He must have been
born that way--not even being a plumber had cheered him up.
"'Blackhanders!'" he says right off, kind of brightening a little bit.
"I like to fainted for fair! He says they had lured the kids off with
candy and popcorn, and would hold 'em in a tenement house for ten
thousand dollars, to be left on a certain spot at twelve P.M. He seemed
to know a lot about their ways.
"'They got the Honourable Simon T. Griffenbaugh's youngest that way,'
he says, 'only a month ago. Likely the same gang got these two.'
"'How do you know?' I asks him.
"'Well,' he says, 'they's a gang of over two hundred of these I-talian
Blackhanders working right now on a sewer job something about two miles
up the road. That's how I know,' he says. 'That's plain enough, ain't
it? It's as plain as the back of my hand. What chance would them two
defenceless little children have with a gang of two hundred
Blackhanders?'
"But that looked foolish, even to me. 'Shucks!' I says. 'That don't
stand to reason.' But then I got another scare. 'How about water?' I
says. 'Any places round here they could fall into and get drownded?'
"He'd looked glum again when I said two hundred Blackhanders didn't
sound reasonable; but he cheers up at this and says: 'Oh, yes; lots of
places they could drownd--cricks and rivers and lakes and ponds and
tanks--any number of places they could fall into and never come up
again.
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