Monument

So I'm currently reading The Secret Garden to Rio. In the first scene, the protagonist is rescued from her house by the army after having slept through a cholera epidemic that killed everyone she knows:

"I fell asleep when everyone had the cholera and I have only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?"

"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to his companions. "She has actually been forgotten!"

"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot. "Why does nobody come?"

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away.

"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."

At this, Rio mumbled, "Everybody's dead, Dave. Dave, everybody's dead."