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 failin' 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.
But for half an hour little Mary's soul wuz gone away, I wonder where it wuz, anyway, it wuzn't here. No, her white, cold body didn't have any tenant in it, no sign of one, there wuz no fire in it, the light wuz blowed out, she wuz gone.
The sweet little soul had gone away visitin', and I would give—oh! I don't know what I wouldn't give to know where it had gone. It couldn't be the Great Home we move into when our life lease ends here on our earthly property. No, for when we once move out of this earthly body we don't move back into it agin, that is one of the conditions of the transfer. No, it wuzn't
