The final chapter of Lost Island. Chapter I is here.
Barbara “rehashed” her novel while living in Brookline in 1934. She kept Chapter 17 with her final manuscript, and that’s how I presented it in Lost Island (plus three stories and an afterword) (Farksolia, 2020).
“John, you’re an old kidnapper, that’s what you are!”
“Glad?”
“Sure I’m glad, but I think you’re a menace to the country, all the same.”
“What do you propose to do about it, Janie?”
“That’s just what I’m trying to figure out. Dangerous business, you know, to transplant a person several hundred miles without even giving them a chance to breathe. New York — presto! — the Maine woods.”
“But you are glad?”
“Yes, that’s the one flaw in my arguments. I am glad.”
“I want to be — oh, awfully good to you, Jane. After all, I took you away, almost by main force, to spend your nasty little two-weeks vacation at my sister’s house in Portland, and now I’ve got to be good.”
“You’re incredible, Johnnie. I always knew that — ever since you said: ‘Why doon’t ye pin a note on the duck?’ Remember?”
John threw back his head and laughed happily.… Read more