Page 140

By Jack Joseph Smith

: 142 would blush and come closer to me, Though I could feel her hair touch my cheek, my dreams may T never had intentions; we were flowers in our growths’ Her eyes were so-rekenved to see me come homes’ The world was walking with her, when everything was quiets She believed it would always be that ways’ When did wildness curse the soul and punish peace? My thoughts are ending and Kennedy forest looks so blue after rising from the nights’ My mind is blank and so I am . going to pick up this stone-and try and reach the trees in the valleys! ° i i ‘

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The remembered girl blushes and comes close in a peace that once seemed permanent, but the reverie ends with Kennedy forest turning blue after night and the narrator, emptied of thought, picking up a stone to throw toward the trees in the valley.

The OCR is a little clipped, but the emotional movement is clear enough: innocence is remembered just as the speaker recognizes it could not last. The final stone-throw feels like a small, frustrated act against distance, quiet, and the punishment that wildness has brought.

Claude

The end of Chapter VIII circles back to the Saint Bernard's girl who waited for him twice and the apple-tree day preserved unchanging; a decision to pick up a stone and try to reach the trees in the valley closes the chapter on a gesture of distance-testing.