Scene: A stern barnyard with a farmhouse nearby.
There are three characters in the play: Bo-Peep, a Sheepstress, Miss Seed, a housekeeper, and Rib Tickler, a dissolute farmer.
Bo-Peep: I tend my sheep in the sunny meadow. I think of little else but their comfort.
Rib Tickler: Horses asses, pigs’ pizzles, bull testicles, the horns of goats.
Miss Seed (whacking the dinner triangle): Time for your prayers, Rib.
Bo-Peep: I do not go in for prayers for if I did, my flock would wander. And besides, Mister Tickler would stare at my belly from over his psalter.
Rib Tickler (intoning the words): Pizzles, horns, dark under the covers.
Bo Peep (to all the world): There is joy in the hills. (to herself) I see him looking at my baby hands, at my lacy fingers and at my cross-tied bonnet.
Miss Seed: Go back now to work, Rib.
Rib Tickler: The girl cares for her sheep. I care only for her pincushion body.
Miss Seed: I am hoping for rain. It’s been too long dry
Bo Peep and Rib Tickler leave the stage in opposite directions. Miss Seed remains, gazing up at the cloudless sky.
(curtain)
