h, Martin?

_Martin._ I don't begrutch her nothin', only he says folks hain't
a-goin' to pay fancy prices 'thout they hev ther pick.

_Uncle Nat._ D'ye think any fancy price hed ought to buy mother's
grave?

[Illustration: Mrs. Herne as Mary Miller. "Here was tragedy that
appalled and fascinated like the great fact of living." "Drifting
Apart." Act IV. See page 545.]

_Martin._ Yeh seem to kinder shameface me fer thinkin' o' partin'
with it.

_Uncle Nat._ Didn't mean to. Law sakes! who'm I thet I should set
my face agin improvemints, I'd like t' know? Go ahead, an' sell,
'n build, an' git rich, an' move t' Bangor, unly don't sell thet!
Leave me jes' thet leetle patch, an' I'll stay an' take keer th'
light, keep the grass cut over yander, an' sort o' watch eout fer
things gin'rally....

_Ann._ Sakes alive! Martin Berry, bean't you a-comin' to your
dinner t'day? Come, Nathan'l, y'r dinner'll be stun cold. I say
yer dinner'll be stun cold. 'T won't be fit f'r a hawg t'eat.

_Little Mildred. (Going to Nat, looks up into his face._) He's
cryin', momma.

This estrangement, and the results that flow from it, form the simple
basis of _Shore-Acres_, a play full of character studies, and
permeated by that peculiar flavor of sea and farm, which the New
England coast abounds with. The theme is the best and truest of all
Mr. Herne's plays of humble life.

Mr. and Mrs. Herne have lived for twelve years in Ashmont, a suburb of
Boston. They have a comfortable and tasteful home, with three
children, Julie, Crystal, and Dorothy [aged ten, eight, and five], to
give them welcome when they come back from their seasons on the road.
Mr. Herne is very domestic and lives a very simple and quiet life. And
he enjoys his pretty home as only a man can whose life is spent so
largely in fatiguing travel. He is fond of the fields which lie near
his home, and very many are the long walks we have taken together. He
is very fond of wild flowers, especially daisies and clover blossoms,
and in their season is never without a bunch of them upon his desk.
Books are all about him. He writes at a flat-top desk in the room he
calls his, but his terrific orders to be left alone are calmly ignored
by the three children who invade this "study," and throw themselves
upon him at the slightest provocation. He is much tyrannized over by
Dorothy, whose dolls he is forced to