"Good-morning, Mrs.Thatcher.Good-morning, Mrs.Harper.I've got a boy that's turned up missing.I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last night -- one of you.And now he's afraid to come to church.I've got to settle with him."Mrs.Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever.
"He didn't stay with us," said Mrs.Harper, beginning to look uneasy.A marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly's face.
"Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?""No'm."
"When did you see him last?"
Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say.The people had stopped moving out of church.Whispers passed along, and a boding uneasiness took possession of every countenance.Children were anxiously questioned, and young teachers.They all said they had not noticed whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the homeward trip; it was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was missing.One young man finally blurted out his fear that they were still in the cave! Mrs.Thatcher swooned away.Aunt Polly fell to crying and wringing her hands.
The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to street, and within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and the whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant insignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were saddled, skiffs were manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror was half an hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and river toward the cave.
All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead.Many women visited Aunt Polly and Mrs.Thatcher and tried to comfort them.They cried with them, too, and that was still better than words.All the tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at last, all the word that came was, "Send more candles -- and send food." Mrs.Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also.Judge Thatcher sent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they conveyed no real cheer.
The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out.He found Huck still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with fever.The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came and took charge of the patient.She said she would do her best by him, because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord's, and nothing that was the Lord's was a thing to be neglected.The Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:
"You can depend on it.That's the Lord's mark.He don't leave it off.He never does.Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his hands."Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the village, but the strongest of the citizens continued searching.All the news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were being ransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner and crevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one wandered through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting hither and thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent their hollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles.In one place, far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names "BECKY & TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with candle-smoke, and near at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon.Mrs.Thatcher recognized the ribbon and cried over it.She said it was the last relic she should ever have of her child; and that no other memorial of her could ever be so precious, because this one parted latest from the living body before the awful death came.Some said that now and then, in the cave, a far-away speck of light would glimmer, and then a glorious shout would burst forth and a score of men go trooping down the echoing aisle -- and then a sickening disappointment always followed; the children were not there; it was only a searcher's light.
Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along, and the village sank into a hopeless stupor.No one had heart for anything.The accidental discovery, just made, that the proprietor of the Temperance Tavern kept liquor on his premises, scarcely fluttered the public pulse, tremendous as the fact was.In a lucid interval, Huck feebly led up to the subject of taverns, and finally asked -- dimly dreading the worst -- if anything had been discovered at the Temperance Tavern since he had been ill.
"Yes," said the widow.
Huck started up in bed, wild-eyed:
"What? What was it?"
"Liquor! -- and the place has been shut up.Lie down, child -- what a turn you did give me!""Only tell me just one thing -- only just one -- please! Was it Tom Sawyer that found it?"The widow burst into tears."Hush, hush, child, hush! I've told you before, you must not talk.You are very, very sick!"Then nothing but liquor had been found; there would have been a great powwow if it had been the gold.So the treasure was gone forever -- gone forever! But what could she be crying about? Curious that she should cry.
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"There -- he's asleep, poor wreck.Tom Sawyer find it! Pity but somebody could find Tom Sawyer! Ah, there ain't many left, now, that's got hope enough, or strength enough, either, to go on searching."
