Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/76

 to me that I fell asleep on this fancy and dreamed 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 that first day I came home—to a home where I was now to live alone.

I sat on the little porch above the river bank, close 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 shotted 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 shotted?"

I made plain to him the mystery of the whole sleeve.

"She often spoke of you," said Solon. "She