Futility Closet

In 1836, Indians abducted a 9-year-old girl from her home in East Texas. She made a new life among the Comanche, with a husband and three children. Then, after 24 years, the whites abducted her back again. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, caught up in a war between two societies. We'll also analyze a forger's motives and puzzle over why a crowd won't help a dying woman. Intro: Mathematician Ernst Straus invented a shape in which a ball might bounce forever without finding a hole. In 1874 a Massachusetts composer set the American constitution to music. Sources for our feature on Cynthia Ann Parker: Margaret Schmidt Hacker, Cynthia Ann Parker: The Life and the Legend, 1990. Jack K. Selden, Return: The Parker Story, 2006. Jan Reid, "One Who Was Found: The Legend of Cynthia Ann Parker," in Michael L. Collins, ed., Tales of Texoma, 2005. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, 2001. Jack C. Ramsay Jr., Sunshine on the Prairie, 1990. George U. Hubbard,