Kentucky -- Fiction; Older women -- Fiction; Widows -- Fiction
"You ricollect the Bible says 'Love is strong as death,'" said Aunt
Jane, "but that ain't always so. You'll see a husband or a wife die,
and you'll think the one that's left never will git over grievin' for
the one that's gone, and the first thing you know there's a second
marriage, and that shows that death is stronger than love, and I
reckon it's well that it's so. If one's taken and the other's left,
it's because the livin' has got a work to do in this world. They
can't spend their lives grievin' after the dead, and they oughtn't to
try to foller the dead. But once in a while, honey, it's a good thing
to find a love that's stronger than death. 'Many waters cannot quench
love, neither can the floods drown it.'"
The tremulous old voice ceased again and there was a long silence. At
last, "What became of Hamilton Schuyler?" I asked softly.
Aunt Jane roused herself with a start. She also had known a love that
was stronger than death, and her thoughts were not with Hamilton and
Miss Amaryllis.
"Hamilton?" she said dreamily. "Oh, yes! Poor man! Poor man! It was
all they could do to make him come away from the grave, and when they
got him home and tried to persuade him to go to bed and take some
rest, he'd throw out his arms and push 'em away and say, 'There's no
more rest for me on this earth. How can a man get into his bed and
sleep, when his wife and child are lyin' out in the frozen ground?'
And for weeks he'd go out to the graveyard in the dead o' the night
and wander up and down the house like a ghost. He stayed around the
place till spring come, and when the flowers begun to bloom he got
worse instead o' better. It looked like every flower and tree reminded
him of Miss Amaryllis. And he'd walk down the gyarden lookin' at her
rose-bushes and talkin' to himself, and every time a rose bloomed,
he'd gether it and put it on her grave. And one mornin', about the
last o' May, he told one o' the slaves to saddle his horse, and when
they asked him where he was goin', he said: 'I'm going to find her. I
found her once, and I can find her again.'
"They tried to reason with him, but they might as well 'a' talked to
the air. He rode off like mad, and the next folks heard of him, he was
'way off yonder in some foreign country; and after a while the news
come that he'd been found dead in his bed. Whether he grieved himself
to death or whether he took his own life nobody ever knew. I ricollect
how glad I was when I heard about it, for I knew he'd found Miss
Amaryllis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account