ey turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever
see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of
them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back!
(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the
dunes_.

MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things
not worth a name.

(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.)

ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside!

(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.)
They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like
shapes of blown sand.

ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more
personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given
up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what
holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are
true beside the things you want to see.

MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty
years?

ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave _they_
are (_indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different_) You'll not
find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_!

MRS PATRICK: (_swiftly rising_) You're a cruel woman--a hard, insolent
woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I
didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only--trying to get
along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is
here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to
take me--take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear--(_she looks at
the closed door_) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for
so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here!
And now you'd take _that_ from me--(_looking now toward the edge of the
woods_) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my
heart--those things I can't _live_ and know I feel. You're more cruel
than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to
see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring.
(_as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says_) What
would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did
you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted?

ALLIE MAYO: I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold
life behind me--

(_A sl