Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other IslandsHolley, Marietta
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Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other Islands
Holley, Marietta
Coney Island (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
"Oh you dear, delicious Samantha!" sez she, and she throwed her arms
round me and kissed me. I kissed her back and then I went on brushin'
my hair for the night. I hadn't nothin' on but my skirts and dressin'
sack, but I didn't mind her. And she went and sot down by the winder
and looked off into the west. Fur off the blue hazy distance lay like
another country. The moonlight lay on the waters, a white sail fur
off seemed to float into dreamy mist. She sot there still, and a queer
look seemed to come into her face. I felt that she wuz thinkin' of
him, the lost lover of her youth. I felt that she wuz with him and not
with me. I thought from the looks of her face she might think he had
been insulted by the rude feet that had assayed to walk into the
kingdom where he had rained, and rained still, I believe. Sez I to
myself, mebby she is walkin' with him in the past, and mebby in the
futer, how could I tell, I felt queer and wadded up my hair with
emotions that never before went into them hair pins.
After I had finished I sot down, as my habit is, to read a few verses
of Skripter, to sort o' carry with me in my journey through the
unknown realms of Sleep. And as I make a practice of openin' wherever
I happen to--or I don't really like that word happen--I let the book
open where it will, and I wuz jest readin' these words:
"Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes, the signs and
the great miracles."
When I hearn through my readin', as one will, the whistle of the night
boat comin' in, and the noise of many steps goin' along the walk
below. Then I opened the book agin and went on with my readin':
"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but these things that
are revealed belong to us."
When sunthin' made me look up, Faith wuz bendin' forward lookin' out
of the winder, though she couldn't see anyone that wuz passin' on
account of the ruff, and I see a look that I never see before on any
face, it wuz all rousted up, illuminated, glad, triumphant, sad,
glowin', blessed, and everything else.
And I said, "What is it, Faith, what do you see?"
Sez she, "I don't know."
And I said then, "What do you think it is?"
And she sez, "Cousin Samantha, do you think that those who are far
away ever return to the hearts that are mourning for them? Is there
any way that souls can meet while the bodies are far apart?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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