- Bill Hawks: There she is, Flint.
- Flint McCullough: Yep. 800 long miles of nothing but prairie.
- Jack Reynolds: Sure isn't Philidelphia.
- Clara Reynolds: Takes your breath away.
- Grandma Bates: Just as I remember it.
- Charlie Wooster: Nothing ever changes out here, Grandma Bates.
- Grandma Bates: Oh yes, some things change, people, people change.
- Jack Reynolds: Remember what Washington Irving said: I felt as though I'd closed one volume of the world and its contents to open another.
- Grandma Bates: That's $57,000 you owe me.
- Charlie Wooster: How did you get three queens, Grandma?
- Grandma Bates: You dealt 'em me. $57,000. And we just started across the prairie. You're gonna owe me a quarter of a million by the time we get to California.
- Charlie Wooster: No, I won't. If my luck don't change, I'll get me a marked deck.
- Grandma Bates: [She looks at her new hand] Well, if that don't beat all.
- Charlie Wooster: Now, what have you got? A full house?
- Grandma Bates: Are you opening?
- Charlie Wooster: No, I'm folding.
- Flint McCullough: You better watch out for Charlie, Grandma.
- Charlie Wooster: Watch out for Charlie, he says. Grandma's got me cleaned out like an old riverboat gambler.
- Grandma Bates: Why do you suppose women need their Sunday china and piano?
- Flint McCullough: But you know we always lose too many. That's what troubles me. Who do we lose this trip? And how?
- Clara Reynolds: You're a mean, cruel man, Mr McCullough. I'll never feel the same about you again.
- Flint McCullough: What do you suggest I do?
- Clara Reynolds: Take a party out and hunt for her.
- Flint McCullough: That's delay the train, risk the lives of everybody on it. I'm sorry I can't do that.
- Clara Reynolds: I hope you'll be able to sleep tonight. I won't.
- Flint McCullough: You know this is the fourth time I've made this trip. But to hear the women, you'd think I don't know a thing about it. Mrs Reynolds was asked to leave three barrels of china behind. She left the barrels, put the china in with her flour. And Sally Miller is carrying a mirror that she doesn't need, must weigh forty pounds. What are you smuggling?
- Flint McCullough: You know, I don't think I'll ever understand women.
- Grandma Bates: Don't try. You're a man Women are beyond you.
- Flint McCullough: Oh. Y'know, you're pretty sassy.
- Grandma Bates: [Schubert's Serenade played by Mrs Kirby wafts through the night air] Hush. It's one of the last luxuries I've got left.
- Flint McCullough: Maybe there's something to say about the stubbornness of women. Maybe, ah, at times, their sense of values is greater than men's.
- Flint McCullough: [Mrs Kirby is playing Rock of Ages and one by one the women join in the singing] You said we didn't know who the strong ones were.
- Grandma Bates: I'm not sure we know yet.
- Clara Reynolds: Mr McCullough. Mr McCullough let a woman be dragged off and didn't lift his hand to save her. I'd sooner listen to the Devil than to listen to him. He's leading us all to our deaths.
- Matt Kirby: Gloucester women are strong. They've been raised and seasoned by the sea.
- Flint McCullough: They may be strong, but they're not indestructible. The prairie wages some kind of a war of nerves against women.
- Flint McCullough: The ritual of death is filled with pain. Our farewells are said with respect and allow for anguish 'til we head again into the open prairie. These are the hunting grounds of the Ozarks, Creek, Delaware, the Pawnee, Commanche, all nomads this time of year.
- Sally Miller: Do you think you'll be home before dark.
- Tom Miller: I'll just tell Mr Hawks to make sure that I am.
- Charity Kirby: The surf is ladies from the gowns of all the women who drowned at sea. Old lace yellowed with tears and brined with memories. There's a ball tonight on the smooth shadowed floor of the ocean and all the best people will be there. Dancing a minuet fathoms below.
- Patience Kirby: A sea child dies on land.
- Charity Kirby: What did you say?
- Patience Kirby: A sea child dies on land.
- Charity Kirby: Who told you that?
- Patience Kirby: I don't know. Someone in Gloucester.
- Grandma Bates: It can't be helped. It can't be changed. It just must be borne... God gives us life and with it comes trial and sorrow and it must be borne.
- Charlie Wooster: I want to know what happens to Maid Marion.
- Bill Hawks: She lives happily ever after.
- Charlie Wooster: With the Sheriff of Nottingham?
- Charity Kirby: Land like any other land? Grass that grows higher than a man's head, animals as big as houses, heat, dust, dirt, bugs, Indians. This is a Devil's land.
- Matt Kirby: Charity.
- Charity Kirby: We've got to get back to Gloucester. I've got to take my children back. Oh, if only I were there this minute, I can feel the sea crashing about me. Just for one moment.
- Matt Kirby: Look ahead, Charity, don't think of the past, think of the future.
- Grandma Bates: You get up and show this blasted, confounded, ornery piece of land what a Gloucester woman is made of. If I were you, I'd set my sail for San Fransisco. It is the sweetest harbour any woman could ask for.
- Grandma Bates: We crossed the river into the sun. And the light hit back and blinded our stock. Oh, we must've lost a hundred head of cattle that day. How are things up the line?
- Grandma Bates: Now, you listen to me, all of you. Fear is a contagious disease and you be aware of it. You'll sicken and die of it as quick as you will on milksick or spotted fever. The prairie winds blow over the broken ribs of wagon and old whitened bones of men that panicked and ran from their own shadows.
- Flint McCullough: There's not just the Reynolds that are troubling me. There's a lot of people talking about turning back.
- Bill Hawks: Oh, it's only the women.
- Flint McCullough: Only the women? The women make up the strength of this wagon.
- Sally Miller: The sea of Gloucester is cool and clean, and every morning it's as crisp as a freshly scubbed pillowcase.