The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-12-07
LOST ROSIE;
KOUNTz THEICoNJURER
By MARY E. BRYAN.
From, the Sunny South.

oyergrown with the dark green foliage
and crimson, yellow-throated blossoms OF
the Trumpet vine, that it seemed a part
of the wild, beautiful nature around it..
Out fits low door stepped a slender girl, /,
with the olive skin, the black eyes and
black-waved hair of the native Louisian-
IAN. Over the luxuriance of the hairwas
thrown barred kerchief, and the girl
farther shaded her eyes with her hand as
she stood and looked first around the yard,
then over into the fields and across to
the grand open woods that surrounded
the clearing, all the time calling Rosie" /"
in shrill but not unmusical voice. She
stood still q moment, and then leaping
the low fence as lightly as a fawn, ran
down to the tiny runlet at the foot
of the little rise on which the house
stood, and searched among the bushes,
whose greenness betrayed the waters
course. A noisy crow Knocked her call
overhead, and scattered handful of pc
can nuts open her from the boughs he
was robbing; an oriole flow out from 4
scarlet haw bush and flashed away, star
tied by her cry of "Rosie, '1but no pretty
treble pipped, "Here l am, sister," in
answer to her call.
Returning to the cabin, she took a
horn from over the door and blew blast
upon it that set half dozen dogs to
yelping, and after the lapse of a few min
utes, brought her brother, a boy OF ff-
teen, from the field.
"Have you seen Rosief" was her ques-
ton as he stood before her, his homespun
clothes spotted with cotton fakes, and
further .ornamented by two or three
striped caterpillars, which were industri-
ously measuring the length of his panta-
looms.
"Seen Rosie? No, not since she brought
me my canteen of fresh water this morn
ing. She came back home though. 1
saw her runnin' race with Wolf clear
up to the turnip patch"
"She did come back, but she slipped
away awhile ago when was talking to
some one, and I haven't seen her since" !"
s'Talkin' to Zumy Karlse, 'spose. 1
saw him comm this way, riding that
mustang like the mad devil he is"
"It's no matter whom was talking to |;
Rosieis gone, and she must be found
right away. We must go and hunt her.
Take Wolf with you, he will help us
find her."
"Where is Wolf? He must be with
the child. He always follows her, you
know. Oh, she is safe enough; if any
thing had happened to her, you'd have
Wolf back here bowling like pack of
his namesakes."
ri cannot trust to that; l feel as if
something was wrong with her. She
never does go farther than her little
grapevine swing there in the bottom, aud
always comes when I call. You remem-
Der little Pierre Verne, who was missing
last year and never found, and the couple
of little darkies that disappeared the year
before and nobody ever saw hair or hide
of them afterwards"
"They went down the throat of the
Black Devil" Jules said, referring to an
overgrown alligator that was known to
haunt neighboring bayou, but whose
scaly hide, messed and thickened by
many winters, seemed bullet-proof, since
frequent shots from rife and mus
ket had no other effect than to render
him more cunning and more rarely to be
seen. "But Rosie would never go so far
as the bayou; more likely she's dropped
asleep over her play under some pecan
tree" the boy added hastily, seeing the
ghastly terror that oyerspread his sisters
face at the mention of the alligator.
In an hour they had searched the open
woods for half mile around, making
them echo with the child's name, and
looking carefully for little tracks, which
they found in plenty around the house
and in the patches, but the freshest were
near the bank of the little stream close to
the child's grapevine swing. But the
tiny thread of water was too shallow to
drown even fve-year-old Rosie, who Of
ten waded in it ankle deep. The brother
and sister now carefully followed its
course for several hundred yards up and
down, but could not see no further sign
of the little bare feet they were in search
of.
The nearest neighbors lived mile
away, but Maline had faint hope that
the child had gone to the house of one of
these-a hope that was disappointed
when they reached the first cabin, where
the COWS were being milked for the even
ing, and the children and dogs were
fighting over the formers supper of clab-
ber and bread poured into cottonwood
trough in the yard, to be scooped up with
wooden spoons and dirty palms.
But if these people had rough exteri-
ors, their hearts were tender, and they
reused at once with keen interest and
pity at the story that orphan Rosie was
missing. Remembering their own little
Pierre, who went out last year to gather
dewberries and never was heard of after
ward, the Vernes turned out their whole
capable force, male and female, to hunt
for the lost child, followed by small
army of dogs, and intending to collect
pine knots, as soon as it became dusk,
and continue the search until the lost
was found.
They went at once to the bayou, and
divided so as to search both its soft, mud
DIV banks up and down for footprints or
other signs. In little while they were
Joined by other neighbors and formed
themselves into Gordon, searching the
woods in every direction within circuit
of several miles around Rosie's home.
No wild beasts other than harmless rae
coonS ana OpoSSumS were KNOWN W iurh
in the neighborhood, but the party OF
searchers stopped long and held their
flaming torches of resinous pine over tue
deep, black water.hole under a steep,
overhanging bank, where the alligator
they called the Black Devil was known
to have his hiding-place. AS the day
approached, the Gordon gradually mar.
rowed until, us the sun rose, they stood
before the lost child's cabin home, still
and smokeless, aud with no sign of life
about it. Again the woods rang with
the name they had echoed so often du-
ring the night, and Maline went up to
the cabin, scarcely daring to hope that
the child might have returned during the
night and laid down to sleep in her own
little bed.
But the bed was untouched, the little