Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other IslandsHolley, Marietta
General
Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other Islands
Holley, Marietta
Coney Island (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
But to resoom forwards. We went by a big castle that wuz built up on a
hill on a island of considerable size with quite a grove of trees on
it. It wuz a noble, gray stun castle, with high towers and pinnacles
shinin' up toward the blue sky--Castle Rest, its name wuz, and I
thought most probable anybody could rest there first rate. The one
that built it and the one it wuz built for, had gone up into another
castle to rest, the great Castle of Rest, whose walls can't be moved
by any earthly shock. A good little mother it wuz built for, a
hard-workin', patient, tired-out little mother, who wuz left with a
house full of boys, and not much in the house, only boys. How she
worked and toiled to keep 'em comfortable and git 'em headed right,
washin', cookin', makin', and mendin'; learnin' 'em truthfulness,
honesty, and industry with their letters; teachin' 'em the
multiplication table and the commandments; trimmin' off their childish
faults, same as she did their hair; clippin' 'em off with her own
anxious lovin' hands. Mebby puttin' a bowl on their heads and cuttin'
round it, or else shinglin' 'em. But 'tennyrate doin' her best for
them, soul and body, till she got 'em headed right. Some on 'em givin'
their hull lives to help men's souls, lovin' this old world mebby for
their ma's sake, because it held so many other good wimmen; for they
jest about worshipped her all on 'em. And one of her boys, while the
rest of 'em wuz helpin' men and wimmen to build up better lives, he
wuz buildin' up his creed of helpfulness and improvement in bricks and
mortar, tryin' to do good, there hain't a doubt on't.
Mebby them walls didn't stand so firm as the others did, and tottled
more now and then. Strange, hain't it, that solid bricks and stuns,
that you feel and see, are less endurin' and firm than the things you
can't see--changed lives, faith, hope, charity, love to God, good-will
to man, and that whiter ideals and loftier aims and desires may tower
up higher than any chimbly that ever belched out smoke.
Curious it is so, but so it is. But 'tennyrate this one son rode on
his sleepin' cars right into millions, and his first thought wuz how
he could please best the little Mother. So he built a castle for her.
Tired little feet, walkin' the round of humble duties, waitin' on her
small boys, did they ever expect to tread the walls of a castle? Her
own too. I'll bet it seemed dretful big to her, or would anyway if it
hadn't been so full, so runnin' over full of the love and
thoughtfulness of all of her boys--and Love will fill and glorify
cottage or castle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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