But why prolong the heart-rending scene, as little by little Jasper
stammered out all the story he had to tell, and the poor children began
to realize how doubly orphaned they were? This was a grief before which
the loss of their. stepmother seemed as nothing. They had loved their
big, kind, good-natured father as a companion, far more than a parent;
and the thought of never meeting him again, of never hearing his well-
known greeting after his absences,--
"Waal, waal, younkers, come and kiss your old dad! Did you miss him
much, eh?"--seemed intolerable.
Sara, under this new blow, for a time lost all self-control, and broke
into such a passion of grief, that Jasper, much frightened, ran for the
nearest neighbor, Mrs. Updyke.
She soon appeared,--a gaunt woman, with a wrinkled visage, and a
constant sniff.
"Land sakes!" she cried, upon hearing Jasper's ill news, "Yeouw don't
say! Well, well, it's a disposition o' Providence, to be sure!" by which
she doubtless meant a dispensation, though it did not much matter, for
no one paid the slightest attention to her moral axioms just then.
By this time the news had spread, and the neighbors were flocking to the
afflicted cottages; for all the drowned men had lived in Killamet, and
were well known, while each had left a wife, mother, or some weeping
female relative, to mourn his loss.
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