Aftermath

by James Lane Allen

I was happily at work this morning among my butterbeans--a vegetable of solid merit and of a far greater suitableness to my palate than such bovine watery growths as the squash and the beet. Georgiana came to her garden window and stood watching me."You work those butterbeans as though you loved _them_," she said, scornfully."I do love them. I love all vines.""Are you cultivating them as vines or as vegetables?""It makes no difference to nature.""Do you expect me to be a vine when we are married?""I hope you'll not turn out a mere vegetable. How should you like to be my Virginia-creeper?""And what would you be?""Well, what would you like? A sort of honeysuckle frame?""Oh, anything! Only support me and give me plenty of room to bloom." 

69 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2004

About the author

James Lane Allen was an American novelist and short story writer whose work often depicted the culture and dialects of his native Kentucky. His work is characteristic of the late-19th century local color era, when writers sought to capture the vernacular in their fiction. Allen has been described as "Kentucky's first important novelist."

Reviews

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aftermath is a lovely companion to Kentucky Cardinal, and it follows out an interesting course surprisingly uncommon in 19th century literature: what happens after the romantic climax? The protagonists work to sustain their love and struggle to fit their own independent, disparate lives (particularly the narrator's life of solitude and nature) into one married life. But the text then traces a second aftermath: the narrator's gradual return to something more like his earlier life and his adjustment to life after the loss of Georgiana. If Aftermath's best isn't as good as the first 2/3rds of Kentucky Cardinal, I think it's generally better than the final third of Kentucky Cardinal. Definitely worth reading both.