LieutenantPolarBear3518
Questions 22-30 are based on this excerpt from a play. From…
Questions 22-30 are based on this excerpt from a play.
From SEEDS
(by Gordon Pengilly)
CHARACTERS:
PAT – a man in his mid-forties
ISA – his wife, about thirty-five
TIME: 1950, a windy Thanksgiving Eve
PLACE: A southern Alberta farmhouse kitchen
The play opens with ISA and PAT seated at a table. Nearby, out-of-doors, comes the wailing of a dog. (Much of the time the characters speak aloud their private memories, longings, and regrets that they do not share with each other.)…
A flock of wild geese flies over. Their sounds grow vibrantly, musically, abstracting into a long thin sound, an extended note. Piercing memory.
ISA (In a whisper): I never told you I saw him first did I? Mind you I’d never seen him before…Just a young man with a young face. He was standing outside the pool hall asking for work. Oh you’ve seen the like. But he was different somehow. He wore that sailor’s cap on his head. He had a dandy pair of boots. He had a blue bundle on his back and his shoulders stood apart just so. He had a look in his eyes. You wouldn’t have noticed. I saw it first thing. Curious, faraway… Well he caught my eye. He came out the very next day. I was glad when you decided to take him on. Glad for him. (pause) Those eyes…
PAT: He came in the spring.
ISA: Where did he go?
PAT: I remember…
ISA: I don’t know.
PAT: In April.
ISA: You said he disappeared along the river. Gone. Said his warm goodbyes to me and went. I wanted to cry. I didn’t want you to see me crying…Did you?
PAT: You were hanging clothes. In the wind. I was plowing in the field. There was dust blowing and I saw him… Coming across the stubble out of nowhere… I’m not a superstitious man. But the dog started to howl…
ISA: Time will cure the pain.
PAT: He walked beside me in the field. Just a scruffy kid with a bag on his back. He had a grubby blue hat with anchors. He had a good pair of boots on his feet…”Got work, mister?” he said. He wouldn’t look at me. Something in eyes. Like a pony in a storm.
ISA: Time cures most things. Most things. My sister Elly lost an eye when she was a girl. Her left one. They were green. She was sixteen years old. She wanted to die. She told me so. She has a glass one now and I helped her accept it. But that’s a secret. So I can’t tell you.
PAT: “A dollar a week and I don’t promise when. Long hours, simple meals. Bed in the barn but don’t smoke there. Got that?” He nodded. I couldn’t afford him. But I had a whole mess of little jobs that needed doing. He laughed and said he was starving for exercise. “Good thing,” I said. “There’s a crop to put in too if my farm don’t blow away.”
ISA: She comes every Thanksgiving…Dear Elly. She doesn’t like me. In fact she hates me. Bitterly.
PAT: He was a good worker. He had pretty good hands. He worked up a sweat and ate [heartily]. He minded me.
ISA: She hates me because I’m so happy. When we were growing up she hated me because I was so pretty.
PAT: He showed me respect. Like a son. Didn’t you see that?
ISA: I can’t help it. I guess I’m just a lucky person. I heard my mom say a hundred times that when I was born I let out a big giggle instead of a cry. It must be a gift. Like singing or playing harmonica. I had a song I used to sing…
She sings. A song, light as a breeze, and a little melancholy.
PAT: (After a pause): You’ve always had a pretty voice. The boy liked it too. Once when we were working near the house we heard you singing… Like a lark. He smiled and asked me how we ever got together. Because you’re so pretty and I look like a rusty manure shovel. That’s what he said. That’s a good question, eh Isa?…
ISA: I was working at the store in Maybutt. You came in for your mail and supplies. Dropped your hands flat on the counter and ordered flour, sugar, beans, and a new shovel. Then you knocked over the licorice jar. You were tall and straight, with a rough face, so young, so old. Nervous and awkward to look at me. You spoke too quickly, stuttered some…I was sixteen. You were looking for a wife.
PAT: He had an eye for you alright. I saw it. Don’t you think I didn’t. He was friendly to you… He’d seen other places. Cities and seas. You liked hearing about them. I didn’t mind. He made you laugh again. Damn you woman. It was good to hear you laugh. Well he showed me respect…
ISA: We got married in the church at New Town. Like I knew we would… We had our picture taken. [Elly] stood beside me. Her glass eye came out white in the photograph.
PAT: Isa…
ISA: You looked awfully stiff in your borrowed suit. But proud. I was the prettiest bride in the whole county. I was. You said I was pretty by nature and nothing could take that away from me.
PAT: I know what you’re thinking. Hush your head. He’s never coming back this way again, (pause)
ISA: (With a gentle laugh): The first day I gave the shack a good scrubbing… You said if you’d known about Dutch Cleanser you would never got married. When you were out working I took lunch to you. Remember the first time? It was fun. We had egg sandwiches, pickles, saffron cake, sago pudding in cups, and lemon tea…
PAT: I need you, Isa.
ISA: The people on the next farm came over to welcome me and wish me luck.
PAT: I’ve just never had the proper words.
ISA: You and he were friends.
PAT: Do you still need me even though I’m not a fancy man?…
ISA: I’m a happy person.
PAT: I’m a fool.
ISA: I guess I’m just lucky. Oh I was a little lonely at first. The neighbor woman came over to visit sometimes and she made me wonder. I tried her but she was so…I mean all she ever did was smoke and yell at her boys for pulling the dog’s tail…Her hands were rough too and her face was cracked like the bottom of a slough in July. When she yawned or smiled you could hear her face squeak! She was just a little older than me. Well one day she just up and left. Disappeared right off the farm with the table half set and dinner in the stove. Just…disappeared.
PAT: …He worked with his shirt off. He was brown from the sun and hard from the work. He helped the bundle team bring stocks to the thresher. “That your boy?” someone asked. Big and strong like I was… He had good hands for milking like mine. He picked up my knack for animals and weather. He looked up to me. He had my moods too. I’m sure he did. He liked being alone a lot. He went for long walks like he did. (pause) I still go for walks.
ISA: I was so surprised.
PAT: I walk through the crops.
ISA: He was just a young man but he’d done things and seen places I’d never dreamed.
PAT: I watch the grasshoppers spray out in front of me.
ISA: He sailed on a ship across the ocean. I rafted in the coulee once. He’d seen London, and Lisbon, Amsterdam, and Paris.
PAT: I take the heads of grain, shred them between my hands like this, and test the seeds with my teeth.
ISA: In Paris he fed swans on the River Seine. He saw a policeman dressed all in white with white gloves standing under a parasol. He said the streets smelled of perfume and baked bread.
PAT: Sometimes I walk the fences. Tumble weeds get trapped in the barbed wire. I have to pull them free or the fence falls down with the weight and the wind.
ISA: Once in the restaurant he saw a woman with real roses for earrings and a dress with no back straps, none at all! She was wearing a hat pin in the shape of a peacock made out of her own hair…
PAT: Once in the spring I tried to trap the run-off onto the garden. I took a long stick and dug little ditches between rows. But it trickled away into the sloughs which slope for two miles and into the coulee…
ISA: In my mind I’m rowing across the River Seine with my hair back, (pause) A faint train whistle… Growing louder and passing. Then silence.
PAT: Your sister will be here tomorrow.
ISA: Yes.
PAT: I can’t stand her.
ISA: I know it.
PAT: She gets looking at me and I can’t sit comfortable.
ISA: Can’t you?
PAT: One of her eyes looks crooked.
ISA: Yes.
PAT: Don’t know why she comes anyway.
ISA: She likes to.
PAT: You never talk.
ISA: Not really.
PAT: You sit and stare at each other.
ISA: Do we?
PAT: Should we go to bed now?
ISA: Soon, (pause)
Sound of harmonica playing….
that’s the play, seeds.
Image transcription text
Isa is attracted to the young man mainly because he: Select one: O
a. acknowledges her interest in him O b. represents the appeal of
the outside world O c. is physically handsome O d. is e…
Show more
Image transcription text
Isa’s statements “I guess I’m just a lucky person” (line
48) and “I guess I’m just lucky” (line 89) are attempts
to: Select one: O a. convey her joy in recalling the youn…
Show more
Image transcription text
In saying “Damn you woman” (lines 66-67), Pat shows
his: Select one: O a. hostility toward the young man O b. regret
about past misfortunes O c. indignation with his wife’s …
Show more
Image transcription text
The ways in which Pat and Isa characteristically approach life are
most sharply contrasted in: Select one: O a. “I’ve just never
had the proper words” (line 84) and ‘when I was …
Show more
Image transcription text
Isa’s memories about the young man involve mainly feelings of:
Select one: O a. Exhilaration O b. Resentment O c. Wistfulness O
d. Jealousy
Image transcription text
The only time that Pat and Isa converse directly is when mention
is made of: Select one: O a. the neighbour’s disappearance O b.
the boy’s arrival O c. Isa’s musical ability O d. Elly’s annual visit
Image transcription text
The Thanksgiving Eve time frame for the play ironically serves to
reinforce the couple’s sense of: Select one: O a. fulfillment O b.
emptiness O c. anticipation O d. animosity
Image transcription text
The sound effects indicated in the stage directions reinforce a
mood of: Select one: O a. remorse O b. hardship O c. monotony O
d. loneliness
Image transcription text
Pat’s observation that Isa and her sister Elly “never
talk” (line 135) is ironic because Select one: O a. Isa and Elly
have little in common O b. he and Isa do not communic…
Show more
