 I'm in if I'd known to get out of the rain. My ankle, I turn. Oh, you can see something. Now, you're a pretty sight. You're wet clean through, aren't you? I didn't have any matches or I'd have made a fire. A lot of old papers. What are you doing out in this godforsaken place? A girl like you has no business out like this. You're wet too. Never mind about me. I'll stay where you are tonight, before we get my bearings around here. Isn't this your house? Huh? Yeah, sure. Sure, this is my house. I just got it done over for spring, and I can't find my way around. This isn't your house. What are you doing here? Listen, sister, that's my business. Stop asking questions and roll up some of those old papers while I see if there's any wood. There is, in that room over there. I fell over it when I first came in. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. There's lots of it. I'll nearly to the ceiling. Oh, gosh. With that, would we just stay warm for the rest of our life? Imagine being warm the rest of your life. Maybe that's why I'm going to California. California? Is that where you're going? Yeah, I got an aunt there. She doesn't know I'm coming. I don't know how glad she'd be to see me either, but I haven't got any other place to go. Well, here's some more paper. Oh, OK. Did I roll them tight enough? Yeah, yeah, they're OK. Hmm. See, that's pretty swell. The boy scouted me. Well, it's not bad, is it? Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, I feel better already. What's your name? Mary Evans. Mine's Todd. Todd what? Todd's good enough. Well, look, we better be thinking of getting some shut-eye. I want to get on my way early in the morning, and I guess if you're going to California, you'll need some shut-eye, too. Wonder if they have fireplaces in California. What for? They've got sun. It's a long way to California, especially via hitchhiking. Say, look, I got some dough. Enough to get you a bus ticket. Oh, no, I wouldn't think of it. Well, it isn't right for a girl to go hitchhiking around the country. Not a gal like you. You haven't got enough for yourself. Who said I didn't have enough? I got a car. I ran it into a ditch down the road, but I'll get it out in the morning. Where are you bound? Back where I came from. And I thought I was coming to sort of a heaven on a house, land, all mine for the taken. So what do I get? A broken down wood pile with a lot of weeds around it. You mean this house is really yours? Now, look, we've talked enough. Oh, here. Here, put my coat over it and stop worrying about things that don't concern you. But where are you going to sleep? There's a pile of papers in that other room. I'll be warming up there. Good night. Good night. Pa, you sure there must be thousands of them. The night thought the country was supposed to be quiet. Sounds like Times Square on New Year's Eve. The storm's over and the sun's out, Tom. I want you to see what the place looks like in daytime. Oh, I saw the weeds last night. Not the weeds. The trees. Look. Say, it's not bad at that, is it? Oh, it's beautiful. All those fields stretching out green beyond the house. They must all belong to it because they're fast just the same as the house. Imagine all that ground. I didn't know there was so much ground left in the world. Yeah, but the weeds. So why wouldn't the weeds be waist high? Anything would grow here. You can tell just by looking out there. I bet you could have flowers and all the vegetables you wanted in almost no time. Yeah, I suppose maybe you could. And Todd, there's a kitchen too, with a stove, old-fashioned range as big as all outdoors. And there's an upstairs to the house and above that, an attic. Smells funny up there. Kind of like a perfume almost. You're pretty excited about this, Joey, aren't you? Your eyes are shining like a kid. Oh, maybe it's the air. It can breathe. Oh, it can actually breathe. Yeah, I just try it. No, not me. I couldn't stand it. Well, I'm going someplace to see if I can round up some grub. I'm hungry. Oh, my. Well, there's bound to be a store around someplace. Some bacon and eggs would go pretty good right now, huh? Oh, and coffee. Don't forget coffee. Yes, sir. I'll be back in a flash with the maker. Plenty, plenty. Look, here's the dough for your bus fare. And I'll be seeing you. I don't want your money. I've made my own way all my life. I don't need help from you or anybody else. Goodbye. You're a hot tempered little number, aren't you? You're OK. I like you. And just because I do, I'll explain about this house. It isn't really mine. It belonged to a fellow named Todd Brandon. It belonged to his family. He was the last. We were both in the rocket in New York. You mean gangsters? I never killed anybody. But I was running along with a gang. They got Brandon. But before he died, he gave me all the papers and the deed to the house. Told me to take his name and live out here just like I was a Brandon. I gathered from him that the Brandons were a special kind of people out here. Well, it would mean a new chance for you. To put your past behind you. That was wonderful of him. Yes, but there's an uncle. An uncle Caleb Brandon out in California somewhere. He's sick and can't get about much. And he hasn't seen Brandon since he was nine. Well, then you wouldn't have to worry about him. All you have to do is fill out the papers he gave you, tell everybody you're Todd Brandon, and you are. Yeah, and just like that, I'm a guy of property. And all this land would be yours, Todd. You've got to stay. What? Don't you see? It's your one chance. My chance for what? To spend my life picking weeds? You said you had a little money. Well, about 300 bucks, that's all. Well, that 300 will buy seeds to plant your land. It'll buy paint to fit your house. It's enough to buy life, Todd. You're crazy. Oh, look out there. The trees and the grass. Even the weeds are green and strong and healthy. Part of the earth, they belong. And where do you belong? Nowhere. Huh? Yet you're just as much a part of that earth as they are. That's fine talk for you. Would you want to stay on in this dump? Would I? Oh, for all your life, you've been shoved around. Nowhere to go that you belong. No one to care where you stayed or went. And if one day someone said that there was a house to live and land to make your living on. And it was yours for as long as you cared to stay. Do you think I'd say no? All right. All right, supposing I do like you say. Supposing I do stick on pretend I'm Brandon. Would you stay with me? Me, Todd? Back there in the store, an old fossil that runs the place, thought that it is head that I really was, Todd Brandon, and that I brought back a wife with me. You mean you're marrying me? Well, if I'm going to plow the fields and plant whatever or follow plants in a dump like this, there's still a house. And a house without a woman isn't much of a house. And a man's life would be pretty empty unless there were regular meals to come to. And, well, somebody to talk things over with them when his work was done. I can't believe what you're saying is true. Will you, will you stay? Oh, sure I will. I guess neither of us have got any past to brag about. Well, maybe that's not important. But, Todd, remember this. If things don't work out, you can go your way, and I'll understand. You're a good kid. And I'm not one to pass up a hunch. So we'll give it a whirl, huh, baby? Yes. And what's more, I think you'll make the grade. I'm betting on Todd Brandon to win. No one cared. Here was a chance, a long chance. Without discovery, he could be Todd Brandon. He could forget the old angry thoughts. But maybe the fear of detection might become the foundation for another obsession. You know what was in it? A letter, huh? It's from the Uncle Caleb out in California. I just know that's all. I've known all along that it was going to happen someday. It's been too perfect to last. Coming for Thanksgiving, what do we do, Mary? We just go on doing what we've been doing. How's he going to guess you're not his real nephew? He never saw the real Todd since he was a kid. If Ezra and Marty can be fool, and so can Uncle Caleb. But there'll be questions. There'll be his eyes looking at us, wondering, watching. So what? Listen, this place is ours. This earth is ours, yours and mine. Our field's ripe with a grain that we've planted. It's our gardens that have fed us. It's our labor that's fixed up the place and painted the house to see the hope of it. It's ours, you tell you. And no uncle Caleb or anyone else is ever going to take it from us. She's a humdinger, too. The way they tore into that house, she thought it was her last chance on earth. Her last chance, eh? They painted the place up, got to hold some fancy ideas about irrigation, and five guys. They're growing the best vegetables and fruit in Midland. Does she look like the family? Well, okay, that's a funny thing. It's a brandon, all right, you can tell that. But he don't look like him. He's handsome, I think, than any brandon ever was. No, I can't likely say there's much resemblance. She has a house just like it used to look. Same clean, dream-welcome look about it. Quite a bit of money nowadays, couldn't it? Sure, just off the highway and Midlands blowing like anything. But they are never selling in the back of your mind. Something worrying you. Something you ain't sure you're right about. Is it tough? Maybe it is, Ezra, and maybe it ain't. But I know for long. I know for sure. You're taking a long chance. Yeah. Hey, LeBard, why don't you come inside and have something to drink? I'll build a fire and you can talk and be comfortable, too. That's a good idea, young lady. Yeah, my old legs aren't as surprised as they used to be. Yeah, sit in that comfortable chair, Uncle Caleb. Thank you. Well, I'm gotten around to doing much about the furniture. We thought we'd wait till winter when there wasn't so much work to be done outside. You poke up the fire a bit, Todd. I'll get the drink. All right, honey. Good to sit here in this old room again. I guess when you get as old as I am, you get sentimental about places you've known when you were young. You see, Todd, we, brandons, belong to the real America. The America that ventured and dared and built in the days when life wasn't so easy as it is now. And the land was the thing, the great thing. That's why I've left this house stand empty all these years, just waiting for a brandon to come back. Because we, brandons, have always felt that it would never be right for anybody but a brandon to live in it. I think I understand how you feel. There you are. Here's your drink, Uncle Caleb. Oh, thank you, thank you. Thanks, honey. Well, here's to the brandons. Yes, here's to the brandons. Yeah, the brandons. I am not, no. It'd be like living with a lie. Everywhere I turn in the house, everywhere I'd go in the field would be there haunting me. I can't do it, Todd. Neither can you. I've seen it in your eyes since you've been here. I've heard it in your voice the night he told us about the family. You can't go on any more than I can, even if it means giving up everything. OK, you're right, honey. We'll tell him tonight. Oh, I'm so glad, Todd. I knew you'd say it. Good night, Mary. Good night, Todd. This has been a wonderful week, but I better get some sleep. I am leaving early tomorrow. Just a minute, Uncle Caleb. Before you leave, Todd has something to tell you. Couldn't it wait till morning? Oh, no, we've got to say it now. Because maybe it'll change your plans about leaving tomorrow. Telling, Todd. We hadn't planned to tell you. At least I hadn't. Tomorrow would have come, and you would have gone, and things for us would have been just the same. We could have gone on living here, making our living off your form, becoming a part of a town carrying your name because it really isn't ours. I'm not Todd Brandon. Oh. Oh, I see. My name, my real name is Conway. When Todd died, the real Todd, he gave me the deed to this place. I filed it like it was my own. But believe me, it wasn't stealing. We didn't mean to steal it, Uncle Caleb. It was just that it was our only chance to make a life for ourselves. We made vegetables, and crops, and fruit brok, where only weeds were growing before. We built a home out of a broken-down wood pile. For just a little while, this earth was ours. We were Brandon's too. I've got to tell you something else, Uncle Caleb. Something I've never told Mary before. It's her doing really. Without her, I wouldn't be here now. She taught me what it means to live. She taught me what it means to love. That's why I stayed on because of her. It isn't exactly what he said. He taught me the meaning of living, too. He taught me about love. And then when you came, we saw how swear you were. And we talked it over. We knew we couldn't go on living a lie, not any longer. I am glad you decided the way you did, though I wouldn't have said anything in any case. You mean you knew I wasn't top Brandon? I knew when he died. I'd been hunting him for some time. I just learned about him, what he was, and what he did, and how he died. I was planning to come back here. Then I got your letter saying you'd come back to the farm to live. I thought I'd wait and see what happened. That's why I came back. I'm so glad we told you. Well, after all, being a Brandon is equality that's in a man whether he's Tom Dicker Harry or Todd Brandon. This earth is yours because you made it so. You belong here, both of you. You belong in this house. Gosh, I don't know what to say. It's as if I was suddenly made whole again. Only one thing I've got to say. It was mostly Mary's doings. Without her, I couldn't be beaten, pretended to be a Brandon. Well, it took both of you to do it, Sean. Oh, believe me, Uncle Caleb. I promise you this, that as long as Todd and I live, you'll never be ashamed of our bearing your name. That's right. We've learned what this earth of ours means. We've learned what it means to be a Brandon, what it means to be an American. And listening to obsessions.