" It seemed that my other arm should go to her, too. This side of
her there could be nothing for either to close upon. It appeared to me
that I fell asleep on this fancy and dreamt that I awoke painfully to a
poor, one-sided life, effortless, barren, forbidding.
A year later I went back to the Little Country to be counsellor at law
to its people in time of need, and a father to Solon Denney and his two
children. Solon could direct large affairs acceptably, but he and his
babes were as thistle-down in a prairie wind.
He brought the children to visit me the first day that I came home--to a
home where I was now to live alone.
I sat on the little porch above the river bank, by the wall of
blossoming creeper whose tendrils she had once embraced, bringing her
cheek intrepidly against the blossoms of that year, and saw him come
slowly up the path. He seemed so sadly alone because of the two little
creatures that followed him.
I placed a chair for Solon and was confronted by my namesake.
"Did they shoot your arm off in the war?" he asked.
"Yes, in the war."
He patted the empty sleeve, and his eyes beamed with discovery.
"What did you have your sleeve rolled up for when your arm was shot?"
I made plain to him the mystery of the whole sleeve.
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