Read "A Lost Hero" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
BUT where is the hero? Who saved the train? Summerville, to this day, goes seeking him, and her search is a vain thing. Will he not break his long, mysterious silence? Will he not come forth to take the blessing of the grateful people? An obscure old Negro, poor, hungry, and homeless, will he not accept the proffered reward? Where is the hero?
Like Moses of old, hath God buried him? The earth knows, which yawned beside the track -- and closed again -- when the crushing wheels struck the life from the unknown savior of the excursion train. The earth knows; but she keeps her secret. Her awful lips are dumb.