Could everyone write one simple essay about something that once happened in Saltaire…that they saw or were a part of…and put it on one big website? Somebody should collect a lot of stories before we all forget. Otherwise it is like a line in “On The Beach” : The history of the war that now would never be written.” -(JO'H)

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

THE LAST TRIP OUT

                                       
  "Hi Jane! Thar  she blows!"

Jerry lifted his clam rake awkwardly to point to the Running Wild pulling away from the dock. In the two weeks the Taylors had been on Fire Island the launch had become a familiar sight, for she was Fair Harbor's ferry boat, but today Jerry stared after her with a concentrated interest in mounting excitement that he had no intention of admitting to his sister. This was the Running Wild's last scheduled trip for the year.  From  now until spring, the summer resort would be virtually deserted without boat service....
 ...Jane stopped the jiggling dance she used to pry to out clams with her bare toes and waded across to join her brother in watching the little craft nose out between the upright saplings that marked the hidden shoals. When they had first arrived, the few straggling leaves that  still clung to those spindlng trees had fooled them into thinking that the trees were growing right there in the water, rather than being improvised  buoys in the Great South Bay. ...

… The Running Wild had turned into the main channel and was heading westward toward the late afternoon sun. It made a pretty picture, Jerry had to admit,  sun and reddish clouds and  the dark green of West Island breaking through the unruffled Great South Bay while the bright white boat  pranced along towards home.


From:   The Sunken Forest , by René Prud'Hommeaux , Viking Press, New York,  1949
   

1 comment:

jimmy said...

Thanks Jim,

I found that book here and read it to my girls when they were younger, they loved it.

It is still one of my favorites.


Phil Keane, Seattle