strengthened by the practice of daily family prayer. So we remind you, as we do each week, that the family that prays together stays together. More things are brought by prayer than this world dreams of. Family Theater is brought to Parley Bayer as Old Judge Priest in Urban S. Cobb's classic, Quality Folks. But Jane Powell is your hostess, and Ruby Dandridge is Aunt Charlotte. Others in our cast were Fred Howard, High Aberback, Virginia Gregg, and Eve McVeigh. This adaptation of Urban Cobb's familiar work was written by Fred Howard, with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman, directed for Family Theater by Jaime Del Valle. Our Family Theater broadcasts are made possible by the thousands of you who felt the need for this type of program, by the mutual network which has responded to this need, and by the hundreds of stars of stage, screen and radio who have so unselfishly given of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage. To them and to you, our humble thanks. This is Gene Baker expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home. And inviting you to be with us next week when Family Theater will present Arlene Dahl and Robert Stack in The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper. Join us, won't you? Family Theater is heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is broadcast to our troops overseas by the Armed Forces Radio Service and is released in the Philippines by the Philippine Radio Corporation. This is the world's largest network, the Mutual Broadcasting System.