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Mrs. Patrick lives in an abandoned life-saving station in Provincetown, Massachusetts with her hired helper, widow Allie Mayo. Formerly used as a place to attempt to revive drowning victims, the house was put up for sale by the government and Mrs. Patrick bought it. She and her husband used to spend joyous summers in Provincetown and planned to paint the house and host parties there. But something happened to her husband (it isn鈥檛 made clear what) and Mrs. Patrick now uses the house to shield
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ALLIE MAYO: Wait.
MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you didn't say an unnecessary word!
ALLIE MAYO: I don't.
MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into things you know nothing about!
ALLIE MAYO: (slowly) When you keep still for twenty years you know鈥攖hings 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.
ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! What you'll try to do. Over there. (pointing to the line of woods) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it鈥攚atching 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!
MRS PATRICK: And lose the way he lost in there!
ALLIE MAYO: They don't lose.
MRS PATRICK: Don't lose? I have walked on the tops of buried trees!
ALLIE MAYO: 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. 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鈥攖hese 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 and many a one before him. But many another reached the harbor! The Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor鈥攚here men are safe.
MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor鈥攐n 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. Sand that covers鈥攈ills of sand that move and cover.
ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. Provincetown鈥攚here they 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鈥攕wift to the harbor鈥攚here their children live. Go back! 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.
Citation: Susan Glaspell, The Outside, Public domain, 1917.
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