 The Department of Women's and Delaware makes it a better thing for a better living through chemistry presents the Graphicate of America. Tonight's star, Dennis O'Keefe. Tonight's play, The Saga of Jerry O'Brien. The story of the first American victory at sea. A Jeremiah O'Brien. One of the 30 American O'Briens. A famous plan down east in Maine. As everyone knows, the O'Briens were kings in Ireland long before London Town could boast the tower. As to how we came to the province of Maine, where Sydney and Salmon thought of that long, long ago. This is the story of the O'Briens' finest hour. And it begins and ends his old good story, with a pretty girl. The time and evening in the early spring of 1775. The girls? Well, I'll let her speak for herself. She would indeed. The answer, Jerry O'Brien, I don't still know. I'm nothing your wife. I'm nothing your wife if you father owned all the formula between Boston and Covertine. That would be no harm to ask again. How many terms have I asked you now? Do you think I keep count? No, I do indeed. It's only to both of it, to those Bruno's janky clones that hand me around. Oh, I told the story to no one, Jerry. Not even to my sister. Is that a shame just for them? Oh, no, that's ridiculous. But if I marry you, I'll be starting here in the wilderness for all my life and that's not what I want. Well, that's who you want. Surely no man in Mathias, all of Maine, should give you more. The O'Briens rule here, for we only only trade for a hundred miles. And I'll not marry a sawmill. Not even if it's the only sawmill. Oh, Jerry, I guess the truth. I want to get out of here. I want to see the great world. Boston, New York, London even. London is it. Boston, I could marry for that once in a year when the work is flat. As a matter of fact, my brother rides there now in business for the little bit. London. You in London? Why not? Oh, Peg, I don't know. It's all beyond me. I'm not a big enough man for the likes of you and that's the heart of it. I have my own dreams, yes, but there's very not the grandest you is. Oh, make them grander than I, you can do it. You think so now? Oh, I know it, Jerry. But you're the smartest man in Mathias. You're the strongest too. Yes, I am. The smartest sometimes does. I know. Now I was no-headed all for figures. Money stood still in my fingers like water for this word. If it's a smart man, you watch my brother. Gideon's the one for you. Gideon. Gideon. It is fancy ways and superior ways of saying two things at once, no offense. No, he gets you to London, girl, if anyone can. All your brand's brains went to him. Such as they are. But can he work at the login all day long and then dance the whole night through and work again in the morning? The dancing, yes. The work and no. Well, there you are. Yes, well done, my dear. Now you have me far confused. As it looks to me, there's two things you want and no man can give you both. Gideon's coming, Jerry. We're nothing to see. I won't stay quiet now, Peg. I'm tired of all this heart and... Jerry! What? Gideon himself. I'm early from Boston. I've told him all about his big... Well, Jerry and Peg, are the bands to be published then? Can I offer my congratulations? No, don't be silly, man. Why will a great lad run heard of you? Are you so desperately wishing to be home? I am that. That's a new thing, then. I bring news, brother. Great news. That's taken news. The price is lumber, is that it? That may well be, but lumber's not in it. It's a matter of state. Well, tell me, then. Not now. There's news that all the O'Brien's must hear. And we must hear it first before the town itself is torn apart. Well, I will excuse this then, Peggy, because... And Peggy? Peggy, where are you? Your little pigeon has flown away, brother. What a beauty. There are lucky devils. No, I might not. That's all you know about it. Now, what's this great news? It must wait. It calls for the family council. Old Morris must get his teeth into it first. Come on, now. This is more important than pretty Peggy Bates. This is the biggest thing that's happened since Patrick himself set foot in Galway. I don't believe you, Gideon. You will, brother. You will. You must meet now, my father, old Morris O'Brien, who came to the cold wilderness from Ireland and forthest and came to it. And may as he yield bread for his sons and their mothers. The news that Gideon bought was important. And my father knew just how important it was. That night, when the O'Brien's had offered up family prayer. I mean... And, Joseph, I thank you, not to move. Lift up your voice, boy, at the place of God. See what your voice is called. Yes, sir. Now... Now taken into consideration the importance of the occasion, I'd call a meeting. A meeting of the O'Brien men. Oh. Will you not call me to counsel as well, Morris O'Brien? This is a matter for the men, Mary. And only for the men. A matter for men? When they're killing it. Oh, I knew. I knew when Gideon came right in home with the faith all aflame. Mary, this is purely a tip for the Satan by men. All the men I see are my own sons and my husband. Once I sit by the window again and wonder if his sons are alive or dead. But I get to my husband in the old days. It may be. It may be. It may be that it must be. Oh, it can't be. Not here in this new land. But we found peace at last and plenty of no killing. Oh, he's done with killing. Oh, there they are, Mother. There they are. I'm afraid the killings followed us. It's the same old quarrel. Aye, Jeremiah. The same old quarrel. The talent is pursued is even here. Well, can he find us here in the heart of the great forest so far away? Oh, can he? Can he find us here? He can, Mother, and he will. He can indeed, and he will. No, let me state the case, Father, as I'm the eldest. For years now, this thing's been closing in on us, Mother. All the restrictions, all the taxes here. It's been a long time coming, and now it's here. You've all heard the news that a place called Lexington. A witch's name? I don't know where it is. No, do I see it? No, there's a matter, Father. At Lexington, the war has begun. Men have been killed. Oh, and kind. They've taken arms against the English king. And they've won. By heaven, they've won! So giddy and snazzy, I believe, my brother. The question is, what are we in Maine to do? What are we to do? Have no part in this quarrel. Rest quiet. Ask into the battle far away, and there's no concern of ours. Be skinned, Mary. Your plans are involved, as any fool can see. Our lumber goes to Boston by sea, and our lumber is our life. Surely, the British and Boston will rule the sea, so that we join in the revolt, they can starve us. And they will, unless we drop to our knees and kiss Milord Kippsfoot, once again, as we had to do at home. And what if we resist? They'll harry us on a small slupe of war. They could spare such a one, no doubt, and blockade our harbor here. No lumber going out, no goods from Boston coming in, no food, nothing to eat but what we can raise in the clearing. That's the old, old story. Perhaps it's not so serious, Father. Gideon, what do you mean? Back in Boston, as many are mentioned, planes both ends against the middle. There are those who collaborate with the British and do very well. There's a middle road, and many take it. Gideon, is it your thought that the O'Brien's might wear two faces before the world? I said, but there's many do in Boston Town. And they save their skins and their money bags. I see me six sons about me. Could we do that? Could we bow and scrape on Mundi, and then un-choosey scrape and bow the other way? Could the O'Brien's do that? Jeremiah, not the O'Brien. Could we not? What else do we do? Could we see this little hole that we've taken on a place in the sunny world, Gideon? Shall we starve again and take the whole town's starve in with us? No, because a skip-neck boy is pride. Pride? Pride. Nothing else. Pride. I'm not a sin. And is avarice not a sin? And if we bow our necks, wouldn't it not be for greed that we do it? As between avarice and pride? Why, the saints, I'll let me proud. Well, one thing is certain. The choice is ours, and ours alone. As we go, so main will go for this far part of it. For all their Yankee lives depend on us and on our mill. Very well, then. I'll take a vote in the way of this new country. All those who favor that the O'Brien shall resist the British King in this new war, let them signify by saying aye, as I do call their name. Jeremiah Francis O'Brien. Aye. Indian Patrick O'Brien. Aye. Though it is not the way of the best folk in Boston. John Ignatius O'Brien. Aye. William Vincent O'Brien. Aye. Dennis Franklin O'Brien. Aye. Joseph Adams O'Brien. Gosh, yes. No, no, no, all right, then, if I must, I must. Mary Margaret Poverty O'Brien. Aye. And when your pride's ahead, you're all broken in store. Come back to your mother. And I'll mend them if I can. Main by unanimous vote, declared war upon his Britannic Majesty, George III. And after a week of chewing on the news from Lexington, the citizens of Machiais saw a British armed cusset, the Margaretta on the horizon of their bay. And soon the drums of the British Marines rolled through the one space in my little town. For his excellency, Lieutenant James Moore of the Royal Navy, paying attention for his Majesty's officer, Lieutenant James Moore. Hello, subjects of his Majesty. Hello, gentlemen. Hello, Englishmen. You've had news of certain treatable actions in the vicinity of Boston. That's why Command has a gun trained upon your town at this moment. I bring with me a communication from General Gage, commanding all British troops to these provinces. That message will be read to you by Captain Ichabod Jones, your fellow citizen. Those lumber-sloops, unity, and poly carry the produce of this town to Boston. Captain Jones. Unfounded, I told you not to get me up here in front of everybody. Read the proclamation, Captain Jones. Yes, of course I must. Well, then, it goes like this. Do his Majesty's subject at Machiais in the province of Maine. Be it known that the forces of his Majesty have the greatest need of lumber for the building of winter quarters and for use in the fortification of Boston against those traitors lately joined in rebellion against the crown. Dang it, this turn I told you. Go on, go on, Captain Jones. Now listen here, you. I've got to read this thing. What it says is, either you ship lumber to Boston on my slooks or else you get no food from Boston. It's lumber for Gage and the British or Machiais Stars. And I don't care what you do or it's not my doing and I'm going to get down out of here. Captain Jones, we need that proclamation. Dang you, I will. They know what it says. Then I'm taking a lump in. Turn up. Exalt. Exalt the fence. Down the road. No, Peggy. Which way will it go? Sure, who knows. Half the town wants to give in, half wants to fight. There's no one to tell them what to do. No father has done his best. He's been talking all day until his voice itself has gone with the wind. Your father is an old man. He talks in a way strange to most of us. We need a younger voice. Mine, Peggy? Your own. My love. He's never called me that before. No, and I'll never call you that again. Unless you act. Well, but what can be done? The Margaret is guns command the town. And Captain Jones' two lumber slooks lie at the wharf. The parlay and the unity. Say, now, we can take the two slooks and end the whole argyl-poggle for a while. You could. If you had the heart for it. Oh, you did. Do you think I've not? Well, I've wandered. Then wonder no more, my love. We'll move tonight. We return to our cavalcade play, the saga of Jerry O'Brien starring Dennis O'Keefe. We were committed to action after all the talk. While the British cut a layin' stupid quiet in the harbor, we took the two slooks to think about Jones at the wharf. And there we were. There was the Margaretha house in the bay, broadside to the town, with four three-pounders and fourteen silver guns, all trained on the homes we built out of the wilderness. The men of Machias looked up to me and put the O'Brien clan for help. And there was only one answer. Now listen to me. Listen here. We must use the two lumber slooks to capture the Margaretha. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Silence! Silence! You fools! You have one gunner. Long years ago I thought of taking a Louisburg against the French. And yarn will knight as a wild gun at home. I can mount it in the Unity's bow. It's small to bear the name of a cannon, but will serve as well-aimed as mine. You heard my father speak. I say we can do it. We all have arms at home. All right. All right, my word to you is this. Go get your muskets. Go get them. Now! 52, 53, 54, 55. 55 men here on the wall. And their lives, brother. In your charge. Do you think I don't know that? Have you counted the muskets, Gideon? Aye, captain. We have 20. Counting the fouling pieces. 20 guns for 55 men. How many pitchforks? 13. Commander. How many timber axes? 12. Fine axes or comadones. I'll take one of those in place of a sword. And what are the powders? Powders? Aye, there's a rough, my dear admiral. We have no powder at all to load the wall gun. No powder? And only the wall gun shot could pierce Gideon's vessel's side. True, Wheaton said he had 40 pounds hidden in his cellar at all. Where is it? Joseph, he clean forgot it. He was in such a horrid hurry not to miss the great sea battle. Oh, Gosset. By all this kind of war, Jerry, we're all amateurs here. Jerry, what's the meaning of this? What does that mean? It's my little pigeon, brother. I don't believe it. Tell you. And her sister, Joe Wheaton's wife. Jerry, Jerry, we're coming. Tell you, tell you, what's the meaning of this? You'll not come aboard this, Gideon. Can you see this? It's the powder. The powder, my rattle-brained brother, and I forgot to bring it. My sister and I have dragged this 40-pound bag all the way from Swanson River. Oh, pecky children, Gosset. Oh, the war is on again. Well, you'd better get ahead with it, Admiral. The enemy might wake up. Gideon, are you with me or against me? Do you need to ask? I think I do. The things you say. My way of saying it. Would you have me pretend? This is the fool's errand we're on. And it can end only one way in failure and death. But I'll be with you, Jerry. However it ends. Oh, I'm sorry, Gideon. This is no time for being sorry. Yonde is your Navy, Admiral. Half a hundred fools. All right, talk to them. I will. I will at that. Men, men, gather round here. Gather round and listen to me. Now, I'll take the unity out. Then, foster it, we'll take the Pali. And what Massachusetts farmers can do on land against the British, Maine lumbermen can do at sea. We'll all sail it here. We've had to be. And now we'll sail against the enemies of liberty. Take your stations. What happened in the next hour? I've not wished to tell with my own lips, for I'm a modest man. Though they do say I summoned the strength of ten to my own right arm that day. But let others tell the story as is only proper. Lift me ashore. Me, Morris O'Brien. Holy shit, I was too old. Too old, 75. And they gave the wall gone to will-night to trade, and him shivering in a boat for a while. But I have a sail against the Englishmen, and I watched them. I watched the Britisher make sail against the room. I watched the Lubbers mishandler in the quarter and win. Soar boom, swung round and snapped clean off. Listen to O'Brien. You just see that now. The British has lost their mate. She's helpless. She can't move now. Look at her. I can see her. I can see all 18 cannons. Titan of my son. A ram with axes and pitchforks on it. Then faster, sort of the ground, she's on a moot bank. But the unity goes forward. The unity goes forward alone. With my elders to the hell. I look no more. I look no more. I saw the old woman close your eyes, stumble back into the crowd and fall in a faint. I wanted to help her, but I could not take my eyes from the smoking harbors. And the man I loved. I saw the unity close in and grapple. I saw my very leap aboard the enemy's loop, his daydacks swinging around his head. I saw the British commander fall dead on the quarter deck. I saw his crew re-stamble for cover below against the flailing axes and the pitchforks of Matthias' men. And I saw my Jerry leap to the rail of the quarter deck and with one great blow of his shining axe, cut down the British entity and end the battle. What I mean was I thought she saw mighty quiet here in the orchard. Isn't the moonlight lovely? Oh yes, yes it is. I mean yes, yes it is. And you do look so handsome and heroic with that bandage around your head. Oh it's as little as I need it for this scratch I got behind me here. I wish you'd let me take it off. After all the trouble I took to fix it just so night like the heroes in the picture books, you'll wear it the next three days, maybe longer. You say so Peggy. And one must you be done cast after such a day. I'm thinking of that Peggy, I can't help it. Oh but it's been a great day for the O'Brien's and for all of me. I suppose so. It's a great battle but we can't each victory. We've got nothing now from Boston and we've got nothing here to last beyond the fall. You've got three fine suits Jerry. The unity, the Pali, the Margarita. All prizes of war. Can we eat the boats then when the wizard comes? No, but you can fill the boats with lumber and sail them to New York and bring them back chock-a-blast full of flour and meat. Why Peggy, so we could. Yes, so you could. I'm with you. Peggy. To settle. I've always wanted to see the great world. But Peggy, you can't. What would people say to you? They say not a word, not a single word. Not if we are well and truly married first. So Peggy got what she wanted, to see the great world. For it in the end, I took it to London itself. And I got what I wanted, wherever close by Peggy's side, through all the days of our years. There's more to it than that, I think. We poor folk of Mechios, it humbled the might of tyranny's power on the Western Ocean. We had won the new country's first victory offshore. Though we quarreled amongst ourselves, and even the O'Brien's were not of one mind at all time, we drew together and fought together when the need was most great. Today, in your own time, there's an American ship of war that bears the name O'Brien in our honor. Wherever she rides, salute her now, and draw together, as we did then. Next to them is O'Brien from the Cavalcade players. For tonight's story, the saga of Jerry O'Brien. Tonight's Dupont Cavalcade was written by George H. Spockner and was based on the article, The O'Brien's Go to Sea, by Ernest Dupuis. Original music was composed by Arden Cornwell, conducted by Donald Boris. The program was directed by John Zoller. With our star, Dennis O'Keefe, you heard Yuna O'Connor as Mrs. O'Brien, Jean Gillespie as Peggy, James O'Neill as Morris, Scott Scotsworth as Gideon, and Parker Fennelly as Captain Jones. Dennis O'Keefe can currently be seen starring in the Metro-Golden mayor picture, everything I have is yours. And Mrs. Sy Harris reminding you to be with us next week when the Dupont Cavalcade will present Ready on the Right, our star Jackie Cooper. Ladies and gentlemen, for 18 years, the Dupont Cavalcade of America has brought to millions of radio listeners the true stories of our American heritage and the achievements of the men and women who gave us our American heritage. Now, the Dupont Company is bringing you Cavalcade on television. Watch the TV listings in your newspaper for Cavalcade of America TV in your locality. The Dupont Cavalcade of America came to you tonight from the Balasco Theater in New York City and is sponsored by the Dupont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Makers of better things for better living. Go chemistry.