Skylark

Jacob Witting:
I love you, Sarah. There are some things that can't be written... in a letter. I'm not good with words.

Sarah Witting:
You're fine with words. I never thought you'd come. I dreamed about it at night when the sea sounded like wind through the grasses. I thought about it at night when Caleb had bad dreams. I saw your face everywhere, Jacob, everywhere. I'd look at the sea and see your face there, and in the sky. When I looked at Anna and Caleb you were there. Once in the street I saw somebody that looked like you and I rushed after him. Once I met the train because something told me maybe you'd be there... but I never thought you'd come. Here I was like a child come home to my beautiful sea and I should've been happy but I was frightened. And I am frightened because... this terrible love for you is so strong I, I've never known such a thing before.

Jacob Witting:
[whispered] I know.

Sarah Witting:
I never thought you'd come.

Caleb:
[Jacob kisses Sarah] They're kissing and hugging!

Chub 'Chubbers' Horatio:
Of course they are.

Sarah Witting:
Once Matty asked me how long I'd stay here and I know now. I came to stay long enough to say goodbye. I think, Jacob, our baby should be born on the prairie. It's the right thing.

[pauses]

Sarah Witting:
You were right - some things can't be written in a letter. You, you said it once; sometimes words aren't good enough... Jacob?

[he smiles, they laugh and hug]

Sarah Witting:
Leaving? [Maggie climbs out of wagon and they go out to field behind the wagon] I hate this land.

Maggie:
[Wiping eyes, voice breaking] Sarah.

Sarah Witting:
No, I mean it. I don't have to love it like Jacob. Like Matthew. They give it everything. Everything, and it betrays them. [Voice cracks] It gives them nothing back. You know Jacob once told me his name is written in this land, well, mine isn't. IT isn't.

Maggie:
They don't know anywhere else. You know, you are like the prairie lark. It sings from high in the air to tell the other birds it's there, and then it drops to earth. But you have not come to earth, Sarah. You don't have to love this land, but if you don't you won't survive. Jacob IS right. You have to write your name in it to live here. [Sarah walks away upset]

Jacob Witting:
I think she's something more than fat, Sarah.

Sarah Witting:
What?

Caleb:
What does Papa mean?

Anna Witting:
Kittens. He means kittens.

Jacob Witting:
I could've been gone. I could have gone for water when this happened.

Sarah Witting:
But you weren't gone.

Jacob Witting:
You might've been here alone with the children. You have to go, Sarah. You have to take Anna and Caleb away from here.

Sarah Witting:
No, Jacob.

Jacob Witting:
Sarah, there's no water. There's NOTHING here for Anna and Caleb. I can't have them here. They can't go alone.

Sarah Witting:
We won't leave you. I won't go. I can't go.

Jacob Witting:
I know, but you and the children have to go. Do you understand? Sarah, this land is my life. Like your father and the sea. I can't go away from it. But you have to. But without you, I- [they hug]

Sarah Witting:
What will happen to us?

Jacob Witting:
We'll write letters. We've written letters before.

Sarah Witting:
Well, I wrote you a letter, but we had to leave so quickly, I didn't have a chance to mail it. I wrote about the drought, and the fire.

Lou Wheaton:
And did the letter say that you are pregnant? [Sarah is flabbergasted]

Jacob Witting:
Excuse me, could you tell me where the Wheaton's live?

Chub 'Chubbers' Horatio:
Get in, I'll take you there. I'm Chub...

Jacob Witting:
Chubbers Horatio Umberto Bell. I'm Jacob Witting.

Chub 'Chubbers' Horatio:
Jacob Witting, yeah. About time you got here.

Anna Witting:
Papa!

Sarah Witting:
Get back on the porch and stay there!

Caleb:
What are you going to do when we're gone, Papa?

Jacob Witting:
I'll miss you.

Harriet Wheaton:
Matty, someone's here. Who is that? Matty, come quickly. I think...

Matty Wheaton:
It's him. Harriet, It's him.

Caleb:
I've never been in a car before.

Chub 'Chubbers' Horatio:
About time you were. Wanna drive?

Caleb:
[Nervously] No.

Harriet Wheaton:
Lou works with animals.

Lou Wheaton:
Lou works with the veterinarian, and Harriet may never get over that.

Jacob Witting:
I can't pay you, Jess.

Jess Stearns:
I didn't come to get paid. I came to help.

Lou Wheaton:
What's so funny?

Sarah Witting:
We had a lovely day.

Matty Wheaton:
Catch any fish?

Sarah Witting:
No.

Lou Wheaton:
Tell me. You gonna tell me? Tell me.

Caleb:
[Giggling] Aw, it's a secret.

Lou Wheaton:
Oh-oh, a Chub secret? Oh, I will make a deal with you. You tell me the Chub secret, and I will tell you Chub's real name. You can blackmail him.

Caleb:
What's blackmail?

Harriet Wheaton:
A criminal act, my dear.

Lou Wheaton:
Come along, Caleb. Let us go to the porch, where I will reveal, only to you mind you, Chub's real name.

Jess Stearns:
Someday when times are better and there's money to be earned, I'll buy a place like this. My Papa used to say a man is rich if he has land. People, they come and go, but the land is always there. Got the whole world under your feet.

Jacob Witting:
The whole world. That's what I used to think.

Jess Stearns:
The whole world, Jacob.

Caleb:
What's dashing?

Lou Wheaton:
That's what I'm doing, right now. Dashing into the water.

Caleb:
You are?

Lou Wheaton:
You wanna come? I'm going skinny-dipping.

Harriet Wheaton:
Lou! Not in front of the children!

Lou Wheaton:
Harriet, what is you do each evening, when everyone's in bed?

Harriet Wheaton:
Lou!

Caleb:
No clothes on? [Runs after her] You mean you're gonna swim all naked?

Sarah Witting:
Everyone goes skinny-dipping.

Caleb:
[Calling] Anna! Anna! Come here! In the moonlight she looks like a big fish! [Everyone laughs]

Sarah Witting:
William, do you remember Papa singing a song about a skylark?

William Wheaton:
I only remember the first line: Like a skylark, Sarah sings. You never stayed still, you know, you were always in the trees, climbing rocks. He used to call you his skylark, and he said you'd never come to earth.