Transcribed by Erika Hope Barker

The narrative in all its details is so pathetic that it is difficult to attempt its recital in a plain, matter-of-fact way, and so many people were active in measures looking toward the discovery and rescue of the lone wanderer that it is well nigh impossible to give a history of the dread incident that would be satisfactory to all, or that would be fully in accord with either the observation or theory of those who were actually engaged in unraveling what for almost two full days was apparently an impenetrable mystery.

In fact, while the writer has made every effort to secure the best information attainable, and has interviewed everyone who might be able to throw any light upon the subject, it seems like a delicate task to make a connected story, as in almost all cases where two or more persons were participants in any particular part of the long and laborious search there is a conflict in the statements that are sometimes quite difficult to harmonize. Not that each is not telling the full truth in every particular, but because of the different stand-points from which the views were taken, and the high tension to which the nerves were strung under the intense anxiety and excitement of the occasion.

 Narrated as briefly as the importance of the case will admit the facts are substantially as follows: Mrs. Alice Barker, who resides in this city, accompanied by two little children – one a babe and the other Little Bessie the subject of this sorrowful story, went to spend Christmas with the family of James H. Baker, twelve miles west, and on the line of the C.K.&W. railroad. Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Barker are sisters-in-law. Friday morning, December 26th, before the family had all left their beds Mrs. Barker and her children were up and the lady stepped out of doors for some purpose.

The little girl enquired for her mamma, and, as some of the reports go, was playfully told by one of the children that her mamma had gone home. The innocent little child, impressed with the idea that her mother had left her, grasped in her arms a large rag doll that has been given her as a Christmas present, bareheaded and barehanded, crossed the threshold, and for the last time human eyes had beheld her in life. At about the same moment the child left the house the mother entered another door, but at the time did not miss her little darling. Breakfast was being prepared at the time, and when the meal was ready the child was for the first time really missed. A hasty search about the premises did not reveal her whereabouts, and the family became alarmed.

The best impression of Mr. Baker, and others, is that not more than fifteen or twenty minutes elapsed from the time the child started out that sharp December morning until they were fully aroused to the seriousness of the situation. This was at about eight o’clock, Mr. Baker at once started out and went to the railroad, which is about a half mile from the house, and looked in every place where the little one might be hidden, but could find no trace of her. He stared east on the railroad track and went about a mile toward Ness City, but his search was fruitless. In returning home he followed the bank of the Walnut Creek. By this time the family became fully alarmed, and the search became more general. Neighbors were aroused, word was sent to Beeler, the nearest station to the west, and before noon a considerable number were engaged in making as systematic a search as was possible. The east bound train was stopped, and train men were requested to keep a sharp lookout for the lost child. As the afternoon wore away the number of anxious searchers increased, and the desire to find the child before the chilling winds of evening dispelled and sun’s warmth became more intense.

Before nightfall at least fifty determined persons were making every effort to discover the baby’s hiding place and return her to the arms of her distracted mother. Just as the shades of evening were falling the first alarm was given in this city, and soon many willing men were on their way to lend their assistance. The search was kept up until near morning, but was unavailing. The little on e was nowhere to be seen, nor had any trace of her been discovered. With the first streaks of dawning light the wary search was renewed, and the number of anxious men, and women, and children, whose hearts were wrung with the anguish of the mother and whose sympathies went out to the innocent wandering waif, was hourly increasing.

The search was, if possible, more thorough and systematic than that of the preceding day. Every food of ground for miles around was thoroughly gone over. There was no depression that could conceal the little form, nor hillock that might hide her from view, but that was visited and closely scanned. The work carefully prosecuted, and men mounted and on foot scoured the county, extending their field of search until it seemed to have stretched out at such an extent as to have covered in every direction a greater distance than could have been trod by her childish feet. Every nook and cranny had been scanned. Every vacant house had been visited and examined. Each hole and hollow had been explored.

The searching party was becoming weary with the long protracted exertion, some having been on a continued mental and physical strain for twenty-four hours, and some even longer without rest. None now believed that the child could have withstood the long and unusual physical exertion, the mental anguish, the cold night air, and the hunger – not having tasted food since Thursday evening, a period of at least forty-eight hours.

She must be dead. It was then agreed that the search should be suspended until the following morning – Sunday – when they would assemble at the house of John T. Baker and resume their work of humanity. Just about dark Messrs. T.P. Levan and James N. Cole, who live about five miles north of Laird, and M. M. Tullis, of this city, started for the scene determined to lend their aid in recovering the lost child.

They went to Mr. J. H. Baker’s ranch and gathered all the facts known to the family. They also became apprised of the fact that what were supposed to be tricks of the child had been discovered at Laird. This fact was in consonance with their theory that the baby had gone north, and they returned toward this city as far as Laird, which place they reached about midnight. Here an old wood road crosses the railroad, in fact there are several roads leading to the north. Each member of the party took one of these roads and began scrutinizing it as closely as possible by moonlight for signs of the missing baby, visiting all the deserted buildings on the way.

The roads were dim, and it was only occasionally that a well beaten place would be found where a person could leave a foot print in walking. At length Mr. Levan discovered what he believed to be the mark of a little shoe. As soon as the attention of his companions was called to his supposed discovery they came to the same road, and at another place Mr. Tullis discovered what he was convinced was the little foot print of a child. The investigation was prosecuted as rapidly as possible under the circumstances, and the trio followed these marks or tracks about three miles, much of the time crawling along on their hands and knees with their faces close to the ground. When they reached a point near the dam thrown across the North Fork of the Walnut, on Mr. Levan’s land, the number of cattle paths branching off toward the bend in the creek rendered it impossible to follow the tracks with any degree of certainty.

However, in the bend of the creek above the dam there is a place of sandy bottom, shut in on the north by the back water from the dam, and it seemed to them possible that the little girl might be there. IN searching in this bend, and near the most northerly point, they discovered what they believed to be prints of the little girl’s heels in a damp soft spot in the sand. Northing further was discovered and they concluded to suspend operations until day light as it was then about three o’clock, and in the morning they would organize a party and make a thorough search north of the creek.

It may be well here to state an incident that may have some bearing in giving a foundation to their theory that the child was north of the North Fork. After the party had started north Mr. Levan remembered that Friday night, at about ten o’clock, he had occasion to go out doors, and while there he heard a child crying, which he thought was one of Mr. Archer’s children. When he returned to the house he informed his wife of the fact that he had heard a child cry. At this time he had no knowledge of the loss of Mrs. Barker’s baby and did not learn of it until in this city the next day at about two o’clock. Arrangements were made that the neighbors would meet at Mr. Levan’s house as soon as it was light enough to see, an renew the search north of the creek. The gentlemen then took some rest, and after getting something to eat started again in quest of the lost child. John Bruner, who lives up the creek, had started for Levan’s to join the searching party, and while on this way, and at a point directly opposite where the tracks had been discovered in the sand, he found the doll. This was the first indisputable indication of the baby’s whereabouts since she left the house. Shortly after the party, consisting of Levan, who was on foot, and Cole and Tullis in a wagon, came near the unoccupied house of John R. Lee, about a quarter of a mile east of where the doll was found. Mr. Levan when a few rods from the house started to run toward it, and the others followed him and were close enough to see him stoop down and pick up little Bessie, dead. She was lying near the door stop on the east side of the house, with her head resting upon her hand, and in an attitude as if she had been sleeping. The little body was found just as the sun was making its appearance above the eastern horizon. There were a number of other persons near at the time, whose names we did not get. Word was sent to the waiting and stricken mother of the finding of the doll. Followed quickly by the sorrowful news that her dear one had been found, and her little spirit had winged its way to its home above.
 

She was a healthy, robust little girl, and notwithstanding her tender years made a journey on foot that would fatigue a person of mature years. How far she actually traveled no one can ever know, as in the journey her playful spirit may have caused her to make many meanderings from a direct course.

But following the path it is reasonably certain she pursued the distance in ten full miles, and it is possible that in diverging and returning, going backward and forward, together with aim less wandering after realizing that she was lost, she may have walked twice ten miles before lying down, or sinking from fatigue, cold, hunger, and anguish of spirit-nature having become utterly exhausted and death claiming her for his own.

The most remarkable thing is the tenacity with which she clung to her doll, almost as large as her tiny self, and weighing nearly two pounds. Was it innate motherly instinct that bound her to this burden?

 Our theory is, and we have but one, that the little thing never realized trouble until after crossing the creek, and possibly in doing which she may have wet her clothes, and in working up from the shelter of the banks the chill wind may have struck her, benumbing her little frame, causing her to drop her idol.

Or it may have been her first fright when the lost control of herself, threw her mute companion from her and fled to the first house in sight only to find the door closed again to her and no one to answer her agonizing leadings to be taken in from the stinging cold. But why theorize?

All that human agency could accomplish to save her was done. The community had scarce a thought but that it fathered the wish that she might be returned unharmed to the arms of her mother. IT was not, and was not to be. The opinion of the physicians who examined the body shortly after it was recovered was that the child had been dead about thirty hours.

LITTLE BESSIE’S JOURNEY HOME
By Rev. C.E. Crandall

“Twas a tender little child
That with her precious doll did roam.
O’er the prairies bleak and wild, on a pilgrim’s journey home.”

“O Mamma, dear, you have gone home, but Bessie too will shortly come.”

Still across the dreary world on she kept her lonely way, she cries “mamma I’m growing cold, and I fear my little feet will stray: O mamma dear, dear mamma, come for Bessie cannot find her home.”

Now she climbs the rocky hills to their summits bare and bleak. The howling wind her small form chills, and tears congeal upon her cheek. Still she cries “O mamma, come, and take me to my own dear home.”

She passes to the valley low, the winter sun is setting now, the howling winds now colder blow, and frost is gathering on her brow:

She loudly calls: “O mamma, come for Bessie now must find her home.”

Darkness unveils the dreary world, she folds her dolly to her breast, she says “I’ll shield you from the cold and on my bosom you can rest, my mamma dear will surly come to take us to her own dear home.”

But her strength gave out at last. She can no more the prairies trod, still bitter blows the chilling blast her resting place the frozen sod. “O mamma dear, O can’t you come, must Bessie die so far from home?”

Lying on the frozen earth where stars alone their vigils keep, she whispers from her lowly berth “Now I lay me down to sleep, O mamma dear, you cannot come, angels bear my spirit home.”

Like the Babe of Bethlehem she has not where to lay her head, but she is Jesus’ little lamb – “of such is my Father’s fold,” He said. And Jesus (children’s friend) has come, to bear her to her angel-home.

Me thinks I hear a whisper low, through the silence long and deep, “In heaven no sorrow you shall know father, mother, do not week; back to you I cannot come, let Bessie’s angel guide you home.