WARNINGS

A monologue from the play by Eugene O'Neill

NOTE: Warnings was first published in 1914. It is now a public domain work and may be performed without royalties.

MRS. KNAPP: Give up your job? Are you a fool? I suppose you think it's right to loaf around here until we all get out in the streets? God knows your salary is small enough but without it we'd starve to death. Can't you think of others besides yourself? How about me and the children? What's goin' to buy them clothes and food? I can't earn enough, and what Charlie gets wouldn't keep him alive for a week. Jim sends us a few dollars a month but he don't get much and he ain't workin' regular. We owe the grocer and the butcher now. If they found out you wasn't workin' they wouldn't give us any more credit. And the landlord? How long would he let us stay here? You'll get other work? Remember the last time you tried. We had to pawn everything we had then and we was half-starved when you did land this job. You had to go back to the same old work, didn't you? They didn't want you at any telegraph office, did they? You was too old and too slow, wasn't you? Well, you're older and slower than ever now and that's the only other job you're fit for. [With bitter scorn.] You'll get another job! And this all the thanks I get for slavin' and workin' my fingers off! What a father for my poor children! Oh, why did I ever marry such a man? It's been nothin' but worryin' and sufferin' ever since.

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