CHEMISTRY SAVES THE DAY ANNE BATEMAN,* MISSOVLA COUNTY HIGHSCHOOL, MISSOULA, MONTANA
TIME-Present. PLACE-The small shabby dining room of the Spriggins home. The table in the center of the room i s set, waiting for the children to come i n from school to luncheon, or dinner, as they call it. CHARACTERSMA SPRIGGINS. i n high school. HARRY S P R I G G I N ~student A MARYSPRIGGINS-Also in high school. JOHNNIE SPRIGGINS-A small boy of about eleven. Lou SPRIGGINS-A little girl perhaps nine years old. T H BABY-Offstage. ~ THEFAMILY DOCTOR. (JOHNNIE and Lou rush in calling, "Ma! Ma!") JOHNNIE:"Oh! Look, Lou, we're going to have gingerbread for dinner! Yum! Ynm!" Lou: "I do wish Harry and Mary would hurry up and come home from their old high school!" enters.) (MARYand HARRYenter calling, "Ma! Ma!" MRS. SPRIGGINS MA: "Now, children, just you all set down and put a good dinner in your stummicks this cold day. Just set down an' begin; I've got to go feed the baby. Land!" (Bustles out, and the children sit down around the table and begin eating.) JOHNNIE: "Well, Harry, what did ygu do in your old chemistry class today? Anything? I s'pose you made a lot of some old gas and smelled up the whole schoolhouse." HARRY:"I should say not, kid! Why, we made oxygen the way the most famous chemist in the world did-Lavoisier!" JOHNNIE:"0, hunk! I don't see why you want to take a dumb old suhject like chemistry for!" enters quietly and takes her place HARRY:''Well, I do." (MA SPRIGGINS at the head of the table.) "Say, Ma, I took a bit of that flannel you wanted for the baby to the laboratory and tried it out. I t was over half cotton just like you suspected." JOHNNIE:"Gee! How could you tell that?" HARRY:"Oh, I just warmed it up with some sodium hydroxide like the book said, and it dissolved all the wool and left the cotton.'' MA: "Well, for lands' sake! I'm sure glad your chemistry come to some good for once. I'll take that sample right back." MARY:"Well, it's about time!"
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* Winner of five-dollar award in the student contest closing October 15,1929. 164
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HARRY: "Oh, say, Mary! I tested some of that freckle cream you're planning to use before the Junior Prom, and if you use any of it you can kiss your schoolgirl complexion goodbye. It's got mercury in it and if you want to take all the skin off your face, you just try it!" JOHNNIE:"Ah, you're bugs about your old chemistry!" HARRY:"Well, I may be bugs about it all right, but I did something for you today. Now we won't hear you hollerin' like heck any more when Ma puts iodine on your cut finger. I got some mercurochrome because it's just as good and doesn't sting." MARY: "Well, it may not sting, but it sure paints you red like an Indian. What if you had to put some on your nose?" HARRY:"That's easy! Ask me another. Just use chlorazene. I t looks like water." MARY: "Huh! The way you talk anybody would think you couldn't even sit down or stand up without chemistry." HARRY:"Well, you can't, pretty near. Maybe you don't know it, but you couldn't even bend your knees without a whole lot of chemistry going on inside of you. That chair you're sitting on is mostly chemistry, and that brass bed you got out of the wrong side of this morning is too. Look at that bacon on the table! I t would have spoiled long ago if it hadn't been for chemistry. And that fried egg; it's chemistry that made it look so good. Think of the clothes on your back and the paint on your mug! Why, it's chemistry everywhere! The shoes for lack of breath.) you got on, the rug under them, +em-"(Stops JOHNNIE:"Gosh!" MARY: "Say, you thiuk you're smart ddnlt"-(She i s interrufited by a baby's howls coming f r m offstage, which grow louder and louder.) MA: (Shouting above the din.) "Mary, do go out and see what's the matter with the baby." (MARYhurries out, but returns looking puzzled and frightened.) MARY: "Ma, the baby's stopped crying; but he's acting awful strange, and he only drank half his milk. Are you sure you diluted it? The hot water is still standing on the stove." MA: "Why, Mary, I used the water in that saucepan on the table." MARY:"Oh, Ma! Wasn't that the one that had the corrosivesublimate in it to use in the hen house?" MA: "Oh, Mary, do you think it was? Why the package of corrosive sublimate was marked poison!" MARY:"I'm almost sure it was." MA: (Breaking into t e r r + d sobs.) "Have I poisoned my own baby?" MARY: "Ma, how could you?" MA: "Land of Goshen! I've poisoned my own baby. Some of you kids hurry and get the doctor! Hurry! Oh!" (Sobs hysterically.)
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JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
JANUARY, 1930
HARRY:"Be quiet, Ma, I can find out which pan the corrosive sublimate is in. Somebody get the pans while I get the chemicals I experiment with in the shed nights after school." (Exits,hastily followed by MARY and MA. In a minute tkey all c m e in together, MARYand MA each carrying a bottle and two drinking glasses. bearing a saucepan, and HARRY H e sets these down on the table and pours a little of the contents of each pan into a glass.) HARRY:''I'll pour a little of this hydrogen sulfidewater into both glasses." (He pours some into one glass--nothing happens. The children stand around wide-eyed while he pours some into the other g l a s s i t immediately turns black.) HARRY: "There, that's the one that has the corrosive sublimate in itthe one that turned black." MARY: "Thank Heavens! That is the one that was on the stove. Ma didn't use any of it because it was full." MA: "Praise be! Oh, I'm so relieved. To think that I almost poisoned the baby." (Suddeuly assuming a majestic air as the family doctor enters.) "Well, Doctor, I'm mighty glad to say we don't need you now. My son Harry takes chemistry, and just by sperimentin' he found that I didn't put no poison in the milk." DOCTOR:"Harry, your chemistry certainly came in handy, didn't it? I've often heard you say that you wanted to become a doctor; and as your mother lacks funds, when you finish high school come to me and I'll help you out. Work hard on your chemistry now, for these days there's a lot of it in doctoring." HARRY:"Oh, Sir, I'll work my head off to be a doctor like you." MA: "Land sakes! To think of our Harry bein' a sure enough doctor. Mary and Johnnie and Lou, when you get to high school, you're all goin' to take chemistry. It sure is one grand subjick!" (Renewed howls f r m offstage send small Lou out.) MA: "Jerusalem! Here we are all standin' around and our dinner not finished. Doctor, just you set down and eat with us. J'ohnnie, git a chair." (Lou enters importantly.) Lou: "Oh! Ma, I found out what was the matter with the baby. There was a pin in his di-" MA: "Hush up, Lou! Haven't I told you a hundred times not to speak of such things before comp'ny ! We're going to talk about chemistry.'' CURTAIN
