{"id":"01KG2TS4XSWK69P5DCR2WGMVZJ","cid":"bafkreiekrg2j2qzz5skxq2o2mg5mj6c3u5id7oa7fdtkglpnvl6zjynfdy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7686,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T17:35:21.816Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG2T4RHC4E1XKJ12BJRXE8E8","start_line":7623,"text":"“No’m.”\r\n\r\n“When did you see him last?”\r\n\r\nJoe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say. The people had\r\nstopped moving out of church. Whispers passed along, and a boding\r\nuneasiness took possession of every countenance. Children were anxiously\r\nquestioned, and young teachers. They all said they had not noticed\r\nwhether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the homeward trip;\r\nit was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was missing. One\r\nyoung man finally blurted out his fear that they were still in the cave!\r\nMrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt Polly fell to crying and wringing her\r\nhands.\r\n\r\nThe alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to\r\nstreet, and within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and\r\nthe whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant\r\ninsignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were saddled, skiffs\r\nwere manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror was half\r\nan hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and river toward\r\nthe cave.\r\n\r\nAll the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead. Many women\r\nvisited Aunt Polly and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them. They\r\ncried with them, too, and that was still better than words. All the\r\ntedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at\r\nlast, all the word that came was, “Send more candles—and send food.”\r\n Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. Judge Thatcher\r\nsent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they conveyed\r\nno real cheer.\r\n\r\nThe old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with\r\ncandle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck\r\nstill in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with\r\nfever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came\r\nand took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him,\r\nbecause, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord’s,\r\nand nothing that was the Lord’s was a thing to be neglected. The\r\nWelshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:\r\n\r\n“You can depend on it. That’s the Lord’s mark. He don’t leave it off.\r\nHe never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his\r\nhands.”\r\n\r\nEarly in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the\r\nvillage, but the strongest of the citizens continued searching. All the\r\nnews that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were being\r\nransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner and\r\ncrevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one wandered\r\nthrough the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting hither\r\nand thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent their\r\nhollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles. In one place,\r\nfar from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names “BECKY &\r\nTOM” had been found traced upon the rocky wall with candle-smoke, and\r\nnear at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon. Mrs. Thatcher recognized the\r\nribbon and cried over it. She said it was the last relic she should ever\r\nhave of her child; and that no other memorial of her could ever be so\r\nprecious, because this one parted latest from the living body before the\r\nawful death came. Some said that now and then, in the cave, a far-away\r\nspeck of light would glimmer, and then a glorious shout would burst\r\nforth and a score of men go trooping down the echoing aisle—and then a\r\nsickening disappointment always followed; the children were not there;\r\nit was only a searcher’s light.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG2TS13J1CKYH0GDWE1RHXHX","peer_label":"Dialogue and Action","peer_type":"scene","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG2T4RHC4E1XKJ12BJRXE8E8","peer_label":"tom_sawyer.txt","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_label":"Test Collection","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG2TS4WTTK9BJK48RX1JXVNQ","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T17:35:22.506Z","ts":"2026-01-28T17:35:23.462Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}