And jest then we hearn a rap on our door, and Josiah sez, “Who is there? What is the matter?”
And a voice answered, “Jack and Mary can’t be found!”
And I riz right up and dressed me, and so did Josiah, I forebodin’ all the time, a shadder of the great Onknown seemin’ to fall over my mind and heart, as if preparin’ me for what wuz to come.
When we got downstairs Tamer wuz in highstericks, and Celestine, forgittin’ her art, wuz rushin’ round to and fro with a white wrapper on and a whiter face, callin’ on little Mary in axents so pitiful it almost seemed it would roust up a dead baby, let alone a lovin’, livin’ child. Where wuz them strange animals in that hour? They had walked clean away and left her in agony and despair. She seemed to know from the first on’t that sunthin’ dretful had happened, and so did Tamer. There are awful secrets that mothers learn down in the Valley of Death where they go to claim their babies, they learn things there and keep ’em in their inmost nater, so clost that art or literatoor, however lurid, can’t dislodge ’em. They felt what they couldn’t explain, hence the highstericks, shriekin’, etc.
Hamen and John, though lookin’ dretful troubled, kep’ on sayin’ they wuz hid somewhere, they would be found, all right, they wuz safe, but goin’ round at a good jog, nevertheless, tryin’ to find ’em. But it wuz my own pardner and myself that found them babies. Alas, for the awful sight! alas, for the woeful sight! Yes, we found ’em.
There wuz a certain place quite a good ways from the house where I knew the children often went to play at keepin’ house. An old gnarled willow tree hung over the water, and in its crooked trunk wuz a holler place where they kep’ their little dishes and things, and one or two old dolls for children. Sunthin’ told me to look there, and, follered by my faithful pardner, I went to the little holler jest out of sight of the house.
And there, with the moonlight fallin’ as sorrowful as if some weepin’ angel of compassion wuz holdin’ down a lantern to light us in our search, we found ’em.
Jack had held up little Mary till his arms had fairly froze into that poster of heroism, so she hadn’t been in the water nigh so long. We knew he had tried to save her till his strength gin way and his faithful little arms could no longer do the biddin’ of his generous, lovin’ heart. Little hero! Many a man standin’ up above the multitude on top of a monument did not die half so glorious a death as you did.
And, whether Jack went in after Mary to save her or whether he, too, believed the story of the shinin’ playgrounds (alas! alas! confirmed by me onbeknown to myself) and sot out for ’em with her, we shall never know. All she could remember, sweet little soul! wuz that she sot out to go to them happy playgrounds and sunk down, down into blackness and night.