Browse:Hand: Heart-Shaped (Volume 1, entries 1995–1996)
Hand: Heart-Shaped
Volume 1, entries 1995–1996. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1995
At Williamsburg, Virginia, at the Colonial Hotel, the place I was work- ing at, I was working with a boy called Massey. He was about the luckiest boy around the job. He would go away from the job, stay as long as he want, come back to the job and still hold a good hand with the boss. One evening on a dice game I was betting in the game with Massey. Massey and I were good friends. So after the game Was over, I having lost all my money, Massey having won all the money in the game, he gave me my money back and warned me not to play in a game again if he was in the game. I wanted to know why. He opened his shirt at the collar and showed me a little bag, a little dirty bag, of some contents I don't know what, pinned over his heart. It was the shape of a heart. II saw one heart-shaped hand ~ see No. 1053, p.399.] He told me that this little bag Would always pro- tect him in any game, for love or for money. He told me that he bought this little bag from an old man that lived far back in the woods and the path that led to his home was well travelled because there was always seen cars about his home. He told me that he paid this man fifty dollars for this little bag, two dollars down on deposit, and if it worked he paid the other forty-eight dollars. One afternoon I told him that if his bag could work let me see him work it on a white man. He was working for Dr. B. Dr. B. was the owner of the hotel. He had a nice automobile, an automobile that he had just paid $3300 for; and we had been accustomed to renting a car at a garage about four blocks up the street when we wanted to go to a ball game, dances and things of that kind. On this partic- ular afternoon the car that we had rented, somebody else had rented it already. I said to Massey, "Now, your bag, if it is working, let me see it work now." "I told him I would give him five dollars if his bag worked on Dr. B, so far as us getting his car. He told me to come on and lay the bet and go with him, and I when I saw him rub his hand on the bag I would know that the bag Was Working. He went to the doctor and asked him to let us use his car. He was doing the talking. I have know Dr. B's daughter ask him to let her use the car and he Would turn her down. After Massey had spoken to the doctor, he suddenly rubbed his hand over his heart. The doctor told him he couldn't let him take the car because the tire had been condemned. In fact he had to return it to the people he had bought it from and get another for it. Massey ran his hand over that bag again. Quickly the countenance on the doctor's face changed and he began to smile, and said to Massey, "Take that car, go on to the ball game and bring it back, take it to the garage and take the tire to those people and tell them that I want another one." If the bag Worked I don't know. I only know that I lost five dollars.
Entry 1996
It's something mostly in the shape of a heart, but what's in it I don't know. This is a hand for good luck. Most of those I have seen are made out of red flannel.