He was petrified
by his uncomprehending amazement and an intensity of grief that was not
meet for his tender years in this extreme. He could hardly realize his
own identity. He did not seem himself, this child on the floor in front
of a dull wood fire, squalid, wrapped in an old horse-blanket, facing
this queer woman, sitting opposite him on the uneven flagging of the
hearth.
All at once his fortitude gave way. He broke forth into sobs and cries;
his heart was heavy with the sense of desertion, for he wept not for his
home, his mother, his kind friends, Ned and Gad-ish--on these blessings
he had lost all hold, all hope. He mourned for his late companions,
forsooth!--the big men, the boat, the river, the star. They had so
cruelly forsaken him, and here he was so poignantly unfamiliar and
helpless. When the woman held out a finger to him and smiled, he bowed
his head as he wept and shook it to and fro that he might not see her,
for her yellow teeth had great gaps among them, and as she laughed a
strange light came into her eyes, and he was woe--woe!--for his comrades
of the rowlocks and the Tennessee River.
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