The burglar lost his arm, and went
about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with
healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief
imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he
came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had
learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his
wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing
such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss.
Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered
that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said
us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in
the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a
hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he
died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily.
When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought
of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its
posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set
us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of
one unthinking child; and she took back her flag.
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