Letitia heard that a child lay ill with typhoid and another had been run over by a wagon but had been saved by the soft mud sinking him beneath the wheels. Heavy rains take one child; another is saved by the same downpour. Doc Hawkins had set the two broken bones. Letitia heard the hacking of a child with whooping cough. Laura was gone. Not a trace of her. When the men returned, they too rode the riverbank seeking some sign. Meek, the guide, said, “By eternal Moses, that thar river is full of swifty currents enough to swirl a grown man beneath them and hold him thar for weeks afore spitting him up.” Nancy’s family surrounded her in her grief, but she sat dazed, seeming unaware that an infant patted her tear-stained cheeks. Laura was a child of the river now. Memories like wisps of sunset were all that remained. Letitia offered to milk the Hawkinses’ cow. It was what she could think to do to help.
What do You think about A Light In The Wilderness?
