The Great God Success | Page 7

baggage-man.
"Have they found him yet?"
"No--nor never will alive--that's my opinion."
Howard asked for the nearest livery-stable and within twenty minutes
was on his way to Dent's farm. His driver knew all about the lost child.
Two hundred men were still searching. "And Mrs. Dent, she's been
sittin' by the window, list'nin' day and night. She won't speak nor eat
and she ain't shed a tear. It was her only child. The men come in sayin'
it ain't no use to hunt any more, an' they look at her an' out they goes
ag'in."
Soon the driver pointed to a cottage near the road. The gate was open;

the grass and the flower-beds were trampled into a morass. The door
was thrown wide and several women were standing about the threshold.
At the window within view of the road and the mountains sat the
mother--a young woman with large brown eyes, and clear-cut features,
refined, beautified, exalted by suffering. Her look was that of one
listening for a faint, far away sound upon which hangs the turn of the
balances to joy or to despair.
* * * * *
That morning two of the searchers went to the northeast into the dense
and tangled swamp woods between Bald Peak and Cloudy Peak--the
wildest wilderness in the mountains. The light barely penetrates the
foliage on the brightest days. The ground is rough, sometimes
precipitous, closely covered with bushes and tangled creepers.
The two explorers, almost lost themselves, came at last to the edge of a
swamp surrounded by cedars. They half-crawled, half-climbed through
the low trees and festooning creepers to the edge of a clear bit of open,
firm ground.
In the middle was a cedar tree. Under it, seated upon the ground, was
the lost boy. His bare, brown legs, torn and bleeding, were stretched
straight in front of him. His bare feet were bruised and cut. His
gingham dress was torn and wet and stained. His small hands were
smears of dirt and blood. He was playing with a tin can. He had put a
stone into it and was making a great rattling. The dog was running to
and fro, apparently enjoying the noise. The little boy's face was
tear-stained and his eyes were swollen. But he was not crying just then
and laughter lurked in his thin, fever-flushed face.
As the men came into view, the dog began to bark angrily, but the boy
looked a solemn welcome.
"Want mamma," he said. "I'se hungry."
One of the men picked him up--the gingham dress was saturated.

"You're hungry?" asked the man, his voice choking.
"Yes. An' I'se so wet. It wained and wained." Then the child began to
sob. "It was dark," he whispered, "an' cold. I want my mamma."
It was an hour's tedious journey back to Dent's by the shortest route. At
the top of the hill those near the cottage saw the boy in the arms of the
man who had found him. They shouted and the mother sprang out of
the house and came running, stumbling down the path to the gate. She
caught at the gate-post and stood there, laughing, screaming, sobbing.
"Baby! Baby!" she called.
The little boy turned his head and stretched out his thin, blood-stained
arms. She ran toward him and snatched him from the young farmer.
"Hungry, mamma," he sobbed, hiding his face on her shoulder.
* * * * *
Howard wrote his story on the train, going down to New York. It was a
straightforward chronicle of just what he had seen and heard. He began
at the beginning--the little mountain home, the family of three, the
disappearance of the child. He described the perils of the mountains,
the storm, the search, the wait, the listening mother, scene by scene,
ending with mother and child together again and the dog racing around
them, with wagging tail and hanging tongue. He wrote swiftly, making
no changes, without a trace of his usual self-consciousness in
composition. When he had done he went into the restaurant car and
dined almost gaily. He felt that he had failed again. How could he hope
to tell such a story? But he was not despondent. He was still under the
spell of that intense human drama with its climax of joy. His own
concerns seemed secondary, of no consequence.
He reached the office at half-past nine, handed in his "copy" and went
away. He was in bed at half-past ten and was at once asleep. At eleven
the next morning a knocking awakened him from a sound sleep that
had restored and refreshed him. "A messenger from the office," was

called through the door in answer to his inquiry. He took the note from
the boy and tore it open:
"My dear Mr. Howard: