At Lake Zoar, near New London,
Conn., Sergeant W. E. Bushy of the state police cast bread upon the
waters, literally. He was hunting for the body of a Mrs. George Lewis.
Recalling a traditional procedure,† he set five loaves adrift, having
to guess where to start them as Mrs. Lewis had drowned unseen, while
fishing, her empty boat being the only clue. Four loaves floated idly
about. One came to a purposeful halt. Grappling beneath the arrested
loaf, Sergeant Bushy brought up Mrs. Lewis's body. What, if any, laws govern the attraction of a dead body for a loaf of
bread, scientists have never determined. One theory: the same currents
that carry a body into a backwater or hole under an eddy, will carry a
loaf of bread to that spot, on the surface. † Sending bread to find drowned bodies occurs in Tom Sawyer and also in
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. When Huck, escaped from his father
after the latter has kidnapped him from Widow Douglas, runs away to
Jackson's Island leaving signs of a foul murder, the townsfolk first
fire cannon over the Mississippi River to try to raise his supposed
corpse by detonation ; then, hiding on the island, Huck sees them throw
loaves of bread into the current. As the loaves float down to him, Huck
fishes them in, takes out the plugs, shakes dabs of quicksilver out
of the insides and eats them. “It was 'baker's bread'—what the quality
eat; none of your low-down corn-pone.” Huck is joined by Tom and Joe
and together they speculate on how Bill Turner, drowned the summer
before, was found by loaded loaves. Tom says its not so much the bread
that found the body, or the quicksilver either, but some incantations
that were said over them.
