 Family Theater presents Jeanette McDonnell, Barry Sullivan and Marjorie Steele. Casting system in cooperation with Family Theater brings you Barry Sullivan and Marjorie Steele in song for a long road. Now here is our hostess, Jeanette McDonnell. I don't think it's necessary to spell out Family Theater's purpose here today. I'm just going to say, listen, just listen, for here are Barry Sullivan and Marjorie Steele starring in song for a long road with Lamont Johnson as narrator. This is the way the story should begin. Eileen, are you listening? Yes, I'm listening. Eileen, will you marry me? I most certainly will not. Oh, what a poet is made of stern stuff and so we shall try once more. This is the way the story should begin. Eileen, look at me. I'm looking. Will you consent to be my wife? Your wife? Certainly not. But how does the poet say it, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Eileen, listen please. I'm listening. Look at me. I'm looking. Will you, would it be asking you too much to become Mrs. Joyce Kilmer? Well... This is the way the story should begin. And this is the way it did begin. One beautiful day in June 1908. For he said himself, Joyce Kilmer did. He said, you know Eileen, I cannot understand the interpretation which makes marriage the end instead of the beginning of a splendid adventure. If there should ever be the perfect novel of love, it would begin rather than end. And they were happily married. And should I add, and they lived happily ever after. Well, now that would depend on one's interpretation. Naturally, that would depend upon one's interpretation of happiness. For example, Eileen, are you happy? I was never half your Joyce. A quiet home here in New Jersey, a baby. Yes, I know. But hang it, I was never meant to spend the rest of my life teaching Latin to a bunch of high school students. The very best of people are professors. Ah, nothing but declensions, conjugations. It's positively demoralizing, I tell you. Now, if I had my way, I'd... Now, Eileen, Eileen, you don't have to look at me like that. Oh, go on, if you had your way, you'd sell poetry the rest of your life. Yes, for a dollar a pound, perhaps two dollars a pound. Stop squeezing my hand. Slender your hands and soft and white as petals of moon kissed roses. Why, old ladies will swoon when they read my stuff. The critics will come clamoring across the ocean. Kilmer, poet laureate of America. America. Eileen, I shall develop a beastly mustache and long, dirty fingernail. Joyce. Eileen. Eileen, darling, I'll leave it up to you. You'll leave what up to me? I'll let you decide whether your husband is to stagnate henceforth and forever in the swamps of irregular Latin verbs, or whether he is to take root on the immortal hill of poetry. The baby is crying. Your answer. The milk is in the icebox. Speak, old vision, speak. Stop squeezing my hand. Nothing so exquisite as that slight hand could Raphael or Leonardo trace. The baby will get hiccups. An answer, princess. Shall we or shall we not go to New York? Well, I... I knew you'd say yes. Is that you, Joyce? Yeah. Home so soon? Uh-huh. And how is my poet laureate of America? Oh, well, uh... Tired? Yeah. Come here, sit down. Down here. Thank you, darling. Eileen. Eileen, are you happy? Why do you keep asking me that question? That's the kind of a question a man has a right to ask his wife. Occasionally. Come on. Come on here. Sit beside me. Eileen, look at me. I'm lucky. You know, darling, selling books in a store for $8 a week isn't exactly a thrilling occupation. Joyce, I've told you it's going to take time getting started. You can't come to New York and expect publishers to eat up your work. No. It takes time and patience. Well, you know yourself poets never start off by being poet. Is that so? What do they start off by being? Oh, street cleaners and assistant clerks and soap factories and even book salesmen. That's just my point, Eileen. I'm not even a good book salesman. Too much arithmetic connected with a confounded thing. What is arithmetic to do with selling books and stop squeezing my hand? Arithmetic, my little princess. Arithmetic has a lot to do with selling books as Charles Scribner's sons will soon discover. What happened now? Oh, I sold a rare book today. Sold it for $1.50. Well? Well, I made a slight mistake. The manager told me the book was not worth $1.50. No? No. It was worth $150. Oh! And so an aspiring young poet and his little princess and their babies managed to live in New York on the magnificent sum of $8 a week. And did they live happily ever after? Well, that depends upon one's interpretation of happiness. Yes, these are my sentiments, Eileen. Joyce, you've changed so much in three years. Yes, I suppose I have. But a man may be forgiven the sin of getting tired at times. I'm tired, Eileen. I know. And there are thousands, tens of thousands like us who are tired. I've seen them in subways, street cars, seen them outside offices waiting for interviews, nervous, tired people who stare at the wall over your head when you look at them. You're in a mood, Joyce. It's a fact, I tell you. The world is lopsided with selfishness. There are people walking the streets who don't know where they're going to get their next crust of bread. And do you think your socialist friends can solve the problem? The socialist might have the right idea. It's getting late, Joyce. Better get some sleep. There's too much time for sleeping. Writing for the socialist paper again. Oh, I know what you're thinking. I'm just a naughty little radical with a pen in my hand. Oh, you might take up typing. I won't take up typing. Joyce, aren't you getting a little loud lately? Not here flat enough for a lopsided world. Oh, well. Well, Eileen, what are you doing? Saying my prayers. You're not going to say your prayers. Joyce, what's in the name of heaven? Heavens. God. There is no God, you hear? Joyce. There is no God. All the good things a man holds precious in his life. All the long cherished hopes and dreams. All the faith that man has ever placed in his God and himself and his family. All these are candlelight for living. But there are times when the flame of faith wavers when the flax begins to smoke and smolder and then it takes only the slightest, only the very slightest. It happened this afternoon, doctor. This is your second child, Mrs. Kilmer. Yes, doctor. How old? Nine months. Well, I'm sorry. There's not very much we can do now. The germ has already struck. Yes, doctor. The infantile paralysis is a strange affliction. We don't know where it'll stop or when. The only thing we can do now is wait and hope for the best. Yes, doctor. Where is she? Where is she? Where's Rose? So... Infantile paralysis. So, my baby, my baby's paralyzed. There's nothing we can do, Joyce. We can do nothing. The time comes when the candle flame of faith wavers when human flax smokes and smolders but comes the clean, healing breath of pain and smoking flax leaps up to flame and man lives by blessed candlelight again. Joyce. Yes? I didn't know how you were going to take it. I was afraid that... It's all right, Elin. It's simple and clear now. You can't build a home on rhyming couplets' poetry. You build it out of flesh and blood, spirit, and faith in God. You build it out of pain and love. And tonight I know what love is. Love is a poignant and a custom pain. Even if my child should never walk again, I know this. I know she taught me how to walk again. Her little child had led him... Earthjoy. Behold your beloved spouse. Oh, it's your whiskers. Elin, Elin, look at me. I'm lucky. You now have the unusual privilege of beholding a New York Times book reviewer. They've accepted my poem for the Pathfinder, Elin. Moods Magazine, Elin. They're going to publish my verse. Elin, another one! That's right, Kilmer. The boss figures you deserve a spot in the Times Magazine section. You mean permanent? That's right. Do an interview. Interviews wonderful. And would you mind giving the American public your views on Oh Henry, Mrs. Gerald? Oh Henry? Yes. Some people call Oh Henry the 20th Century Balzac. Some call him the American Mopassant. What would you call him? I'd call him a pernicious influence. It's quiet here in the Poconos, Elin. A man couldn't want much more in this life, could he? A little house, four children as of present. A wife who's beautiful with black ribbons at her throat. A world full of sight and sound. A world is good, except I watch her lying there on the grass. This little paralyzed angel. My daughter. 16 years, the doctors say, Joyce. Yeah. 16 years before she may walk. That's a long time. Yes. Still. I was just thinking, Elin. I was just thinking how light a cross can be when the cross you're carrying is someone you love. When love is the burden. I was thinking how tightly the arms of a cross can bind a husband and a wife. More than 16 years, Joyce. Always. Nothing could ever separate us, Elin. Nothing. Nothing. Come here. Look at me. I'm looking. You're a very young wife. Am I? I'm lovely. What's troubling you? Nothing. All right? Oh, Joyce. My little princess is younger than a baby. Hey, stop crying in my ear. It tickles. What's the matter with you? I just want to hear you say it again. Say what? Say nothing can ever separate us. All right? Nothing can ever separate us. I know what you're going to say. Elin, don't look at me like that. Go on. Say it. You're going to war. Elin, I... Oh, I suppose I'm unreasonable. Being a woman, I'll never understand this man's world of war. It's nothing. I'm afraid of pain, Joyce. Three weeks ago, little Rose died. Last night, I bore you another son. Pain? I don't fear pain. It's... it's only... Yes, yes, I know. If I could only be sure that we could have the years ahead together. There's thousands of saying that tonight, Elin. But remember, I once told you nothing can separate us. Say it again, Joyce. Neither pain nor sorrow nor distance can separate us. Say it again. Neither suffering nor height nor depth can ever separate us. You say you left the Seventh Regiment? That's right. And your name is Kilmer. Right. Say, how come you joined the fight in 69th? I didn't join. I adopted the fighting 69th. I'm Irish. Irish? With a name like Kilmer? Well, half Irish. Oh, half Irish. Well, my great, great, great, great, great grand. And this was no man's land. Yeah, this is no man's land. Little Eddie Payton couldn't believe it was no man's land. This afternoon, he said to me, Kilmer, Kilmer gets awful quiet around here. But then, just like that, it came. In the afternoon, a clumsy, wobbling torpedo shell, something dangerously casual that catches a man tying a shoe or opening a pack of cigarettes. It caught Eddie, caught Kennedy, Sage, and Finn, and Galvin, and Sullivan, and 21 of them buried him alive in a dugout. Donovan called the engineers, called everybody, but the sore of the earth kept slipping in on them. I saw the engineers crying this afternoon. So I wrote it for Little Eddie and the rest of them. And the chaplain read it under the trees. And Stokes, Stokes was trembling when he reached for the buble. In the wood they call the Rouge Bouquet, there is a new-made grave today. Built by never a spade nor pick, yet covered with earth ten meters thick. There lie many fighting men, dead in their youthful prime, never to laugh nor laugh again, nor taste the summertime. For death came flying through the air and stopped his flight at the dugout stair. Now, over the grave, abrupt and clear, three volleys ring, and perhaps their brave young spirits hear the bugle sing, go to sleep, go to sleep. Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell. Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor. You'll not need them anymore. Dangerous past. Now at last, go to sleep. Well, what is it coming? I hope I'm not troubling you, Major. Not at all. I hope we're moving up tomorrow. Your battalion is going to leave the way. Well, you pick up a lot of information, don't you? Well, I'm in the intelligence section, Major. Well? Well, I was wondering if you couldn't arrange for me to go along. I don't see how I could possibly... But, Major, you do need a battalion adjutant. All right, all right, you win. Thanks, Major. I hope you can make out this writing, Eileen. I have your picture before me tonight. I can almost hear you speaking again with a voice coming across the white roads of France. I like the voices of all the women in the world. Keep saying... Say it, Joyce. Say nothing can separate us. Eileen, you won't mind my writing this. I've never quite recovered from the wonderment of being husband to a wife. Eileen, my darling, you're always before me and with me. In my heart and brain. Yes, but it's dangerous to write this. It draws so tight the cords that bind me to you. Well, we ought to be together sometime inevitably and soon in terms of eternity. For we are absolutely one, incomplete apart. And in heaven is completeness. How unhappy must lovers be who have not the gracious gift of faith? And people and things at home. Oh, I'd like to be there again. I'd like to see Kenton and Deborah and Michael and Christopher. Yes, and sip dry sherry and see a roast of lamb with minceauce and Blackwood's magazine. I'd like to see a straw hat and a circus. But most of all, I'd like to see you. Goodbye now, Eileen. I've got a little work to do. And love me exceedingly. Yes, Major. Oh, they're sitting pretty up there in the ridge. Got us in the clear. Say, Major, do you think there's any way that we can possibly... You better be careful. Down, Major. I'm going ahead, Gilbert. Watch yourself. Okay, Major. All right, Kilmer. Just remember the manual. Keep flat, Kilmer. And if you gotta move, move fast. That machine guy left us up there over the ridge of the hill, picking our boys off like pigeons. Yeah. What do you say, Kilmer? Do you? Or don't you? You don't have to move if you don't want to. You have no orders to move. Kilmer, just take it easy. Crawl like this. That's it. Just like this. That's it. To the top of the hill. You have to do is take a look, Kilmer. Spot that mess. That's all. I suppose... I suppose they'll be waiting for me. Just as soon as I lift my head over that ridge, they'll... Oh, Kilmer, just remember the manual. And remember, every second you lose may mean a life. Here you are, Kilmer. Here's the ridge. I wonder if... It's still barking. Well, breath, Kilmer. You're going to see something right now. Here goes! They found him lying still, and his eyes were looking out... away over the ridge. They buried him where the scarlet poppies grow by the river Uruk. And so, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, patriot and poet, died. Wait a minute, mister. What is it you wish? You didn't answer the question for the people. What question? The question they've been asking all night. Did they live happily ever after? Who were you, sir? Who am I? I'm the interruption. I'm the question lingering on the tongues of millions. I'm the voice of the kids who fight the wars. The voice of the guys who screamed across the continents and across the world. I'm the voice of human pain. And they're trying to choke me again with speeches and promises. They're choking me with new headlines, new suspicions, new hates. Did they live happily ever after? Did they? Who will answer the question? There is a tree planted on a hill. It is a dead tree which is blossomed with the terrible contradiction of man's planting, for trees were never meant to blossom with blood. God, our Father, did they live happily ever after? Can we live happily ever after? Did one soldier die in vain on a hill with half his songs unsung? Have thousands died and will other thousands die in vain on other hills? Or can it be possible, Lord, that in our days we shall at last see love? Love of neighbors stripped the spikes of cruelty and suffering from the cross-beams of a world in contradiction? Grant that it be so. Be thou the patience in our planting and the humility in our heart. And grant, good Lord, that all men, the men of the north and south and east may rest always in the soft shadow of peace, where trees are not crosses, but living things that look at God all day and lift their leafy arms to pray. A soldier-poet would have it so. Then shall all men live happily ever after. Jeanette MacDonald and Warstar Barry Sullivan. Thank you, Tony. Thanks, Tony. Do you know what I was thinking during the performance, Barry? Oh, what, Jeanette? I was thinking that many of Joyce Kilmer's poems are really more than poems. They're really little prayers. For instance, the one inspired by the bugle notes of taps and that lovely little meditation he called trees. Well, there isn't anything that says poems can't be prayers too, is there? No, no, indeed there isn't. When you stop to think about it, anything can be a prayer. Anything. A sob, a tear, a cry for help, a shout of joy. You just can't rule the heart's desire into a rigid form when asking for God's help. That's why I guess our whole language is sort of embedded with little prayers. They're in our greetings, our partings, our exclamations, our love-making, even in some of our Christian and family names. And of course, in our songs. Yes, Jeanette, you mean we more or less accidentally call on God each day lots of times without remembering that we're doing it? That's just what I mean, Barry. We get the ready-made prayers in our language from our ancestors. Their very lives were constant prayer, crossing the ocean, conquering a new land, fighting the Indians. To that constant prayer they owed survival. And we owe our country. That's true. Yes, they never left God out of a moment of their daily lives. It's shocking to realize how much we take for granted today, how often we forget to let God into our daily lives. You were saying that nowadays prayers have become a sort of a lost art. Well, Barry, prayers are not an art to me. They're the heart of living. And certainly we haven't lost heart. We just need more and more of it. And of course, there's nothing to prevent us from tuning our ears to a little... What did you call them, Jeanette? Was it the embedded prayers? You put it very nicely, Barry. The embedded prayers. Well, that's a good start toward bringing back to our daily life what we might call the missing prayers. Why shouldn't we call them the sleeping prayers? Anyone who thinks about them can wake them up and make them real prayers again. I understand his heart. You got the message, Barry. Just on time. It is time, you know. Time to say. The family that prays together stays together. More things are brought by prayer than this world dreams of. Barry Sullivan and Marjorie Steele. Jeanette McDonnell was your hostess. Others in our cast were Lamont Johnson, Mae Clark, Wally Mayer, Ken Christie, Howard Culver, Robert Hugh O'Sullivan, and Jack Raymond. The script was written by Timothy J. Muldave with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman and was directed for Family Theater by Joseph F. Mansfield. This series of Family Theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program by the mutual network which responds to this need and by the hundreds of stars of stage, screen and radio who give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage. Welcome to you, Our Humble Thanks. This is Tony LaFranco expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessings of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to join us next week at the same time when Family Theater will present Barbara Stanwyck and Lisbeth Scott. Join us, won't you?