PHOEBE LOST AND FOUND

PHOEBE LOST AND FOUND 

Old Henry Reifsneider and his wife Phoebe [Ann] were a loving couple... He was a thin old man, seventy when she died. (p. 226)

It was one morning that he woke with the thought that she was not dead. How he had arrived at this conclusion it is hard to say. His mind had gone. In its place was a fixed illusion. 

"Why, hello, Henry! Where're yuh goin' this mornin'?" inquired Farmer Dodge. 

"Yuh ain't seen Phoebe, have yuh?" inquired the old man.

"Phoebe who?" inquired Farmer Dodge, not for the moment connecting the name with Henry's dead wife.

"Why, my wife Phoebe, o' course. Who do yuh s'pose I mean?"

"Wall, I'll swan, Henry, yuh ain't jokin', are yuh?" said the solid Dodge, with a smooth, hard, red face. "It can't be your wife yuh're talkin' about. She's dead."

"Dead! Shucks!" retorted the demented Reifsneider. "She left me early this mornin', while I was sleepin'. She allus got up to build the fire, but she's gone now. We had a little spat last night, an' I guess that's the reason. But I guess I kin find her. She's gone over to Matilda Race's, that's where she's gone."

He started briskly up the road, leaving the amazed Dodge to stare in wonder after him. 

Reifsneider reached the whitewashed fence of Matilda Race and her husband three miles away.

"Why, Mr. Reifsneider," exclaimed old Matilda herself, a stout woman, looking out of the door in answer to his knock, "what brings yuh here this mornin'?" 

"Is Phoebe here?" he demanded eagerly. 

"Phoebe who? What Phoebe?" replied Mrs. Race.

"Why, my Phoebe, o' course. My wife Phoebe. Who do yuh s'pose? Ain't she here now?"

"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mrs. Race, opening her mouth. "Yuh pore man! So you're clean out'n your mind now. Yuh come right in and sit down. I'll git yuh a cup o' coffee. O' course your wife ain't here; but yuh come in an' sit down. I'll find her fer yuh after a while. I know where she is." 

"We had a quarrel last night, an' she left me," he volunteered. 

"Laws! laws!" sighed Mrs. Race, as she went to her kitchen. "The pore man! Now somebody's just got to look after him. He can't be allowed to run around the country this way lookin' for his dead wife. It's turrible." 

She boiled him a pot of coffee and brought in some of her new-baked bread and fresh butter.

"Now yuh stay right there, Uncle Henry, till Jake comes in, an' I'll send him to look for Phoebe. I think it's more n likely she's over to Swinnerton with some o' her friends. Anyhow, we'll find her. Now yuh just drink this coffee an' eat this bread. Yuh must be tired. Yuh've had a long walk this mornin'." Her idea was to take counsel with Jake, "her man," and perhaps have him notify the authorities.

She bustled about, while old Reifsneider thrummed on the rim of his hat with his fingers and later ate abstractedly of what she offered. His mind was on his wife, however, and since she was not here, it [his mind] wandered vaguely away to a family by the name of Murray, miles away in another direction. He decided after a time that he would not wait for Jack Race to hunt his wife but would seek her for himself. He must be on, and urge her to come back.

"Well, I'll be goin'," he said, getting up and looking strangely about him. "I guess she didn't come here after all. She went over to the Murrays, I guess. I'll not wait any longer, Mis' Race." And out he marched in the face of her protests. (p. 233-236)

His figure after a time became an accepted curiosity, and the replies, "Why, no, Henry; I ain't see her," or "No, Henry; she ain't been here today," more customary. (p. 237)

It was in the seventh year of these hopeless peregrinations ... He had walked many, many miles. It was after ten o'clock at night, and he was very weary. He fell asleep after a time, his head on his knees. At two in the morning [at 2 a.m.], he opened his eyes... What was it that moved in the distant shadows? Was it truly his lost Phoebe? ... in his fevered state he fancied that he could see the very eyes of her, not as she was when he last saw her in the black dress and shawl, but now a strangely younger Phoebe, gayer, sweeter, the one whom he had known years before as a girl. Old Reifsneider got up. He had been expecting and dreaming of this hour all these years. 

Of a sudden there came to him now for the first time in many years the full charm of her girlish figure as he had known it in boyhood, the pleasing, sympathetic smile, the brown hair, the blue sash she had once worn about her waist at a picnic, her gay, graceful movements. On she moved before him, and it seemed as though she signaled with a young, a lightsome hand.

"Oh, Phoebe! Phoebe!" he called. "Have yuh really answered me?" On and on he hurried until he was fairly running. His hat was gone, his lungs were breathless, his reason quite astray, when he saw her among a silvery bed of apple trees now blooming in the spring.

"Oh, Phoebe!" he called. "Oh, Phoebe!" And feeling the lure of a world where love was young and Phoebe, as this vision presented her, a delightful epitome [perfect example] of their quondam youth [earlier youth], he gave a gay [happy] cry of "Oh, wait, Phoebe!" 

No one knew how eagerly and joyously he had found his lost mate. (p. 240-242)

(From Theodore Dreiser: "THE LOST PHOEBE" in FIFTY GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, a BANTAM CLASSIC published by Bantam Dell/Random House.)

This is in fact actually a story of reincarnation. I feel sure that the sweet honeytraps Ms. X and Ms. Z and UIUC and UIC honey traps I came across many years ago changed their bodies and now exist in younger reincarnations. I suspect that I may have met one or more of these young female reincarnations. Reincarnation is absolute 100% FACT. Thanks.

Books on body transformation, reincarnation or rebirth, clones (see also YouTube and comics): 

1. Mary Shelley: FRANKENSTEIN

2. Robert Louis Stevenson: DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 

3. Christopher Marlowe: DOCTOR FAUSTUS 

4. Lewis Carroll: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

5. H.G. Wells: THE TIME MACHINE 

6. Isaac Asimov: THE END OF ETERNITY 

7. Aldous Huxley: BRAVE NEW WORLD 

Kishalay Sinha [G]