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Summary
It is late summer, two months later. Abbie is sitting on the porch, and Eben comes outside, dressed in a suit. Abbie teases him about being dressed up. Abbie is seductive, and she mesmerizes Eben, but he becomes defiant and states again that he'll get the farm from his father and her. He starts to walk up the road, and Abbie asks if he's going to see Minnie. He acts nonchalantly, and Abbie becomes angry about the possibility of insulting Minnie and laying claim to the farm. Eben eventually walks out of sight. Cabot appears, coming up from the barn. He asks Abbie if she and Eben are quarreling again, and she denies it. She says Eben is like Cabot, but Cabot insists he's soft. Abbie says he's getting softer, too. Cabot comments on how he's getting old and that maybe he should get used to living with Eben and accept him. Abbie gets jealous. Cabot praises her beauty and kisses her hand. Abbie asks who he's leaving the farm to. He says he'd rather not leave it to anyone. Abbie becomes angry and tells him Eben is lustful for her. Cabot becomes rageful over this and threatens to kill him. Abbie takes back what she said to calm him, insisting Eben was only joking. Cabot says he'll send him off the farm if that's what she wants, but she says he should stay because Cabot needs help. Cabot agrees but then ponders about who the farm should be left to. He wants it to be someone with his blood, a part of him. Abbie suggests they might have a son. Cabot is excited about this idea and promises Abbie anything she wants if she bears his son.
That evening, Cabot and Abbie are sitting on their bed in their nightclothes. We also see Eben in his room next to theirs, sitting on his bed. Cabot is frustrated and talks about needing to have a son. Abbie tries to calm him. Eben gets up and paces in his room; Abbie hears him and looks at the wall. Eben then throws himself on the bed in frustration. While Cabot monologues, Abbie is focused on listening to Eben's movements. Cabot talks of how when he first bought the farm, people laughed at him because it was all stones and hard soil. He went West to a place with soft fertile ground where he might have become rich, but God told him to return to his farm. He became convinced that God is hard and that he was meant for a hard life on his farm. He explains how he married twice, they both died, and that after years of living alone with his sons, God told him to find a new wife. He praises Abbie’s beauty and then notices she’s not listening. He becomes angry and says that she doesn’t know him and never will. Abbie promises she’ll have his son. Cabot says it’s cold in the house and goes to sleep in the barn.
Abbie leaves her room and goes into Eben's. She runs to him and kisses him; he kisses her back but then flings her away. He insists he hates her; she says desperately that she'd make him happy and that he must like her. They argue about Minnie. Abbie grows angry and says she's only using him, which makes him more furious. Abbie regains her confidence and speaks assuredly that he desires her. She then announces she's going downstairs to the parlor; Eben stares fascinated at her and helplessly tells her not to since it's where his mother died. She goes down, saying she'll wait for him. He gets dressed and follows her but calls for his mother.
Analysis
The passion and tension between Abbie and Eben, and the way they interact, are clear in this scene. At the start, it's clear Abbie wants a confrontation with Eben of some kind, that she awaits his presence while Eben is trying to avoid her. As the interaction between them begins, Abbie speaks of nature and how Eben can't resist it or her. She compares Eben's nature of desire to the natural world and the elm trees. As she speaks, Eben is constantly trying to break the spell of Abbie's words. Throughout most of the scene, theirs is a meeting of equals, with one trying to get over on the other, losing and gaining the advantage in the conversation. It is what will eventually be recognized as their version of flirting or romance since they are two people who have no one else to interact with as smart or interesting as the other. They are playing a game, feeling each other out, and figuring out what the next move is and whether they want to make it.
Once again, the question of who the farm will go to is a point of contention in the relationship between Cabot and Abbie. Despite Cabot’s obvious softening toward both his son and his wife, the conversation becomes about who he will leave the farm to, though he’s angry at the thought of leaving it to anyone. Abbie becomes resentful and jealous of the idea it might go to Eben, and once the anger builds in her she blurts out that Eben was trying to make love to her.
It's an example of Abbie getting caught up in her emotions and having to soothe those she's riled up. At the end of the scene, Cabot considers who will watch the farm when he's gone. When he clarifies that it must be someone of his blood, Abbie understands and suggests the idea of a baby. A son would ensure that the farm would go to her after Cabot's death, and she seems willing to endure the difficulty and danger of childbirth in exchange for being in charge of the farm. Abbie has understood Cabot's love for himself above all and that he continues to have sons in hopes that they will be like him. Cabot is genuinely moved to prayer by the idea of a new son but it seems clear that Abbie is playing a game with him in the way that she is playing a game with Eben.
In the next scene, the stage directions explain to the audience that Abbie and Cabot are in their room, and Eben is in his room. It is significant all three characters are visible, and Abbie and Eben are shown in parallel, separated by a wall. It is symbolic of how Abbie must appease Cabot as his wife while also being attracted to Eben. She walks a fine line between them, constantly going back and forth. While Cabot speaks, Abbie is indifferent to him, paying attention only to Eben's movements in the next room. Cabot's monologue illustrates further his connection to God and his firm belief that God and life are hard and that taking any easy way out is wrong. His connection to the farm and pride in it comes from his resignation that he was meant to live and work hard on this farm rather than go West, where life was easier. He also shows his lack of connection to his previous wives and continues to insist that no one understands him, once again ignoring the obvious parallels between himself and Eben that might grant him some measure of connection.
Cabot's self-centered nature and his coveting of the farm are on display in this speech, as he frequently states how the farm was his, and he often was more lonesome with his wives than without them. The pattern that Cabot creates is a self-defeating one. He marries women, is unsatisfied with them, and when they die, he's glad to have the farm to himself. He does not seem to realize the irony in his feeling less lonely without a wife while still insisting on marrying more than once. He seems to always hope for a wife to understand him and a son to be like him, but he does not see the pattern in his own actions and personality that make those ideas impossible.
Cabot leaves to sleep in the barn, again demonstrating his inability to make meaningful connections with people. When Abbie finally enters his room, literally crossing the line marking the wall between their rooms, their actions mirror how they’ve been interacting up until this point, passionate and conflicted in their attraction. Abbie tries to convince him that he wants her but he remains defiant in resistance until she says she will meet him in the parlor. Eben’s distress that the parlor hasn’t been opened since his mother died demonstrates that he thinks of the room like a coffin, keeping the spirit of his mother buried within the house itself. By suggesting that the parlor might be used in the way it was meant to be, as a room where others could visit and be entertained, Abbie shifts the dynamics of the relationship, opening Eben to another way of living, even as he dresses to go downstairs as if he’s attending a funeral.
