God, Brazzle, we all seen it. Didn't we all go to de draggin' out? More folks went to yo' mule's draggin' out than went to last school closing…. Bet there ain't been a thing right in mule-hell for four years.
The bone of the mule that gives the play its title is a topic of conversation when Joe shoes up holding it. As the owner, Brazzle, takes the bone into his own hands, he begins to reminiscence about the animal and how everybody turned out to watch them drag the mule to swamp because he was too stubborn to go off and die like a normal mule.
"a great big mango … a sweet smell, you know, a strong flavor, but not something you could mash up like a strawberry. Something with a body to it.”
This is a description of a pretty young woman named Daisy by Joe Clark that is apparently a bit more lewd—though not quite obscene—than his friends expected from him. Daisy is at the center of a rivalry pitting two close friends against each other: Jim and Dave. Like Joe, all the other men can appreciate how she could pit two friends against each other.
“Lock him up back yonder in my barn till Monday when we'll have the trial in de Baptist Church. And save that mule bone for evidence.”
The rivalry over the affections of Daisy reaches a fever pitch when Jim and Dave are pushed to the limits of jealousy by the indecisive flirtations of Daisy. A shoving match quick escalates to the point where Jim grabs the mule bone and knocks Dave unconscious with a strike to the head. As Mayor, it is Joe Clake’s duty to arrest Jim for the assault.
“Yeah, just like all the rest of them Methodists … always tryin' to take undercurrents on people.”
In response to the Mayor’s order to have the trial in the Baptist Church, the real conflict at the heart of the play erupts just before the curtain comes down on the first act. Lindsay represents one faction taking sides.
“Ain't no worse then some of you Baptists, nohow. You all don't run this town. We got jus' as much to say as you have. “
While Walter Thomas here represents the other side of the equation. The rivalry between the two young men vying for the affection of Daisy which climaxes Act One turns out in the succeeding act to have been merely a literal prelude to the more symbolic split between the town’s Baptists and Methodists.
