Cry Baby Bridge

Note: This pasta has NOTHING to do with "Cry Baby Lane". This is a personal adaptation of a tale passed down in my home state.

Many say she was a legend, many say she was truth. Many think she is long dead, but some think she is still out there. No one knows when she got here. Was she born here in the colony? Did she come by boat and step off at St. Mary's landing? Was she here before, with the Indians? Or was she even here before them? Who knows. No one knows her name, other than "the witch" or even just an implied "her", who actually showed her unseen face in a few other local legends.

But what we do know is what she was blamed for: disease, famine, spirits, and above all Cry Baby Bridge. You see, Cry Baby Bridge isn't even its real name, I think it's real name is Great Mills Crossing, or Swift Run Bridge, I'm not too sure. What I can tell you is the story, from the fireside at my Grandfather's house to the lunch table at Leonardtown Elementary, I have actualy heard several twists, but this much remains the same...

It was late and night and a young mother went out for a stroll with her newborn child. As she walked down the road a dense fog rolled in, and the child started crying. She began to sing lullabys and rock the child, but he would not tire from his crying. However, when she passed over an old stone bridge the loud trickling of the water bellow seemed to calm the child, but he still uttered a faint sobbing. As she stepped closer to edge the baby fell asleep, but even the mother seemed to be made drowsy by the babbling and chuckling of the cold water beneath the bridge. The young woman took one step closer to the edge and a sudden cold hand pushed her in the back of the shoulder, and the child fell to the water bellow. As the mother turned around there was nobody there, and she quickly stumbled into the creek to find her baby, but he was gone forever. They say as she cried wading through the cold, black water she heard a faint wicked laugh coming from the woods. Now, if you stand on Cry Baby Bridge on a night of dense fog, some say you can still hear crying coming from the water bellow.

One story claims the crying it to be the mother, but most agree the ghostly sobbing is that of the baby. In another incident involving "her", a small child was killed in a drunk driving accident awhile back. The first officer responding to the scene of the wreck claimed he heard a cruel stroke of female laughter coming from the surrounding cornfields.