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.

But all agreed that the Olmstead case was hardest, or, if they did not,
Mrs. Updyke took pains to impress that idea upon them with a decisive
sniff; for, being a next-door neighbor, she naturally desired that the
affliction close by should outrank all other distress in the village.

But, finding Sara oblivious just now to everything but her grief, she
left her to pace back and forth, wringing her hands and moaning like
some caged creature, contenting herself with telling the children "they
could mourn for their poor pa jest as well with less noise," while she
prepared to receive the sympathetic callers with an intense satisfaction,
which the solemnity of the occasion could not quench.

"Yes, it's a awful visitation," she sniffed, as the curious, friendly
women flocked in; "I don't know's I ever hearn tell of a harrowin'er!
Four orphans, with no pa nor ma!" (Sniff, sniff.) "Molly, when that
babby squirms so, is it pins or worms?"

"He wants Sara," sobbed the poor child, whose laughter and dimples were
now all drowned in tears.

But Sara, unheeding of everybody, still kept up that wild walk back and
forth, back and forth, every groan seeming wrenched from her very soul;
and poor baby had to squirm,--and stand it.

Ah! that is a lesson that comes almost with our first breath!