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- 4331
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- 2026-01-28T17:35:34.203Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 4276
- text
- better in some ways—”
“_Sid!_” Tom felt the glare of the old lady’s eye, though he could not
see it. “Not a word against my Tom, now that he’s gone! God’ll take care
of _him_—never you trouble _your_self, sir! Oh, Mrs. Harper, I don’t
know how to give him up! I don’t know how to give him up! He was such a
comfort to me, although he tormented my old heart out of me, ’most.”
“The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away—Blessed be the name of
the Lord! But it’s so hard—Oh, it’s so hard! Only last Saturday my Joe
busted a firecracker right under my nose and I knocked him sprawling.
Little did I know then, how soon—Oh, if it was to do over again I’d hug
him and bless him for it.”
“Yes, yes, yes, I know just how you feel, Mrs. Harper, I know just
exactly how you feel. No longer ago than yesterday noon, my Tom took
and filled the cat full of Pain-killer, and I did think the cretur would
tear the house down. And God forgive me, I cracked Tom’s head with my
thimble, poor boy, poor dead boy. But he’s out of all his troubles now.
And the last words I ever heard him say was to reproach—”
But this memory was too much for the old lady, and she broke entirely
down. Tom was snuffling, now, himself—and more in pity of himself than
anybody else. He could hear Mary crying, and putting in a kindly word
for him from time to time. He began to have a nobler opinion of himself
than ever before. Still, he was sufficiently touched by his aunt’s grief
to long to rush out from under the bed and overwhelm her with joy—and
the theatrical gorgeousness of the thing appealed strongly to his
nature, too, but he resisted and lay still.
He went on listening, and gathered by odds and ends that it was
conjectured at first that the boys had got drowned while taking a swim;
then the small raft had been missed; next, certain boys said the missing
lads had promised that the village should “hear something” soon; the
wise-heads had “put this and that together” and decided that the lads
had gone off on that raft and would turn up at the next town below,
presently; but toward noon the raft had been found, lodged against the
Missouri shore some five or six miles below the village—and then hope
perished; they must be drowned, else hunger would have driven them home
by nightfall if not sooner. It was believed that the search for the
bodies had been a fruitless effort merely because the drowning must
have occurred in mid-channel, since the boys, being good swimmers, would
otherwise have escaped to shore. This was Wednesday night. If the bodies
continued missing until Sunday, all hope would be given over, and the
funerals would be preached on that morning. Tom shuddered.
Mrs. Harper gave a sobbing goodnight and turned to go. Then with a
mutual impulse the two bereaved women flung themselves into each other’s
arms and had a good, consoling cry, and then parted. Aunt Polly was
tender far beyond her wont, in her goodnight to Sid and Mary. Sid
snuffled a bit and Mary went off crying with all her heart.
Aunt Polly knelt down and prayed for Tom so touchingly, so appealingly,
and with such measureless love in her words and her old trembling voice,
that he was weltering in tears again, long before she was through.
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