(_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you
know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that.
(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will
grow. Let it grow.

(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and
starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._)

ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if
she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line
of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the
woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They
fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!

(_Pointing to the closed door_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in
there!

ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose.

MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of
buried trees!

ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the
sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over
the buried trees.

MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out
farthest.

ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath,
tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest!

MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!

ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood
that guards a town.

MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the
outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore
where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die
here have named it that.

ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here
(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him.
But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it
to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The
Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe.

MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's
shore to a harbor.

MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her
hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills
of sand that move and cover.

ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown.
Provincetown--where th