Sitting or reclining
on the grass, he fell asleep, and rolling down the slope fell with a
tremendous splash into the water, which was about six feet deep. So
loud was the splash that it was heard by some of the men at work in
the barn, and running out to ascertain the cause, they found out what
had happened. The man had gone under and did not rise; with a good
deal of trouble he was raised up and drawn with ropes to the top of
the bank.
I gazed on him lying motionless, to all appearances stone dead--the
huge, ox-like man I had seen less than an hour ago, when he had
excited our wonder at his great size and strength, and now still in
death--dead as old Caesar under the ground with the grass growing over
him! Meanwhile the men who had hauled him out were busy with him,
turning him over and rubbing his body, and after about twelve or
fifteen minutes there was a gasp and signs of returning life, and by
and by he opened his eyes. The dead man was alive again; yet the shock
to me was just as great and the effect as lasting as if he had been
truly dead.
Another instance which will bring me down to the end of my sixth year
and the conclusion of this sad chapter. At this time we had a girl in
the house, whose sweet face is one of a little group of half a dozen
which I remember most vividly.
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