 The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by Dupont. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Cavalcade of America, sponsored by Dupont. Tonight we are happy to present as our star a young lady of stage and screen. An old friend and former member of the Cavalcade players, Nancy Kelly. Miss Kelly plays the role of Flory in an original radio play of our time, between them both, written by the popular screen dramatist Cave and Riper. Nancy Kelly as Flory on the Cavalcade of America, sponsored by Dupont. This is a fable of a girl named Flory. It begins in the small stucco house of John Fraser and his family, near one of our important airplane factories. It's 6.30 in the morning, and the Fraser kitchen is bright with electric lights challenging the cold dark outside. And at the breakfast table, three members of the family are very busy. Can't seem to get awake this morning. How's about another cup of java, Mom? You know we've got a one cup limit. Oh, well, here, take half of mine. Oh, no. As I say, buddy, you need it, working hard as you do welding or whatever it is. I'm not a welder, Mama. I'm a drill press operator. Well, I see by the paper the Array Roads will be hauling even more next month than this. What's that do to you engineers, Dad? I don't know yet. Longer hours, maybe. I don't want you to work too hard, John. If one of our daughters is risking her neck as a nurse in the Solomon Islands, Mama, I guess Bud and me can work a little harder to home. I don't forget that. Why, I think of her most of the day. Well, it's too bad everybody in the family don't think of her a little more. Morning, Pop. Glory, you're going to be late to the job. As usual. So crazy about herself. She even goes around singing a theme song. Only your carrot top, not redheaded. Little brothers should be seen and not heard. And in the next time you got on your boat. Mind your own business. Buddy, come finish. I'm through, Mom. Where's my life? Over there. I got it. See you later. Glory. Well, he started it. Can't I have my breakfast? Hey, are you too lazy to get the stove and back? When your sister was home, she waited on us. But you... That's right, Pop. But Beth was a blonde angel with braids wrapped around her head. Me, I got red hair with fire in it. And I paid board here and I would like my breakfast. It's here. Now quiet down, both of you. Oh, a red-headed woman makes an engine jump for pride. Stop that silly slop. It's an insult to a decent, hard-working locomotive. Emmy, give me my lunch money. I put it in your coin, first, dear. Your heavy coat's in the hall. Goodbye, Dad. Bye. See you tonight, when my run's over. Glory. What makes you so contrary? I pray for you every night, but just... Don't bother about me, Mama. Save your prayers for Beth. Say there's no more coffee. One cup, dear. Oh, for... What a way for our country to be run, dear. Take the rest of mine. But aren't you going to be terribly late to work? Probably. But they can make airplanes without me. I'm hungry. Just a minute, Miss Fraser. Yes? This is the third time in the past two weeks you've been late. Well, I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. That isn't the point. The point is, do you know how many work hours we lose? How many actual planes we don't build by workers being a few minutes late? Well, I don't see how a couple of minutes... Well, just listen. In this factory, in one month, we lost about 106,000 minutes of working time. Poland was conquered in 37,000 minutes. France was conquered in 44,000 minutes. Okay. Okay, but if I'm no good, why don't you fire me? Because you happen to be bored with one of the finest mechanical talents we've found in a woman worker. And we're waiting for you to start using it. Listen, I'll come to work on time. But spare me the lectures, will you? Flory? Hi, Mildred. Where did I punch my card? Why am I glad I'm on the way out instead of in? Four in the afternoon's the prettiest time of day to me. Say, Flory, every department in the factory's got a white satin banner with a star on it, meaning 100% is buying war bonds. Everybody but us, that is. You're ready now to sign up for your 10%? Gee, I'd certainly like to, hon, but I'll have to wait just a little while longer. I'll let you know the minute I can spare it. You saved that big bottle of perfume for me? So, for evening, remember? I should say so. Well, I'll take it. That'll be $10 and a dollar and 30 cents tax. Here you are. I certainly grudge that tax, though. Oh, hey, wait a minute. Don't wrap it yet. I want to use some. I got a heavy date. Miss Fraser? Hello, Nick. My boyfriend here yet? Sure. He's waiting for you. Over in your private booth. We're going to get a sign for that booth. Property of Mr. Dave Emerson and Miss Flory Fraser. Yeah, we sat there a lot, all right. Did you see him test that new plane this afternoon? No, I worked that shift. Good? Good. Terrific. Flew right over the roof here. That boy's hot. Yeah, he's some guy. Well, bring me whatever he's drinking. You'll bet you're coming right up, Miss Flory. I wonder, boy. I'm not a wonder boy. And what's more, Flory, you're 10 minutes late, so don't give me a lot of bright conversation. Sit down. Why, thank you. I, uh, I hear you were clipping angels' wings. You were flying so high this afternoon. Oh, she's great, Flory. Best plane we've built, I think. Hey, I never knew they grew flowers in these places. Flowers? Where? In a juke joint? They must. Roses, I guess, all around here. Big white ones, the kind that looks swell in a red-headed gal's hair. Dave, if you're one-ahead, dumb me like it, huh? Mighty sweet. So you must think a lot of me. That must have sent you back plenty. I perfume me, darling, for me. Not for anybody else. Tough little Flory. The kid with a chip on her shoulder and a big, soft, mush-mellon heart. Playing with fire, and he lights more matches. You just don't know me, honey. I bet I know you better than anyone, even your family. Say, how are they? Okay. What do you hear from Beth? Her mom had a letter last week. She's swell. She's certainly a sweet gal, Beth, is she? Yeah. Everybody always says that. Flory, when are we going to get married? I... I don't know. I keep asking, but you don't answer. You know, that's a funny setup, because if ever a dame was crazy about a guy, it's you. Hmm, look at who's talking. And if ever a guy was... et cetera, et cetera, huh? When, Flory? Someday? Maybe pretty soon, I don't know. Let's dance, honey, huh? Oh, Flory. You silly, funny, foolish little kid. You are listening to Nancy Kelly as Flory on The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by Dupont. As our play continues, Flory, played by Nancy Kelly, has returned home and is entering the family kitchen. A kitchen, huh? And all of you. I didn't come back to dinner, Mom, because... Well, what's the matter? Got a telegram from the War Department. Oh, no. No, Papa, no. Killed by Spapno while nursing the wounded under fire. They're going to give her a decoration for bravery. They can ascend it to Mom and Dad. It's fine that daughters of man could have. I mean, look, I mean, wait for me. Papa, don't. Please, Papa. Don't talk to me. Why are you looking at me like that? You think we didn't see? You think we didn't know? Beth was so in love with Dave Emerson, she couldn't breathe. And what did you do? You walked right in and took him away from her. You big fool. Why do you suppose she signed up for overseas service, all of a sudden? Because you broke her heart, that's why. You hated your sister all your life. Now you must be satisfied. No, that isn't true. That isn't so. Mama, tell him it isn't so. You let Mama alone. She's half-dead from crying. You never loved Beth. We did. Let us alone now. Okay? Okay, I'm going out to bed. Only get to sleep. Japs again. They're getting too close for comfort with that mortar. Sergeant, yes, sir. Any message yet about plane reinforcements? No, sir. Cut off an lousy jungle foxhole and not a blankety-blank plane in sight. Why? Why? Don't you know, sir? What? Flory Fraser's lost so much time in the factory that the plane Flory Fraser didn't build is the one we don't get. It won't ever get here, sir. You mean we're going to be wiped out? Yes, sir. I thought you knew. No. No. Bring up that ammunition. We're all out of shells. We can't. There isn't any. Flory Fraser didn't buy us any. But look what we have got. A perfume atomizer, sure. Flory Fraser says we can spray the enemy with this. $11.30 per bottle, including tax. Salt-free evening for the Japs and the Germans. No, I didn't mean that. Beth Fraser! Yes, Private? Getting closer, huh? How did I know the wounded in this cave? Oh, they probably don't. They're all out of shooting all over. Yeah. Think that lamp could take my leg? No, of course not. You're a good kid, Fraser. Beth Fraser, huh? It's a pretty name. You're related to the Fraser's in my hometown? Fraser's not. We live in another part of the country. I've been thinking of home, too. Of a kitchen. We've got yellow oilcloth curtains up over the sink. Mama's old-fashioned. She's doing something in a tomato can. She wraps in green paper. Puts it on the windowsill. I guess it's the most beautiful place in the world. Gosh. It's your homesick, aren't you, sister? I love homes. I love the family. No, Beth! Beth! Look out, Beth! Oh, no. That's forgive me. Forgive me, Beth. Well, I'm not Beth. I'm your conscience, Flory. Well, Miss Fraser, what's happened to you here early this morning? Yes. I wanted to ask you something, Mr. Andrews. You said if I ever wanted to, you'd recommend me for that school for special training after working hours. Yes, that was when you first started here. Well, I'd like to enroll. They don't want anyone in that course who won't stick, Miss Fraser. But I'll stick. How do we know that? Certainly not from your record. Do you think it was sudden changes of heart? Little dramatic, we think. Yes, I... I can understand that. How do I prove it, then? Okay, I'll tell you. I'll put you on the dirtiest job on the line and give you the graveyard shift. That's the beginning. You want it? Sure. Hey, Mildred. Oh, you. Look, I got my debts paid off. Put me down for 15% of my salary toward war bonds, will you? 15%, huh? Yes. Well, anything to matter with that? It takes you to make the grandstand play, doesn't it? Spectacular or else? Yeah. I guess you're right. I'm sorry, I'll do like the rest. 10% and I'll buy more stands on my own. Thanks. After two weeks of the cold shoulder, the duchess calls and says she'll meet me at the joint. Hiya, duchess. Are you drinking champagne or Napoleon brandy this year? Nothing for me, thanks. I'm going home from here. I'm pretty tired. I've been working kind of hard. Oh, boy, Flory, what's your diet been? You matched the tablecloth. You're skinny. I guess so. Dave, I wanted to see you because I've got something to tell you. Yeah, I know, but skip the details. Just give me his name. Whose name? Look, when a dame moves crazy about me, suddenly passes me up cold for a couple of weeks. Ben, doesn't it? Not this time. Beth is dead. Killed under fire. Decorated for bravery. I've got to tell you, Dave, I'm a liar and a cheat. After the first evening you spent at our house when Beth brought you home, I wanted you. So I fixed it the next day to meet you accidentally, you thought, and I told you kind of casually that Beth was practically engaged to Ben Herman. Well, it was a lie and it worked. You never called her again. Being a decent guy, you let a couple of weeks pass and then you started dating me. Yeah, but Flory, you don't get the set up. Beth didn't give a dime. Beth was in love with you. She said so the night you came home with her. The moment the door closed, she said she'd met the one man for her and you were it. I know she couldn't have. Ben is so dumb. They don't see half what goes on with women. Beth was just... Beth was a saint, see? And I'm no good. I sent her away to die just as plain as though I'd taken a gun and shot her. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Well, I'm in a spot, Flory. I don't know what to do. Just nothing, that's all. That's why I couldn't make up my mind to marry you. I felt so guilty. Well, now I'm not going to see you anymore. I'm just going to work. This isn't any time to argue with you, Flory. I'll wait. When you're ready to see me, when you want me, give me a ring. I'll be there. That'll be never. Flory, darling. I can stand women crying, but not one just sitting there with no expression and tears running down her face. Goodbye now, Dave. Gee, I loved you. There you are, Flory. I got your dinner on the stove. Evening, Flory. Hi, Dad. I don't want anything, Mom. Hello, sis. Hello, buddy. Finished with dinner? Yes. We've just been sitting here talking. Well, I'd like to say something to all of you. Just a second. Soon as I take my hat and coat off. No, sit down, buddy. I can do it alone. Flory, I've got to say it. I don't want to sit down if you don't mind. I'll just stand here against the chair. Listen. I want to talk to you about Beth and me. But weesh. Let her go on. Ever since I can remember, I've been jealous of Beth. I hated her. She was so pretty with real curls. She never fell down in the mud in a life of dirty to good dress. And me? Well, I was a skinny kid with big freckles and stringy red hair with my knees scratched and all I could do was climb trees and come home bloody and ragged and be the disgrace of the family. Nobody was born. He was Beth's little brother, not mine. No, Flory. She was trusted to wheel him in the buggy. You were afraid I'd drop him. You know what that means to a kid, Mama? To feel nobody loves her. I was sick to my stomach most of the time like a cold knot was in it. I was scared. And because I was scared, I was mean. All right, you didn't want me, but you were going to notice me. So I was ordinary and nasty. It got to be a habit. I grew greediness on me and selfishness. And when Dave Emerson came along, I fell so in love with him, I just reached out and took him. And so I sent Beth away. I know it, Mama. It's my fault. I want you to know I know it. I've been wrong all my life. And take this place. Give me another chance. I want a chance to try. Flory. Flory, don't cry. Mama's got you. Mama's holding you. We've been wrong too, Flory. We didn't know such funny things happened. Gee, Flory, I'm sure you wouldn't have dropped me. Amy, tell us. We got a letter today. It was the last one Beth ever wrote. Here. I want you to sit down and read it. Oh, I can't now. I couldn't bear it. Go on. Read it now. Do as Dad tells you. All right, Papa. Here's family. What I have to tell you, I guess, will be the first really true thing I've ever said in my life. You see, my eyes have been opened. You can't watch the courage of our boys, the way they work and fight, the laughing way they die, or the screaming way they die, without something happening to you. You begin to see that the enemy they're fighting is fear and hate and greed. It makes you look into your own self to see if the enemy is in you too. To face that enemy in concrete, so you can look the next dying boy in the eyes. So I'm writing you about Flory. The truth is, like so many older kids, I guess I was jealous of a new baby. So I started out to push her away from you by a kind of nasty, phony goodness you thought was real. I did so many mean, little, cruel things to Flory, but the worst was about Dave Emerson. Flory, he saw us together on the street and fell for you and got introduced to me and just said right out how he felt about you. It hurt me so with jealousy that I told the whole family I was madly in love with him. Then I pretended he was giving me a brush off before picking up with my sister. I planned anyway on volunteering for Foreign Service. I was bored with home, you and myself. So now I used that, left you all thinking Flory had broken my heart and driven me away. Please, dear young sister, I never knew or give me if you can. I have to go dress wounds now. But oh, how I love each one of you. And I want you to know I'm at peace at last. God bless you and keep you. I think God did bless Beth then. Oh, poor Beth. Oh, but the waste, mama, the waste. What we could have had and lost. I guess we should ask you to forgive us too, Flory, for being so dumb. Parents sometimes ain't so hot. Oh, Papa, gee. Gosh, off the pizza, let's all quit ballin'. Flory, I'll make you the best offer I got. What? If you wash the dishes, I'll wipe. Okay, darling. You'll have to wait a minute. I gotta get a guy on the telephone first. Thank you, Nancy Kelly. Recently we announced that the DuPont company has prepared an attractive booklet containing selected stories of chemistry at work in war, as told on Cavalcade. Many friends, old and new, wrote for copies, and some took occasion to tell us how they like these programs. Such comments are appreciated by all of us who plan and play these broadcasts. You may still obtain a copy of this booklet by writing to the radio section DuPont Wilmington, Delaware. Tonight, a special wartime award for distinguished service to safety was made to the DuPont company by the National Safety Council. In presenting the award, Colonel John Stillwell, president of the council, honored the DuPont company for one of the finest safety records ever achieved by any industrial organization in the history of the United States. He remarked that 38 DuPont plants have had absolutely no reportable accidents in the last 18 months and spoke of the world's record established by one of those plants, a record of 11 million man-hours of work without a reportable accident. These achievements, said Colonel Stillwell, are typical results of the magnificent safety program DuPont has so painstakingly carried out for many years. They serve as a challenge and an inspiration to every industry working under the stress and strain of wartime production schedules. They prove that even in wartime, accidents can be stopped. He went on, we who are conducting the campaign to save man power for war power sincerely appreciate these safety achievements and the saving in human life they represent. It is a genuine pleasure, therefore, for me to present to Mr. Walter S. Carpenter Jr., president of E.I. DuPont and Nemours & Company, a special wartime award from the National Safety Council for Distinguished Service to Safety. In accepting the award, Walter Carpenter, president of the DuPont company, said, I accept this award on behalf of DuPont men and women everywhere and with deep personal satisfaction. Over many years, the DuPont company has emphasized the prevention of accidents. Rules and practices have been formulated to this end by the management. But it is to our employees, to the day-by-day effort of each one of them, that credit for this award is due. Accident prevention is always important, but never so important as now. An injured American workman is a loss to the nation and a gain to the enemy, just as a wounded American soldier is. I believe DuPont men and women realize this. I assure the National Safety Council through you that there will be no letter in DuPont's effort to save manpower for war power. Next week, ladies and gentlemen, the Cavalcade of America sponsored by DuPont will present a dramatization of Diary of a Pig Boat, a story of 24 hours aboard a submarine in the Pacific War Zone. Our star will be the popular screen player, Ralph Bellamy. Be sure to hear Cavalcade again next week when it sponsors the DuPont company to present Ralph Bellamy in a thrilling dramatization of the Saturday Evening Post article Diary of a Pig Boat. The orchestra and musical score tonight were under the direction of Don Burris. This is Clayton Collier sending best wishes from our sponsor, the DuPont Company. Program came to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.