And she went out of the house into the yard, and through the yard into the lot, and through the lot to the negro cabins, crying, "Oh, what a pity! what a pity!"
Not for the Little Master, for he was smiling at the glorious vision of peace and rest that he saw when he said good-night. Not pity for the lad, but for those he had left behind him, for all who loved him; for all who had depended on his thoughtfulness; for all the weary and sorrowful ones. Oh, what a pity! Over and over again, what a pity! And the wind flowing softly about the world took up the poor negro's wailing cry and sent it over the hill and beyond, and the outlying messengers of the Swamp took it up—What a pity! And the Willis-Whistlers piped low, and the mysteries, swaying and slipping through the canes and tall grass, heard the whispered echo and sighed, Oh, what a pity!
Transcriber's Notes
A number of words in this book had both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants; for those words the variant more frequently used was retained. This book also contains dialect and vernacular conversation.
Obvious punctuation errors were fixed.
Other printing errors, which were not detected during the revision of the printing process of the original book, have been corrected.
It was unclear if in the expression ["simple as a-b ab"] the second "ab" should be hyphenated. It was decided to keep the text unchanged.