then he took the kite-line in his hand and went groping down one of the
passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick with
bodings of coming doom.
CHAPTER XXXII
Tuesday afternoon came, and waned to the twilight. The village of St.
Petersburg still mourned. The lost children had not been found. Public
prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private prayer
that had the petitioner s whole heart in it; but still no good news came
from the cave. The majority of the searchers had given up the quest
and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain the
children could never be found. Mrs. Thatcher was very ill, and a great
part of the time delirious. People said it was heartbreaking to hear her
call her child, and raise her head and listen a whole minute at a time,
then lay it wearily down again with a moan. Aunt Polly had drooped into
a settled melancholy, and her gray hair had grown almost white. The
village went to its rest on Tuesday night, sad and forlorn.
Away in the middle of the night a wild peal burst from the village
bells, and in a moment the streets were swarming with frantic half-clad
people, who shouted, Turn out! turn out! they re found! they re found!
Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed itself
and moved toward the river, met the children coming in an open carriage
drawn by shouting citizens, thronged around it, joined its homeward
march, and swept magnificently up the main street roaring huzzah after
huzzah!
The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the
greatest night the little town had ever seen. During the first half-hour
a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher s house, seized
the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs. Thatcher s hand, tried to
speak but couldn t and drifted out raining tears all over the place.
Aunt Polly s happiness was complete, and Mrs. Thatcher s nearly so. It
would be complete, however, as soon as the messenger dispatched with the
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