Shortly before the death of Eugene Field a friend from one of the
Southern States told him a pathetic story of a girl who had wandered
away from her home in the country and taken refuge in a large city,
with the usual results of that dangerous step:
Her old father mourned for the girl he had lost; but in his
simplicity it never occurred to him to try to find her, for the
world beyond the limits of his township was vast and forbidding.
But word came to him one day that somebody had seen his daughter
in the city, one hundred miles away, and with only that to guide
him he went in search of her.
Once in the city, he shrank from the noise and confusion of the
crowds. He waited until night, and then when the streets were
comparatively deserted, he roamed up and down from one street to
another, giving the peculiar cry he had always used when looking
for a lost lamb--a cry the girl herself had heard and given
many times in her better days. A policeman stopt the old man
and warned him that he was disturbing the peace, whereupon the
father told his story and said:
“She will come to me if she hears that cry.”
The officer was moved by the old man’s simplicity and
earnestness, and offered to accompany him in his search. So
on they went up and down the thoroughfares and into the most
abandoned sections of the city, the farmer giving the plaintive
cry and the officer leading the way that seemed the most
promising of success.
And success did come. The girl heard the cry, recognized it, and
intuitively felt that it was for her. She rushed into the street
and straight to her father’s arms. She confest the weariness and
misery of her lot, and begged that he would take her back to the
farm, where she might begin a new and better life. Together they
left the city the next day. (Text.)
(1891)
=Lost, Not, but Gone Before=--See EVIDENCE, PROVIDENTIAL.